CHOREOGRAPHER ANNOUNCEMENT:
Eboné Camille Amos (MFA Florida State University) is a performer, choreographer and educator from Memphis, TN. Her work has been performed nationally and internationally including the COCO Festival in Port au Prince, Trinidad and the Jacksonville Dance Theatre in Jacksonville, FL. Eboné is currently an Assistant Professor of African American Studies in the Theatre and Dance Dept. at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. Here, she continues her interdisciplinary approach to her research, choreography and pedagogy; teaching African American history and culture through the visual and performing arts. Most recently, Eboné was awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in Dance: Choreography by the TN Arts Commission. Her most recent project, an interdisciplinary solo entitled Girl, Gurrl, GWORL: iterations of freedom examines the inaccuracies of the black female “self” through the lens of historic tropes and was performed at work in progress showing at Oz Arts in Nashville, TN. The piece she will revisit for The Cohort 2024 – Welcome to Soulsville – celebrates the music, dances and soul stirrers of the 1950s and 60s. @ecainyoface
Maurice Watson is a choreographer, dancer, and assistant professor within the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Mr. Watson has successfully danced and performed with companies such as Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Disney, Jazz Antiqua, Long Beach Ballet, and Holland America Cruise Line. He is an engaging and inspiring teacher who has taught at numerous universities, summer programs, and dance seminars throughout the United States, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The piece he will be restaging for The Cohort 2024 – Chasing the (1) = One – explores individuality and artistic expression in one’s social community. @mistireece
CALL FOR CHOREOGRAPHER INTEREST:
Rhythmically Speaking is a Twin Cities-based dance company with a mission to spark vibrancy and connectedness through jazz and American social dance ideas, a 15-year history and a national reputation for excellence in jazz. Every Summer, we produce a stage show – The Cohort – featuring concert dance works by local and visiting artists meant to demonstrate the width and breadth of what ‘jazz’ in dance can look and feel like, embody and communicate, and we want to get to know dance artists who may be interested in working with us on this program.
Eligibility: Artists 21 and older at any point in their careers who are actively creating concert dance work in jazz and/ or American social dance ideas (ex: tap and hip-hop styles) are welcomed to submit.
To Submit: Fill out this CALL FOR CHOREOGRAPHER INTEREST form, which will ask for contact info, a bio, a short artist statement and video samples of stage works.
Then What?: Submissions will be collected into an ongoing record of people and their works that may be a good fit for us to present as a part of future Summer Cohort productions (and/ or maybe even other projects we have not yet even imagined!). Submissions received by 12/1/23 are eligible to be considered for programming on The Cohort 2024, which will run August 15-17, 2024 at a TBD Twin Cities theater. Programming decisions for this show will be made by 12/22/23.
Please visit this INFORMATION SHEET for full details, and read on to find out more about this past year’s program. Thank you for your interest!
THE COHORT 2023: STAGE & SCREEN
DETAILS:
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- Where: The Southern Theater – 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55454
- When:
- Stage – August 17 @ 7:30pm
- Stage – August 18 @ 7:30pm (talk-back following show)
- Stage – August 19 @ 2pm (pay as you are)
- Screen – August 19 @ 4pm (including Q&A, warning: this event includes a film with mature content)
- Stage – August 19 @ 7:30pm
BUY TICKETS HERE!
Note: All ticket holders for any of our Stage shows can present their ticket for that and get into the Screen event FREE!
AND!: Screen event filmmaker Taylor Madgett will be in town for the event and will be teaching a class exploring techniques in Hip-hop, House and Afro dance styles on Friday August 18 from 5-6pm – class is $13.00 (paid there via cash or Venmo), and all class attendees are welcomed to attend the Screen event for FREE as well!
THE PROGRAM:
The Cohort 2023 features new and revisited stage works by local artist Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone and visiting artists Cara Hagan (NYC) and Carlos R.A. Jones (Buffalo, NY), as well as RS Artistic and Executive Director Erinn Liebhard, and a program of screen works curated and presented in collaboration with Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (Boulder, CO). Learn more about the program and this year’s artists below!
