From a Lunger: Daniel Howerton

Lunge Dance Collective on a farm??(awkward pause) 
It’s been an interesting process for me so far. First of all living in the middle of no where on a farm for two weeks is a process in itself, removing yourself from the crazy energy of New York is both peaceful and gives me a slight squirmish feeling. I think it’s helping me focus on what’s before us.... because what’s before us is a lot of work in a short amount of time. It’s a lot of character development which I was not expecting to be honest. I didn’t really have a clear view of what we were going to create here. I feel like as a person I can be quite animated but when asked to “act” I tend to shut myself in, but there is something about this process that’s different for me. As a kid I was in love with Charlie Chaplin and how his animation could come across so clearly without words. I am actually very excited to get into the development of whatever character I may be, we are only 5 days in so I can’t say I have a clear view of that character yet, but a goal of mine throughout the process is going to be to try to not think of it so much as acting but to really become whatever character I find within the work, to see if my personal animation and craziness can carry over into this character so that it’s just a physical expression of the many sides of myself. 


~Daniel

About Daniel

Daniel was born and raised in Nevada City, California. He began dancing at age 12 where he received most of his training from his public high school's dance department. After graduating from high school, Daniel continued his training in San Francisco at Alonzo King's Lines Ballet Repertory Ensemble Program. After completing their two year program Daniel went onto dance with many bay area companies which include Yannis Adoniou’s Kunst-Stoff, Kara Davis’s Project Agora and San Francisco Opera, he has also had the pleasure of working with many other opera companies throughout California and Seattle. Sense relocating to New York Daniel has had the pleasure of working with Shen Wei Dance Arts and Sidra Bell New York. Also he is the recipient of an Isadora Ducun Award in Outstanding Achievement in Performance. 

See Daniel in Lunge Dance Collective's "You'll Never Be Alone" and get tickets at LungeDance.com!

The Photographer

Nir Arieli was born in Israel and now is based in New York, NY. With a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and a background as a photographer for the Israeli military, he is now a portrait artist working closely with dancers. Nir is an admirer of beauty and gentleness, these qualities are the heart of his work. Visit Nir's website here!

The Photo Shoot

We wanted to shoot the promotional material for "You'll Never Be Alone" in a way that was fitting for the show. This proved to be a challenge since the dance is not choreographed, the set is not built, the costumes are not made, and the story is not clear yet. So what do we have to work with? A time. Since we know "You'll Never Be Alone" is an ode to the destruction of silent film we have a clear time period that we are working in. With a time comes a fashion and with a fashion comes a personality.

For the shoot itself we worked on the idea of, what we coined, "one liners".

One liner- Noun: A catchphrase or quick exclamatory thought that derives a clear emotion, action, or intention. For instance: 

                     "Oh, hey there!"        "I've got it!"      "No! Please don't!"

We would start with the initial reaction of the one liner and then intensify it until a point of sheer ridiculousness. We found that typically the ridiculous reactions were the photos that read with glamour and drama that we needed to create a silent film poster.

                           Good                       Better                         Best

We shot primarily in solos but played a bit with some group stuff playing with a three stooges idea. We noticed that in our inspiration photos (thanks to google image) typically there was a mix of emotions; One person was interested while the other was disinterested, or one person was happy and the other is terrified. 

The Photos

The goal is to create a movie poster with the idea of possibly hinting at a multiple personality disorder.

Buy tickets for the world premiere of "You'll Never Be Alone" on June 29th at the Ailey Citigroup Theater in NYC at LungeDance.com

It's a girl!

A Show Is Born!

Pop the cork and fill the glasses to the rim! We have a name for the 2012 New Creation! From this point on instead of referring to this new work as the very ominous "2012 New Creation" it will be known as it's actual name, "You'll Never Be Alone". After much deliberation I have decided to title this New Creation the same as the work it is based off of. The former "You'll Never Be Alone" was only a character study for what is to become the New Creation version of "You'll Never Be Alone", a work that is to explore the ideas of technology dissolving our relationship and the ever looming factors of temptation, all while being in the theme of silent film. The former work will now be called "A Study of Character" and will be a shortened playful version of the full work. I know it's a bit confusing, but what's art if it makes sense?!?

That's not all!

Not only is the title of the show confirmed, but so are the dates that all of you fantastic people can view it! "You'll Never Be Alone" will premier at the Ailey Citigroup Theater on June 29th at 8:30 pm. Ticket information is soon to come and will be posted everywhere including here, our Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as on our official website. I am very excited to be announcing that this isn't all we are doing! We will also be presenting an excerpt of "You'll Never Be Alone" at the Roseland Ballroom in Times Square on July 26-28 and at the Boulder Fringe Festival August 10-26. Specific show times and ticket information for all of this is to come at a later date! 

