Choreographer Artist Statements

Since immigrating from Brazil to the Twin Cities in 2006, I have garnered recognition and acclaim for shaping an exciting new movement aesthetic as a choreographer. I move at the intersections of Afro-infused power and rhythm to the subtle muscle nuances and physicality of Brazilian contemporary dance.

Dance found me in 1999 while playing the moon character in Blood Wedding, a play by Federico Garcia Lorca. The performance was part of my final year in the acting program at FAFI in Vitoria, Brazil and one choreographer who was in the audience recognized my singular movement-based approach to creating character and invited me to join his Afro-Brazilian dance company. From that moment, my overwhelming artistic drive has been to use my physicality to explore intense emotional, cultural, and spiritual forces. I continue to bring that theatrical sense of movement into my choreography.

I immersed myself in three distinct professional dance companies in Brazil: Grupo NegraÔ (Afro-Brazilian dance),  Homem Companhia de Dança (contemporary dance) and Balé da Ilha (contemporary ballet). Dancing with these three professional Brazilian dance companies for over eight years, I achieved national acclaim for my movement aesthetic as an exceptional dancer. Recognized by the American Folkloric Society as a “Brazilian artist of unique and exceptional ability and merit” in 2006, I moved to Minnesota and danced for five years with TU Dance, under the leadership of former Alvin Ailey artists Uri Sands and Toni Pierce-Sands and in Penumbra Theatre (Black Nativity).

In 2011 I was selected to attend NEFA’s (New England Foundation for the Arts) Regional Dance Development Initiative. Through this program, I gained more knowledge of who I am as a choreographer. I created transformative and empowering works such as 3’0’1, Chão and Dialogue of Roots. I am very grateful to have received support from several grants: Jerome Foundation Study Travel Study, MRAC-Next Step, MSAB Artist Initiative and MSAB Cultural Community Partnership. In addition, professional development opportunities have helped me solidify my vision as a choreographer, including Dance USA Institute for Leadership Training program where I was mentored by Artistic Director Brian Williams of Step Afrika of Washington D.C.

Dance transformed me. I choreograph to connect to the world. While I come from traditional Afro-Brazilian dance, the range of my experience is wide and I embrace this diversity to challenge myself. As a choreographer, I started researching and exploring movement ideas by fusing Afro-Brazilian movement with precise contemporary movements that were sharp on my body. I couldn’t sleep at night and spent time in my basement improvising and recording movement. After many late night sessions, I finally felt truly satisfied that I had found my choreographic foundation and the way I like to work. I realized that my sense of rhythm was driving the work and I was constantly singing the rhythms versus counting the movement. I was perceptive to details in the musicality and this sense of rhythm grabbed my attention and became a distinct characteristic of my choreographic work. This journey of investigating my body through movement research provided me with a more clear vision about my technique and what I would need to help dancers understand how to adapt the movement to their bodies. My first piece was for three men and two women. It was an exploration of floor work with precise rhythm. It revealed my examinations into the complexities of rhythm and dynamic contemporary movement research.

Through my creations, I found myself very committed to movement research. In 2010 I applied and received a Jerome Foundation Travel Study grant to research the intersections of capoeira and contemporary in several regions in Brazil. This research inspired me to continue to study my personal movement and develop my movement fusion.

My choreographic voice grew and in 2011 I was selected for the New England Foundation for the Art (NEFA) Regional Dance Development Initiative (RDDI). Through this program I developed the language surrounding my choreographic research. Several months later I founded my dance company, Contempo Physical Dance, and since then I have dedicated myself to producing dynamic, highly physical contemporary dance combined with Afro-Brazilian dance. In 2012, with support of an Arts Activities grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) in Minnesota, I created and produced my first full-length dance work for Contempo Physical Dance called Motirô. The title and work is based on a Brazilian indigenous word, which means, “a meeting of people to build something together, helping one another along the way.” Motirô meant a lot to me because it was a reflection of where I came from and where I was going. Shortly after the premiere at the Ritz Theater, The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts invited Contempo Physical Dance to be part of their season. With a wonderful and brave cast of dancers, I have choreographed many full-length works: Motiro (2012), Batuque (2013), SenZalma (2014), Seca (2014), Motiro (reimagined 2015), Vulcao (2015), Merge (in collaboration with Black Label Movement 2016), Balacobaco (2017) and Vulcao (reimagined 2018), SenZalama (reimagined 2019), Lavadeiras (2023) and Maharu (2026). Since receiving a McKnight Dancer Fellowship in 2020, I have traveled to Brazil several times for choreographic research, including interviewing the Afro-Brazilian washerwomen and getting audio recordings of interviews used in the soundtrack of Lavadeiras and again to study folkloric dances of Brazil as research for Maharu. And while I consistently feel this push and pull between Brazil and Minnesota, I have realized that the work has become something more than just Brazilian or American. It has always been about the conversations that we have had while developing the work. My choreographic style is dynamic and constantly growing because of the specific research I do for every full-length work and the intensity of the American dancers in their interpretation of my work. My research and movement explorations are the foundation of my choreographic work. I have found and developed a dynamic movement style, which extends the notions of contemporary dance to include contemporary interpretations of distinctly Afro-Brazilian dance. I constantly seek new ways of moving and new conceptions in dance performance.

