About Catalyst

Concluding a blockbuster performance season featuring a standing ovation at the inaugural 2009 VelocityDC Dance Festival and November’s sold-out Latitude performances at The Kennedy Center, CityDance’s U.S. season finale featuring the Washington, DC premiere of Paul Taylor’s Images and collaboration between Artistic Director Paul Gordon Emerson and Grammy nominee Christylez Bacon promises to be an event that should not be missed.

The groundbreaking concert features:

• CityDance’s premiere of Paul Taylor’s masterwork Images
• An encore performance of Paul Taylor’s powerful Last Look (as seen at the 2009 VelocityDC Dance Festival last fall)
• A premiere of Paul Gordon Emerson’s new work Little Adorations with live accompaniment by Grammy nominee Christylez Bacon
• A first look at +1/-1 by Choreographer-in-Residence Christopher K. Morgan. +1/-1 will have its world premiere at the Gala Opening Night of the Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Festival in Ramallah in the Palestinian Territories on April 19 when CityDance takes the stage with the Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company.

Catalyst

Date: Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 4:00 pm

Location: The Lansburgh Theatre, Harman Center for the Arts – 450 7th Street NW, Washington, DC

Cost: $35.00 – $100.00 and limited $20.00 rush tickets.  Info available online at citydance.net.

About Latitude

On the heels of CityDance’s tours to the Middle East and Chile, Latitude brings choreographers from around the world to the DC stage for an evening of contemporary dance that knows no boundaries.

Pairing dances from up-and-coming choreographers Rachel Erdos of Israel and Alex Neoral of Brazil with works by leading choreographers from the United States, Latitude reveals that the origins and intersects of art are only a matter of degree.

Want to see Latitude LIVE? Friday’s show is sold out, but VelocityDC fans get an exclusive 50% off tickets for Thursday’s show. Get yours NOW – just cite “Velocity” at the box office or via phone at 202.467.4600!

Latitude

Date: Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:30pm and Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:30pm

Location: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Terrrace Theatre -

Cost: $20.00 – $55.00. Info available online at kennedy-center.org.

Video Credits

Agency/Production Company
CDE FilmWORKS

Executive Producer
Paul Gordon Emerson

Marketing Director
Betsy Lundgren

Editor
Campos-Lopez

Concept and Directed by
Francisco E. Campos-Lopez

The organization assists independent artists and emerging performing arts groups by creating performance opportunities and providing administrative, artistic and technical theatre support for many national, regional and local DC area groups. Additionally, Mason/Rhynes is a presenting partner for the 2009 VelocityDC Dance Festival.

VelocityDC recently spoke with Gesel Mason, Co-founder and Artistic Director of Mason/Rhynes Productions and Gesel Mason Performance Projects as well as co-host of VelocityDC Late Night, to get her insight on Mason/Rhynes’ Late Night series and the issue of pushing artistic boundaries.

Editorial Note: Our interview took place prior to the VelocityDC Late Night premiere on October 3rd, 2009.

vDC: Give us some insight into the artistic philosophy behind Mason/Rhynes’ Late Night series.

We created the Late Night series because we wanted artists to have an opportunity to let their hair down, experiment, and have a good time. Often as an artist, you have to be very aware of the family friendly crowd and we just wanted to give artists an opportunity to not have to worry about that – to go as far as they wanted in any direction they wanted in order to push artistic boundaries. So you know, sometimes it can get a little raunchy, risqué, or exciting but it’s just a lot more fun and that’s what we are going for. We really want people to have a good time.

vDC: It seems like the Late Night performances take a lot more interactive approach where audiences can interact with the performers directly as opposed to just watching. How does this work?

Yeah. You don’t have to sit with your hands in your lap and watch. We like to think of it as a cabaret. There are a lot of different acts and it’s shorter – you’re not going to see long, evening length works that you are going to see elsewhere. The audience can laugh, comment, and at the Late Night at Joy of Motion in Dupont Circle we also serve drinks and light refreshments. It just loosens everyone up for the show.

It’s our goal to replicate that at VelocityDC. It’s a big stage and a big audience, but you still want to give people that sense of a cabaret. That is, the artists are really interacting with the audience and breaking the fourth wall even though people may not be coming out off the stage itself. It’s more unexpected, fun, and laid back.

