Live Auditions: Tues, Nov. 17, 2020. Pre-register on patrack.byu.edu.
What is Kinnect? Watch the new video. View the official website.
We are an outreach group of artist-educators who love to connect dance to everything and everyone in the world around us.
“Kinnect is a lesser-known group of students at BYU that quietly exemplifies the university’s core mission of going forth to serve.” –Jacob Draper, Documentary Filmmaker
Dana Lambert, a current Dance Education major, shared the experience below. She was the student president of Kinnect in 2020, and she is getting ready to be a student teacher next semester.
Dana Lambert
I LOVE Kinnect! I was privileged to dance with Kinnect right at the start of my BYU Dance experience, and it informed, supported, and motivated me through the ups and downs of the rigorous Dance Education program. It made such an impact on me that I auditioned again and looked forward to performing and teaching this Spring 2020, before the pandemic hit the world.
However, Kinnect is definitely not only for Dance Education majors – it is for anyone and everyone who loves creating, performing, and making an impact on the world around them. I made such good friends with the rest of the Kinnectors each time that I participated in the program.
For me, though, the best part was seeing the kids’ eyes light up when they saw the magic of the Kinnect Dance Company in action on the stage and especially when the kids realized that they, too, could dance as we learned and played together in workshops throughout the rest of the day.
Even with the health restrictions now in place, Kinnect is adapting in a magnificent way to still share the magic of dance with as many children as possible, and I couldn’t be more proud of (or excited for!) what they have planned.
Dancing and teaching with Kinnect was a life-changing experience, and I will ALWAYS recommend it.
CHANGE Due to COVID-19: If you would like to audition for Ballet Showcase as a dancer, please register at patrack.byu.eduon Thursday, Nov. 19th before midnight. More information will be forthcoming. Thank you for your understanding and flexibility.
Email Hilary Wolfley at hilary_wolfley@byu.edu with questions or concerns.
Assistant Professor Rachel Barker won the Alfred Lambourne Prize for movement this year! This is a program connected to the Friends of Great Salt Lake organization and calls for works of art inspired by or utilizing and including the Great Salt Lake. Barker submitted a film entitled “Sand Body Sky”. She is the dancer/choreographer, but the filming and editing was done by students. McCall McClellan was the videographer, and film student Kate McKellar edited the film.
McClellan is currently working on a second rendition that will be exciting to see.
The full catalogue of all the artists’ work is worth browsing through, with lots of various artistic genres represented. The first few pages explain the program and event, and Barker’s work is the very first listed — the fourth page in. The film is just under three minutes. Or the direct YouTube link is here.
The complete winners announcement is shortened list of recipients.
Congratulations to our talented faculty and students on these collaborative endeavors during COVID-19! This film was made this in late April/May 2020, in the thick of the shutdown.
Your new Dance Major Student Reps (DMSRs) will be hosting this year’s first Dance Majors Meeting on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. Get to know them here and watch for them on the Zoom meeting next week at 11 a.m.!
Tera Taylor – DMSR President
Tera Taylor is a senior from Sacramento, California. She is majoring in Dance Education with an emphasis on contemporary dance. She is currently performing with Contemporary Dance Theatre (CDT) this year and is loving it. She is so excited to be DMSR President and get to know everyone in the department this year.
Cassidy Baugh – courtesy of the artist
Cassidy Baugh – Dance Education Representative
Cassidy Baugh is a senior studying Dance Education. She lived 11 places growing up, but currently calls Daytona Beach, Florida, home. Cassidy is the Dance Education Representative and is the president of the Student Dance Education Organization (SDEO), so feel free to reach out to her with any Dance Ed questions!
Carlee Coulson is a Dance BA major from Boise, Idaho. She is getting a minor in Spanish and is also working on getting her yoga certification. Currently she is performing on danceEnsemble (dE) and is way excited this semester!
Daylin Williams – Social Media/PR Representative
Daylin Williams is a senior Dance Education major from Mansfield, Ohio. She is the current president of dancEnsemble (dE) and is serving as the social media/PR rep for DMSR. She enjoys chicken nuggets, spontaneous dance parties and long walks on the beach.
Jenica Barker – Dance BA Representative
Jenica is from the Chicago area and has had a fantastic time pursuing a BA in Dance while being able to perform on Theatre Ballet and the Showcase Ballroom Company! She is also really enjoying her contemporary classes as well right now! She is excited to serve as the Dance BA rep this year!
Athena Davis – Community Outreach & Service Committee
Athena is a transfer student from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas! Athena has worked as a freelance dance and portrait photographer for the past 3 years, and she has also worked as a costume seamstress for a theater! In her free time she loves to do nail art and other creative projects. Feel free to reach out to her for anything that you need!
Hali Boss – Community Outreach & Service Committee
Hali Boss is a Dance Education major from Salt Lake City. She is serving on the community outreach and service committee. A fun fact about her is she loves to play pickleball!
Victoria Raimondi – Summer Internships/Workshops Committee
Victoria is in the Dance BA major and is in her senior year. She is a part of the Summer Internships/Workshops Committee for DMSR. A fun fact about Victoria is that she’s been apart of three shows at Disney World, her favorite being Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas Parade.
Aullora Fekete – Summer Internships/Workshops Committee
Aullora Fekete is in DSMR summer internships and workshops committee. She is a sophomore in the Dance Education program. Aullora was on dancEnsemble (dE) last semester and is currently on Contemporary Dance Theater (CDT). From Southern California, Aullora enjoys dancing with her four siblings — with her younger brother being a freshman and also on CDT. She is excited to see where Dance Education takes her and where God needs her.