The Cohort program is built to support and share different perspectives on and via the vibrancy of jazz and American social dance ideas by MN-local and visiting artists alike through both stage and screen works. Following ten years of annually presenting dance works by eight to nine mostly-local artists and their varied casts of performers each Summer, in 2019 we shifted to provide more in-depth support to fewer artists creating longer works, and a company of dancers to perform them. This new vision of the RS annual Summer production continues support of new work by local choreographers while providing opportunities for artists based outside of Minnesota to show their work here. In 2022, to support the flood of new creation in screendance prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and incentivize jazz-inspired artists to create in this medium, we began working with curating partner Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (CO) and presenting partners the Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop and the Twin Cities Film Festival to develop a dance film component of the program. In 2023, we are excited to once again support and present works for both the stage and the screen, the later in continued collaboration with Sans Souci and Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop (who will present a Boulder showing of the screen program)!
COLLABORATORS:
SPONSORS & FUNDERS:
This show is made possible in-part through appropriations from the Minnesota State Legislature.
STAGE – Artists & Works:
Cara Hagan (Visiting Artist – New York City, NY)
Cara Hagan’s work exists at the intersections of movement, digital space, words, contemplative practice, and community. Hagan’s work has been presented at numerous events including recent appearances at Performatica in Cholula, Mexico, the Conference on Geopoetics in Edinburgh, Scotland, Roehampton University in London, The Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center in New York City, The Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, NC and right here in Minnesota at the DanceBARN Festival! Hagan is an Associate Professor and Program Director of the MFA in Contemporary Theatre Performance at The New School in New York City. carahagan.net/ @carahagan_art
In Hagan’s new piece SKIDD-ID-A-BOP, a group of movers come together to listen deeply and join forces in rhythm-making as a celebration of the human body and joyful collective action.
Carlos Jones (Visiting Artist – Buffalo, NY)
Carlos R. A. Jones is professor of musical theater and dance, coordinator of Africana Studies, and associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Buffalo State. He has also served on faculty at Chapman University, Loyola Marymount, UCLA and St. Cloud State University. His early career was in television, film, musical theater, and concert dance, where he worked with Broadway legend André De Shields, SNL veteran Ellen Cleghorn, and television icon Carol Burnett, among others. A few of his credits: Film/TV – The Drew Carey Show, The Nanny, Dance With Me, and Uptown Girls. Directing/Choreography – Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope, Camelot, Beehive and Hairspray. Concert Dance – Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Ensemble, Bethune Theaterdanse, Movement Source and his self-named, Carlos Jones and Company. He is a contributing author and co-editor of Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century. @thegroovydean
Jones’ work for the show, Groove: A Communal Love, invites everyone from dancer to observer to sit in the pocket of the music and ride the joy of feeling the funk.
Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone (Local – Twin Cities, MN)
Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone is a movement artist, educator, and stylist born and raised in Maquoketa, Iowa. Across all modes of creating, she strives to slow down perception of time in order to provide spacious opportunities for human to human connection and expanding self-awareness. Laura has a bachelor’s degree in dance and fashion studies at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and was a member of Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis 2016-2019. Laura received her MFA in Performance and Choreography from Smith College in 2022. She has a long-time collaborative relationship with Leila Awadallah and Emma Marlar in their creative trio Kelvin Wailey, is the founder and artistic director of Slo Dance Company, and has been an instructor at the Zenon Dance School, the Performing Institute of Minnesota, and St. Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts. As a freelance performer, Laura has been featured in several productions for John Mark Creative, ranging broadly from Sylvan Esso’s music video, PARAD(w/m)E, to performing on stage with Weird Al. lauraosterhaus.com/ @losterstone & @slodancecompany
Osterhaus Rosenstone’s new work for the show, what time, is an embodied exploration of how we define, track, and relate through time, asking questions such as how do we experience time as individuals/a collective, and how can we find agency and freedom within that?
Rhythmically Speaking Artistic and Executive Director Erinn Liebhard will also be sharing a work, a revisiting of Feist(meist)er, the piece she created for the first Cohort show, celebrating five years of this new format for our annual Summer show. Feist(meist)er is a lively romp exploring the cacophony of everyone in the room wanting to be the leader, and the harmony that can be found when that role gets shared.
We extend a warm thank you to all who submitted work for The Cohort 2023: Stage & Screen!
