The Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program

(alphabetical order)

Kyle Abraham / Abraham.In.Motion (F'13)
During his residency at Alfred University Kyle Abraham’s company, consisting of all men of color, Abraham.In.Motion performed his highly acclaimed “Pavement” to the Alfred audience. “Pavement” integrates Abraham’s artistic upbringing in classical cello, piano, the visual arts with hip hop culture in the late 1970s. The work delves into identity in relation to a personal history and entwines a sensual and provocative vocabulary with an emphasis on sound, human behavior and all things visual. Following the performance was a lively question and answer session between Kyle, the company members, and the audience. Kyle Abraham won The MacArthur “genius” Award shortly after his show at AU.

Jenise Akilah Anthony (F'19, Sp'20)
Jenise Akilah Anthony and her collaborator, drummer/dancer/teacher Mohamed Diaby taught a semester of African Drumming and Dance and set a new work on Alfred University students. The final work, performed by AU students and an alum, was satisfying and uplifting for the audience and performers alike. Anthony, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, is an Assistant Professor of African Dance and Artistic Director of Sankofa African Dance and Drum Ensemble at the College at Brockport, and is renowned for her African Diaspora dance work and tutelage that is hinged in both traditional and contemporary African dance genres such as West African, Caribbean Folk, Modern Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Modern.

Dr. Robert Bingham (Sp'18)
Dr. Robert Bingham taught classes in movement improvisation and contact improvisation at Alfred University. His improvisational structures inspired students to engage with sophisticated movement ideas and one another to create wildly interesting duets. His expertise in dance, improvisation, and somatics brought new insights to student learning. For over twenty years, Robert Bingham has been a professional dance artist, scholar and educator, whose solo, duet and ensemble choreography has been presented throughout North America. He is a Fulbright Scholar Award recipient (Berlin, 2013) and was a Visiting Artist in Dance at Alfred University (2005-2012).

Michelle Boulé (Sp'17)
Michelle Boulé’s five-day residency at Alfred University was a masterful immersion in bringing interdisciplinary studies to life through contemporary performance. Boulé taught two master classes for AU students and performed her newest work for the Alfred community. Boulé’s teaching included insights into the body-mind connection, dance composition, and contemporary performance. Boulé’s time at AU served as a creative residency with Performance Design and Technical Theater faculty member Natalie Robin who designed lights for Boulé’s evening length solo work Monomyth at The Chocolate Factory in New York City. As part of this process Boulé included three AU Dance minors to support the performance process: running sound, as additional performers and ushers. Michelle Boulé is a choreographer, performer, teacher and Certified Body Talk practitioner based in New York City.

David Brick/Headlong Performance Institute (Sp'16)
Alfred University’s long relationship with The Headlong Performance Institute, based in Philadelphia, has been instrumental to students interested in performance making and site inspired choreography. While in residence, David taught multiple workshops combining improvisation, movement and objects, consulted with the dance faculty about the AU Dance Program, met with students individually and conducted studio visits. David Brick is Co-Director of Headlong.

Myrna Bridgman and Art Packer (F'19)
The inspiring Bridgeman|Packer Dance residency included multiple performances of Truck, an integration of live dance and video technology performed in an ordinary box truck; Video Playground, an interactive immersive installation for audiences of all ages; Look Out, a film by Bridgman|Packer Dance; and an artist talk during which Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer discussed their work and engaged the audience with an interactive component. Audiences were intrigued and enlightened by the possibilities that emerged from integrating the different material practices. Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, collaborators in choreography and performance and Co-Artistic Directors of Bridgman|Packer Dance, are known for their work integrating live performance and video technology. They were awarded a 2017 New York and Performance Award for Outstanding Production (The Bessies). Bridgman|Packer Dance has toured throughout the United States and abroad in Europe, Asia, The Middle East, and Central America. The 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Bridgman and Packer was the first in the history of the Guggenheim Foundation to be given to two individuals for collaborative work.