I believe that dance is a powerful means to transform the human experience. I dance to connect to the world and find embodied knowledge that is simultaneously cognitive, emotional, and spiritual. I find freedom in an interplay of forms, which allows for an enriching flow between genres. What remains most important to me is the connection with mind, body, and spirit. I want my dance to enable me to be both rooted in my body and connected to my soul where I find my dance vision.

Helen Hatch | 2026

I choreograph to investigate inner experience and its tension with contemporary life. I’m interested in how tending to our inner landscapes shapes our physical world, and how the world, in turn, shapes us. Rather than presenting ideas didactically, I create experiential work—where the performer’s physicality is attuned to emotion, and what unfolds onstage is not the performance of an idea, but a real experience lived and witnessed in the moment. Through the interplay of movement, music, light, and design, I create a heightened space for both performer and audience, where presence in the body becomes a way of understanding ourselves and the world.

To do this, I bring together brilliant, generous artists and initiate creative processes that prioritize collaboration. I value artist versatility and flexibility in thinking, and hold myself to that. I’ve learned “buy in” comes from valuing contributions, and that joy is essential to the process. Together we build, reconsider, demolish and rebuild, unearthing the logic of the work until the eleventh hour when it all folds into itself. The goal is not to make work that is easily categorized or digestible, but rather to carry out the idea in its truth.

I came into choreography through improvisation. After years of intense ballet training, I landed in NYC to attend the Ailey/Fordham BFA program. I grew obsessed with improv, particularly the work of William Forsythe. Through complex scores, my unique movement qualities emerged, and my mind lit up in new ways. Studying composition with Kazuko Hirabayashi led to early opportunities, including selection into the Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Festival in 2011. After graduation, I moved home to Minneapolis to join MN Dance Theatre, performing a wide repertory before returning to choreography through subsequent commissions.

Though rooted in ballet, I wouldn’t classify my work that way. My phrase work is technically complex and highly articulate, bonded closely to music. The movement and timing does not immediately sink into dancers bodies and usually requires a breakdown of the movement pathways. “3 Card Man” is a clear example of my choreographic work from this period. At the time it felt useful to make a succinct piece that encapsulated my perspective and that was easy to perform around town to get more acclimated into the community.

In 2017, I founded Hatch Dance, a project-based company to house my work. Our debut, "Isotope" (2018), marked a shift toward interdisciplinary collaboration. After barely getting it up onstage (I learned producing is hard), I was shocked at the audiences’ enthusiasm. Since then, I’ve built a network of artists across disciplines who challenge and expand my practice. I actively create spaces for my art to exist—made up of artists who catapult me into newness and fuel my creativity.

In 2020, I was selected for the UNCSA Choreographic Institute and was weeks away from a premiere when COVID shut everything down. The show was postponed indefinitely. The residency was delayed a year, then two. Forced to pause, I reflected and recalibrated. The importance of the arts to a healthy society was put in stark relief, grounding me unexpectedly. That summer, needing to move and create, Berit Ahlgren and I got into the studio and started a new dance to Ravel’s Bolero. What began as two masked dancer-choreographers grew into a socially distanced parking lot performance called "bolerobolero". It brought 21 dancers back to the stage and gave audiences their first live show in months. We worked in groups of 8 (studio limit at the time) until tech week when we put everything together outside. Built like a puzzle, it wove in movement from all cast members. Despite being crafted as “pure dance”, it transformed into a powerful exhibition of persistence, resistance, and community. With it’s success, Berit and I have continued to collaborate, embarking on our 5th work together in just a few weeks.

"PARADISE", created with theater director Jon Ferguson in 2023, is another important work in my development. Jon and I met in 2018 when I was cast in his play The Room with Closets, exposing me to a new way of creating. Profound moments were arrived at intuitively, without the over analyzation of “why”.  I began to let my own intuition lead, realizing it has always been my source of creativity.  Deciding to collaborate on a new dance-theater work, we began with the question: how does one cultivate personal happiness? Through listening, starting over, and staying in a place where questions couldn’t be answered, the piece, pared down to its bare essentials, emerged. Minimalist in both movement and text, the work was filled with joy, curiosity, and love. When we began “PARADISE” I couldn’t have anticipated what it would become, and that is precisely what compels me to keep making art.

In 2024, Berit and I premiered "In C", inspired by Terry Riley’s iconic score. Performed atop a parking ramp with 17 dancers and 6 musicians, we created an improvisational dance structure that both echoed and departed from the music’s framework—53 short cells repeated at will, never the same twice. Expanding on movement generation devices we’d developed from previous collaborations, we placed them within a rule-based “game” that constructed and dissolved choreographic forms in real time. What emerged was a non-hierarchical system where complicity and disruption unfolded live, growing in complexity as the rules evolved. Each performer held equal agency—at any moment, anyone could be conductor or choreographer—making each iteration fully alive and unrepeatable. In C became an exercise in trust and patience. I’m used to knowing what will happen once a piece begins; here, it felt perpetually on the edge of collapse. And yet, the score held.

