Listen: National Center for Choreography - Akron Releases Series Two of HOW PEOPLE MOVE PEOPLE

The National Center for Choreography - Akron has released Series Two of How People Move People, a podcast about the impact that words, art, stories, and lives have on each other. This four-part audio series features six-episode arcs, each crafted by a lead researcher. Listeners discover how the lives and stories of others impact artistic journeys - the choreography of cultural influence. Series Two, titled "Trace Elements", is hosted by cultural critic Jose Solís and chronicles the legacy and impact of those lost to and living with HIV/AIDS.

Listen below!

In Series Two Jose Solís (Madrid, Spain), a Hounduran culture writer and researcher, travels through the Americas and Spain exploring the impact left by artists both dead and living who were impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic that continues today. Interviews for Series Two feature dance artists, writers, activists, and cultural critics including Jack Ferver, Phil Chan, Graham Lustig, José Zambrano, Aimar Pérez Galí, Rosalynde LeBlanc, Nandayure Harley, and Juan Michael Porter II. For Series Two, stories are honored in first language, with four episodes in English and three in Spanish.

Solís, a culture and theater critic, is the founder of BIPOC Critics Lab, a training program for the cultural critics of the future hosted by The Public Theater and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Detailed bio below.

Solís shared: "At a time when the rights of LGBTQI+ people all over the world are being threatened, it was my immense privilege to help preserve and share the stories of trailblazers, activists that have remained anonymous, and dance legends whose work will never be forgotten and putting them in dialogue with brilliant working artists who keep making a difference all over the world."

How People Move People is the latest example of NCCAkron's commitment to artist-led storytelling. In 2021, NCCAkron established the digital publishing umbrella NCCMedia, an artist-centered and artist-driven platform for telling stories and elevating voices of dance artists and genres historically left out of the codified dance canon. The NCCMedia podcast network, including Inside the Dancer's Studio, is critical in building the bridge between 20th-century working knowledge and 21st-century arts ecosystem- reflecting on recorded history, documenting untold stories, and creating a humanities archive for future dance audiences, students, and scholars.

Series One of How People Move People is hosted by Cara Hagan (New York, NY), a choreographer, professor, and mother. This first podcast series, titled "Back and Forth," is a love letter to Black girlhood through the lens of pop culture. In each episode the voices of Black women reveal how the media shaped their lives, including Michele Byrd-McPhee, Tiffany Christian, Rayna Christian, Dr. Lisa Covington, Dr. DaMaris B. Hill, Dr. Julie Johnson, and Deidre Lang. All six episodes of Series One are available now. Liner notes for Series One are here.

Series Three and Four will be released in late 2023 and early 2024.

NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke elaborates, "In addition to supporting the development of new dance works, NCCAkron strives to advocate for the art form and the creative process as a central part of U.S. culture. With the dearth of arts journalism, we seek new ways of telling dance stories, and artists have continued to inform and shape our operating ethos towards these goals."

Spurred by questions of how the visual, time-based art form of dance can translate to other publication forms, NCCAkron formed an Artist Editorial Council from program alums to map out the editorial themes and guide the Lead Researcher selection.

How People Move People is produced by Jennifer Edwards, with engineering by James Sleeman, transcription by Arushi Singh, theme music by Ellis Rovin, and cover art by Micah Kraus. Spanish language episodes are produced by Silvana Cardell. New episodes are released Fridays on most streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

For more information and to listen to episodes, visit nccakron.org/podcasts.

About NCCAkron

The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron supports the research and development of new work in dance by exploring the full potential of the creative process. In addition to offering studio and technical residencies to make new work, activities focus on catalyzing dialogue and experimentation; creating proximity among artists and dance thinkers; and aggregating resources around dance making. For more information, visit nccakron.org.

The establishment and general operation of NCCAkron are made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

About the host of How People Move People (S1) - "Back and Forth"

Cara Hagan (Union City, NJ) is a mover, maker, writer, curator, champion of just communities, and a dreamer. She believes in the power of art to upend the laws of time and physics, a necessary occurrence in pursuit of liberation. In her work, no object or outcome is sacred; but the ritual to get there is. Hagan's adventures take place as live performance, on screen, as installation, on the page, and in collaboration with others.

Hagan and her work have traveled to the Performática Festival (Cholula, Mexico), the Conference on Geopoetics (Edinburgh, Scotland), the Loikka Dance Film Festival (Helsinki, Finland), the Taos Poetry Festival (Taos, NM), and the Dance on Camera Festival (New York, NY). Extended residencies have taken place at Thirak India (Jaipur, India), PLAYA (Summer Lake, OR), Roehampton University (London, England), the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of North Carolina, School of the Arts.

Cara is grateful to have received financial support from various organizations and institutions, including the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron, the Dance Films Association, the Filmed in NC Fund, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Forsyth County Arts Council, the Appalachian State University Research Council, the Watauga County Arts Council, and Betty's Daughter Arts.

Hagan is editor and contributor to the anthology Practicing Yoga as Resistance: Voices of Color in Search of Freedom and author of Screendance from Film to Festival: Celebration and Curatorial Practice and a forthcoming new book titled Ritual Activism. Cara joined the faculty of The New School in 2022 as Associate Professor and Program Director for the MFA in Contemporary Theatre Performance. carahagan.net

About the host of How People Move People (S2) - "Trace Elements"

Jose Solís (Madrid, Spain) began his career as a critic at age 16 when he launched a film review website in Honduras, his home country. He began writing about theatre while attending college in Costa Rica, and upon moving to NYC in 2012 focused mostly on the stage. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post, American Theatre, TDF Stages, The National Catholic Reporter, Encore Monthly, Backstage, Salon, Rotten Tomatoes, 3Views, and America Magazine. He created the web series/podcast Token Theatre Friends.

In 2020 he was selected as the Floria Lasky Visiting Artist at Hunter College where he hosted the Wed@One series. The same year he founded the BIPOC Critics Lab, a training program for the cultural critics of the future. The second and third installments of the Lab were hosted by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2021, he was named one of the Kennedy Center's Next 50, "leaders and organizations that, through sustained excellence of artistic, educational, athletic, or multi-disciplinary work, are lighting the way forward."

He is currently based in Madrid, Spain, where he's completing a master's program in Cultural Criticism and Theory at the Universidad Carlos III.

Photo credits: Jose Solís (photo by Joseph Hernandez); podcast cover for How People Move People: Trace Elements (art by Micah Kraus).

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