SCREEN – Artists & Works:
We are thrilled to once again be partnering with Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema to curate and present a selection of screen works as a part of The Cohort program (also known as SFF + RS Jazz Twin Cities)!. We extend a warm thank you to all who submitted through Sans Souci’s call for films! The following artists and works have been selected for this program:
Old Man at the Corner Store – Nadav Heyman
2023 / United States / 8 min
Directed by Nadav Heyman, Anabella Casanova
Produced by Cheryl Mann, Collin Del Cuore
Choreography by Nadav Heyman, Cheryl Mann
Dancing by Zoe Rawlings, Fen Del Cuore, Mher Khachatryan, Adrian Dela Rosa, Nadav Heyman, Donte Cooley
Executive Producer Sage Price, Anabella Casanova
An elderly man crosses paths with the neighborhood mischiefs.
Deconstructed – Alexis Robbins
2018 / United States / 4 min
Directed by Alexis Robbins
Choreography by Alexis Robbins
Featuring kamrDANCE
Dancing by Ginny Mottla, Alexis Robbins
Cinematography by Andrew Cashin
Assistant Director Leigh Schanfein
Assistant Camera by Aaron Chipley
Colorist Aaron Chipley
Deconstructed navigates tap rhythms with and sans shoes.
RadioBody – Erinn Liebhard/ Rhythmically Speaking
2021 / United States / 13 min
Directed by Erinn Liebhard
Produced by Erinn Liebhard
Choreography by Erinn Liebhard
Dancing by Nieya Amezquita, Doug Hooker, Amy Jones, Sara Karimi, Erinn Liebhard, Kelli Miles, Kathleen Pender, John Surber
Cinematography by Cully Gallagher
Musical Arrangement by Mike Lauer
Drone and Additional Camera by TJ Tronson
RadioBody is a collaboration with composer Mike Lauer exploring the jazz sensibilities and human toil and triumph embedded in the work of pioneering alt-electronic band Radiohead.
Oh, Excuse Me – Matthew Olwell
2022 / United States / 6 min
Directed by Matthew Olwell
Produced by Matthew Olwell
Choreography by Matthew Olwell and Emily Oleson
Dancing by Matthew Olwell and Emily Oleson
Two dancer-clowns explore eccentricity, compromise, agreement and disagreement, and the ever-human desire to be seen.
To: Everything I Love – Anthony Morigerato
2023 / United States / 13 min
Directed by Anthony Morigerato
Produced by Anthony Morigerato, Kurt Csolak
Choreography by Anthony Morigerato, Makayla Ryan
Dancing by Chantelle Good, John Manzari, Logan Evan Thomas
In the not so distant future, a young woman is falling in love. She enlists her personal A.I. system to decide if the relationship is worth it.
Tenets – Taylor Madgett
2023 / United States / 4 min
Directed by Taylor Madgett, Lawrence Beard
Produced by Taylor Madgett
Choreography by Taylor Madgett, Constance Harris
Dancing by Constance Harris, James Solis-Gutierrez, Becca Schaff, Taylor Madgett
This high energy piece features a fusion of Afro dance, House and Hip-Hop dance styles. Through an exploration of these dance forms, this piece seeks to establish American street dance as a direct extension of West African culture.
Regret to Inform You – Yusuf Nasir
2022 / United States / 12 min
Directed by Yusuf Nasir
Produced by Yusuf Nasir, Harvey Mason Jr.
Choreography by Yusuf Nasir
Dancing by Yusuf Nasir, Steve Geist
Why are our fantasies so far removed from our reality? Regret to inform You follows a difficult day in the life of a Performer on the verge of forced obscurity and retirement. After one too many rejections, he becomes undone, retreating into a black and white dance fantasy to combat the reality of a society that has no place for him.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
We acknowledge that our work occurs on the traditional lands of the Dakhóta Oyáte (Dakota People), and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. We also acknowledge that as a company built around jazz and American social dances, forms with African diasporic roots and branches, anti-racism and intersectional justice efforts must also be central in our work. We view bettering these efforts as an ongoing journey, and welcome you to read more about this at our Anti-Racism page.
Rhythmically Speaking 