The National Center For Choreography - Akron Announces Spring Season Of Dancing Conversations Events

The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron (NCCAkron) announces its spring 2021 season of Dancing Conversations. These free public events locate dance among broader topics and offer an opportunity to demonstrate the aesthetic range within the dance field.

Past Dancing Conversations events have covered topics such as dance on camera (held at the Akron Public Library-Main Branch), nature as creative collaborator (held at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Conservancy), dance's role in cultural diplomacy (held at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland), and the intersection of dance and emerging technology (held at the Akron Art Museum).

Dancing Conversations will take place on the third Thursdays of April, May, and June at 7pm Eastern. All conversations will be virtual and open to the public, and registration is open now at http://bit.ly/NCCAkronDCRSVP.

NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke says: "Dancing Conversations invite audiences to see how dance can be about processing the world beyond the studio and stage. Dancing Conversations reveal how these topics can motivate the creation of art work or connect people across genres."

On Thursday, April 15, choreographer John Heginbotham (New York, NY) and violinist and composer Colin Jacobsen (New York, NY) will be the guest speakers. Heginbotham, an acclaimed contemporary and Broadway choreographer, is a NCCAkron Research Residency artist, and also had a Satellite Residency with NCCAkron during COVID. That Satellite Residency supported Heginbotham's 24 Caprices, a project built around the work of composer Nicolò Paganini with Jacobsen - who The New York Times calls "born to the instrument and its sweet, lyrical possibilities" - as a collaborator. Heginbotham and Jacobsen will speak not only about this project but more broadly about the relationship of dance and music.

On Thursday, May 20, Liz Lerman (Tempe, AZ) and her collaborators will discuss the demonization of women, and the invisibility of women as they age. Lerman is currently developing a work around these topics called Wicked Bodies with support from an NCCAkron Satellite Residency. Her four-decade career has involved personal story, public participation, and diverse collaborators including shipbuilders, physicists, construction workers, and cancer researchers. She is credited as ""the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art" (The Washington Post).

On Thursday, June 17, the artists of NCCAkron's Dancing Lab: BLKmenMoves and Satellite Residency artist Iquail Shaheed (Philadelphia, PA) will discuss their experiences working as Black male-identified choreographers in relatively isolated creative communities. The BLKmenMoves artists - Jean Appolon​ (Boston, MA); ​Kevin Lee-Y Green​ (Wilmington, NC); ​Dominic Moore-Dunson​ (Akron, OH); ​with Charles O. Anderson (Austin, TX), as the program's facilitator and artist mentor - have been convening virtually for the past year. Their conversation will address the plurality of Black, male identities; decolonized metrics of success; and embodied resistance to monolithic ideas of 'Black Dance.'

The schedule for this season of talks aligns with the 3rd Thursday initiative created by Downtown Akron Partnership, a monthly event that introduces Akronites and visitors to independent destinations and activities throughout the Downtown neighborhood and online.