At the same time, though, we are still looking at artists pushing the boundaries of high-quality work. It’s about trying to go deeply into an idea which might mean that there is a cuss word or nudity but it gives permission to both the audience and the artist to go where they need to go in terms of expressing themselves.

vDC: From an artist’s perspective, what’s it like to do a Late Night? Is the preparation different?

I would say so. I’ve performed in several of them and there is a running gag that I always make a cameo appearance during Late Night. Like somehow I show up when someone needs an extra, like an extra dancer or whatever, and I’ve been making appearances in that way! So it’s kind of funny.

There’s a spirit of camaraderie amongst the artists involved. Some of it is that you take a little bit of the pressure off; it’s not as precious. But one of the things that you take away (and we encourage artists to do) is to really push boundaries. We had a group for one of our Late Nights that performed a twisted take on Alice in Wonderland and we kept pushing them because we felt that they weren’t going far enough. You know, if you’re going to go there, then go there.

I think we really don’t get to flex those muscles often enough as artists; we don’t give ourselves permission to be irreverent, unexpected, or really risky and I think that influences an artist ultimately in their work. How do you prepare a work or performance when you think, “Oh, I can’t do that”? There are can be these pre-existing boundaries of what you can or can’t do in terms of what’s acceptable and it can be very limiting.

vDC: What would you like newcomers to know who are interested in attending Late Night?

You basically do Late Night because you want to do Late Night. It actually doesn’t make a lot of money because it’s a small venue; we’re talking about 70 seats. There is just a small honorarium that artists get to participate, so as an artist you have to love it and have to want to participate.

It’s the same with audiences. Audiences come to Late Night because sometimes you don’t get to see artists in a raw state; it’s all polished and perfect. [At Late Night], you might be seeing someone who’s trying out a work in progress and you’ll be able to talk with them afterwards because after the Late Night performance, there’s always a party. It’s like a dance party – we turn on the music, have a few more drinks, and have a good time.

I feel like when people come to Late Night they always say, “I want to put something on at Late Night. I want to think about my work slightly differently and take a different approach than the one I’ve taken before.” That sort of feeling is something that our audience appreciates. It’s not going to be perfect and shiny. It gives you permission to see artists in a bit of a raw state, in a bit of a developmental state, or when they are really pushing it. For the artists, I feel like it’s of value because it helps you flex your creative muscles.

For the audiences, it gives you permission to relax and not to have to “get it”. The feeling of Late Night lets you let your hair down so you don’t feel the same sort of pressure either, in terms of watching a performance. And some people prefer this to regular performances, in the sense that they feel closer to the artist and their ideas. So, I think both artists and audiences go because they want to go. You are going to get something that you’re not going to get anywhere else and this is something that we are looking to bring to the larger stage of the Harmon Center.

Gesel Mason co-hosted a sold out performance of VelocityDC Late Night with Peter DiMuro at Sidney Harman Hall on October 3rd, 2009.

Photo Credit: Paul Emerson

If you missed VelocityDC Late Night (or attended and want to see more),  check out Mason/Rhynes’ Halloween Late Night on October 31st, 2009 at Joy of Motion – Dupont Circle.

Featuring performances by Boris Willis, Komplex, Elizabeth Johnson, Reggie Glass, Contradiction Dance, Silk Road Dance Company, and Micia Mosely, what better way is there to spend Halloween in DC?

Seating for this exclusive event is limited to 80 tickets. Don’t miss out on seeing DC’s best cutting edge performances – Get your tickets NOW!

An orchard of secrets. 
Something fresh with a sweet taste. 
Replenishing the hunger. 
Bite.

About Latitude

On the heels of CityDance’s tours to the Middle East and Chile, Latitude brings choreographers from around the world to the DC stage for an evening of contemporary dance that knows no boundaries.

Pairing dances from up-and-coming choreographers Rachel Erdos of Israel and Alex Neoral of Brazil with works by leading choreographers from the United States, Latitude reveals that the origins and intersects of art are only a matter of degree.

Latitude

Date: Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:30pm and Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:30pm

Location: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Terrrace Theatre -

Cost: $20.00 – $55.00. Info available online at kennedy-center.org.