Martha Brim (Sp'19)
Martha Brim created a new dance work for twelve Alfred University students and five senior citizens' community members that was performed in the annual AU Dance Theater concert. The piece was delightful, thought-provoking, and brilliantly performed. Dearly cherished bonds formed between the students and the community members who performed together. Martha Brim is a choreographer, educator, and arts professional whose artistry is influenced by her early training as a visual artist and voice student (including a self-taught yodeling practice), early dance training in ballet and the Martha Graham technique, and now draws from body/mind investigations, various somatic practices, a strong foundation in feminist theory, and many days of digging in the dirt.

Brian Brooks / Wendy Whelan (F'16)
The relationship between Brian Brooks and Alfred University began in 2004 with the idea that some of the Miller Dance Residency Funds would be dedicated to the long-term development of certain artists, Mr. Brooks being the first. Alfred has been a creative home base for Brooks, and he has often expressed how important this has been to his artistic development. Brian Brooks has come to Alfred University as an individual artist, has performed three evening length works - dance-o-matic, Piñata, and Motor - with his company The Brian Brooks Moving Company, and has set an original work on the AU students. With every visit to this region he has shown a new facet to his creativity.

Some of a Thousand Words, performed at the Miller Performing Arts Center Fall 2016, explored his collaborative relationship with Wendy Whelan, one of the world’s most cherished ballet performers. It was a true departure from his previous works. Both the new and the dance savvy audience members received it enthusiastically. One man who had never seen a dance concert said, "at first, I was unsure. But by the end of the night, I was hooked! Amazing!" Anne Currier, a local prominent ceramic artist said “I loved that I had the chance to see Brian Brooks and Wendy Whelan dance the dances that make American contemporary dance/art/performance so vibrant and vital!”

There were two evening performances of Some of a Thousand Words. Each night incited standing ovations from the audience. After the first performance, Professor Angier conducted a public interview with the artists on stage and then opened up the discussion to the audience for a question / answer session. It was a rich conversation, the audience's questions were thoughtful and considered, and both Whelan and Brooks were charming and articulate. After the second performance there was a "meet and greet" with the audience in the lobby of the theater, allowing the audience to informally converse with the artists. Mr. Brooks also taught a high-energy master class open to the public that was well attended and wholeheartedly received.

Wendy Whelan is the Associate Artistic Director of New York City Ballet. One of the most acclaimed dancers of her generation, she followed a storied 30-year career at NYCB with a variety of multi-disciplinary projects with cultural organizations around the world.

The Moving Company, based in New York City, creates and performs new work by founding choreographer Brian Brooks. The group has been presented nationally and internationally since 2002 by such organizations as The Joyce Theater, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, NY City Center’s Fall for Dance, The Guggenheim Museum, Lumberyard Performing Arts at the Kitchen, the American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Festival.

Trisha Brown / Brockport Students with Mariah Maloney (F'18)
This was a multi-event exchange with Trisha Brown and the College at Brockport. The exchange began with an invigorating trip for 26 students to the College at Brockport who was hosting a residency with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. Then, just as we went to Brockport, Brockport also came to Alfred. Prior to the company’s residency at Brockport, Mariah Maloney (former Trisha Brown soloist and Associate Professor at Brockport) attained permission to re-stage Set/Reset/Reset on dance students at Brockport. Mariah and six dancers came to AU for an evening to share their process and perform the work. During their time at AU they offered a lecture demonstration on the creation of Set/Reset/Reset, a performance of the piece, and a post-performance discussion. This was followed by a catered dinner in the Miller Dance Studio for students and faculty from both schools to eat together and converse about the performance they had just witnessed.

Dr. Rosemary Candelario (F'17)
Dr. Rosemary Candelario came to Alfred to prepare students and larger community for Eiko Otake’s A Body in Places project. Dr. Candelario gave a public lecture based on her book, Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma's Asian/American Choreographies. The lecture provided an introduction to the duo's body of work, particularly their defining aesthetics of slowness and their emphasis on site-adaptability. She also covered how their collaboration transitioned into Eiko’s solo projects. Dr. Candelario gave a lecture on Butoh to an Art History class in the Alfred’s School of Art and Design, and taught a Butoh dance class in the Miller studios which gave the public an opportunity to physicalize the aesthetics of slowness that she had discussed in her lecture. Dr. Candelario, is a scholar and artist specializing in Butoh, which she has studied, taught, and performed across the United States and around the world. Visit her website.

