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. 

Our Past Guest Artist:

T. Lang - 2012

Cynthia Gutierrez-Garner - 2011

Holly Handman Lopez - 2011

Teena Custer - 2011

Alwin Nikolais Residency - 2010
Alberto Del Saz, Director

Claire Porter - 2010

Laurie Merriman - 2010

E.E. Balcos - 2010

Wendy Allen - 2009

Stefanie Batton-Bland - 2010 & 2009

Ivan Pulinkala - 2008

Mari Jo Irbe - 2008

Sara Semonis- 2008

Zelma Badu-Younge- 2004/2005, 2005/2006, & 2007/2008

Chung Fu Chang- 2005/2006

Heidi Clemmens- 2004/2005

Teena Custer- 2005/2006

Travis Gatling- 2004/2005 & 2007/2008

Ursula Payne- 2007/2008

Ivan Pulinkala- 2005/2006

Erica Wilson-Perkins- 2007/2008