You searched for lauren coons - Stance on Dance https://stanceondance.com/ Tue, 26 Nov 2024 19:34:16 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.5 https://stanceondance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/favicon-figure-150x150.png You searched for lauren coons - Stance on Dance https://stanceondance.com/ 32 32 Asking the Right Questions: Interdisciplinary Arts in Academia https://stanceondance.com/2024/06/03/lauren-v-coons/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lauren-v-coons https://stanceondance.com/2024/06/03/lauren-v-coons/#comments Mon, 03 Jun 2024 18:59:39 +0000 https://stanceondance.com/?p=11905 Lauren V. Coons, an interdisciplinary composer, performer, healing artist, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico, makes a compelling case for making academic arts programs truly interdisciplinary in scope.

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BY LAUREN V. COONS

Note: This article was first published in Stance on Dance’s spring/summer 2024 print issue. To learn more, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

In 2009, I entered the office of my undergraduate academic advisor at the University of New Mexico, eager to embark on a new chapter of my creative life and education. The moment I sat down at the receiving end of the advisor’s desk, I found myself answering a long list of questions that would foreshadow some of the greatest challenges of my eventual career as an interdisciplinary artist. While the questions were specific and varied, they all pointed to one essential inquiry that every artist is presented with time and again: “What is your primary discipline?” While logical and necessary within the confines of the university, this question has formed the foundation for a structure of externally imposed limitations that I’d either be searching for ways to creatively exist within or escape from for years to come. Later, this question would again present significant challenges in my search for potential doctoral degree programs.

My reason for meeting with the academic advisor back in 2009 was to sort through the details of a new degree plan. I had changed my major from Creative Writing to Music Theory & Composition, sparked by my feverish ambition to expand my artistic toolbox, to maximize my potential to compose and create. Like so many artists, I spent my childhood flowing joyfully and effortlessly between creative disciplines and activities: piano lessons, dance classes, plays, choir practices, and solitary moments of writing and drawing. Each discipline provided me with different ways to engage, create meaning, and express myself. Each discipline was informed and strengthened by the others. From early on, I could sense that my goal wasn’t necessarily to dance, to write, or to make music, but to take in the world with fervent curiosity and to create something new in return. I was a composer, in the broadest sense.

I eventually obtained both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music at UNM. While the scheduling logistics and demanding curriculum of the music program made it impractical for me to pursue a minor or a second major, I continued to practice dancing and writing both inside and outside of the university. I was incredibly fortunate to study under several professors who not only understood the value of interdisciplinarity in both composition and research but also supported and encouraged my pursuit of intermedia compositional work. I was also introduced to the fields of arts-in-medicine and the healing arts by my mentor and advisor, Dr. Patricia Repar, which would eventually become a major component of my work. Nonetheless, there were still many times when I received pushback from faculty who defined composition as a strictly musical practice and from administrators who I frustrated with my determination to defy the prescribed curriculum. By the time I graduated in 2017, I had begun to form a creative identity and practice that integrated my artistic disciplines as well as my interests in holistic health, collaboration, and arts-based community engagement.

Lauren stands close to a bass clarinet player who is also standing. Lauren gestures forward. They wear black and are on a wood floor.

Lauren V. Coons and Clara Byom, Photo by Randi Thompson

Like many music scholars, I started looking into doctoral programs in my final year of graduate school. My goal was to find a program that would allow me to continue my research in utilizing open works (what John Cage termed “indeterminacy”) as a methodology for interdisciplinary exchange, social practice, and accessible participation in the arts. My ideal program was one that would permit equal and integrated study in the departments of music, dance, and English/creative writing. A program that would allow me to also work with faculty or students in relevant programs outside of the arts, such as social work or public health, would be even better. Whatever the specifics of the curriculum, it would be essential for me to find a school that understood the nature and value of interdisciplinarity, that had an open and progressive view of composition, and provided enough freedom and support for me to continue my research. Excited by the number of emerging interdisciplinary arts programs I had been hearing about from my professors and classmates, I approached the task with optimism. It wasn’t long, though, before I started to feel the way I did in the advisor’s office years before: disheartened by the realization that, in my pursuit to expand my knowledge and body of work, I might instead be required to shrink the scope of my, admittedly unusual, practice to accommodate for the limitations of the university.