Next week, "How to Cultivate Your REM Cycle" premieres—the culmination of years of research, rumination, discipline, and patience in pursuit of unanswerable questions. This project has challenged me more than anything I’ve made, testing my fortitude in countless ways. I can’t speak about it objectively yet, nor do I want to—it’s mysteries are still unfolding. What I do know is that it exists because of a deeply invested team of collaborators I admire. The trust we’ve built over multiple projects has allowed us to take bigger risks and push further than ever before. I couldn’t have imagined what Hatch Dance would become. I feel it every time we gather in the studio—the energy, the belief. Work is already in motion before we begin: dancers refining phrasework, music taking shape at the piano, lighting tracked in shared documents, text continuously reworked. I’m holding the whole, shaping how it comes together. As we enter the theater, whatever happens, I know we’re onto something—and it’s exactly what I want to be doing

Joe and Lisa | 2026

There are only a handful of choreographers worldwide creating performance art rooted exclusively in breaking—and we are one of them. Our names are Joseph “MN Joe” Trần and Lisa “MonaLisa” Berman and we have been choreographic collaborators since 2014. This application reflects our work as a duo. As Co-Founders and Co-Artistic Directors of BRKFST Dance Company, we combine breaking—hip hop’s first dance form—with abstraction and non-codified dance vernacular such as pedestrian movement and partnering to produce works that are emotionally resonant and physically rigorous. Based in Minnesota, we have spent the past decade helping redefine breaking within the state’s dance ecosystem, bringing it from battles into contemporary performance spaces. We do not rely on other street styles; instead, we treat breaking and our self-taught movement as a complete and self-sufficient language of expression.

Our choreographic collaboration is shaped by our shared practice of breaking. As a second-generation Vietnamese American who does not speak Vietnamese fluently, Joe experienced a disconnect from his heritage as a young teenager. Discovering breaking in 2002 gave him a sense of belonging and means for expression that was grounded in respect and skill. As a former member of Knuckleheads Cali, a world-renowned crew known for their avant-garde style of moving, Joe combined their abstract approach with his creative powermoves to form a revolutionary style of breaking. He built a career by winning multiple world championships and his moves continue to influence the breakers of today. Joe’s style is an essential part of how BRKFST develops choreography and he now seeks to use the form as a vehicle to reclaim his cultural identity through performance work.

Lisa began breaking in 2003 as one of few Bgirls in a male-dominated scene. Women had to be twice as creative and resilient to claim space, and she embraced the challenge with discipline, training, and competing, earning her a formidable presence in the hip hop community. In 2008, while advancing her career in the Netherlands, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27. The trauma and physical loss following a mastectomy and year of chemotherapy clarified how essential dance was to her identity. Supported by Joe and the breaking community, she steadily rebuilt her practice by finding new and experimental ways to break that was informed by her rehabilitation. This experience ignited a renewed commitment to creativity as survival and led to founding BRKFST Dance Company in 2014. While we continue to engage with the breaking community through competitions, we are eager to express our own experiences beyond battles.

Through performance art, we realized we had been choreographers all along—crafting signature breaking moves and testing them in battles for over 20 years. In breaking, you contribute to the culture by creating original moves called “signatures,” building them into “rounds,” and shaping them into a distinct style. This requires not only “flipping moves”—studying the past to create something new—but also incorporating unexpected influences that push the foundation to evolve. Our reputation as breakers comes from this experimental spirit, sometimes met with ambivalence, and from a style that blends fundamentals with the unconventional—an approach that shapes how we create our productions (excerpt 1).

Some breaking traditionalists resist our approach in competitions and theater. That resistance underscores why our work matters. Trailblazing requires welcoming new viewpoints and challenging the status quo. After all, the global culture of breaking and hip hop was forged in resistance to marginalization in the 1970s. And it was precisely born from that disruption; progress is in its DNA. While most breakers continue to focus on competitions and one-upmanship, fewer are using breaking to explore topics such as family, politics, or identity. We are interested in creating choreography to engage these themes—connecting the physicality of the form to lived experience. By doing so, we continue the tradition of innovation and resistance, expanding breaking beyond competitions to develop work that is both disciplined and emotionally resonant while remaining deeply rooted in the culture. The following works put these ideas into practice.

Our latest production titled “STORMCLUTTER” in 2024 (excerpt 2) is a deeply intimate work that explores family, relationships and opposing states of interpersonal tension. Even after 12 years of collaboration with each other, sharing our individualized movement still feels vulnerable. We address these feelings with intention, grace and tenderness in the choreography. Breaking is typically known for speed, power, and precision, but we challenge these notions by using breaking with restraint, in silence, or against unexpected musical structures, allowing new emotional possibilities to emerge.

Politically, we use our platform to address the injustices among us. Our choreography to “Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents” in 2022 (excerpt 3) is a commentary on American life that is filled with a mix of ambition, despair, hope, and love. While the U.S. is deemed the “land of the free,” systemic issues persist, and for many, the “American Dream” remains just that—a dream. Our first political work, “Dreamers” (excerpt 4), is an experimental dance film made in 2020 that depicts the exhausting struggle of DACA documentation and explores what it means to be American during times when survival as artists was at risk. In light of recent ICE unrest in Minnesota, this film is more relevant than ever.

