LMU On Dance: Critical Conversations

Today we're joined by the esteemed and incredible Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1980 Jawole moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion, and in 1984 Jawole founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance...

Today we're joined by internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and scriptwriter, Gregory Maqoma. Born in Soweto, South Africa in 1973, Gregory became interested in dance in the late 1980s as a means to escape the political tensions growing in his place of birth. He started his formal dance training in 1990 at Moving Into Dance where in 2002 he became the Associate Artistic...

Welcome back to On Dance. Today, we're joined by Yaron Lifschitz, the Artistic Director and CEO of Circa. We begin the episode with our review of Circa's recent performance of Humans 2.0 at The Wallis in Los Angeles. Then we invite Yaron to the show to share more about circus and Circa. Yaron shares how he fell in love with performance in the moments when the theater goes dark before a show, and h...

Welcome back to On Dance. Today we're excited to be joined by renowned Belgian-Colombian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa to discuss her production of Ballet Hispánico's Doña Perón, as performed in Los Angeles in July 2024. In this conversation, Annabelle reflects on the ways her gender has impacted her dance career, why she decided to tell Evita's story, and how she approaches choreographing a...

Today we're joined by LMU dance student Katie Tuchi to discuss The Rite of Spring , which was choreographed by the late Pina Bausch and recently performed at The Music Center in Los Angeles. We also talk about  common ground[s] , a remarkable work created, performed and inspired by dance icons Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, which was performed before and prepared us for The Rite of Spring. Tun...

Welcome back to On Dance. Today we're thrilled to be joined by Camille A. Brown, a prolific  choreographer whose work taps into both ancestral and contemporary stories of African American identity. In this episode, we share our experience seeing Camille and her company perform ink at The Wallis in January 2024. Camille shares what it felt like to perform in her forties, how she cultivates the cult...

Today we're excited to be joined by Leigh Foaad, aka Breeze-lee, the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the renowned Versa-Style Dance Company. In this episode, we share our experience seeing Versa-Style at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach, CA. Then Breeze-Lee joins us to explore the company's journey from its founding in Los Angeles in 2005 to their present-day mission of empowering underserve...

Welcome back to On Dance. In this episode, we're thrilled to be joined by one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists of today, Akram Khan. In just over 23 years, Khan has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad through the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions. In this conversation, we discuss Jungle Book r...

Today we're joined by LMU dance student Povi Martinez and Los Angeles based choreographer and dancer DaEun Jung to discuss Jung's recent work, "Noori," which premiered at LA Dance Project in November 2023. Together we unpack how DaEun integrates Korean folk dance into her work and the ways she transmutes those rhythms, movements and images into the LA context. We also learn about the layers of nua...

Today we're happy to be joined by Donna Sternberg, the Founder of LA-based dance company Donna Sternberg & Dancers. Together we delve into the evolution of the Los Angeles dance scene and how Donna bridges the gap between science and dance in her work. We also discuss Donna's latest show, MoonRock, performed in October 2023 at the Wende Museum in Culver City. And we talk about the positive (and ne...

Today we're excited to be joined by Laura Karlin, the Founder and Artistic Director of Invertigo Dance Theatre. Together we explore why Laura founded Invertigo in Los Angeles and how the Theatre centers community support and activism in their work. We also discuss their recent production, Formulae & Fairy Tales, about Alan Turing, the story of Snow White, and looming questions around AI.   Resourc...

Today we're joined by Loyola Marymount student Nell Walton to review Kyle Abraham's A.I.M. which we all saw at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in September 2023. Tune in to hear about our favorite solos and duets, as well as the range of emotions evoked throughout the night. Then be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss future episodes. Resources A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham at the Carpen...

Welcome to the first episode of On Dance, a new podcast from Laura Ann Smyth and Taryn Vander Hoop, supported by Loyola Marymount University. Today we're reviewing Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist by Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders, which we saw in September 2023 at REDCAT in Los Angeles. Then we're joined by Marjani to discuss the many people who came together to create this work an...