The first challenge in finding a suitable school was the limited number of interdisciplinary PhD or DMA programs. I do want to give credit to the universities and colleges that see the need for interdisciplinary tracks and have either developed programs or are in the process of doing so. I also want to acknowledge the faculty members, like those whom I studied under at UNM, who nurture and encourage interdisciplinary work from their students, regardless of the format or restrictions of the school. Nonetheless, programs that are truly interdisciplinary are few and far between. For example, many programs that claim to be interdisciplinary merely allow for a few additional electives to be taken outside of the “primary discipline.” I would argue that this is not interdisciplinarity, but a version of multidisciplinary, not unlike an undergraduate curriculum. This leads me to the second challenge: differing definitions of “interdisciplinary.”

I define interdisciplinary work as the integration of multiple disciplines within a piece, practice, study, or approach. I believe that an interdisciplinary degree program should facilitate deep and meaningful integration for students. Many of the programs labeled “interdisciplinary studies” exist within a single school (music, dance, etc.), but allow students to study more than one instrument or genre (often requiring the choice of a primary one, yet again), or to study performance, composition, or choreography alongside a research discipline such as history, theory, or musicology. Others are deeply integrated but are highly specific in terms of discipline or research, likely due to the expertise of the faculty or the perceived or expressed interests of prospective students. For example, technology is often the primary or singular interdisciplinary component. This is neither surprising nor inherently problematic, as developing and integrating new technology in the arts is quite a large, continuously growing, and important area of interest, but it is only one avenue of interdisciplinary studies. In the case of some other universities, a program might be topics based, such as the study of a single genre or style of music or dance as it relates to a specific social justice issue within a geographical region. Again, it is a wonderful thing that these types of programs exist, and they surely provide exactly the thing that some students are seeking. But for those of us who would like a more flexible format that allows us to utilize the resources of a university to forge a new path, they aren’t the right fit.

Another problem I encountered was the division of academic departments. Through my own personal experience and my conversations with colleagues, I’ve learned that it is not uncommon for departments within the College of Fine Arts to have little to no interdisciplinary engagement in the form of cross-listed classes, collaborative performances, or other practices. This division is often exacerbated by physical distance, with departments sometimes located on opposite ends of college campuses. If it’s a challenge to study or collaborate in more than one department within a college, it is even harder to do so across colleges. Creative writing, which is so often combined with music and dance in the “real world,” typically resides within the humanities or the College of Arts and Sciences. This division of the arts is baffling when you consider how deeply integrated music, dance, and language have been since the dawn of humanity. Nonetheless, many programs require students to choose a primary discipline and situate themselves as either a musician, dancer, or visual artist with a secondary interest. Third disciplines or studies outside of the College of Fine Arts are often not permitted or not officially considered part of the course of study.

Lauren stands on tiptoe with arms in a V above her head. Clara plays bass clarinet in the backfround. They both wear black on a hard wood floor.

Lauren V. Coons and Clara Byom, Photo by Randi Thompson

Some colleges offer a PhD in “Interdisciplinary Studies” for students with specific or complex research interests. Serving as its own college, an Interdisciplinary Studies department can work with students to design a program wherein they are able to study under faculty members in multiple departments simultaneously. While this type of program is designed specifically for the above-mentioned students looking to forge a new path within a flexible structure, it still presents some major barriers to entry. Those barriers include obtaining funding via teaching or research assistantships, possessing required prerequisites or credentials (such as bachelor’s degrees or extensive coursework) in each of the fields, or securing faculty advisors in every prospective department prior to applying.

