Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center and The Moving Beauty Series present THE CO-OP: 6 dancers plus 4 choreographers creating 1 beautiful show, this weekend, April 15th-17th, 2016 at 8:00 PM, at Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center in Brooklyn. This inaugural concert series features the work of 4 outstanding choreographers that they created for and with 6 fantastic dancers.
THE CO-OP will feature the work of Laurie M. Taylor, Michelle Thompson, Cameron McKinney, and Aaron McGloin. Each person involved with this effort went through weeks of auditions and interviews before being brought together to form this collaborative effort in the name of creating social significant and physically dynamic work.
THE CO-OP premieres on Friday, April 15th, 2016 through Sunday, April 21st, 2016 at 8:00 PM at Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center, 347 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11211. Tickets are priced at $17 online and $20 at the door for adults. $12 Tickets for Students/Children/Senior Citizens online and $15 at the door. To purchase tickets, click here. To learn more about THE CO-OP, visit danceseries.org.
About The Choreographers:
Laurie M Taylor - Laurie M Taylor's distinctive movement style has placed her on the global stage as a dancer with various professional companies and Master artists. She has performed with Nicholas Leichter Dance, Urban Bush Women, TONY-Winning Maija Garcia of "FELA! Broadway," as well as Modern dance icons Milton Myers and the late Eleo Pomare. She is a graduate of Ballet Creole's Professional Certificate Program in Canada and Howard University. She has been featured for her collaborations with Alicia and Michael Olatuja, the EMMY-Winning "Soulful Symphony" and developmental projects with Blue Note Recording Artist Derrick Hodge. A Liberian-American dancer raised in Maryland, Laurie takes a fusion approach to her work, focusing on "sound perception," and expresses sensibilities from contemporary West Africa (Soukous and Coupe' Decale') and African American vernacular dance (Jazz and Hip Hop). Her emphasis on dance as means of intercultural engagement has landed her recognition in the worlds of academia, leading workshops and residencies at Lehman College, NYU Tisch, University of Delaware, Berklee College of Music and Princeton University, among others.
Laurie's company, "Soul Movement," has performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, The American Dance Guild Festival, The Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), Central Park Summerstage, The Harlem Arts Festival and more, as well as globally in Liberia, West Africa. A two-time Bloomberg Fund for New Work Recipient and Artward Bound Residency Artist, Laurie has gone beyond the walls of dance, lending her expertise on creative teams in the worlds of fashion, music and wellness.
Michelle Thompson - Originally from California, Michelle Thompson trained at San Francisco Ballet for nine years before moving to Texas in 2001 to join Ballet Austin. During her 14 years with Ballet Austin, she performed in works by Stephen Mills, Balanchine, Ulysses Dove, Twyla Tharp, Gina Patterson, Nelly van Bommel, Amy Seiwert, KT Nelson, James Gregg, Thang Dao, Jennifer Hart, Jimmy Orrante, and Greg Dolbashian. She was thrilled to perform the role of Belle in Belle Redux: The Story of Beauty and the Beast, Kitri in Don Quixote, the chosen one in Rite of Spring, and Sugar Plum in The Nutcracker. Also during her time in Austin she completed a Dance and Humanities degree from St. Edwards University. She received the Austin Critics Table Best Dancer award for her performances with Ballet Austin in 2012 and 2015. Ballet Austin, The Blanton Museum, Califa Arts Collaborative, Ballet Zaida, Motion Dance Theater, Ballet Conservatory of South Texas, and Illusory Impressions Project have commissioned Michelle for choreography.
Cameron McKinney - Cameron McKinney, the Artistic Director of Kizuna ? Dance, creates work centered around the Japanese language and culture. He currently performs with Dante Brown|Warehouse Dance, Christal Brown/INSPIRIT, and Seymour::dancecollective. His work has been presented by the Let's Dance International Frontiers Festival in Leicester, UK, The Moving Beauty Series, Dixon Place, Bailout Theater, Triskelion Arts, and RAW: Brooklyn, among others. He has been commissioned twice by the LDIF Festival (Leicester, England), by the Steffi Nossen School of Dance, The Moving Beauty Series, and SpectorDance Studio.
He created Loft Technique - a unique blend of house dance, street-dance styles, and contemporary floorwork. He teaches regularly across NYC, including at Gibney Dance and Williamsburg Movement and Arts Center. He has taught in four states, as well as internationally in Japan and the UK. He was on faculty the 2015 Southern Vermont Dance Festival, and was recently chosen as one of 10 promising emerging choreographers for Doug Varone's DEVICES Intensive. Visit
cameronmckinneydance.com.
Aaron McGloin - Aaron McGloin was born and raised in Arizona and graduated from Arizona State University with a BFA in Choreography. Over the past few years he has had the privilege of performing with companies throughout Phoenix, Chicago and NYC including CONDER/dance, Arial Dance Chicago, Bryn Cohn + Artists, Christopher Williams, and Project 44. He formed his own company, Aaron McGloin Dance, in 2007 with a mission to create honest and ambitious art through joyous, athletic movement and an eclectic sensibility. His choreography has been presented in NYC at Joyce Soho, Dance New Amsterdam, Chez Bushwick/Center for Performance Research, Dixon Place, The Irondale Center, Triskelion Arts and the 92nd St Y, and you can catch him teaching classes at Gibney Dance, Broadway Dance Center, and Williamsburg Movement and Arts Center. Go to
aaronmcgloindance.com.
About Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center - Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center has been providing quality arts education to our greater community for the past 6 years. Initially opened as a children's play space by Lakey Evans-Peña, we quickly transformed into a safe place that empowers people of all ages and backgrounds through dance. In addition to our 50 weekly children's dance, voice and theater classes, WMAAC provides Arts-In-Education workshops and residencies to over 3,000 students a week. Rounding out our offerings, we have partnered with The Moving Beauty Series to provide concert presentation of original and repertory work, engineer professional development and networking events, and to commission new work. We are an inclusive, none exclusive space that embraces the beautiful diversity inherent to the world around us through dance.
For more, visit
wmaac.com.
About The Moving Beauty Series - The Moving Beauty Series is an independent multimedia art production collective that was founded in 2008 by Juan Michael Porter II and Timothy Jackson Arbon in Argenton Chateau, France. Our mission is to develop and present artistically provocative yet commercially viable new work with artists of promise. From 2010 through 2013, The Moving Beauty Series served presented and directed dance for the legendary Webster Hall as part of its Quarterly Arts Soirée production platform. Since returning to private production in 2013, it has been our pleasure to repackage groundbreaking artists and to prepare them for even greater platforms through our production series and business development workshops. For more, go to
beautymoving.com.
About THE CO-OP - We wanted to create a performing group made up of professional dancers and choreographers who would create new work that we would present and tour throughout the area. This is the story of 4 choreographers and 6 dancers who have been brought together to create an original show. The resulting work was inspired by and created for the dancers in collaboration with these wonderful choreographers. They all met as a group of talented strangers eager to develop new connections and ideas. Through this process they have transformed into a unit of artists who breathe as one for the sole purpose of sharing their phenomenal work. This is The Co-Op. Go to
danceseries.org.
Photo Credit: Mickey Hoelscher; NYCreative Photography
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