Video Credits

Agency/Production Company
CDE FilmWORKS

Executive Producer
Paul Gordon Emerson

Marketing Director
Betsy Lundgren

Editor
Campos-Lopez

Concept and Directed by
Francisco E. Campos-Lopez

About Latitude

On the heels of CityDance’s tours to the Middle East and Chile, Latitude brings choreographers from around the world to the DC stage for an evening of contemporary dance that knows no boundaries.
Pairing dances from up-and-coming choreographers Rachel Erdos of Israel and Alex Neoral of Brazil with works by leading choreographers from the United States, Latitude reveals that the origins and intersects of art are only a matter of degree.

Latitude

Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 7:30pm and Friday, October 30, 2009 at 7:30pm

Location: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Terrrace Theatre -

Cost: $20.00 – $55.00. Info available online at kennedy-center.org.

Video Credits

Agency/Production Company
CDE FilmWORKS

Executive Producer
Paul Gordon Emerson

Marketing Director
Betsy Lundgren

Editor
Campos-Lopez

Concept and Directed by
Francisco E. Campos-Lopez

Led by Artistic Director Daniel Phoenix Singh, the organization has received numerous accolades for their work. Most recently, the company was awarded the Founder’s Award for Innovation in Dance in 2007 and was the 2008 recipient of the Metro DC Dance Awards for Emerging Group and Excellence in Costume Design.

VelocityDC recently caught up with Singh to chat about Dakshina’s unique approach to presenting diverse dance forms and the 6th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts taking place at this weekend at the historic Lincoln Theatre.

vDC: Dakshina is known for performing from a range of diverse styles, from Indian to modern, often borrowing from and making connections from seemingly disparate forms within one piece which is quite unique. What can you tell us about the company’s underlying artistic philosophy?

The underlying artistic philosophy is one of curiosity–I’m always interested in learning new forms and putting seemingly disparate forms side by side to see what we learn about culture and ourselves when dance forms intersect. We learn a lot just as dancers when we keep challenging ourselves, and hopefully the audience members learn something interesting about themselves and about what they are observing on stage.

vDC: Also, it’s well known that you have an interest in social justice. How does that factor into your artistic vision?

My interest in social justice developed over time, but was strongly influenced by my graduate school work in Women’s Studies. I was finally able to articulate that it was important for me as an artist to try to present works that were integrated with the messiness and beauty of life. I wasn’t interested only in art for art’s sake, that was only one end of the spectrum for me. I also wanted to create and perform in dances that were about life and being human. Hence, the interest in social justice issues.

vDC: How do you feel that juxtaposing the traditional with the modern affects audiences? Does this type of presentation style make dance more accessible?

I think it is crucial to present dance as the evolving form that it is. This allows audience members to find a comfortable entry point, be it classical or contemporary. From this entry point, they can then move to the other areas which they may have found interesting originally. So, presenting a range is the key to allow accessibility to dance which is a very abstract art form.

Also, tradition didn’t happen over night; it happened because someone kept experimenting and figuring out what would work and used that to build a vocabulary that is now labeled as “tradition”. So rather than just presenting dance as traditional or modern, I like to think of dance as a cycle – what is today’s experimentation will be tomorrow’s tradition, and even today’s experimentation is probably looking at something previous generations explored in different ways themselves.

vDC: With that in mind, give us a sense of how this plays out in the Fall Festival of Indian Arts given its mission to present traditional Indian arts forms within a modern context. What can we expect to see this year?

Within Dakshina, we’re exploring re-visioning the familiar story of Karna. Each character in the epic Mahabharata finds his or her calling in life, and Karna recognizes his as that of giving. He gives endlessly to everyone, even his enemies; he gives his life when his mother asks for it in the stead of his half-brother, and ultimately he gives even the fruits of his life’s good deeds as he is dying. Something about this story simplifies our duty to fellow beings. Dakshina means “offering” in Sanskrit and this theme of giving resonated with me personally. My collaborator, Aniruddh Vasudevan, also liked the theme when I suggested it to him and together we’ve created a new piece retelling Karna’s story. Aniruddh is a frequent collaborator with Dakshina. We think alike a lot, yet we also challenge and push each other from our comfort zones. We have a great chemistry working together and I hope that we’ll be able to do many more projects together.