I ultimately made the decision not to attend a doctoral program, but to gain the knowledge and experience I desired through working as a freelance intermedia composer. In the past several years I’ve enjoyed a rewarding and meaningful career full of opportunities to create, perform, collaborate, teach, and engage with my community as an artist-in-medicine and facilitator of numerous arts-based projects. While the “primary discipline” question continues to haunt funding and artist residency applications, calls for works, and many online forms that will only allow the checking of a single box, I truly owe any success I’ve had to the interdisciplinary nature of my work. Nonetheless, my growing ambition to teach and to develop community programs has made apparent the increased opportunity that a terminal degree would afford me and finding a suitable program hasn’t gotten any easier.

A doctoral program should be an opportunity to dive fully into your specific research interests. It should be a time dedicated to deepening your expertise. It shouldn’t mean putting your life’s work on hold for three to five years in order to obtain a credential. There are many artists who prefer to work within a single discipline, and for them, specialized programs should, of course, continue to exist. But my hope is that academic institutions consider the ways that the hard division of the arts into separate disciplines and the challenge of pursuing interdisciplinarity affect the way that we make and think about art. We should try, with great intent, to minimize the limitations we put on this essential part of our humanity in favor of the logistical needs of a standardized curriculum.

So, how can we begin to minimize these limitations? The most obvious way is for academic institutions to continue to develop interdisciplinary degree programs based on the expressed needs and desires of students. But perhaps we can also go back to the start of my academic journey, to the advisor’s office, and consider whether we could be asking different questions. Perhaps rather than putting so much emphasis on the declaration of a primary discipline from a drop-down list of vague and reductive options, we could begin to regularly ask students, “What interests and excites you? What would you like to learn right now?” and consider new ways to advise them down an ever-changing path, both inside and outside of the standard curriculum. Every artist, every person, regardless of whether they work within one discipline or many, is a complex individual influenced and inspired by what interests and excites them. The more often we ask and answer those questions, the more willing we are to forge uncommon paths, the less need we have to identify ourselves by our “primary disciplines,” and the more we are able to discover and fully engage with our life’s work.

Lauren sits at a desk in a living room and looks up and smiles. She is surrounded by musical instruments and papers.

Lauren V. Coons, Photo by Niccoli Scalice

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Lauren V. Coons is an interdisciplinary composer, performer, healing artist, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico. In her creative work, she synthesizes her backgrounds in music, dance, mindfulness and meditation, and creative writing into intermedia performance pieces for a broad range of instrumentation, electronics, movement, written and spoken word, and visual art. She has composed works for several artists and institutions including the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center Orchestra, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Abrepaso Flamenco, Wave Dash, New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble, and New Music New Mexico.

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The Spring/Summer 2024 Print Issue! https://stanceondance.com/2024/04/08/spring-summer-2024-print-issue/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=spring-summer-2024-print-issue https://stanceondance.com/2024/04/08/spring-summer-2024-print-issue/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2024 19:19:27 +0000 https://stanceondance.com/?p=11786 Stance on Dance's spring/summer 2024 print publication is out! Get your copy now!

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BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Dancers are, almost by definition, passionate about dance. Have you ever met a dancer who is not? So, it follows that most dancers have strong opinions about the field, and Stance on Dance’s recently published spring/summer 2024 print issue is full of strong opinions! I personally love a good dance polemic. It shows how invested dance artists are in making the field a better place. I am honored and pleased to publish a few critical and heartfelt voices in this issue: Bradford Chin’s cogent argument why higher education needs to make dance training more accessible, Lauren V. Coons compelling case for making academic arts programs truly interdisciplinary in scope, and Dr. Stephanie Potreck’s severe words for company directors who still elevate and subjugate dancers based on weight.

