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In 2007 the Bates dance festival was having its 25th anniversary. Suzzane Carbonneau facilitated a panel discussion with festival founder Marcie Plavin and Dan Wagoner - the first artist to be presented in the summer of 1983. The following day Suzanne sat down with Dan Wagoner for a more in depth conversation about his work and ideas as a dance maker.

Bebe Miller was in attendance as a guest teacher with her long time collaborator Angie Hauser . In this episode you will hear an interview with Bebe Miller that was conducted in 2013 while she was here at the festival restaging her piece The Hendrix Project with the students as well as presenting her work A History.

This episode features Joanna Kotze a Brooklyn-based, Bessie-award winning dancer, choreographer and teacher. She creates highly physical dance performances through a collaborative, multi-disciplinary process, presenting ways to look at effort, labor, humor, violence, unpredictability, and beauty through movement as well as the body’s relationship to sound, materials, light, and space.

Legendary choreographer, Rennie Harris has restaged his classic work, ‘Rome & Jewels' to honour the company's anniversary. 25 years later this critically acclaimed Elizabethan masterpiece, Rome & Jewels is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet set in the streets of Philadelphia.

Moncell Durden is a dance educator, choreographer, ethnographer, embodied historian, author and assistant professor of practice at University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman International School of Dance who specializes in pedagogical practices that prove cultural and historical context in what he calls the morphology of Afro-kinetic memory.

For this episode we will share excerpts from the artist's talks with David Dorfman and Stephan Batten Bland. David Dorfman and his collaborators were scheduled to present their work, (A)way out of my body, in 2020. Due to the pandemic now Two years later they were able to bring this work to the festival. (A)Way Out of My Body uses “out of body” experience as a metaphor for our times and our body politic. DDD’s bodies propel themselves through space and time, attempting to pass the barrier of reality and plight into the realm of positivity and growth. Stephanie Batten Bland brought her Company SBB with the work: Embarqued: Stories of Soil. Originally this performance was scheduled to be shown outside but due to the high temperatures the show was moved into the Bates College Schaeffer theater. Embarqued: Stories of Soil is a dance-theatre work centered around a transformative shipmast inviting ˈmīɡrəˌtôrē/ reflections, revealing post-colonial foundations and mythology. Through questioning existing relationships to memorials - they call up all who made our united history, enabling audiences to viscerally and holistically connect our country both forwards and backwards in space and time.

This episode features dance and music collaborators who without each other their piece would not exist. We will begin with the piece, Two, with dancer, Shura Baryshnikov and cellist Adrienne Taylor, long term collaborators, that have drawn upon their creative history together to build a process focused on deep listening, observation, and response. Next we have the work: IzumonookunI is a dance inspired by Izumo no Okuni, founder of the Japanese dance-drama form, Kabuki—a form that currently contains little trace of its female-centric, grassroots origins. Choreographer Aretha Aoki and sound and visual designer Ryan MacDonald re-imagine Okuni as a punk rock/sci-fi figure in a landscape of built objects, digital design and live synthesizer. The piece touches on the tensions between erasure and hyper visibility and is an ode to the women in Aoki’s ancestry of whom little is known. Next we have the work: IzumonookunI is a dance inspired by Izumo no Okuni, founder of the Japanese dance-drama form, Kabuki—a form that currently contains little trace of its female-centric, grassroots origins. Choreographer Aretha Aoki and sound and visual designer Ryan MacDonald re-imagine Okuni as a punk rock/sci-fi figure in a landscape of built objects, digital design and live synthesizer. The piece touches on the tensions between erasure and hyper visibility and is an ode to the women in Aoki’s ancestry of whom little is known.

Onye Ozuzu is back this season sharing her ideas and beginnings of her new work - Space Carcasses. Space Carcasses is an interdisciplinary performance that juxtaposes, superimposes, and asserts the body’s relationship to its built environment, particularly spaces that echo with Afrodiasporic forced migrations

d. Sabela Grimes is a choreographer, writer, composer and educator whose interdisciplinary performance work and pedagogical approach reveal a vested interest in the physical and meta-physical ef-i-kuh-see of Afro-diasporic cultural practices. Sabela was one of the co-writers of Rome & Jewels with Rennie Harris Puremovement. The interview you are about to hear was recorded in 2013 when we was at the festival teaching at the Young Dancers Workshop.

