Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast

Today's guest is Peggy Baker . Peggy Baker has been a vivid presence in contemporary dance since 1973, performing internationally in the work of Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris (with Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project), Doug Varone, Tere O'Connor, Molissa Fenley, and Charles Moulton (NYC); with Fortier Danse-Creation (Montreal); and Dancemakers, Toronto Dance Theatre, and James Kudelka, (Tor...

Today's guest is Moses Pendleton. Moses has been one of America's most innova­tive and widely performed choreographers and directors for over 40 years.  A co-founder of the ground-breaking Pilobolus Dance Theater in 1971, he formed his own company, MOMIX, in 1980. Mr. Pendleton has also worked extensively in film, TV, and opera and as a choreographer for ballet companies and special events. Moses...

Today's guest is Netta Yerushalmy.  Netta is an award winning choreographer and performer originally from Galilee, Israel. Based in New York City since 2000, her work aims to engage with audiences by imparting the sensation of things as they are perceived, not as they are known, and to challenge how meaning is attributed and constructed.   Most recently recognized with a 2022 United States Artists...

Today's guest is Hannah Kahn, founder and artistic director of the Hannah Kahn Dance Company.  Hannah is a master teacher with fifty-two years of experience creating over one hundred and forty dances. Some of the strongest influences on her choreography were her childhood classes in Ithaca, New York with Iris Barbura, her studies of the techniques of Jose Limon and Martha Graham, and her performan...

Today's guest is Lisa La Touche. As a proud Canadian and former New Yorker, Lisa's credits are world renowned. She was an original cast member in Broadway's Shuffle Along, choreographed by Savion Glover and Directed by George C. Wolfe, where she received both the Fred Astaire Award and the Actor's Equity Award for Outstanding Broadway Chorus. Her TV credits include the 70th Annual Tony Awards and...

Today's guest is veteran choreographer and dance educator, JoAnna Mendl Shaw. JoAnna has been devising performance works for stage, rural and urban landscapes since the 1980's. Her body of interspecies work initiates visceral engagement with the natural and cultural environment. Redefining the possibilities for dance-making, Shaw's research into the human-equine dialogue began in 1998. Her company...

Today's podcast is a re-airing of an interview with Nai-Ni Chen on Movers & Shapers from February 2018.  Nai-Ni passed away unexpectedly on December 12, 2021 in a swimming accident in Hawaii. Since starting her dance company Nai-Ni Chen Dance in 1998, her choreography has brought the dynamic freedom of American modern dance together with the elegant splendor of Asian art.  Nai-Ni Chen Dance Compan...

Today's guest is Loni Landon.  Loni is a Dancer, Choreographer, and Movement Consultant based in New York City. In addition to creating dances for her own collective Loni Landon Dance Project, her work is commissioned by dance companies and film directors across the country. Born and raised in New York City, Loni performed with Aszure Barton and Artists, Ballet Theater Munich, Tanz Munich Theater,...

Today's guest is Margaret Jenkins.  Margaret Jenkins , founder and artistic director of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her Company in 2022, is a choreographer and mentor to many artists as well as a designer of unique community-based dance projects. In the 1960's, Margaret moved to New York to study at Juilliard, continued her training at UCLA and returned...

Today's guest is Rosie Herrera. Rosie is a Cuban-American dancer and choreographer working within the fields of modern dance, opera, cabaret, theater and film. She is the artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater in Miami. Rosie has been commissioned by such groups as The Miami Light Project, The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Ballet Hispanico, Jose Limon Dance Company, and...

Today's guest is Ali Kenner Brodsky. Ali makes gesturally rich and emotionally driven dance-theater works that ask the viewer to indulge in a world of reflection, remembering, and connection. Her dance company, ali kenner brodsky & co., produces, presents, and tours original works of choreography and dance films. Ali was recently accepted into NEFA'S New England Regional Dance Development Initiati...

Today's guest is Colleen Thomas. Colleen is a New York-based choreographer, scholar, teacher, and performing artist. She is the director of Colleen Thomas Dance, co-director of Bill Young/Colleen Thomas Co., and co-curator for LIT (loft into theater). She began her professional career with the Miami Ballet and went on to work with renowned contemporary choreographers such as The Kevin Wynn Collect...