As for our guest artists, Alarmel Valli, Madhavi Mudgal and Leela Samson, I wanted to highlight the strength of the solo which is central in Indian dances. There is depth that the solo artist has to plumb to be able to create and hold the magic by herself on stage and Alarmel Valli, Madhavi Mudgal and Leela Samson are some of the greatest soloists in India today. It was an easy choice to invite them to DC. Initially, these soloists and choreographers were considered pioneers for forging new ground by exploring and incorporating secular texts into their dance forms. This was a huge shift from the traditionally spiritual nature of Indian dance, but again their approach made their work accessible to audiences.

Leela Samson, in particular, faced a lot of hardship when she was appointed as the director of Kalakshetra, the oldest dance institution in Chennai, India. Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu, my home state in India. Samson was the first non-Hindu leading the institution and there was much public commotion over the fact that someone with a Jewish background (or more accurately a non-Hindu background) was leading Kalakshetra. I wanted to show our support of her work as an artist and not get distracted by the mud slinging that was going on in Chennai.

vDC: Given that the festival has been running for six years, has each iteration evolved over time? If so, how?

The festival has evolved to include more of Dakshina’s own award-winning fusion work into the first half of the show. At first, we had Dakshina performing on separate nights from the guest artists, but over time we realized that seeing the traditional work, the modern dance and fusion work side by side was important. So, over time we’ve developed a richer, more integrated programming that we hope makes traditional dance more accessible.

vDC: Do you have any advice to newcomers who are interested in attending the festival this weekend? Where can they get more information on what they will be seeing?

I don’t want people to assume that Indian dance requires you to be a connoisseur of any sort. We’ll have detailed program notes to help you follow along with these intricate and beautiful dance forms. And feel free to email us at info@dakshina.org before or after the show with any questions or post your comments on our blog at http://www.dakshina.org/category/blog . Also, consider joining us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DakshinaDC. We’re happy to chat with anyone who wants more information on the shows.

Photo Credit: Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company – Stephen Barnovics

Daniel Phoenix Singh and Dakshina will be performing during the 6th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts on Friday, October 23rd and Saturday, October 24th, 2009.

Want to see them live at Lincoln Theatre? Don’t miss out – Get more information and tickets at dakshina.org!

vDC: Give us some insight into what we’ll be seeing from you at VelocityDC. I hear that you’ll be performing “Blueprints of Relentless Nature”.

LL: Well, I can give you my point of view about that as an outsider and then Keith can give you an insider’s point of view. It’s very physically driven, not necessarily fast but hard paced. It’s relentless in that regard although Keith gives them moments of pause. The dancers are close in on one another and it’s really kind of risky.

The piece was originally commissioned  for a sustainability conference in Houston and I think that Keith’s response to the commission is interesting  from his own perspective, but the fact that it was first seen as a question about sustainability and a question of how the dancers sustain themselves to get through the piece is a nifty subject

KT: I responded to the question about sustainability because this was my first commission through the Dance Exchange and I wanted to broach new territory. My main interest is usually in pure movement invention – I like to say that I like dance to stand on its own, undressed. It should be able to be seen without fancy lights and sets.

In this case, I got interested in this idea about sustainability which lead me to the concept of relentlessness and resilience in nature and how we as dancers and humans are connected to nature in many ways.

LL: Keith, at one point when you were talking about this you said that you were thinking about how geologic plates are arranged underneath. It looks like one thing above ground, but underground these things are smashing into each another and that idea of resilience is just so cool because, of course, resilience is about how we absorb these shocks.

KT: Right. That was another big thought I was thinking of.

vDC: Well, you know, that’s very interesting. I’ve heard the piece described as “extremely physically challenging” and “high velocity”. What a great way to preface what we’ll be seeing, especially for those of us who will be attending with limited experience with contemporary dance!

LL: I think that’s great and, again, Keith’s piece is an interesting in that regard. You can watch the piece just because it’s physical or you can watch the piece you think about nature and relentlessness, but you can also just watch the individual dancers in the piece and how they handle the problem that Keith has given them – the personal level of the dancing. The dancers in the piece are terrific . It’s just interesting.

I often think that dance audiences, especially people who are new to dance just don’t know that they can weave between those things; they can go back and forth.

KT: Yeah, they don’t have to necessary build a story with a throughline but they can connect to the movement and dance just from a human sensibility and I think that’s what this piece draws from the audience. They see these dancers trying to fulfill all these almost impossible tasks to keep going on and on. You hear them breathing and they’re sweating and it’s kind of like the audience turns into a cheerleader in a way. You want to stick with them to the end, so it’s pretty exciting!

vDC: This is an excellent place to transition into discussing artistic philosophy from the perspective of what the Dance Exchange’s philosophy is and how that works with Keith’s vision. Tell us about that.