Ann Carlson (F'15)
Ann Carlson’s series of residencies at Alfred included site visits, class visits, scholarly research, and performances. Carlson first arrived with two of her dancers and a videographer who collaborated with AU Art Faculty member Diane Cox on Cox’s farm - nevermoor farm. While in residence at Alfred University, Carlson created the site-specific work now known as Doggie Hamlet. Doggie Hamlet integrates site, six human performers, thirty-five sheep and a herding dog and stands as a unique example to the integration of animals into site performance. This highly regarded work has been seen around the United States.

Carlson’s three-week residency at AU coincided with a three-day teaching/creating residency for two courses: Art and Ecology taught by Professor Cox, and Being Ann Carlson: the Intersection of Interdisciplinary Performance and Site taught by Professor Angier. During the residency there were three days at nevermoor farm during which students got to witness Carlson and the performers in process working on Doggie Hamlet, and Carlson also gave a public art talk – Here: Work Now and Before. There were public master classes taught at the Miller Performing Arts Center: Walking the Edge of the Knife; Attempting the Impossible in Improvisation taught by Peter Schmitz, From Cunningham to Cloven Hooves/Contemporary Dance technique for any Context taught by Diane Frank, and Animals and the History of Performance taught by Dr. Ryan Tacata. This residency was part of a series of residencies at AU that paved the way towards the fully realized work. Carlson partnered with the Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program at Alfred University, UCLA, the Vermont Performance Lab, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to make this residency possible.

Jordan Fuchs (F'14, S'15)
Jordan Fuchs has visited Alfred University a number of times with the Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program. Fuchs specializes in contact improvisation and created a new contact-based work for fifteen Alfred University students that was later performed in AU Dance Theater at the Miller Performing Arts Center. During another residency, Fuchs’ dance company performed a new work exploring non-repeatable improvisational scores.

Mariah Maloney (Sp'17)
During Mariah Maloney’s Miller Dance Residency, she created a new work, November, made in collaboration with and performed by twelve AU dance students and included the musical accompaniment of Visiting Associate Professor Daisy Wu. Maloney’s residency also featured six master classes, and a public showing of her most recent solo followed by a discussion with the audience. Maloney founded Mariah Maloney Dance, in New York City after performing as a soloist and teaching internationally with the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Kyle Marshall Choreography (F'19)
Kyle Marshall, four exquisite dancers, and musician Cal Fish had a week-long residency at Alfred University creating a new work that later was premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music and will be performed as a full evening length work at The SHED in New York City. The residency was held in tandem with the Integrated Electronic Arts’ (IEA) residency program and included classes, open rehearsals, and an informal public showing. Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC) is a dance company that sees the dancing body as a container of history, an igniter of social reform, and a site of celebration.

Tiffany Mills / The Tiffany Mills Company (Sp'12, '15)
The Alfred University Dance Program has a longstanding relationship with Tiffany Mills and her company. Mills is a contemporary choreographer and dancer specializing in contact improvisation and composition. During her many residencies at Alfred University Mills has enriched the AU Dance community in a variety of ways including creating an original work on AU Dance students for the Alfred University Dance Concert performed in the Miller Performing Arts Center. During another residency, she and her company of five dancers performed five incredibly intricate dances amongst beds of rice in the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery in D. Chase Angier’s performance installation As the Air Moves Back From You. Mills has also taught numerous workshops on partnering, and conducted a lecture demonstration at the Miller Performing Arts Center. Mills has created over 21 multi-disciplinary works for her Company, which have been presented nationally and internationally.

Bridget Moore (Sp'16)
Bridget Moore’s residency featuring her athletic and highly technical dances, challenged AU students and increased the vitality of the dance offerings. Moore taught dynamic technique, composition and improvisation master classes, in addition to creating an original dance work for ten AU Dance students titled Bre Petrunko. This piece was a featured performance at the Miller Performing Arts Center as part of the Alfred University Dance Theater Concert. It was influenced by Moore’s travels to East Asia and was extremely physical and challenging. Indira Warner, a business major/dance minor commented “I loved working with Bridget! I wish I could do it again!” A native of Dallas, Texas, Bridget L. Moore is the Founder and Artistic Director of BMoore Dance, and is the Artistic Director of Joffrey Ballet School-Texa

Eiko Otake (Sp'18)
Eiko Otake was a force that changed the lives, or at least the perspectives, of most everyone that encountered her during her residency in Alfred. Otake taught three well attended Delicious Movement classes; performed her solo A Body in Places two times to large audiences at the Alfred Ceramic Arts Museum and the Herrick Library; gave three public video lectures each unique; led a community book club discussion centered around her translation of Trinity to Trinity by Kyoko Hayashi with senior community members, and interacted with Alfred University students, faculty, guests, and our larger Western NY community.

