ZONE RESIDENCY.

CHOREOGRAPHERS.

Zenon Dance School is delighted to announce the Zenon Dance Zone Choreographers for the Summer and Fall 2024 season. We are excited to work with Erin Landers, Erika Martin, and April Sellers, who will collaborate with the Zone dancers for the next twenty weeks to create exceptional works of art.

The Zone Dance program is designed to provide a shared dance experience for Zenon’s community of dancers with local choreographers. This season will culminate in a showcase, where Zenon Dance Zone works will be shared with guest artists on December 13 & 14 at 7:30 pm. The showcase will take place at the TEK Box in Hennepin Center for the Arts (2nd Floor).

We invite you to join us for an unforgettable experience, featuring some of the most talented dancers and choreographers in the field. We are confident that the showcase will be a testament to the creativity and dedication of the Zenon Zone artists, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Erin Landers.

Erin Landers is a choreographer, dancer, mime, and teacher, newly based in the Twin Cities after ten years in New York City. In New York, Erin cofounded the repertory dance company A-Y/dancers, where she performed in works by José Limón, Merce Cunningham, Doug Varone, and others. She continues to be a creative partner with performance technology incubator Brooklyn Motion Capture Dance Ensemble, multifaceted community liberation organization dNaga Dance Company, and movement and sound collective ECHOensemble, among many other projects. Her choreographic work pursues poetic logic in movement-based performance, often integrating a range of performance elements (set pieces, commissioned scores, etc.) to create a multilayered experience. Her work has been presented by Arts On Site, PRELUDE Festival, MOtiVE Brooklyn, and The Trust Performing Arts Center. Raised in a musical household in Northern California, Erin grew up immersing herself in ballet, modern dance, and traditional forms, including Irish, Zimbabwean, and Balkan dance, before earning her BFA at SUNY Purchase. Erin has supported her development as a teacher by studying dance pedagogy, including the Corvino ballet approach and Limón Technique. She encourages students to cultivate dance technique in a way that facilitates deepening enjoyment and expressivity.

Website: erinlandersdance.com Instagram: @air.in.the.land.of.water

WORK DESCRIPTION

I was recently reading a fairytale in which a giant went to brush away a human, the way a human might brush away a bug. So much of our experience and perspective is shaped by the scale we are paying attention to, and I’m curious what we learn by zooming in and out. This new work explores scale as a visual, physical, and narrative phenomenon. The work uses mimetic gesture, props, and stage design to move to different points along the continuum of narrative and abstract. My work is always made in collaboration with the performers. I bring movement material and prompts to rehearsal, knowing that everyone in the group brings something unique and valuable. Together, we can explore more interesting unknowns. I shape the structure of the work as it emerges.

REHEARSALS

Tuesday: 7:00 – 8:30 pm | in-person: Studio 4B at Zenon Dance School. Starting September 24, 2024.

Shannon Hartle Dolan; photo by William Cameron Photography

Erika Martin.

Erika Martin is a Minneapolis-based dancer, choreographer, teacher, and engaged citizen. Originally from North Carolina, Erika received a BA in Dance and American Studies at Connecticut College. Their research investigates identity performance and how experience is manifested in movement.

Erika has had the privilege of studying abroad at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance in London and performing works by Kyle Abraham, Ronald K. Brown, David Dorfman, Elm City Dance Collective, Ori Floman, Ohad Naharin, Paula Mann, Doug Varone, and Shen Wei. They are the 2015 recipient of the Martha Myers Prize and the 2017 recipient of the Joan Connell Memorial Award.

From 2012-2015, Erika taught Ballroom Dance at Carolina Ballroom of Cary (NC) and from 2017-2019 returned to ballroom as an instructor and then manager for Dance With Me USA (NJ/NY). Since moving to MN in 2019, Erika has taught at Zenon Dance School, The Cowles Center, and DanceBARN. To date, Erika’s professional works have been shown in museums, theaters, and public spaces in Connecticut, New York, Maine, and Minnesota: notably at the Lyman Art Museum (CT), Schaefer Theatre Box, Bates Dance Festival (ME), Melrose Ballroom (NY), Praxis Gallery, the Cowles Center for Dance and Performing Arts, Barbara Barker Center for Dance, DanceBARN, Dances by the Lake Festival, The Southern Theater, and Soiled Dance Series (MN).

Erika is the Artistic Director of eMartin Dance, co-founder of Dance Projects by ME, home of the Minnesota International Dance Festival, and School Coordinator for Zenon Dance School.

WORK DESCRIPTION

This work will explore the connection between fluid and grounded movement as it relates to elemental textures like water and earth. I am inspired by both the tranquility and power that water can harness, and will use choreography and improvisation scores to explore ways in which that can be embodied.

REHEARSALS

Saturday 2:00-3:30 pm | in-person: Studio 4A at Zenon Dance School.

April Sellers.

April Sellers is a choreographer with a desire to lift and celebrate ignored streams in society. She founded the April Sellers Dance Collective in 2002 as a home for her work exploring complex expressions of gender and identity. Using pop culture, activist politics, experimental aesthetics, and audience participation, she infuses life’s extreme moments and human stories with dance craft, controlled bedlam, and superb comedic chops. In 2021, Sellers received the National Dance Project Production Grant for Rumble Strips, her most recent work. Her works have been commissioned by The Right Here Showcase, Candy Box Festival, Southern Theater, Hennepin Theater Trust, Red Eye Theater, and Dancing Queerly. She has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the MN State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the McKnight Foundation. She received a Sage Award for Outstanding Performance for “House of Big Love,” created and performed with collaborator Judith Howard. 2017, she received the City Pages “Artist of the Year” award. She has curated performances for the Southern Theater, Bryant Lake Bowl, Hennepin Theater Trust, Gamut Gallery, and Link’s Hall, Chicago. Over the past decade, Sellers’ work has been recognized by invitations to several well-known artist residencies, including the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (Santa Cruz, CA), Maggie Allessee Center for Choreography (Tallahassee, FL), Tofte Lake Center (Ely, MN), and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Thesis Residency, where she received her MFA in Dance.

WORK DESCRIPTION

Inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s history of dissenting opinions and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, we will explore meaningful avenues of dissent and revolution. We will begin rehearsals with improvisations, using verbal and visual prompts to generate movement, drawing inspiration from vaudevillian spectacle, punk rock anarchy, post-modern dance, and anthropological methodology. We will explore rhythmic patterns, probe exaggerated emotional states, and learn set movement patterns in the development of new narratives.

REHEARSALS

Monday: 7:00 – 8:30 pm | in-person: Studio 4A at Zenon Dance School. Fall rehearsals start Sept 23, 2024.