LL: Well, I think one reason the Dance Exchange is called the Dance Exchange is because when I founded the organization, at that time  there were certain ideas that were really important in dance and then I had my own ideas, too. I knew that I didn’t want a place with just one idea behind it; I wanted a place where ideas could be shared, exchanged, and messed with. I grew up in a world where if you studied ballet, you never studied modern. If you did this, then you never did that. That was my background, so it was very radical at the time!

What fulfilled that for me over a long period of time – because you know we are almost thirty –five years old now- is the “fresh blood”, the fresh people that come in. Keith has an incredible pedigree and background and we are thirsty for what he knows.  This is just the first of what I hope will be many works that he will be able to play from and it’s already affected the dancers incredibly.

KT: Like Liz was saying, my background is very varied and a lot of it is from the post-modern world. I danced for Trisha Brown for ten years and when I decided to leave and delve into my own work, I wanted to identify myself differently and what makes me different, I feel, is the idea that I like to create movement invention from a human aspect. I like the dancers to be seen as humans , not as machines or technicians so that you are able to connect with their humanity through the movement. They are not just bodies moving through space and I try to keep achieving that through everything that I do.

vDC: In terms of thinking about audience engagement, how does that issue they fit in when you are creating a new piece, especially for an audience that hasn’t been exposed to contemporary forms of dance?

LL: Keith, I think that you do this through music. I feel like you use sound to give people an environment that they can easily enter in to.

I also think that anything counts as possible movement. Now when people look at what Keith has made, they are going to see movement and some of it is going to seem like a video camera running really fast. It’s just the things human beings do! (laughs)

I do think that shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” are really helping people get over this “I don’t get it” thing. I don’t know why people need to feel like they have to “get it”. The other thing is that I want people to be like they are when they go to the movies. Nobody says, “Gee, I’m not a moviemaker. I’m not sure that I have the right to say something here.” People are totally opinionated and that’s what we want from our audience.

KT: Exactly. Whatever they’re feeling, whatever they’re thinking, whatever they’re seeing that’s what I want them to see. I don’t want to hit them over the head with it. I actually want them to experience something that I probably don’t even experience when I see the dance. So I’m trying to give them a kinetic palette to work with. That’s what I think about a lot. I want to challenge them and I also want them to be creative in their viewing as well.

vDC: Give us your insight on the direction and relative growth of the dance community in Washington. Liz, given that you’ve been in the area for so many years what are the current challenges and what are you excited about?

LL: I do want to say that the VelocityDC Festival is fantastic and I’m really happy to see WPAS and others doing that. It’s so good.

What I think has changed tremendously is how much dance we have from other cultures, how much of that is going on and how great is that. It’s wonderful. There is also a lot more dance happening around the city, not just in the city. You have these wonderful dance centers occupying the close-in and the far-out suburbs which means that the level of participation is great. We have a range of artists. A lot of people who have companies now in Washington are people who came through the Dance Exchange – Gesel , Adrian, Dana – I mean all kinds of people and they chose to stay which is really great. You just get more going on.

We need Keith here because besides being a great choreographer, he is also a great teacher. I don’t mean to put down anything or anyone because I think anyone who is teaching is doing God’s work, but Keith knows things that the professional dancers need. I’m not talking about the general public here, I’m talking about the professional dancers. He danced with Trisha Brown for ten years and has a history that we don’t have in this city.

vDC: Keith, what are your thoughts?

KT: I have a lot to live up to here! (laughs)

LL: You will, you will! (laughs)

vDC: How long have you been affiliated with the Dance Exchange, Keith?

KT: It’s been a year and a half now, March 2008 was when I first became part of the process. Prior to that I actually lived in DC for one year, but I worked out at George Mason as faculty. The little bit that I did see of the dance scene, I felt that it had begun to grow in multiple ways. There is a lot more cross collaboration of work going on instead of just ballet, just modern, or just contemporary.  There is even a lot of cross collaboration across artistic genres, like dance theatre which is exciting to see.

vDC: One of the things that we’ve heard is that there is a marked concern about the recession and its potential to change the face of the dance community. What are your thoughts about that and what are some ways we can make it through this period?