In keeping with Stance on Dance’s mission of covering dance from the perspective of underrepresented voices and access points, I’m pleased to share my interview with Margaret Grenier, director of Indigenous dance company Dancers of Damelahamid, Bonnie Eissner’s profile of Afro Latin jazz dancer and choreographer Sekou McMiller, Jill Randall’s interview with Joti Singh of Duniya Dance and Drum Company, which amplifies voices from the South Asian and African diasporas, and my interview with Helen Mason, artistic director of Propel Dance, a new all-wheelchair dance company.

Finally, dance is such a visceral experience that it often catalyzes other art. In this issue, Erica Wilson’s poetry explores position, weight, and sound, while Rebecca Zeh’s mixed media visual art showcases the exultancy of dancing outdoors. I hope the breadth of stances on dance in this issue inspires your own poem, art, piece of music, or other creative act. I like the idea of dance both being an inspiration and a response.

Whether you feel a dance rant or a poem coming on, I want to hear it! If you have a strong opinion about some aspect of the dance world, or feel drawn to draw when in the studio, do get in touch with me at emmaly@stanceondance.com. We dancers are, by many measures, a passionate people.

GET YOU COPY OF THE SPRING/SUMMER 2024 PRINT ISSUE NOW!

An illustration of a dancer outside with a huge red piece of fabric.

Illustration by Rebecca Zeh

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The Effects of Social Distancing on Our Dance Practices https://stanceondance.com/2020/03/30/the-effects-of-social-distancing-on-our-dance-practices/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-effects-of-social-distancing-on-our-dance-practices https://stanceondance.com/2020/03/30/the-effects-of-social-distancing-on-our-dance-practices/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2020 20:54:04 +0000 http://stanceondance.com/?p=8721 Ways in which dancers are coping and creating in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic.

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In an effort to understand how dance is being intimately affected by the coronavirus epidemic and its ripple effects, I sent out a questionnaire to dance friends and colleagues. Below are the first round of responses I received. You can read the second round of responses here.

I hope dancers the world over are finding the resources they need to get through this, as well as the strength to draw from it. -Emmaly

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Kathryn Roszak in Sausalito, CA

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

My Women Ballet Choreographers Residency is on hold. This is our fifth-year anniversary and we have national participants such as Victoria Morgan (artistic director of Cincinnati Ballet) and Wendy Whelan (associate artistic director of New York City Ballet) planning to participate. Funders are poised, we have dancers from San Francisco Ballet and Lines Ballet dancing, and we have the possibility of a major theater in San Francisco to present our work. All of this was swept away and is jeopardized.

How are you creatively coping?

I am communicating with the dancers who now are in different states. I am making dances outdoors to feel some freedom from quarantine and am incorporating this experience into my work. I am documenting what is happening to dancers, women, and single people, as I am one.

What are you most worried about financially?

I felt I was reaching the fruition of my life’s work and it is rare to have such an alignment. It’s already challenging for women to be visible and funded and I think it will be harder for women to recover, so special support is needed.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

I live in the small town of Sausalito, CA, and it’s like being quarantined in paradise. It’s a town known for being social and there are many singles here and we all are suffering from confinement. I am dancing outdoors to counteract the lack of studios.

Kathryn is the director of Dance Lumiere. You can watch her work here

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Rachelle Woods in Santa Fe, NM

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

Our weekly contact improv jams are canceled.

How are you creatively coping?

Not feeling creative. I’m also a poet. Writing a little bit. I’m directing less and following my body more in my qi gong practice.

What are you most worried about financially?

Friends who live paycheck to paycheck, or whose work has been canceled.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

I have the good fortune to share a home with a spouse. Hugging is hugely helpful. Dancing together too. Living alone sounds hard to me right now. I have a big yard. I’m tidying up the plants I didn’t get around to in the fall. A local nursery is still open, and we bought some seedlings a few days ago.

Eating garlic greens and fall planted parsley. Pruning the pear tree. Spreading some of our beautiful compost. Gardening is good.

I wanted to walk in big trees, my feet on ground. We’d heard lots of people were out on trails, which are often narrow, no easy way to be six feet, or more, apart. So, we had a picnic in a cemetery – beautiful trees and grass. Only a few other people, far away.