Our work to “Death of Tybalt” in 2024 (excerpt 5), examined ideas around identity. In honor of breaking’s innovative values, we reimagined Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by reinterpreting gender roles. Rather than assigning each BRKFST member a specific persona, we opted for androgyny, allowing fluidity, interchangeability, and shared power. These choices mix abstraction with linear storytelling, creating space for conflict, death, grief, and consequence to emerge through choreography.

Looking ahead, we had planned to debut an evening-length duet at 3AM Theatre in New York in April 2026. That timeline has shifted: after 17 years of remission, Lisa was recently diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer on February 6, 2026. This moment is undeniably difficult, but it is not unfamiliar territory. Our artistic lives have been forged by resilience, discipline, and innovation, and we meet this chapter the same way we’ve met every turning point before it. Breaking taught us to meet challenges head-on—to adapt under pressure, rebuild with intention, and transform adversity into movement. Our work will not pause; it deepens and evolves, just as it always has. We remain committed to advancing breaking in performance art, creating choreography that is fearless, rigorous, and fully grounded in our lived, embodied experience.

Vie Boheme | 2024

I am a multimodal artist; a choreographer, a dancer, actress, and poet. I design theatrical dance experiences that weave all of these mediums. I seek to bring athletic agility to vocal performance by singing and dancing in unison, eliminating the boundary between the visual and audio experience. I love creating challenging circumstances, like standing on my head, moving my legs around and singing simultaneously. I also weave sentiment and storytelling through poetry and monologues. Each performance piece is designed to give a glimpse into the sometimes dark and complex emotional spaces people experience that seem elusive and ever present.

As a kid I was always involved in performance originating from my families heavy involvement in the church (5 days per week). From giving easter speeches, children choir and youth choir to the praise team, being involved in the traditional ballet, tap and jazz trifecta, I always shined brightly and loved being able to express my deep, deep emotions through dance and performance. This longing to express would take me to Point Park University and The Ailey School. It also opened doors for me to perform dance works of Camille A. Brown, Kyle Abraham, Dwight Rhoden, Darrell Grand Moultrie, and Sidra Bell. I also became a founding member of The August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble in Pittsburgh, PA and a member St. Paul's own TU Dance which I eventually left to focus more on blending art forms.

The experience of music in church, specifically, seared itself into my spirit. The Black Church Musical Experience (which I lovingly refer to as the BCME) defines my choreography and approach to creating theatrical dance experiences. The BCME follows the format: sing, scat/speak in tongues, dance, constantly flowing from one form of expression to another. When choreographing my performance experiences, they happen similarly: dance, sing, poem, monologue repeat.

My choreography is also inspired by my experiences with Pearl Ann Porter's approach to improvisational storytelling, Camille A. Brown's nuanced and abstract storytelling through gesture, and the dynamic athleticism of Darrell Grand Moultrie, which feels like a quintessential expression of the American spirit, vibrant, sharp, and free. These are choreographers I've worked with who's influences serve as a compass for my choreography.

In the early part of my career, I created the Viva: BLACK trilogy, a series of shows focused on highlighting and celebrating Black women performers of the past century through dance and song. Each show drew inspiration from artists such as Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Betty Davis. After choreographing these shows with the music they made, I became curious about how they may have felt living through what inspired their music. I realized then that I can express one emotion with dance and sing a song or share a poem that expresses another emotion.Throughout my journey I've created a number of solo dance works to focus on the practice of flowing seamlessly through the BCME format. My piece Zone 3 (2016) was the first clear experience I had fusing movement and poetry and movement and singing to express focused concepts. I had finally made the departure from the traditional relationship of dance to music I had been seeking. In 2017, I built my first evening-length one-woman show Viva: BLACK [Vol. 1]. At 45 minutes, it was the longest solo performance I had done, and it gave me a clear understanding of how BCME structure could work (due to poor video quality, there is no sample of this work). I learned that being in control of all of the elements as the performer allowed me the power and control to flow confidently through the BCME format.
Many of my early works maintained a traditional relationship of movement to music. For example, in my 2013 trilogy 'Viva: BLACK' I made my first attempt at the BCME format. I danced to the jazz song “Solitude” sung live by vocalist Anqwenique Wingfield. Between her singing and my dancing in unison, I would share short monologues to express the day to day challenges that fuelled the song's sentiment and my movement. My time in Minnesota has been pivotal in developing my fusion approach of incorporating dance and vocals. My recent works presented to the Minnesota community have been non-traditional as I often sing live while I'm dancing, merging the conductor, vocalist, and dancer skills. In 2014, I made my first effort to sing and dance in my solo' Dancing with God' by singing before dancing to recorded music. In 2015, I took my most significant leap in 'A Study of Performance Boundaries: and Much More' by singing the music live while dancing. I learned that producing music while moving required increased awareness and caused my audience to lean in even further to what was happening and how it made them feel. I took full advantage of this in my piece 'Zone 3' in 2016 and expressed the BCME format by dancing while delivering spoken word poetry and then singing while dancing standing on my head.
My most recent work, The Edge is an ethereal one woman dance and music performance that features music that was written in 2020 during the pandemic and the uprising, at the time the world was on edge; the edge of our sanity and our emotional capacity. (No footage of CENTERPLAY, most recent work is best execution.)The movement exploration was focused in two directions, 1. symbolizing self acceptance through ease and statuesque simplicity 2. risk taking and dancing dynamically while placing myself at my own personal edge of risk by performing in high heels on a series of large yoga boxes four feet off the ground. The intention was art imitating life in both practice and audience experience. The audience got to hear me expressing myself about having been on edge during the pandemic while also observing me intentionally pushing myself to be at my own personal edge.