 Just as a little teaser I have put together a rather fitting preview of "You'll Never Be Alone" in it's proper style announcing the New Creations title as well as the Premier date and time. Please feel free to share!!i

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Fitted for the 40's!

Welcome to the team...

Every new work is more than just choreography, the success of the project largely depends on the coordination of all of the collaborating artists. Costuming is one of the most effective ways to transport an audience into a time period. As our entire New Creation is set in the 1930's-1940's I felt it was necessary to bring in a Costume Designer with a lot of experience in creating characters. This leads me to introducing Marion Talan! Marion is an incredible designer who I met when I attended The Juilliard School, where she currently works designing costumes for dance, opera, and theater. She has worked on many interesting projects as well as with the Merce Cunningham Company. I am very excited to be sharing this project with Marion and her amazing talents.

Playing Dress Up

One of the first steps other than fitting the dancers, was for Marion to throw some dresses on one of our dancers and discuss with me which of the cuts and shapes we like the best. We went into the Juilliard stock and played drew up for a while. Shelby was loving being put into all of the dresses. Not all of them were fit for her obviously, but we were looking still to see patterns and types of dresses. Tell us your thoughts in the comments below! Which one is your favorite? Here are the results: 

(excuse the poor picture quality from my phone)

Michigan and Gestures.

Michigan and Gestures.

As part of our residency with the Residential College of Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University, Lunge Dance Collective was able to start the choreographic process for our 2012 New Creation. The New Creation is an expansion of an existing LDC work called "You'll Never Be Alone". After I created "You'll Never Be Alone", with assistant choreographer Channing Cooke,  we started to notice how similar the work was to a silent film. With such animated music and clear development of distinct characters, the dance resembled more and more the qualities of silent film.

As we started choreographing base phrases, I decided to make a set of gestures that would help us create a language and a clear way to communicate without being vocal. A technique I picked up while working with Cherice Barton, I found that it was such a great way to start developing movement with a clear character quality. I plan to take this movement and pair it with our base phrases to create a multi-deminsional type of movement. 

Here is a video of Makenzie Dustman working on our gesture work. I decided to have her do the gestures as fast as possible. I find that because the gestures are trying to communicate and are also syncopated with choreographed facial expressions and intentions, that the increased speed creates a schizophrenic type movement that I really am appealed to.

During the MSU residency we were able to create a 30 min. work in progress version of the planned 75 min. finished product. The showing of the work in progress was last thursday on April 12th at Fairchild Theater on the MSU campus. Many of the MSU students, faculty, and staff showed up to support our showing that was paired with current LDC repertory, "Prowl", and a special guest performance of local dance company Happendance run by Diane Newman. Thank you to Lauren Harris, Diane Newman, Beth Post, and all of MSU for your incredible hospitality, working environment, and passion for progressing the integration of the arts with everyday academic education. 

Stay tuned for more details on the 2012 New Creation.

~ Billy

Conner Bormann, Jessie Hartley, Billy Bell, and Makenzie Dustman during "Prowl" at the Fairchild Theater at MSU.

New Dance, New Dancers.

The New Creation Has Begun!

Finally! We've started to choreograph the 2012 New Creation! Today we began rehearsals for the Lunge Dance Collective residency with Michigan State University where we will be presenting a work from our repertory, "Prowl", as well as a sneak preview of a work in progress version of the 2012 New Creation. Even more excitingly we have two guest artists collaborating with us for this residency- Jessie Hartley and Makenzie Dustman. I look forward to working with these two very talented artists on this project along with Lunge Dance Collective member Conner Bormann. Stay tuned for some rehearsal videos and more behind the scenes action as the 2012 New Creation comes to life! And remember, you'll never be alone. ;)

Makenzie Dustman

Makenzie Dustman began dancing at the age of 2 and has trained in ballet, pointe, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, musical theater and hip hop.  She began performing professionally on stage at age 5, where she was a featured dancer and singer with a touring performing arts jazz and holiday vocal group.  She began dancing competitively at age 8 and has won numerous top score awards and national championships and scholarships. She is currently in her second year as a company dancer with Westside Dance Project and in her first year with POV Dance Company.  Makenzie is also an actress and is represented by Lewis & Beal Talent Agency (Theatrical) and Bloc (Commercial, Dance). She has a lead role in a current national PSA commercial, models professionally and is the face of Urban Dancewear.  In addition, Makenzie is also a high school Dance Team Choreographer, dance assistant to professional choreographers, and is a dance teacher. 