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Angela Mazziotta in Portland, OR

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

In many ways, my dance practice has grown deeper and more meaningful since the spread of coronavirus. I am now without a job and the days often feel aimless while I contemplate and struggle with the many known and unknown impacts of this challenging time. Dance and being in and with my body has become my automatic self-soothe technique. In mid-April, I was part of a small group of choreographers who were showing work to be paired with wine for a fun evening at Chapel Theatre in Milwaukie, Oregon. This would have been my first performance appearance since moving to Portland in August from San Francisco. We are hoping to reschedule the event for a later, safer date!

How are you creatively coping?

I’ve started The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and have been enjoying a daily writing practice along with completing the given assignments. Surprising myself, I’ve participated in a number of live-streamed classes via ZOOM and Instagram Live Stories. Daily yoga was an existing part of my physical and mental fitness, but it seems to carry me further still during these times.

What are you most worried about financially?

I’ve lost my job at a restaurant and am hoping it will survive this and be a place I can return to. We were all laid off in the hopes that we could begin collecting unemployment as soon as possible. So far, I haven’t heard back about the status of my application and I know there has been a surge in applications, so it might be a while. Because we took home cash tips (a pooled house so all tips were claimed for taxes), I have been hesitant to deposit my cash into a bank account in case it will be better to have cash at some point. At the same time, handling cash for necessary purchases feels a little strange…dirty almost, like I’m wanting to get consent from the person working the register that they are willing to handle cash! Other worries: rent, utility bills, student loans, how will this set me back in my financial goals. I worry a LOT about others in more dire financial situations… wanting to help but worrying about the sustainability of that and meeting my own basic needs.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

Coming out of my first winter (having grown up in Florida and then spending more than nine years in San Francisco), spring is particularly dazzling; I’ve enjoyed many walks and bike rides, noticing and learning about the trees and plants around me. I’m grateful to have a wonderful companion in my home through this. Together, we are diving into cooking adventures – making sourdough, tempeh, cooking multiple meals a day! We have a sweet little yard; pulling weeds and preparing the outdoor spaces for warmer weather has been meditative and fulfilling. Reading a bunch more than I used to have time for and catching up on movies, music and podcasts.

Any other thoughts, resources or worries you’d like to share?

https://www.rosasdanstrosas.be/home/

https://www.detourdance.com/jukebox

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Lauren Valerie Coons in Albuquerque, NM

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

I had just begun teaching a new contemporary dance class. The first class was on March 7th and I haven’t been able to hold another class since. It is frustrating because it is challenging as it is to build interest in a new class and the students in the first class seemed like they may be the beginning of a really great core group. I did have one cancelled performance. I think the most frustrating part of all of it (that I try not to think about) is that it has been an extremely challenging time in my personal life and to put in the work and the hours to prepare the dance class and the performances, to attend rehearsals and build choreography, was really a stretch to pull off, so to have it basically dissolve and not result in anything (yet) is very disappointing. Not that any time spent dancing is wasted time, but the stress of trying to pull things together was not good for me.

How are you creatively coping?

My philosophy and practice of composition is centered around the idea that creativity is born from limitations and disruptions in our regular patterns, so this situation has been very creatively fruitful for me. From designing new recipes that make use of the miscellaneous food items in my pantry to creating collaborative movement and sound scores with others that highlight the strange nature of our collective confinement, I have more projects and ideas for projects than I have had in the past few months, all of which “lean in” to the current reality. In terms of my movement practice, I have always been a kitchen dancer. I’ve enjoyed finding ways to get a worthwhile workout and get creative by moving in different spaces. I am incredibly lucky to live in a place that has had beautiful warm weather, where there is a lot of distance between people and dwellings, and where I am a two-minute walk from open space and hiking and walking trails. I have been moving outdoors a great deal either in the backyard with the chickens or in little private spaces in the wilderness. I do, however, greatly miss the energy of moving in a group or a class and the benefits of in-person instruction from someone other than myself.