The BCME has become less the focus of my study today and more of the vehicle and methid I use to create my theatrical dance experiences. My theatrical dance experiences andwich dance between emotional concepts and lyrics in a song (or a poem, or a monologue). Dance is used as the embodiment of what is being expressed in the lyrics of the song as well as the overall emotional concept the theatrical dance experience is focused on.

More recently I have also begun using minimalist set pieces as playgrounds for me to further abstract and embody the emotional experiences I am focused on communicating.

My choreography is about dynamic expression of energy shooting from my limbs and radiating from my physical core as well as the the center of who I am as a person. The physical and the conceptual exist in partnership and service of each other. I also use theatrical staging of emotional concepts and movement direction (creating a gestural language that expresses the emotional concept).

My work is acknowledgement and expression of the experiences of Af

Paula Mann | 2019

Language is not my first language.

I love this form and this process, and I relish my lifetime commitment to it. However, even after decades of writing, speaking and teaching, I still feel limited by the written word. Writing is not natural for me. Movement is my natural voice. If I could speak directly using my voice, I could convey that passion. That said, I am attempting to write to you as I speak, McKnight panelists, in a spontaneous voice.

What movement means to me:

Through the act of moving (dancing) I can access the inner most part of myself. This has come through years of training, practice and observation of my practice.
My innate movement hangs in a balance between what is expressed and what is withheld, a voluntary dialog between narrative and abstraction. I feel physical intensity (desire) a forceful drive that comes out through my movement, transferring abstract concepts into emotions It’s an attempt to reconcile my observation of the world with my own inner terrain, the story beneath the story. It’s a hope to unearth the daily hidden and often difficult thoughts, dreams and desires of experience, and bring them clearly into the light of day. An example of this is a new short work in progress “The End Of Something, Or Is It The Beginning, I Can’t Tell” (see work sample) about experiencing a deep realization of my own mortality and cycles of endings/beginnings.

On projected imagery

Though I’ve been using projected media imagery since the 1990’s, I still marvel at its complexity and power. Over time I’ve gained appreciation for the power of simplicity and the need for restraint. Clarifying intention sharpens the communicative power of the combination. Clear and specific images, representational and abstract, can supply a wealth of insight, content and context. These images open a door allowing access for audiences unfamiliar with dance to understand and allow those who are to pull rich and deep nuance and meaning.
In my work, projected imagery changes energy and space functioning as backdrop, (I Love Tomorrow 2009, Rules Of The Crowd 2015) texture, character, light source, and augmented reality when projected onto sets and moving bodies (Invisible 2018). The challenges, both artistically and technically, continue to draw me in. Some works are devised with heavier projected elements than others. The imagery is sometimes used to create a full immersive environment (Here & After 2012). At other times, it serves as an accent or a moment. I don’t think the actual amount of media should matter per se, the purpose of the images to the work is paramount. Examples of these included in work samples.
I’m on the lookout for new ways to use media-image-based technology and interactivity without losing the power of live performance. I continue to question how movement and media intermingle, shining light on cultural juxtapositions. I am constantly attempting to understand the experience of live performance and how it affects our perceptions of time. Embracing the emergence of immersive theater, I hope to implement techniques to enhance the sense of presence and community within audiences.
For me the power of collaborative process is amalgamation and pluralism; I want to reach deeper into myself and I want to reach a broader audience.

On community…...or who gets to dance?

My work has taken me into diverse communities, which has strengthened my resolve, and my ability to work with those with varying amounts of physical training and/or some specialized skill. In my next work I’ll be merging dancers and vocalists. 6 vocalists and 6 trained movers. The vocalists are members of One Voice Mixed Chorus --Minnesota's own - LGBT and straight allies community chorus.
Emotional catharsis is a real need; particularly at this moment in our national narrative. The beneficial effect of learning movement on the brain is well established. I have found that my movement is very well suited to a wide range of abilities. I don’t believe (an often-unacknowledged mindset in the dance community) that working with a wide range of skills means I must give up choreographic rigor.
As we age, should we stop dancing? And if not, would anyone want to watch.? This was the focus of my last evening-length work INVISIBLE (2018). INVISIBLE focused on a specific community, women who have danced their whole lives and continue to as they age. The cast is ten women, ages 25-76. Diversity of age, race, cultural identification and life experience was essential in this work, creating an environment of women working together, all with unique strengths, uniting with a common purpose. I tried to speak to the experience of women ageing in America and address the fallout of our changing roles and perceptions of our value. How they are tied to the loss of beauty and sex-appeal? Who are we when longer meet these standards?

