Minority Guest Artist Program 

The Minority Guest Artist in Residence Program at Middle Tennessee State University creates an environment that is supportive, substantive and inclusive of diversity. The guest artist series actively engages the dance program, campus and the community in special activities and programs that focus on multicultural issues within art and society. The extended residencies by innovative and acclaimed artists give students, faculty, and staff new materials and perspectives to integrate into their professional work and development. Select students will have the opportunity to perform in dance works choreographed by each artist in residence. For the 2012/2013 academic year we are pleased to host the following artists:

Fall 2012 

Cynthia Guttierez Garner - August 26 - September 15

The Unrecognized Voice: Latino Dance and Diversity
I am a Latina Choreographer who sees myself as a bridge, a conduit, a door, a junction. I make work that connects people from various backgrounds to dance, to each other, and to the world around them. Through dance, I explore the human condition in abstract ways through the questions I ask, the stories I explore, and the movement vocabulary through which I speak. Through dance making, I hope to connect audiences to a non-verbal level of personal understanding. I seek to make work that speaks to the dancer and non-dancer alike, so that through one common concert dance experience different worlds of people can intersect. I believe that through dance, observers and participants can enter into a communion of experiences that can be visceral, philosophical and emotional.

Aaron McGloin - October 12 - 20

Aaron McGloin was born and raised in Arizona, and graduated with honors from Arizona State University with a BFA in Dance (Choreography). Over the past few years he has had the privilege of performing with companies such as Dance Arizona Repertory Theater, Scorpius Dance Theatre, Temenos Dance Collective, CONDER/Dance, and AMEBA Acrobatic and Aerial Dance of Chicago. He was the winner of the Arizona Choreography Competition in 2006, was awarded merit scholarships to attend the Bates Dance Festival in both 2006 and 2008, and recently won Dance Magazine's Video of the Month - Critics' Choice Award. The Chicago Tribune has called his choreography "quirky" and "whimsical" and has been compared to work by great artists such as Susan Marshall. His work has recently been commissioned by groups such as Scottsdale Community College Moving Company, Scottsdale Arizona Jazz Ensemble, Scorpius Dance Theater, CONDER/dance, and AMEBA. He is the artistic director of Aaron McGloin Dance, Arizona's newest and youngest (all in their early 20's) professional dance company. AMD's mission is to bring high-quality dance to people of all ages and incomes in an effort to raise awareness of the arts in AZ.

Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren - October 20 - November 10

Theatre of Oppression
Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren's work spans a range of topics, including dance and architecture, diversity theatres, and performance and water. She is a former editor of Theatre Topics and she has writen about performance and deafness, disability, and experimental arts practices. Her current book projects include Performing Blackness: Afro-Asian Theaters and Cultural Alliances and Dramatizing Water: Performance, Science, and the Transnational. As the director of Folded Paper Dance, she is currently producing the Waterworks Cycle (2011-2016), 20 X Penelope, The 100 Hands Project, and Future Windows: Home/Land . 

Angela Simmons/Amy Shelley - January 17 -February 7 

The Subtlety of Gesture, Body Language and Reaction in a Diverse Society and in Art
We embody representations of diversity in several fields. We formed our company, Evolving Doors Dance, for the purpose of creating visibility and understanding around Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer (GLBTQ) issues, and womenʼs issues. As a lesbian couple working together and as artists from different fields, we have experienced varied levels of sexism and homophobia in the workplace, the community, and the art world. We share the belief that a personʼs attitudes and experiences shape their perception of the world and the way they interact in it. Much like the ripples created as a pebble is tossed into the ocean, these individual experiences in turn affect a personʼs immediate friendʼs and family, rippling out to a broader community and eventually affecting and impacting the country and the world we all share. With each show that we produce, and each residency or workshop that we offer, we work to foster awareness, visibility, interaction, understanding and compassion among the people and communities that are present. Over the past seven years, our work has broached topics ranging from equality to sexism, transgender inclusion to gay marriage, body image to eating disorders and more. Our goal with approaching intense topics is to find the underlying commonalities between the specific experiences of the individuals we are representing and the broader experiences we all share by being human. 

Heidi Schill Clemmens - March 18 - April 7

Dance and Disability
Heidi Schill Clemmens is an Associate Professor of Dance and Co-Artistic Director of University Dance Theatre at Western Illinois State University. Clemmens has an MFA from Arizona State University. Her major influences include Daniel Nagrin, Cliff Keuter, and Elina Mooney, among others. She has choreographed and performed with the Aurora Mime Theatre, Desert Dance Theatre and Two Rivers Dance Theatre, teaching dance residences for grades K-12. As a choreographer for University Dance Theatre, Clemmens had dance pieces chosen for the American College Dance Festival National Gala at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has also worked extensively to integrate dancers with developmental and physical disabilities into her choreographic works. Clemmens teaches modern, jazz and theory courses in the dance minor and choreographs for the Musical Theatre Program.

Our Past Guest Artist:

2013

• Angie Simmons and Amy Shelly
• Stafanie Batton-Bland
  

2012

• Aaron McGloin
• T. Lang
• Cynthia Gutierrez Garner
  
• Kanta Kocchar- Lindgren
  

2011

• Cynthia Gutierrez-Garner
• Holly Handman Lopez
• Teena Custer

2010

• Alwin Nikolais Residency, Alberto Del Saz, Director
• Claire Porter
• Laurie Merriman
• E.E. Balcos
• Stefanie Batton-Bland
  

2009

• Wendy Allen
• Stefanie Batton-Bland

2008

• Ivan Pulinkala
• Mari Jo Irbe
• Sara Semonis
• Zelma Badu-Young
• Travis Gatling
• Erica Wilson-Perkins

2007

• Zelma Badu-Younge
• Travis Gatling
• Ursula Payne
• Wrica Wilson-Perkins

2006

• Chung Fu Chang
• Teena Custer
• Ivan Pulinkala
• Zelma Badu-Young
  

2005

• Heidi Clemmens
• Teena Custer
• Travis Gatling
• Ivan Pulinkala
• Chung Fu Chang
  
• Zelma Badu-Young
  

2004

• Heidi Clemmens
• Travis Gatling
• Zelma Badu-Young