Our annual musicians concert was back this season. Featuring: Carl Landa, Peter Jones, Terrence Karn, Jesse Manno, Rob Flax and Albert Mathais.

Primo Cubano specializes in traditional Cubano Son, the most popular style to come out of Cuba and the primary influence to the blend of Latin styles today known as Salsa. www.batesdancefestival.org

Same but Different is a collaboration between Christal Brown and Lida Winfield, exploring their similarities and differences in a cultural commentary on race, age, and gender. 42 years young and recently orphaned, Lida grew up in the North, Christal grew up in the South, both of them grew up inhabiting small towns. Lida is white, Christal is black. As children, Christal was considered a genius and Lida was labeled dumb. At this point in their lives, Lida and Christal have both lived the rigors of being artists, professors, educators, and survivors of life. Christal Brown is the Founder of INSPIRIT and Project:BECOMING, the creator of the Liquid Strength training module for dance, an Associate Professor of Dance at Middlebury College and the CVO of Steps and Stages Coaching, LLC. Brown received a BFA in Dance and a minor in Business from UNCG and her MFA in New Media Art and Technology from LIU. Brown is a mover and a warrior of change and transformation. Brown combines her athleticism, creativity, love for people, and passion for teaching to create works that redefine the art of dance, the creation of identity and structures of power. https://christalbrown.com/ Lida Winfield is an innovative and accomplished dancer, choreographer, spoken word artist and educator, who has created original work merging storytelling, dance and visual art. As an artist, educator and keynote presenter, she has performed and taught nationally and internationally in traditional and non-traditional environments. Lida’s artistic practice is inextricably linked to her role as an educator and her pedagogy is rooted in inclusion, access, and the recognition that our brains and bodies work differently and this difference is a valuable asset. www.lidawinfield.com www.batesdancefestival.org

The field of dance moved from a physical world to a virtual world at a rapid pace this past year - leaving many to question, How will I make money? Does dance serve me at this time? How can I keep moving forward with my art? For the next two episodes we are taking the opportunity to check in with a few of the artists who are here in person for BDF 2021. These artists share their stories about how their lives, teaching, and art making have shifted this past year in response to the pandemic and in response to the various socio-political forces at work in the U.S. BDF 2021, a smaller, more intimate festival working in both live and virtual exchanges, offered an opportunity for faculty, artists, and students alike to ease back into movement, support each other, heal and make, moving towards the future world we are building. Thanks for listening and your continued support of the Bates Dance Festival. Featuring: Tania Issac http://www.taniaisaacdance.com Terrance Karn http://www.terrencekarn.com Sara Juli https://www.sarajuli.com Music Featured: Albert Mathais https://albertmathias.bandcamp.com www.batesdancefestival.org

The field of dance moved from a physical world to a virtual world at a rapid pace this past year - leaving many to question, How will I make money? Does dance serve me at this time? How can I keep moving forward with my art? For the next two episodes we are taking the opportunity to check in with a few of the artists who are here in person for BDF 2021. These artists share their stories about how their lives, teaching, and art making have shifted this past year in response to the pandemic and in response to the various socio-political forces at work in the U.S. BDF 2021, a smaller, more intimate festival working in both live and virtual exchanges, offered an opportunity for faculty, artists, and students alike to ease back into movement, support each other, heal and make, moving towards the future world we are building. Thanks for listening and your continued support of the Bates Dance Festival. Featured: Janessa Clark with Shoshona Currior https://www.janessaclark.com Kendra Portier http://www.kendraportier.com Betsy Miller https://betsymillerdanceprojects.com Music Featured: Albert Mathais https://albertmathias.bandcamp.com www.batesdancefestival.org

Listen to testimonials from those who have had an internship at The Bates Dance Festival. www.batesdancefestival.org/education/internship/

Get your global grooves on with multi-instrumentalists Rob Flax & Terrence Karn, long-time BDF musicians and Youth Arts Program faculty members. They present eclectic and organic melodies and rhythms from around the world in the family-friendly 75-min concert. Recorded at Simard Payne Park Amphitheater Monday July 19, 2021

