Dance Ensemble Spring 2021 – Grinnell College

This spring, Dance Ensemble/ACTivate engaged in Choreography Process Intensives with two guest choreographers, Dr. Julie B. Johnson and Nicole Livieratos. We also partnered with the Drake Community Library to create a series of five online/interactive Dancing Storytime events for the community. In this gallery you can choose to watch docu-dances about the Choreography Process Intensives and a series of short videos from Dancing Storytime that capture audience interactivity, dance-films made by the Ensemble inspired by the books’ themes, and videos of the live Choreographic Enactments.

Dancing Storytime was supported in part by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the Humanities in Action.

Choreography Process Intensive

Dr. Julie B. Johnson

From Feb 8 – 19, Dance Ensemble engaged in a Choreography Process Intensive with Dr. Julie B. Johnson. Dr. J writes:

What an honor it was to partner with the Grinnell Performance Ensemble and delve into a creative process that was participatory, inquiry-based, and embodied! With generous curiosity and spontaneous imagining, the ensemble explored what can be generated when a collective of people with unique ideas, bodies, questions, and movements interact on the dance floor… virtually. There was no predetermined outcome. We began with our bodies, notebooks, and the zoom space. The ensemble shared movement ideas, observations, journal entries, chat provocations, collages, and camera dances. Through a process of embodied memory mapping (exploring how personal and cultural memory lives and moves in the body), we constructed meaning around concepts of “home,” “lineage,” and “future.” We investigated our individual relationship to systemic oppression, drawing from my work around incarcerated labor as an entry point.We used our own positionalities and lived experiences to discover where we intersect and where we diverge — even in this brief encounter “the space between” was so very full. Working outward from there, we traversed through harmonies and contradictions, ease and tension, and how “holding these two things” can be so very useful… necessary… inevitable. We contemplated how dance can help us link past and present in order to create the future we want to live in, all while immersed in a moment of global chaos and profound uncertainty. This was/is a journey… a beginning to a beginning… the end is still unknown. What I do know, is that dancing with this Ensemble affirmed for me the power of dance to help get us there.
Dr. Julie B. Johnson

Nicole Livieratos

From April 5 – 16, Dance Ensemble engaged in a Choreography Process Intensive with Nicole Livieratos. Nicole writes:

I am working on a multi-disciplinary installation project called PATH. Being passionate about climate change I was so overwhelmed by it so I decided to start with what I know- my backyard and connect that to the world. I am still making discoveries in my yard and it continues to be a launchpad for this series. The result is a path of windows buried in the ground that you walk on. It involves light, sound, sculpture and movement video to more personally connect us to place in the natural world. The goal is to elicit the art of noticing so we step fully into the present and realize what we might lose. My overriding question is: If we notice it would we miss it?
Nicole Livieratos

Dancing Storytime

I Need My Monster

On Saturday, April 24, Dance Ensemble held a Dancing Storytime for the book I Need My Monster, written by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliam. The event included interactive dance-making with the audience and a live Choreographic Enactment.

Outside In

On Saturday, May 1, Dance Ensemble held a Dancing Storytime for the book Outside In, written by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Cindy Derby. The event included a dance-film showing, a live Choreographic Enactment, and interactive dance-making with the audience.

We Are Water Protectors

On Saturday, May 8, Dance Ensemble held a Dancing Storytime for the book We Are Water Protectors, written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade. The event included a dance-film showing, a live Choreographic Enactment, and interactive dance-making with the audience.