I am mid-career choreographer. I have survived long enough to have experienced many cycles in my work. I started making work at age 14, about a week after I began studying dancing. During the 1970’s-1980’s I was part of the downtown dance scene in New York City. I’m part post-modernist and part expressionist, both influences have an alternating weight within me. I have developed, honed and crafted a unique movement style over the last 30 years in Minneapolis (and 10 years in New York).

Since my last McKnight (2008) I created 7 evening length works: Invisible (2018), Pie Equals Square (2018) Rules Of The Crowd (2015) The One And The Many (2014), Here And After (2012) O’ The Humanity (2011), I Love Tomorrow (2009- presented at New York Live Arts--NYC). I feel more courageous about presenting my point of view and have a renewed vision on how to say it. I think my movement has become more focused, and I’m clearer about what it is communicating. I have developed the discipline to stay with an idea and flesh it out and letting go or changing course when needed. I have greater perspective on the core of what I am saying (the overview) earlier in the process. I’m more open to and see the value in following a "wild card" idea intended to shake up the existing hierarchy. I still value the experimental process.

Ashwini Ramaswamy | 2019

I come from a family of female dancers/dancemakers, and the majority of my life has been spent steeped in the south Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. For 30 years I have fully given myself to this art form that I find continually challenging, internally thrilling, and a pure joy to perform. Bharatanatyam has innate cultural, social, religious, and historical roots; these roots do not bind, but rather deepen, the possibilities to create resonance and wonder within both artist and viewer.

Ranee Ramaswamy (my mother), Aparna Ramaswamy (my sister) and I each uniquely carry forward a tradition that has weathered thousands of years and remains relevant today. As part of this matriarchy, I am committed to maintaining certain traditions embedded within Bharatanatyam while creating my own personal vision of women’s representation in performance.

The strength of my work begins with decades of dance training. My teachers - my mother, sister and the legendary Smt. Alarmel Valli of Chennai, India – have spent countless hours with me in the studio to uphold the balance between technical rigor, physicality, grace, and expressive authenticity that is the hallmark of our form of Bharatanatyam. These attributes will always exist in my generative work. The years of practice and study has undeniably influenced my approach, which uses the Bharatanatyam form as a conduit to explore the multifaceted interrelation between traditional culture and its contemporary manifestations. The meticulous nature of my training has given me an extremely strong foundation upon which to build my own structures.

Like a phantom limb, my Indian ancestry lingers with me, informing my artistic work and daily interactions; my upbringing in both India and the U.S. has encouraged an aesthetic perspective with a hybrid internal compass. I believe in a continuum between what we perceive as real/tangible and what we accept as unknown/unknowable; this gravitation between the human, the natural, and the metaphysical—forever engaged in sacred movement—is a focal point in my work. Onstage, I reference ancient myths, global literature and poetry, and the mixed media contemporary culture I have absorbed for 35+ years, drawing from myriad influences to express a personal identity that has a collective resonance.

I gravitate towards concepts that have an underlying duality, and are potent with imagistic possibilities. My 2016 work, 'Nocturne,' explores night from the perspective of the natural, human, and spiritual worlds. Ancient belief in India sees the moon as the controller of the water, circulating through the universe, sustaining all living creatures. Nighttime represents the unknown, and can be a time to reconsider the misunderstood. I was inspired by movements of nocturnal plants and animals, and observed Indian rituals to recall the auspicious hours between midnight and sunrise.

Evoking mythography and ancestry, my current work, 'Let the Crows Come,' depicts crows as messengers for the living and guides for the departed. Myth and legend have painted crows as both harbingers of doom and divine messengers. Crows are often seen as ominous scavengers; rather, they are extremely intelligent and communal. Seeing a parallel between this misinterpretation and the perception of marginalized groups worldwide, the myth of the crow became a focal point for further exploration—and the significance of crows across culture, history, and geography emerged.

'Let the Crows Come' marks a major choreographic departure/risk, which is to create work on dancers based in completely different styles, with live music by three composers. In addition to creating a Bharatanatyam solo for myself, I am creating solos for two dancers of different disciplines and cultural backgrounds—using Bharatanatyam as the starting point—a big creative leap that will expand my abilities as a dancemaker. A solo for Alanna Morris-Van Tassel will use the intricate language of Bharatanatyam gesture and translate the hand movements onto the entire body. A solo for Berit Ahlgren uses a slow-motion recording of the Bharatanatyam movements played in reverse as the starting point for movement possibilities. Each section recalls the Bharatanatyam solo, evoking a memory that has a shared origin but is remembered differently from person to person.

During a creative residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC, I was interviewed by freelance journalist Mallika Rao (The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Yorker). Her words capture the essence of this project - “ 'Let the Crows Come' is a piece of experimental Bharatanatyam that feels more of a kind with conceptual pop art than anything ‘fusion’ related. Ashwini is innovative not for the sake of trendiness but out of a sincere (even desperate) curiosity about what the art form can do.”

I believe that pushing myself to innovate with choreographic methods will open new avenues to create work for non-Bharatanatyam dancers and companies. When I read about or watch performances of companies that commission guest choreographers, I see an opportunity that is rarely filled by a classical Indian choreographer. This is one way I can continue to distinguish myself as an innovator and show the vast creative potential of culturally rooted art that has evolved over thousands of years.