Tania Isaac is a former Pew Fellow and McDowell fellow; a choreographer, dancer, writer who has led international performances while creating models for thoughtful, audience-centered engagement. During that time, she also presented papers, publications and projects on creative process in the arts and its potential applications across multiple fields. A self-described kinesiophile and lover of information—both physical and verbal—she is a dancer because she loves language; a choreographer because she love conversations and an artist because she never run out of questions. She is unrelentingly curious, and her published writing explores the spectrum of contemporary dance ranging from essays/commentary to comparative literary esthetics in performance. In addition to numerous independent projects, Tania has been a member of David Dorfman Dance, Rennie Harris Puremovement, Urban Bushwomen and a collaborator with Emily Johnson/Catalyst. Her company, TaniaIsaacDance has been supported by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The National Performance Network, and The Independence Foundation & Bates Dance Festival, among others. In addition, her “Living Notebook” – a way of turning a room into a laboratory of investigation and participation in multiple forms- initially developed during a 2006 residency at the Maggie Allesse national Center for Choreography and continues to be an essential element of her creative work. She is a former MANCC Fellow, Pew Fellow and MacDowell Fellow. Tania holds a Bachelor of Science -Dance from UW-Madison, an MFA from Temple University and is currently completing an MPA from University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute for Government. www.batesdancefestival.org

Jennifer Archibald is the founder and Artistic Director of the Arch Dance Company and Program Director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives. She is a graduate of The Alvin Ailey School and the Maggie Flanigan Acting Conservatory where she studied the Meisner Technique. Archibald has choreographed for the Atlanta Ballet, Ailey II, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Kansas City Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, and worked commercially for Tommy Hilfiger, NIKE and MAC Cosmetics as well as chart-listed singers and actors. She was recently appointed as the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history. In 2018 she created new works for Cincinnati Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, and Stockholm’s Balletakademien and will create a new works for Ballet West, Ballet Nashville, and Sacramento Ballet in 2020. She was recently Movement Director for Michael Kahn’s The Oresteia at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Jennifer is currently an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama. She was appointed as Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the Hip Hop dance curriculum at Columbia/Barnard College. Jennifer is also a guest artist at several universities including Fordham/Ailey, Purchase College, Princeton, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of South Florida, Goucher College, Columbia College Chicago, and Bates College. In 2019, she premiered new works for Miami New World School of the Arts, South Carolina’s Governor’s School of the Arts, Ailey Fordham, Boston Conservatory, and Point Park and will create new works for Missouri State, University of Alabama, Jacksonville University, and South Carolina’s Governors School for 2020. Please also note the opening statement from the director Shoni Currior. www.batesdancefestival.org

Shonach Mirk-Robles received her classical training in some of the world’s best schools, including the School of American Ballet, The Royal Ballet School of London and Maurice Béjart’s MUDRA. She was a member of Bejart’s famed Ballet of the Twentieth Century from 1974 to 1986 and also performed with Switzerland’s Zurich Operhaus, Germany’s Hamburg Ballet and Italy’s Ballet de Torino. Shonach’s advanced studies in Spiraldynamik® have become the major influence in her method of teaching classical ballet. She studied Spiraldynamik® while also completing her MDEd. The combination of these two advanced trainings has dramatically informed her approach to teaching technique through the integration of Spiraldynamik® principles. Through her collaboration with acclaimed choreographers she has developed a deep understanding of what today’s dancers need in the way of a classical base for contemporary performance. Shonach founded her own school in Zurich in 2009 and also teaches, internationally in the US, Japan, Spain and Germany. www.batesdancefestival.org

Chris Aiken is an internationally recognized performer and teacher of dance improvisation performance and contact improvisation. He has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Steve Paxton, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood, Ray Chung and Angie Hauser, as well as musicians such as Mike Vargas, Peter Jones, Tigger Benford, Philip Hamilton and Andre Gribou. Chris’ collaboration with Angie Hauser has toured nationally and internationally and been supported by numerous grants from the National Performance Network. His work has evolved through ongoing investigations of poetics, design, and performance. It is also grounded by years of research in the science of movement, perception and learning. Chris has received numerous awards for his artistic work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as commissions from the Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop and the National Performance Network. He is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Smith College and the Five College Dance Department. www.batesdancefestival.org