What are you most worried about financially?

The nature of my current work is such that my own personal finances have not been immediately impacted. I’m certain, however, there will be a ripple effect that will eventually reach me as individual artists no longer have the funds to commission new work from me and granting organizations use funds to support performing artists currently. As of right now, my concern is mainly for those who are feeling an immediate impact.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

Nature is always a great source of strength and peace. And the fact that things have slowed down (at least for me) and that the usual expectations of day-to-day life have taken a backseat. I feel like I actually have time to focus on things, to spend two or three hours outside moving and playing instead of squeezing in 30 minutes between gigs, and to get to take the time to evaluate the work I have been doing and what I would like to change going forward.

Any other thoughts, resources or worries you’d like to share?

I just think it is important for us as artists to remember how important the work we create is in telling the story of humans on earth and that what we do now, what we create now, and how we create it is significant. We have the unique gift of seeing challenge as opportunity for creative growth and positive change, and that is a gift that we can share with the whole world right now.

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Delphine Hsini Mei in Taipei, Taiwan

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

All classes are canceled, and performances are either rescheduled or in the process of being re-discussed, collaborators gone and/or new collaborators appear. In general, everything seems to be postponed or on hold.

How are you creatively coping?

I still do my own personal stretches and daily physical practices with myself to keep things going. I usually take lots of time to research so this has been no change for me. Also, I see this time as a resting, reflecting time. I’m re-grouping my thoughts concerning creating and seeing performances, especially in what roles I want to put myself and what effects I want to have. Sort of taking out what was probably not needed and enhancing or adding those which our society really needs. I think the shift from personal ego to collective wellbeing is key and what’s needed in dance or other practices.

What are you most worried about financially?

In general, I live very minimally, even before the outbreak. And few years ago, I made the decision to move back home to live with my family because I had spent many years paying huge amounts of money in rent. I questioned whether this really brought me the freedom I wanted or just looked like I was free, but I spent lots of time worrying or trying to pay the rent. So, I also began another practice/business in another field, also relating to the body. As I didn’t want to have pressure to commercialize my dance and art, I figured the best way for me was to have an extra more stable income which also fulfilled my other interests and stimulated my creativity. If one didn’t work out so well, there was always another one. I am a believer of plan A plus plan B and Z, mainly because I think in life the only constant is change, so stability is always changing too.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

My mind-body-spirit practice.

Any other thoughts, resources or worries you’d like to share?

A photo of me doing a cleansing healing wish ritual for a friend to wish us all well.

~~

Tonya Rivera in Albuquerque, NM

How has the coronavirus personally affected your dance practice?

This has affected my life by not knowing when I will be able to rehearse again. Also, as I write this, VSA (Very Special Arts) is closed until April 6th and it might be closed longer if needed. Because of this, I don’t know if my fellow dancers and I will be performing at the end of May as scheduled.

How are you creatively coping?

I have been thinking about what the opening of my art show fundraiser event is going to look like this summer.

What are you most worried about financially?

The thing that I am most worried about is if this virus doesn’t go away by June when our fundraiser is scheduled. Right now, I don’t know if we can get any kind of funding for my organization, Every Ability Plays Project, during this time. That is going to put us way behind on the projects that we are supposed to be working on.

What’s giving you strength or keeping you grounded these days?

Praying the Rosary every day. And, after this awful storm, I know I will be getting together with my friends.

~~

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People https://stanceondance.com/people/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=people Thu, 09 Jan 2014 01:48:49 +0000 http://stanceondance.com/?page_id=2746 Have a question, opinion or a stance on dance? Get in touch at Emmaly@StanceOnDance.com. Meet our director and editor: Emmaly Wiederholt is a dance artist and arts journalist based in Albuquerque, NM. She founded Stance on Dance in 2012. Emmaly earned her MA in Arts Journalism from the University of…

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Have a question, opinion or a stance on dance? Get in touch at Emmaly@StanceOnDance.com.

