“Dance makes me feel unapologetically alive. It makes me feel the fire of my material body and the orchestration of hundreds of organisms in a constant process of collaborative tuning,” says Brit Falcon in her artistic statement.
Falcon is set to do a five-day residency at CMU with the theatre department’s dance majors. Company members Shawn Brush, Nik Owens, Javier Padilla and Lena Engelstein will join Falcon in the residency, rehearsing their company work, teaching classes and assisting with rehearsals.
A new collaborative work will be created with CMU dancers from Feb. 2-6 and performed in the Feb. 16-18 concert New Horizons.
“My work is a collaboration between the perspectives of my dancers, an investigation of space, and an animation of sound/music visualization,” states Falcon in her artistic statement. “What I seek most of all is connection. My aesthetic has been described as fluid, athletic, fiery, rhythmically unexpected, grounded and mature.”
Brit Falcon is an interdisciplinary artist, bodyworker and educator. Her project based group, Falcon Dance, is currently a Gibney Presents Artist-in-Residence in New York City. The creative team explores contemporary dance as a collaboration between the members.
Falcon has been the recipient of honors such as The Floor's winter/spring 2019 artist-in-residence, The Brockport Summer Dance 2018 guest artist, the New Dance Collective 2018 guest artist, the Bates Dance Festival 2017 Emerging Choreographer and the NYU Gallatin 2017 DCA artist-in-residence. She has also performed with renowned choreographers and companies such as William Evans, Kista Tucker Dance, Inc., Steeledance, Keith Johnson & Adriane Fang and David Dorfman Dance, among many others.
As a bodyworker, Falcon is a massage therapist and personal trainer, experiences which inform her choreography as well as her teaching aesthetics. She holds a BFA in Dance from The College at Brockport and is currently an MFA Candidate in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Classes at CMU will be offered to dancers in contemporary modern and jazz, improvisation, anatomy, choreography and somatics and will be taught by Falcon as well as her company members. CMU dancers will benefit from working not only with a world-class choreographer but also with professional dancers as mentors as they venture forward into the world of the arts.
“As we are a small dance program in a pretty remote part of Colorado, guest artist residencies are a crucial component for our dance students. Students gain valuable experience in rehearsal and performance skills and engaging in other approaches to choreography and collaborative creative processes,” said Assistant Professor of Dance and Dance Program Director Kathy Diehl. “Additionally, all of these experiences help students build their portfolios and networking skills which could ultimately lead to future professional opportunities.”
Developing a new work within a five-day rehearsal period is a challenge for dancers and choreographers alike. Compressing the rehearsal process requires dancers to be fully engaged and to participate in the development of the work from the inside out, learning more about the choreographic process and getting professional experience, which often involves learning very quickly.
Speaking of how choreographic ideas are formed, Falcon says, “sometimes ideas play out like an entire movie that both instantly and methodically hits me. Sometimes it’s the visualization of sound and music that ignites my soul and sends me to another world and time. And sometimes it’s the fleeting photograph which burns in my mind, that I must understand.”
Falcon Dance will premiere the work Beauty Happens in New York City this June. View excerpts from the piece here.
Tickets for New Horizons to see the new work, along with pieces choreographed by students and faculty, may be purchased online.
All photos by Rebecca Marcela Oviatt @BECCAVISION.