My 2012 McKnight Fellowship was in the category of dancer/performer, and now I have established firm roots as a choreographer. Since my last fellowship, my career has experienced many milestones: examples include national and international tours of 'Nocturne'; a commission by The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s renowned Liquid Music Series; National Dance Project Production, Touring, Community Engagement, and Production Residency funding for 'Let the Crows Come,' which will tour nationally after its premiere in 2019; an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, which allows advanced artistic or professional development; and residencies at respected organizations like the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron.

I aim to create a safe space for audiences to experience an unfamiliar culture and decode its mystery, and grasp their individual place as products of history and the present moment. After giving a recent public talk, I received this message from a young attendee:

“Thank you for leading the way dance wise into what being multi-racial or multi-cultural is like. It will mean a lot to young people going through some of the same things you have, like me!”

As a dance artist working within a culturally specific art form, it is my responsibility to humanize immigrants and demystify the ‘other’ through performance, outreach, and education. My work invites questions of how to preserve the inherited while evolving in new circumstances and places—a universal push and pull between tradition and modernity that is central to the American experience.

Deja Stowers | 2018

“I dance not to entertain but to help people better understand each other. Because through dance I have experienced the wordless joy of freedom, I seek it more fully now for my people and for all people everywhere” - Pearl Primus


I am liberated by ancestral dance. My art is rooted in my history and fed by the present. I am an artist who believes dance is a form of meditation or a means to elevate. I use choreography as a rites of passage; we are changed by the time we spend with the movement. I am interested in how dance can return to its most traditional roots. A non presentational model, used for ritual and healing.

My first encounter with dance was when I was three years old in the Frogtown community drill team named “African Perfection”. I grew up knowing who I was and where I fit in the equation of dance. I was the chunky little girl all the grown ups would ask to dance at family functions. I never seen myself as a dancer though, because I seen everyone dance. I didn't feel I was special, just thought I was immersed/a part of something much bigger. That feeling became elusive while attending arts high school. It was when I was taken under the wing of Kenna Cottman and her traditional west African dance company I felt saturated again. I knew I was of African decent, but putting traditional movement in my body activated a vocabulary that was so familiar. I began to choreograph solo work while working with Pramila Vasudevan, and exploring social justice art with Penumbra Theatre. I started to incorporating “Theater of the Oppressed” techniques (forum and image theater) into my dance generation process. I performed all over the Twin cities at places like Intermedia Arts, Southern Theater, and even produced a show a Patrick’s cabaret featuring most of my choreographed works.

I continued to delve into traditional African movement by taking classes from masters from all over West Africa. I learned the distinct line between choreographed ballet style and traditional African dance. In 2012, I travelled to Senegal to study traditional senegalese dance and ceremony. While attending these ceremonies, there was no distinct line between who was a “dancer” and who was solely an attendee. This made me change my perspective of dance. Rebelling against dance being some sort of elite occupation that separated us from civilians. But but a tool that unifies us.

After a short time studying dance at Howard University, I realized my non performative view was not reflected of what I saw on stage or how people talked about dance. I was rejected by the dance community because of my size and my unconventional approach to dance. When I started my dance company “BLAQ” in 2016, I was intentional about selecting dancers from whatever “skill level” and body type. I exist in community with other Black artists and activists. We mobilize and create around our queerness, our deafness and hearing status, our degree of liberation. It is important to me that the dancers of BLAQ are reflective of my community, and not just ‘dancers’. My movements are based in traditional West African and Black social dance. Presenting raw and unfiltered Black creative’s stories is important, because I believe that’s where true change and understanding lies. BLAQ’s saying is “be yourself at all times”, which is why we create observance as opposed to performance. I believe that when you begin to “perform” real life experiences, they are no longer true to you. That experience has somehow been manipulated in a way to make it palatable to others, which shouldn’t be the case when it comes to expressing our truth. The goal of observance is to LIVE that experience on stage and the audience is there to OBSERVE something they would not have seen otherwise.

I am actively exploring how to access dance holistically. I began incorporating ASL into my work 5 years ago because of a personal connection through the arts. Throughout my life, I have never seen a Deaf person present or represented in events that directly affect the Black community, though my personal experiences and studies have opened my eyes to the existence of the Black Deaf community. My work through movement uses art to unlock possibilities to raise more awareness. My social change work through dance can result in liberation, give rise to more unity, and create environments that are accessible to more. I am seeking ways to make my art and other important conversations accessible to the Deaf.

In July of 2017, I created a piece titled ‘Taneber/BLAQ Wall Street’. I rebelled against traditional choreography, transforming a proscenium stage into a Taneber (traditional Senegalese dance circle); with local Black vendors, food, ASL interpreters, and DJs. People got up from their seats to join in. BLAQ could be observed dancing amongst the babies, friends, strangers and elders. Choreographing dance that pays homage to my ancestry and ritual, redefines the expectations set upon both the artist and observer. My choreography is reliant upon the innate intuition of the artist to explore their environment and their internal journeys; observers are encouraged to do the same. I’m dedicated to transforming spaces in this way, using dance as embodied storytelling.