LL: The recession has been brutal. In the case of dance companies, what we consider earned income – when we go touring and they pay us – that money is contributed on their end. It’s earned for us, but they had to raise that money to bring us. So, the fact that foundations and individual giving in arts have fallen in the way they have effects a company like the Dance Exchange on multiple levels. It’s not just our own capacity to find donors; it affects people that we work with around the country and around the world. We had partnerships in Japan and Ireland all calling and saying,” We can’t continue right this now. We’ll continue it later.” Everybody wants to get back to it, but right now it’s been really hard on all the partnering.

On the other hand, I always say – and I’m sure Keith feels this way, too – that we’ll stop when we decide to stop not because someone else says, “You should stop. There’s no money there.” That has never stopped us. Never. And so you tighten up again and look at the numbers again.

vDC: Keith, any thoughts?

KT: I think the newest model right now is partnership. I think a lot of new companies are trying to partner together to support each other’s work because one company may have a bit more stability, or to bring on other companies to also show their work, or b y giving choreographers access to additional resources like dancers.

vDC: With this issue in mind, how can DC become an even better place for artists to work given that it generally is known more for its politics than its thriving arts scene especially when contrasted against other art centers like San Francisco and New York?

LL: When I started out I actually thought it was an advantage that we were known for our politics and not our art because I felt that the public was really smart, but not necessarily smart about the latest artistic trends. I felt that that meant that I could count on really smart audiences but not feel oppressed by whatever style was “in” or “not in”. So in my beginning periods, I actually appreciated that there was an odd openness about it.

The part that I don’t appreciate is that I don’t think that the city knows how to celebrate what’s here. When we toured the second biggest town in Denmark, there are 76 theaters companies in that town and that sentence lead off every absolutely single brochure or anything you ever saw about that city.

Here, you wouldn’t know about theater and dance in the city until you go down twenty or thirty paragraphs and find that we have a thriving arts scene. Part of it is the nature of who gets to talk and who do we listen to.

I think the theatre community has done a really good job at making everyone more aware of its existence. Another thing about that is that there is a deep appreciation in theater companies for multiple types of theater and multiple generations of leadership. I don’t think we’ve quite build that in the dance world in the same way. You need the big and the small, the old and the young. You need all of that going; you don’t just want to support one end of it because that doesn’t get the job done.

KT: I totally agree with Liz. I think DC is the nation’s capitol and it needs to lead or at least strive to lead as the nation’s arts capitol. We have the best people in politics here and we also want to celebrate and embrace the best artistic voices here as well. It’s not just New York, it’s not just Philadelphia, it’s not just San Francisco or wherever. I think it’s just about pushing what’s already here and embracing that.

Keith Thompson and Dance Exchange will be performing on Saturday, October 3rd at 7:30pm

Want to see them live at Harman Hall? Don’t miss out – Get your tickets now!

We recently chatted with the Capitol Movement Project’s Co-Founder Stephanie Jojokians to discuss Saturday’s performance, the company’s mission to increase access to dance education, and the current state of DC’s dance community.

vDC: Stephanie, give us a sense of what we can expect to see during Saturday’s Late Night event.

Our professional company will be performing a piece called “Torn” which is a contemporary jazz trio. It’s very fluid , emotional, and passionate but it is also very technical. While I always like to leave the meaning up to the audience, the theme of the piece is about relationships and centers on a love triangle.

vDC: Great answer! I love that you leave it up to the audience to interpret what they are about to see. In addition to the professional company, Capitol Movement is known for community outreach relating to accessibility issues in dance education. What are some of your current initiatives?

We offer free dance classes in the DC public schools as afterschool programming. Currently, we are working with Kenilworth Elementary School again and their kids get a chance to perform for our free “Day of  Dance” event. Every year the night before our major show at the Lincoln Theatre, we have a show from 4 to 6pm for 1,000 – 1,200 kids that would otherwise never be able to see a dance concert. We bus them in and the Kenilworth kids get a chance to perform for their peers. It’s really exciting for them!

We’ve also worked with schools over the summer like Horizons at Maret; we always work with them. This year we are adding a new school and are now waiting to get that confirmed. Generally, we try to go to the kids, teach them dance, see if they are excited and if they are then we’ll pull them into our WNBA or NBA programs, the Junior Wizards or the Mystic Mayhems, so they can get their first performance experience. And it’s hip-hop, so it’s something they that like and can relate to. If they like it from there, they can start getting into ballet and formal training.