The first performance of A Body in Places took place at the Alfred Ceramic Arts Museum at Alfred University. Eiko performed with the museum’s unique architecture and Cristina Córdova’s ceramic sculptures and prints in her exhibition JUNGLA. Both Córdova’s and Otake’s work engage the body in places. For the second performance in Herrick Library, Eiko interacted and incorporated Alfred’s selection of books, the architecture of the site, and the Alfred students who happened to be studying in the library at the time.

The 2016 Bessie Committee awarded a special citation to Eiko for her platform for ‘making herself ‘radically available’ in public and private spaces.’ She also received the Anonymous was a Woman Award in 2016.” The ‘radically available’ access to Eiko as a global cultural force who works with empathy and cultural identity was absolutely impactful.

Brief Biography: Eiko & her partner Koma were born in Japan and relocated to America where they created 46 interdisciplinary performance works, two career exhibitions and numerous media works. Their durational performance living installations were commissioned by the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, and MoMA. Their Retrospective Project (2009 to 2012) culminated in a comprehensive monograph, Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty, published by the Walker Art Center. Eiko & Koma were honored with the first United States Artists Fellowship (2006) and Doris Duke Artist Awards (2012).

Among many other awards and honors, they were the first collaborative pair to share a MacArthur Fellowship (1996) and the first Asian choreographers to receive the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) and the Dance Magazine Award (2006). During the 2017-2018 academic year, Eiko is a think tank fellow in Wesleyan’s College of the Environment. Eiko’s solo project has been at over forty sites including the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wall Street, sites in Fukushima, and now at Alfred University.

Community Partners with the Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program: The New York State Council of the Arts in partnership with The NYState DanceForce; Chief Curator/Director Wayne Higby, Caitlin Brown and The Alfred Ceramic Arts Museum; Steve Crandall and the Herrick Library; Melanie Miller, Carlyn Yanda and the Alfred Box of Books Library; Art Force Five; The Hornell YMCA; The School of Art and Design and the Dance Department at Alfred University; and The Institute for Electronic Arts.

Yvonne Rainer’s score of Chairpillow / Pat Catterson (F'17)
Professor Angier and AU Dance students staged and performed one of America’s most seminal post-modern works Chair Pillow using a Labanotated score, video, and coaching by Pat Catterson, one of Rainer’s original performers. AU students performed this work in the CD Smith Theater (2x), Miller Performing Arts Center (3x), Harder Hall (1x) and in Scholes Library (1x) cumulatively reaching over 700 audience members. Working with the original score, Ms. Catterson and Rainer, and to perform it multiple times in a variety of venues to diverse audiences was an incredible aesthetic and learning experience. Yvonne Rainer is one of the founders of American Post Modern Dance. Along with her colleagues with Judson Dance Theater, Rainer sought to blur the lines between performers and non-performers, incorporating gestures and pedestrian movements with classical dance steps and theatricality into her choreography. Her body of work has been relevant to multiple disciplines and movements including dance, film, minimalism, conceptual art, and postmodernism.

Jim Self (F'16, F'17)
Jim Self has been in residency at Alfred University a number of times. Self’s visits include teaching hip-hop master classes and a talk about his experiences as an artist within the context of New York City during the 80s until now. He also gave a public artist talk titled "Animals, Dreams and Televisual Transformations" in which he shared his unique vision: flocking birds, dancing bees, fierce wolf energy, and 'Dancing Iguana Consciousness' that have all informed the past four decades of Jim Self's performance work. Mr. Self has a wealth of anecdotal information about what it was like to be a dancer and choreographer during this tumultuous and highly influential time. As a dancer for Merce Cunninham, Mr. Self has insights into the work and processes of Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Jasper Johns, Robert Rausenberg, Robert Wilson, Sol Lewitt and Lucinda Childs - America’s great Dance / Music and Art masters of this time. Since many of the dance history students are also art students, this information reinforced their art history knowledge as well. Jim Self is an artist working in multiple media including performance, painting, sculpture and installation.