Meet our director and editor:

Emmaly Wiederholt is a dance artist and arts journalist based in Albuquerque, NM. She founded Stance on Dance in 2012. Emmaly earned her MA in Arts Journalism from the University of Southern California and her BFA in Ballet and BS in Political Science from the University of Utah. She further trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and performed extensively around the Bay Area. Her first book, Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond, was published in 2017, and her second book, Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, was published in 2022. Emmaly is also a master DanceAbility instructor and facilitates movement groups at the UNM Hospital adult psychiatric ward, as well as is a founding member of the dance advocacy nonprofit ABQ Dance Connect. She continues to perform throughout the Southwest.

Emmaly Wiederholt staring upward with arms around face

Photo by Allen Winston

Our contributors have included:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert, a performance artist and organizer in the Bay Area.

Gregory Bartning, a photographer in Portland, OR.

Liz Duran Boubion, the director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers in the Bay Area.

Liz Brent-Maldonado, an artist, writer, educator, and producer in San Francisco, CA.

Michelle Chaviano, a ballet dancer with Ballet North Texas.

Bradford Chin, a disabled dance artist and accessibility consultant in Chicago, IL, and San Francisco, CA.

Shebana Coelho, a writer and performer currently studying flamenco in Spain.

breana connor, an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator + healer in Albuquerque, NM.

Lauren Coons, an interdisciplinary artist, performer, healer and educator in Albuquerque, NM.

Julia Cost, a painter, textile designer, sewist, and dancer in Maui, HI.

Sophia Diehl, a dancer in New York City.

Bonnie Eissner, a writer in New York City.

Katie Flashner, a.k.a. The Girl with the Tree Tattoo, a World Champion ballroom dancer and author in ME.

Micaela Gardner, a dancer and choreographer in Baja, Mexico.

Sarah Groth, an interdisciplinary artist from Albuquerque, NM.

Cherie Hill, a dance educator and choreographer based in the Bay Area.

Lorie House, a dancer, choreographer, and lawyer in NM.

Silva Laukkanen, a dance educator and disability advocate in Austin, TX.

Mary Elizabeth Lenahan, the director of Dance Express in Fort Collins, CO.

Shannon Leypoldt, a dance artist, teacher, and sports massage therapist in Berlin.

Erin Malley, a dance artist and tango teacher based in West Michigan.

Julianna Massa, a dance artist in Albuquerque, NM.

Aiano Nakagawa, a dance artist, educator, facilitator, writer, and event producer in the Bay Area.

Jessie Nowak, a dance artist and filmmaker in Portland, OR.

Kevin O’Connor, a multidisciplinary artist in London, Ontario, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bhumi B Patel, an artist/activist based in the Bay Area.

Stephanie Potreck, a sports nutritionist and health advocate who currently resides in Germany.

Jill Randall, artistic director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA.

Kathryn Roszak, a choreographer, filmmaker, educator, and activist in the Bay Area.

Donna Schoenherr, director of Ballet4Life and Move into Wellbeing in London, UK.

Maggie Stack, a dancer and teacher in Reno, NV.

Camille Taft, a CO front range-based mover and visual artist.

Mary Trunk, a filmmaker, choreographer, and multimedia artist in Altadena, CA.

Diana Turner-Forte, a teaching artist, healing arts coach, and writer in NC.

Ana Vrbaski, a body music practitioner in Serbia.

Nikhita Winkler, a dancer, choreographer, and teacher from Namibia who currently resides in Spain.

Erica Pisarchuk Wilson, a dance artist, visual artist and poet in Albuquerque, NM.

Rebecca Zeh, an interdisciplinary artist in Sarasota Springs, NY.

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Our board:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert

Cathy Intemann

Alana Isiguen

Courtney King

Malinda LaVelle

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