Sarah Duffin – Dance BFA Representative
Sarah is a senior from DeKalb, Illinois. She will graduate in April, and hopes to pursue an MFA in contemporary choreography. Besides dancing, Sarah loves mangoes, British TV, and serving BYU Dance Majors any way she can!
Shani Robison – DMSR Faculty Advisor
Shani Robison is an Associate Professor of Dance at BYU. She teaches in the Ballet Area and works with all new Dance Majors and incoming freshman, as well as the DMSR leaders among many other teaching and creative assignments. Learn more about her here.
Announced at the BYU University Conference, August 25, 2020, in Provo, Utah. Also published in Y News on Sept. 1, 2020. The Faculty Women’s Association can be found at https://fwa.byu.edu/.
For Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Barker this was “a fun piece I made over Zoom over the summer with [dance students] McCall McClellan and Maddie Butler. This was the piece for which I got a grant from the LDS Center for the Arts for their Art For Uncertain Times projects.”
“It’s not super high quality, because of Zoom,” Barker continued. “But that was the intent. It’s definitely a good reflection of how we’ve continued to make our art in the midst of COVID-19 and social distancing in dance.”
Choreography: Rachel Barker in collaboration with the performers
Performers: Maddie Butler, McCall McClellan
Music: Michael Wall “3 166” and “War Machines”; Yann Tiersen “The Old Man Still Wants It (Portrait Version)”
Music and Video Editing: McCall McClellan
This piece begins from a desire to explore personal physical histories. Particularly, during this strange and uncertain time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we are all struggling to navigate major changes in lifestyle, relationships, financial situations, living and dancing spaces, etc., I am curious about how we catalogue these changes in our emotional and physical states through movement. We are all processing a great deal, and there is much to be mined in our bodies.
In true COVID-19 style, Quarantine Book Club was created completely over Zoom, with one dancer, Maddie, in her backyard in California, and the other, McCall, in her garage in Provo, while I was at my home in Salt Lake City. We never physically met together throughout the entire process. Choreographing through digital means was not without its challenges, and proved to be very tedious—a 150 ft ethernet cable was purchased, and multiple “you’re frozen” statements were muttered—but it was exciting to play with rich, disparate spaces which offered much more than a studio or theater could. I encouraged the dancers to explore and dance with their particular spaces in a site-specific manner—lifting up a garage door, tipping over a chair, hiding behind a palm tree… Much like we as a global community have tried to find ways to continue to connect despite isolation, in this piece I worked to connect these two women , albeit in a quirky manner, across time and space through movement.
Pictured: BYU students and faculty with Dr. Elsie Dunin. Photo courtesy of Amy Jex.
National Folk Organization Conference, March 2020
By: Amy Jex
In early March the National Folk Organization held its annual conference in Laguna Hills, California in conjunction with the Laguna Woods Folk Festival’s 50 anniversary. For the first time, the BYU World Dance Area was able to send 14 students to the conference.
The 2020 conference highlighted presentations and workshops from many American pioneering researchers who began their work in the Balkans in the 1960’s including Elsie Dunin, Martin Koenig, Yves Moreau and Janet Reineck. Students from Jeanette Geslison’s “Dance: A Reflection of Culture” class were especially excited to meet and hear Dr. Dunin, whose work in dance ethnology they had studied in class. Colin Anderson, a member of the International Folk Dance Ensemble commented, “I enjoyed the chance to learn about the various research projects that actually document folk dance. We always perform “authentic” dances and I hadn’t really considered the work that went into recording and preserving those cultural styles.”
Other exciting workshops included a giant lace-making demonstration that the explored the similarities between contra dancing, dancing to live music with the Laguna Woods dancers, and instruction from respected guest instructors at the conference and the festival.
Student Levi Hancock expressed, “The conference and festival that we attended opened my eyes to a whole different community that I never knew existed. The people that participated in this conference and festival were so passionate about appreciating culture and expressing themselves through dance. I absolutely loved learning so many dances from around the world, but even more enjoyable to me was talking to the people. Each person had a unique story about how they came to love folk dance and had all sorts of personal experiences to share about when they have traveled around the world and experienced the cultures that we were doing dances from. I wish more college-aged students like myself could get this same experience to see and experience this community of amazing people in the future.”
I hope you are all well and safe. I have seen a few of you in the halls and am so excited to be back in the Fall. I have a few updates. Please feel free to share this information with others—and reach out to a friend to make sure they saw this email.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as we begin this school year:
New faculty!
We are excited to welcome Angela Challis and Adeena Lago as new Dance Education faculty! They both have incredible experience and insights!
We are also welcoming Marin Roper to the Dance Education Committee – she will be helping with some advisement and program development.
Dance 276R and Dance 245 block switch for F2020 only.
Some of the shifts of the semester meant that we swapped Dance 245 Urban to first block and Dance 276R to second block (only for Fall 2020). This will help with fingerprinting especially (see below). If you are needing an add code for Dance 276R, fingerprint/background clearance must be approved before I can send you an add code.
Dance 346 add code:
I think some of you may not be able to register for this course due to fingerprint clearance. The instructor, Dr. Kathleen Sheffield, is aware of this and can send you an add code—please contact her at kathleen.bunker.sheffield@gmail.com.
We will be doing some virtual school visits, but plan on doing as much in-person as possible. Please consider transportation options for school visits.
Stay safe and healthy:
Lastly, we hope to keep meeting in-person and while simultaneously keeping people healthy. Please continue to mask-up and practice social distancing as much as possible.
atimetodance.news.blog 