Today's guest is Daniel Gwirtzman.  A Rochester, NY native, Daniel is a producer, choreographer, educator, filmmaker, and dancer, and directs the New York City-based Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, celebrating its 23rd Anniversary and operating with the belief that everyone can join the dance. Gwirtzman was a member of Garth Fagan Dance, toured internationally as a guest artist for multiple years...

Today's guest is Tina Fehlandt. Tina Fehlandt was a founding member and integral part of the Mark Morris Dance Group for twenty years, performing in over 50 works choreographed by Mark Morris. With the Group she toured the world and appeared in several television specials, most notably as "Louise" in Mr. Morris' production of The Hard Nut. In Ballet Review, she was hailed as "one of the most beaut...

Today's guest is Melanie George. Melanie is a dance educator, choreographer, scholar, and dramaturg. She is the founder and director of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-In-Residence at Jacob's Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by David Neumann & Marcella Murray, Raja Feather Kelly, Ephrat Asherie, Susan Marshall & Company, Machine Dazzle, Kimberly B...

Today's guest is Duke Dang. Since 2006 Duke has served as the General Manager of Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim (NYC), where he oversees nonprofit administration and manages the logistics of the artistic programming. He and Producer Caroline Cronson collectively curate the organization's programs and commissions that traditionally take place in the theater of the Gug...

Today's guest is Kathryn Alter. Kathryn a choreographer, teacher, and dancer living in New York City. She danced with the Limón Dance Company for 15 years and is currently the Associate Program Director of the Limón Professional Studies Program. She teaches the Limón Company and students of the Limón Institute, has reconstructed the works of José Limón for the Ballet Nacional de México in México C...

We are taking a podcast pause...listen in to hear why. Podcasts: Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast Due May 21: Call for Submissions: From the Field  And catch the company behind the podcast! LONELAND, an evening of dance cinema, on June 3 @ 7.30pm ET.  Ticket info at The Moving Architects.    

Today's guest is Stefanie Batten Bland. Jerome Robbins awardee, Stefanie is an interdisciplinary global artist who interrogates contemporary and historical culture. She situates her work at the intersection of dance-theatre and installation. She is a 2021 commissioned artist by Baryshnikov Arts Center, Duke Performances, 2021 Toulmin Creator fellow Center for Ballet Arts at NYU, and 2019-2020 chor...

Today's guest is Megan Williams.  Megan is an independent dance artist, choreographer, teacher and repetiteur. She performed and toured internationally in the 1980's with the companies of Laura Glenn, Ohad Naharin, and Mark Haim, among many others. In 1988, she joined the Mark Morris Dance Group, dancing for 10 years, touring worldwide, teaching, and appearing in several films. She is in demand as...

Today's guest is Kimberly Bartosik . Choreographer, performer, educator, and essayist, Kimberly creates viscerally provocative, ferociously intimate choreographic projects that are built upon the development of a virtuosic movement language, rigorous conceptual explorations, and the creation of highly theatricalized environments.  A member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for 9 years, Kimberl...

Today's guest is Deborah Damast . Deborah is Associate Professor and Program Director of Dance Education at NYU Steinhardt where in addition to teaching, she is Artistic Director of concerts, Kaleidoscope Dancers, and the Uganda study abroad program. She is also a Doctoral student at Columbia Teachers College and on faculty at Little Red Schoolhouse, the Dance Education Laboratory in Manhattan, an...

Today's guest is Dr. Carla Stalling Walter. Carla teaches and writes about dance, spirituality, and wellbeing. A former professor with a PhD in Dance History and Theory, she is also a Certified Somatic Psychotherapist, and a Certified Spiritual Counselor. Her company, Dance in the Spirit, LLC provides personal and corporate retreats, classes, and workshops on sacred dance meditation, and diversity...

Megan Slayter is a dance educator, administrator, historian, and lighting designer at Western Michigan University where she is the Acting Associate Director of the School of Theatre and Dance with a research focus on the reconstructions of works by modern dance pioneer, Loïe Fuller. Her ongoing collaborative research with dance historian Jessica Lindberg Coxe has resulted in the reconstruction of...

Today's guest is Alana Marie Urda. Alana is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Amalgamate , where she pursues using dance for a purpose through her choreographic works, documentaries and company events. Alana has envisioned and produced a range of distinguished dance events, charity projects, and educational workshops with Amalgamate. Her repertoire has been celebrated in renowned NYC venues...