Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange hosts:

Choreography Commissions

As part of our commitment to energizing the professional dance community in the Lehigh Valley, LVDE hosts open call auditions for dancers to perform commissioned choreographer's work.  Check back to learn about future opportunites with guest artists.

OPEN AUDITION : Malcolm Shute

Sun. December 17, 2023 /
1-2pm

Selected dancers will be invited to the cast after attendance to the audition.
Rehearsal day/times (dancers must be present for all rehearsals)

2/3/24 Sat 1-5pm
2/24/24 Sat 1-5pm
3/16/24 Sat 1-5pm

Commission performance will be part of the SpringUP Dance Festival 4/13 & 4/14/24

Location of all activites ::
Steinbright Hall Dance Studio, Cedar Crest College
(100 College Dr, Allentown, PA 18104)

Level :: 
int/adv (ages 16+)

Questions please contact :: lehighvalleydanceexchange@gmail.com

This project will be lead by Malcolm Shute, utilizing key processes involved in sharing weight: sensing, pouring, grounding, sloughing, and filling. “Sensing” is attuning so closely to a partner that you may feel vibrations coming through their skin. “Pouring” weight involves the gradual application of weight to increase the agency of a supporting partner, giving them time and information with which to shape themselves. “Grounding” through a partner involves applying your weight intentionally to the point that you stabilize with the ground through their body. “Sloughing” is the gradual spreading of weight from partner to floor, but staying connected. “Filling” is the act of embodying the negative space surrounding a partner’s body. We will put these processes in practice through repertory from Human Landscape Dance, the company Shute directs.

Malcolm Shute, MFA, CMA, has led partnering workshops in Washington DC, Prague, Bogota, Toronto, and Kyoto. He has practiced contact improvisation for 35 years, and studied tai chi and aikido, which influenced the form. Shute teaches in the Dance Department at Towson University. He founded Human Landscape Dance (hldance.org) in 2006, and has since brought contact choreography around the world. Specializing in artist partnerships, Human Landscape Dance has given performances, held workshops, and shot video footage in Europe, Asia, and South America, as well as cities across the US and Canada. Noted for “…ingenious choreography and staging...” by the Washington Post, Shute’s dances are characterized by intimate portraits of people using touch to communicate, bodies molding to create a collage of images. 

Choreographer Archive:

Enter Demeter / Alyce Finwall
Performed: March 25, 2011

In January 2011, the Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange invited San Francisco choreographer Alyce Finwall, founder and director of Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, to set her work, Enter Demeter, on a select group of Lehigh Valley dancers.

Finwall restaged the work during a four-day residency at Cedar Crest College January 14-17. Sponsored by a Lehigh Valley Arts Council Project Stream Grant and the Cedar Crest College Cultural Programs Committee along with support from the Cedar Crest College dance department, Enter Demeter will be performed during the college’s Women as Guardians of Culture event March 24/25, 2011.

Enter Demeter explores humanity within the struggle between life and death through the physical manifestation of nine women in a restricted arena.  The entirety of the stage becomes the anointed ground in which these women are enclosed and in which they struggle for autonomy, civility and significance within an often fragile and volatile environment where nothing is to be taken for granted. Enter Demeter opposes woman against woman, while also showing the cooperative traits that are imperative to women's existence.   With an original composition by Jason Hoopes for strings, voice and breast pump, the dance showcases the beauty, clarity, value and strength of women through the interrogation of all human values.   The piece takes inspiration from "The Voyage" by Eduardo Galeano and Faith Wilding's poem "Waiting", which was part of the performance program of Womanhouse, the seminal feminist art installation that took place in Hollywood in 1972.  Enter Demeter has been performed to rave reviews at several venues in San Francisco and made its New York debut during the summer of 2010 at Dixon Place.

The Lehigh Valley cast performed Enter Demeter at Cedar Crest College on Friday, March 25th as part of the the college’s programming for Women’s History Month.

The Waiting Game / Sarah Carlson, Alyce Finwall
Performed:Sept 30 - Oct 1, 2011

"The Waiting Game", an exploration of women's issues through contemporary dance, was performed in its world premiere, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, at 8pm at the Bethlehem Ice House. Choreographers Sarah Carlson and Alyce Finwall created all-female dance works sharing a common source of inspiration: Faith Wilding's iconic feminist poem "Waiting."

“Wilding’s poetry underscores an existential angst that we all share,” Carlson says. “Even while we are engaged in active living, we are always waiting, hoping, dreaming about what will come next.”

As it turns out, exactly what we envision for the future has a lot to do with our gender. 

“The Waiting Game” was a co-production of DANCELINK and the Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange, two Lehigh Valley-based dance organizations whose shared mission is to promote dance and dance opportunities in the Lehigh Valley community.

Where: Sand Island Ice House, 56 River St. Bethlehem, PA

For more info on Sarah Carlson/DANCELINK: www.sarahcarlson-dancelink.org

For more info on Alyce Finwall Dance Theater: www.afdancetheater.org

Synapse / Shana Simmons
Performed: March 24, 2012

Select dancers performed a choreography commission with Pittsburgh based choreographer, Shana Simmons.  Shana Simmon's work, 'Synapse' was performed on March 24th at LVDE Presents, Cabaret Nights held at the Touchstone Theater in Bethlehem, Pa.

Please read more about Shana Simmons:
http://www.shanasimmonsdance.com/