My goals include solidifying a choreographic process that reinforces ritual and healing for myself, my collaborators, and my community. These are some of the ways that art serves a larger purpose relating to Blackness. I value collaboration with other artists, of various genres who are driven to create an alternative to performative methods of presentation/storytelling.

I’d live to develop my methods to the point where Im sharing and learning from others around the country and globally. I see myself attending festivals and presenting as well as taking workshops and listening to elders. My new thinking and new experiences lead to generation of ideas for new ways of observance and discussion around traditions. Healing and liberation are the desired goal with our bodies as the means and the movement the tools.

Deborah Jinza Thayer | 2019

I bring all of who I am into expression when I choreograph – my genetics, experience, and ways of perceiving. I spent my first seven itinerant years in Burma and Japan (my mother’s ancestral home); my first language was Japanese. Although caucasoid in appearance, genetically and experientially, I am a hybrid of both cultures. I spent the next ten years in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Friends School. My self-directed open classroom education blurred the distinction between work and play and any subject matter became an excuse to discover my world (I remember growing crawfish in a child’s inflatable pool and recording the results). My interest in science led me to Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med student where, strangely enough, I discovered dance. I returned to New York City to study dance and there began my quest in the art and science of perception through choreography.

My philosophical basis in Buddhism believes that an individual’s inner life is reflected in the environment; hence, my fascination with creating structured environments as a way to probe one’s internal world. We all have perceptual frameworks, such as biases and assumptions, that limit or filter how we interface with the world. In my work, I use large abstract props to create altered metaphorical spaces that the dancers must navigate in the same way that we, as individuals are limited or guided by our own mental models. By rendering these models visible and concrete on stage, my hope is to inspire awareness of, and reflection on, how we interpret and express being in the world. I call my choreographic work, “Movement Architecture.”

From a choreographic perspective, instead of pulling the viewer out of oneself with virtuosic athleticism, my work draws the viewer into a meditative state evoked by the scenic “atmosphere” and sustained or intensified through movement. Sometimes I pull the viewer down the rabbit hole and enter a skewed reality. Sometimes I create a physical mantra and through repetition, I cycle the viewer into a different kind of focusing. In "Antarctica" (video sample #2), I manipulate both environment and movement to provoke meditative states. Using the frozen landscape with the sense of glacial time as inspiration, it evokes a liminal state between life and death -- of flow and stillness.

I previously received the McKnight Fellowship in 2004. Since 2009, I have created dance installations which allow the audience to be immersed inside of a structured environment -- to be part of a fabricated world, not just seated outside watching. In addition, I have become increasingly aware of the power of women and have used an all female cast for the past fifteen years. I am interested in women’s bodies as the site of both political and personal contest.

"Ode to Dolly, the sheep, inter alia" (see video sample #3) is a dance installation about artificial reproduction. It reflects the human tendency to create things in the likeness of ourselves and becoming all tangled up and confused in the process. The birthing of offspring once claimed to be “female” territory is now confronted with cloning and genetic manipulation becoming the more seductive and selective means of reproduction. And when are women reduced to their reproductive capacities and become just like Dolly, the sheep?

Most recently, my work has gravitated toward social and cultural conflict. Heterosexual male dominated culture can be seen as a result of lack of female empowerment and the historical censoring of the female voice and sexuality. As an antidote, "All Hail the Queen" (video sample #1) celebrates the voice and the vagina. The vocal apparatus and pelvic floor show anatomical similarities — lips/vulva, throat/vagina, glottis/cervix—that suffer from cultural restrictions. In this work, I used somatic practices to unearth movement, sounds, and emotional states generated by these organs and to use these as an underpinning for subsequent choreography. AHTQ works to remove the term vagina from our negative cultural associations — unwholesome, dirty, and pornographic. Nor does the vagina need to be cleaned or sanitized. It is a self-cleaning oven. Not only evolutionary practical but smart.

Just revealing the truths of female anatomy can be a revolutionary act. Recent research has shown that the organization of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in the sexual organs is wired differently in females and males. The ANS regulates all involuntary processes of the body — heart rate, breathing, etc. — and the sexual neural network sends signals back and forth from the vagina to the brain to reveal a profound, reciprocal communication highway.  Historically, the female psyche and the vagina have been associated with hysteria, or other types of “female disorders.”  On the contrary, healthy sexuality releases oxytocin, dopamine, opioids/endorphins from the vagina and imbue the female brain to feel a sense of power, creativity, and connection (see text from "Vagina Cheerleading," video sample #1). A healthy vagina is a healthy brain.

In a scene from "Menses" (video sample #1), the four dancers vocalize “quim” while scrubbing their dresses. Quim, an eighteenth century slang term for vagina is literally plucked up from the past, scrubbed off, and re-purposed into an oceanic sea of red. The scene strives to shift the perception of the dreaded menstrual cycle to one of a beautiful cleansing ritual. AHTQ is an effort to re-claim the narrative of the vagina and our bodies as both sacred and powerful.

By contributing another women’s voice about women’s bodies into the overall cultural discourse, my belief is that this can help shift the societal perception of women. My intention is to develop original and evocative work that creates an imaginative space in the hope of transforming ourselves in our worlds.