The National Center For Choreography-Akron Will Host MAKING MOVES: BOSTON

The National Center for Choreography-Akron (NCCAkron) will present Making Moves: Boston on Sunday, May 3 at Jean Appolon Expressions Dance Center. This free event brings together arts leaders from across New England and the U.S. to discuss the often invisible labor and creative processes behind arts administration. Through case studies and storytelling, the conversation will explore adaptive thinking and creative administrative practices from a New England perspective and beyond.

Speakers will include Jean Appolon (Boston, MA), Christy Bolingbroke (Akron, OH), Connie C. Chin (Cambridge, MA), Shoni Currier (Lewiston, ME), Peter DiMuro (Boston, MA), Meg McGrath (Boston, MA), and Cheri Opperman (Somerville, MA).

NCCAkron is one of only two national centers for choreography in the U.S., a research and development hub for dance. NCCAkron is currently celebrating 10 years of serving as a connector and cultural matchmaker for those looking to experiment with dance. This Boston event is part of a 2026 national tour with previous events in Miami, FL; Memphis, TN; and Houston, TX.

These national Making Moves events continue the conversation set forth by Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography, a 2024 book published by The University of Akron Press as part of the NCCAkron Series in Dance. Edited by artist/cultural strategist Tonya Lockyer (Suquamish, WA) this book features essays from and interviews with 30 artists and advocates from the dance and performing arts worlds, sharing first-hand stories of creative administration in action through case studies, interviews, life tools, and experiments.

Event Details

Making Moves: Boston
Sunday, May 3, 7:30-8:30pm
Jean Appolon Expressions Dance Center
2153 Washington St, Boston, MA 02119

FREE with RSVP: nccakron.org/event-details/making-moves-boston

Making Moves: Boston Speakers

Jean Appolon, Founder & Artistic Director, Jean Appolon Expressions

Christy Bolingbroke, Executive/Artistic Director of NCCAkron and Artists on Creative Administration (AOCA) contributor

Connie C. Chin, Chief Executive Officer, Global Arts Live

Shoni Currier, Director of the Bates Dance Festival

Peter DiMuro, The Dance Complex/Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion

Meg McGrath, Executive Director, Jean Appolon Expressions

Cheri Opperman, Senior Grants Manager, Dance, New England Foundation for Arts

Copies of the Artists on Creative Administration will be available for purchase at the event.

"Since publishing Artists on Creative Administration, the feedback tells us we've unlocked a way to highlight the often invisible labor of being an artist in this country. In addition to helping arts workers feel seen, facilitating creative admin research over the past six years has proven what we've always known: dance is a way of being and seeing the world. Everything is choreography. I am excited to continue this conversation in Boston and for these area practitioners to share their experience," shares Christy Bolingbroke, NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director.

What is creative administration? The majority of contributing authors for Artists on Creative Administration are alumni from NCCAkron's acclaimed Creative Administrative Research (CAR) program intentionally designed to build a bridge between 20th century working knowledge and the 21st century arts ecosystem. Based on the premise there is no one way to make art, so there is more than one way to manage business and administration, the CAR program interrogates typical "best practices" to imagine other ways forward with artistic ethos at the center of administrative thinking.

In 2020, The University of Akron Press and NCCAkron established the NCCAkron Series in Dance. Bolingbroke was named series editor. In 2021, NCCAkron also established a digital publishing umbrella NCCMedia, an artist-centered and artist-driven platform for telling stories and elevating the voices of dance artists and genres historically left out of the codified dance canon. Whether digital media or in print, this new approach to arts publishing and advocating for the artform exemplifies NCCAkron's commitment to artist-led storytelling and systems thinking - reflecting on recorded history, documenting untold stories, and creating a humanities archive for future dance audiences, students, and scholars. Artists on Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography (2024) is the second book in the NCCAkron Series in Dance. The first book in the series, Shifting Cultural Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance (Hope Mohr), was published in 2021. NCCMedia podcasting includes short-form interviews Inside the Dancer's Studio (Seasons 1-6) and long-form research series How People Move People (Series 1-4).