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.
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