Since we try to open the door and level the playing field in dance, we also give scholarships to dancers so that they have an opportunity to train on an elite level at schools like the Debbie Allen Dance Academy or the Boston Ballet Summer Conservatory.

vDC: How many kids choose to pursue dance on a more intensive basis?

Honestly, it’s really only been a handful – we’ve only been around since 2004. Off the top of my head, I would say we have ten now that are in our pre-professional program who are very motivated and inspired to continue their training with us. We offer a diverse range of classes, but we also recommend that they experience other teachers and choreographers as well.

vDC: Since your organization is a relative newcomer to the DC scene, what are some of the challenges you currently face?

For us, we still feel like we have a long way to go. This year, we’ve taken some steps to try to develop the company more intensely. Now, we have a “home” in our own studio  and are requiring that our company members become more serious about their training.

It’s also a very challenging time financially, especially if you have a mission to make services affordable or free to those who can’t afford it at all. It’s hard when granting organizations or private donors aren’t able to help in the way they did in the past and you still have to stick to your organizational mission. That presents a huge challenge for us right now given the services we provide.

vDC: In thinking about those issues, what needs to happen in DC to make it a better place for artists to present their work?

I am very excited about seeing companies collaborate more. I think that the economy has forced people to work together and  it’s created a better collective environment for everyone instead of having people take the position that “This is our program and it’s all we’re going to do.”

Joint initiatives like VelocityDC are really great for us. When we first started, I remember that the Washington Ballet Board Chair Kay Kendall told me, “You know, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A lot of us have done some of these things already. Talk to us and maybe we can work together.” I think that has stuck in my head the most over the years and I really appreciated it because it’s true.

vDC: That’s definitely great advice and so many of our artists have echoed that sentiment. With that in mind, what do you think the lasting effect of VelocityDC will be for the DC area?

I’m hoping that it helps not only the dance community in terms of exposure and performance opportunities, but also the audience as well. Hopefully it will influence them to explore a wider variety of things to see and be a part of in the city.

The Capitol Movement Project will be performing during VelocityDC Late Night on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 p.m.

Want to see them live at Harman Hall? Don’t miss out – Get your tickets now!

While “GIMP” has been performed in several cities, beginning with its 2008 premiere in Albuquerque and subsequent touring to Boston, Buffalo, and New York City, perhaps the most appropriate venue for this piece was in Washington D.C. during the National Summit on People with Disabilities in the Arts where it was featured on the Kennedy Center’s Millenium Stage.

Despite its challenging content, the performance was well recieved and Latsky found perfoming in the nation’s capital to be a very positive experience. “I felt very supported,” she says. “I felt people really got it. To be able to perform something especially at a time where there’s a new President..to me this piece is really about honoring different and the uniqueness of each person and I think it makes so much sense the way this country is hopefully heading.”

As an able-bodied dancer, Latsky admits to feeling pressure to live up to the passion and expressiveness of the other dancers – like those who are missing limbs or who have cerebral palsy – and it’s a challenge she’s facing head on. “For the disabled dancers, most of them have never danced before. Yet their commitment and risk that they take is a really powerful performance. It’s been harder for the able bodied dancer who’ve been trained to really make the same kind of commitment and investment. It’s really easy as a technical dancer to lose yourself in the technique, but we had to really think about what our risk was. I wanted everybody to take a risk and be vulnerable.”

While the disability community has been very supportive of the piece, Latsky has found that the dance community needs more convincing. “I think it’s harder for them to wrap their heads around it. I really want to go to universities and talk to dance departments about what this work brings out in people in terms of whole body image.”

Undaunted by the obstacles that “GIMP” faces to larger exposure, Latsky remains confident that the piece will find wider acceptance over time. “My hope is that it will be seen and presented internationally, and seen as solid dance work that happens to have unusual components,” she says. “I think that’s a dream that’s going to be difficult to fulfill. I think its going to take people time. This form is new and most people have not been exposed to this. Hopefully their frames of reference will shift a bit.”

View an excerpt of “GIMP”

For more information on Heidi Latsky and the “GIMP” Project, visit http://www.thegimpproject.com.