Amy Smith / Headlong Dance Theater (Sp'12, '13, '14, '17)
Amy Smith. Cofounder of Headlong Dance Theater in Philadelphia, has a long history with the Marlin Miller Dance Residency Program. She created an original dance theater work with Alfred University students using their personal stories as a foundation for the piece, and has taught numerous improvisational and compositional classes. Smith is adept at shifting the frame and breaking boundaries. Her work brings in humor, text and theater. Smith is a founder and Co-Director of Headlong, a performance and creation research platform.

Emily Smith (F'17)
Emily Smith is an Alfred University alum with a BFA in Art and a double major in Chemistry and minor in Dance. During her residency at AU Smith taught a composition class based on ‘costuming as object’ that brought together her interests as both a visual artist and performing artist. She also taught a contemporary master dance class and shared her current work with the Dance History class. Smith lives in Brooklyn NY and is the director of the dance company NOT for reTALE.

Kristi Spessard (Sp'15)
Kristi Spessard has been to Alfred University a number of times to share her work and teaching with the AU Dance community. She has taught improvisation and performance technique classes open to AU’s dance and theater students and the larger Alfred community, including a master class that bridged Irmgard Bartenieff’s teaching methods with contact improvisation. Spessard also performed Professor Angier’s work As the Air Moves Back From You, consisting of five incredibly passionate and difficult solos in the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery. After witnessing her solo, a dance scholar wrote, “A deeply committed and dynamic performer, Spessard’s quality of tenderness dissolves into a powerful rage.”

Nicole Stanton (Sp'18)
Nicole Stanton created a new work titled Belonging—and the Color Yellow, on fourteen students from Alfred University and Alfred State College which explored where they come from including their experiences of belonging and not belonging. Performing the piece brought many new challenges especially speaking, using text, and working with props. Stanton also taught master classes that integrated African Diasporic dance into a contemporary technique. Nicole Stanton is the Provost at Wesleyan University and a Professor of Dance, African American Studies, and Environmental Studies. Her work explores the intersections between personal, cultural, political and physical experiences with an eye towards celebrating the complexities of black cultures and creating platforms that cultivate community.

Bernard Woma and Saakumu Dance Troupe (Sp'16, '19)
Bernard Woma and the Saakumu Dance Troupe is the national dance troupe of Ghana and their time at Alfred University is always a highlight for the dance and music programs, and the larger Alfred community. The exuberant energy and refined skill they bring to Alfred through African Dance and Drumming unites the community. During their residencies they have performed in the Miller Performing Arts Center, given performances and lectures to the Alfred-Almond middle school, taught African drum and dance classes, and hosted an African market to sell handmade goods. One of the most remarkable aspects of their residencies is the invitation for students who have learned to dance and drum with them to join the final piece of their performances.

Participants

• Argentine Tami Tango Trio
• Eddie Murphy Jr.
• Laurie Atkins
• Jody Oberfelder
• Karen Bernard
• Ursula Payne
• Boan Danz Action Company / Marianella Boan
• Ursula Payne and Wayne Smith
• Martha Brim and Gayle Doherty
• David Parker
• Brian Brooks
• Philadanco
• Nick Cave
• Diego Pinon
• Yoshiko Chuma
• Balinda Craig Quijada and Kristina Isabelle
• Jane Comfort
• Gabrielle Revlock
• Sean Curran
• Noel Reiss
• Kelly Donovan
• Khalid Saleem and Melinda Phillips
• Ron Estes and Leslie Seiters
• Jennifer Salk
• Gina Gambill and Brian Powell
• Sankofa
• Marcela Giesche
• Dr. Mallika Sarabhai
• John Giffin
• Toni Smith
• Mark Haim
• Tami Stronach Dance Company
• Ishmael Houston Jones
• Flamenco Vivo
• Nicholas Leichter Dance Company
• The Kate Weare Company
• Lingo Dance Company
• Lani Fand Weissbach