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Jessie Hartley

Jessie Hartley founded WESTSIDE Dance Project in 2009. WESTSIDE performs at professional level concert and festivals throughout the year, and works with choreographers such as Peter Chu, Justin Giles, Mike Esperanza, Sonya Tayeh, Billy Bell, Will Johnston, and many others. Jessie Hartley trained with Alicia Head, Paula Morgan, Reid Olson, Stanley Holden and across the U.S. and Europe. Commercially she has worked for Disney, Nickelodeon, MTV, and Sony. She assisted Sonya Tayeh for everything from SYTYCD to international workshops from 2006-2010 and was an active member of Tayeh Dance. Jessie also danced in companies for Billy Bell, Peter Chu, Dee Caspary, Liz Imperio, Donna Sternberg, and Helen Blackburn at the Professional Project or Springboard Montreal. Jessie was a member of BARE Dance Comapny directed by Mike Esperanza from 2006-2009. Jessie teaches Contemporary/Ballet for Ihollywood Dance, and various conventions, workshops, and intensives, including her own workshops in Italy, Sweden, and England.

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Commission #1

The time has come for YOU to participate and create! As part of the Lunge Dance Collective Creation Blog, I will be submitting a number of Commissions that I will need completed in order to aid in the development of Lunge's 2012 New Creation. This is the opportunity for you as an audience to help control and influence what the final product that ends up on stage will look like. Anyone can take part and reply to the Commission by simply leaving your contribution as a comment below! 

Commission #1

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So here's the challenge: I am currently seeking stock footage from any film (silent or talkies) from the 1920's to the 1950's to serve as inspiration and maybe even incorporated into the New Creation as projection. We need film and LOTS of it! 

Details: To submit please a working link to the video, the title of the film, the year the film was created, and any other information you have on the scene or clip. I am looking for EVERYTHING! Hollywood kisses, fainting, dance scenes, technicolor, cartoons, Nosferatu, fight scenes, westerns, I want it all! Don't be afraid to submit multiple clips!

PRIZES!!! Oh yes! There are prizes! My favorite video clip will receive a free Lunge Dance Collective t-shirt mailed to your front door! As well as a badass picture of some Lungers kicking butt!


So those are the guidelines, now get to searching!!! The best clip will be decided on March16th. Cant wait to see what you all come up with! If you have any questions please post as a comment and I'll respond as soon as I can! Thanks for your collaboration!


~ Billy

Launch of 2012 Sponsorship Campaign

 As we start to form this open collaborative environment that is the 2012 New Creation, we find ourselves needing what every exploration and adventure needs- funding. How do we start? Who do we ask? What do we say? All valid questions. Phase one of our Sponsorship Campaign is going to focus on targeting individuals for private and corporate sponsorships. Have someone in mind that might be interested? Send them our Sponsorship Letter and Donation Form. You can email it, print and ship it, telegraph it, or even do your interpretive dance version of it (please upload to youtube). However you feel, the one thing that must remain consistent is that we are all constantly spreading the word. The more hype and excitement that we can get over the 2012 New Creation, the more people will want to make it happen.

So what is it?

The 2012 New Creation is the future work of Lunge Dance Collective. The plan is for it to be a full evening-legnth work. It is about how development of technology's goal is to bring us closer together but it actually gives us an excuse to further isolate ourselves from one another. We plan to develop this within the theme of the destruction of the silent film era. Using a shorter work already danced by Lunge Dance Collective, the goal is to expand "You'll Never Be Alone" into a 1hr and 15min piece that functions as a silent film itself. I'm fascinated by the over exaggeration of character and gesture within silent film and find it an interesting contrast with our innate response to communication. Playing with concepts of dissolving movement in and out of ridiculousness, the 2012 New Creation's goal is to leave the audience feeling void of character and in want of more, with an echoing reminder that You'll Never Be Alone...

...Here On Earth.

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About The Lunge Dance Creation Blog

Welcome to the Creation Blog!
This blog is to serve as a place for complete creative freedom. Here, you can keep up to date with Lunge Dance Collective's Creative Processes. Basically, you are able to see what were doing, why were doing it, and how we create! It is our virtual invitation to you to be a guest in every single one of our rehearsals! As we gear up for our 2012 New Creation, we will start to post ideas, concepts, character traits, costume, light, and set sketches, as well as open up audience participated forums to help us guide our way through the process. Essentially, YOU help create our work. We hope to inspire, provoke thought, and all-in-all create new and innovative art that our audience can hands-on be a part of!

So help spread the word! Share our new creative haven on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, Vimeo, Match.Com, and any other way us humans communicate!

And just to start you off- Here's a little hint for what's in store for the 2012 New Creation!
Enjoy!>>

~ Billy Bell

Welcome to Lunge Dance Collective!