photo credits
© 2009-2020 Nancy Allison
email us at info@jeanerdmandance.com

Stagings/Teaching

Jean Erdman Dance offers a wide range of activities from multi-week residencies to single classes, workshops or lecture demonstrations. We are happy to work with any company or producing organization to create the activities that will best suit your community and your budget. Please read on to see a few of our most frequently requested activities and feel free to contact us at info@jeanerdmandance.com to discuss your ideas:

Create a New Work
There is nothing that quite matches the thrill of being involved in the creative process or the excitement of watching a premiere performance. Collaborating with dancers, actors, musicians and video artists from a host community, JED artistic director Nancy Allison creates new dance/video works that introduce any number of dancers and audiences to Erdman’s magical world of dance and myth. The first version of this evolving work, Chronology and Mythology with music by Fred Israel, video environment by Paul Allman and costumes by Karen Young was presented by the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center as part of its 75th anniversary season in 2010.

Click here to see an excerpt from the performance

To view full credits, click on title in the video.

 

“I loved it! It was like dance anthropology. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Irena Popiashvili
Co-founding Curator
Newman Popiashvili Gallery, NYC

“…the students were poignant and powerful… and there was wonderful dancing from the pros”
Laura Jacobs
Dance Critic
The New Criterion

“The stagings and performances were fastidious, the organization illuminated the work, and the costumes--all of them--were ravishing.”

Mindy Aloff
Editor
Dance Critics Association News


Learn a classic Erdman Dance

Erdman’s beautiful repertory offers unique aesthetic opportunities for professional and student dancers and audiences. Stagings of single dances or groups of dances are available through our staging packages.

A staging package includes:
• Performance rights

• Authorized teaching and/or coaching of the dance or dances

• Specially edited rare archival footage of Erdman dancing and discussing her aesthetic concerns designed to be part of the live-dance performance

• Source information for music, costumes and lighting

• PR materials designed to heighten community participation and involvement

Here are a few examples of Jean Erdman Dance stagings:


Daughters of the Lonesome Isle, Creature on Journey and Hamadryad staging at Hofstra University

Click here to see a rehearsal


Click on title in video to view  full credits.

“In her capacity as a reconstructor, teacher, director, artist and mentor Nancy Allison brought the intelligence, maturity, refinement and warmth that she exudes on stage to the rehearsal process. While watching her with the students I witnessed an individual who was first a human being who happened to be a dancer with the incredible task of bringing dances of the past alive long after the choreography was last performed. Nancy Allison was exacting in her attention to detail, offering her criticisms with deep understanding of each student’s abilities while respecting the intelligence of each student with whom she was working. In my opinion, she had a profound effect on all the dancers who worked with her; one that will continue to serve them for years to come.”

Lance Westergard
Director of Dance
Hofstra University

Daughters of the Lonesome Isle staging at
University of Oklahoma

Click here to see a rehearsal


Click on title in video to view full credits.  

“Nancy -It was a pleasure for me to witness your vibrant, detailed, caring work with the students in Jean Erdman’s Daughters of the Lonesome Isle. I was impressed by the powerful simplicity of the dance, its use of movements and feelings, its recognition of the human condition. There was a real classical, pure atmosphere.”

Violette Verdy
Former Director
Paris Opera Ballet

"We are committed to offering our students the opportunity to perform works in a wide range of styles and carefully selected Daughters of the Lonesome Isle for this reason. We could not have made a more excellent choice. This seminal work by Jean Erdman is full of intricate movement patterns, challenging dynamics, and subtle references to three aspects of the feminine psyche. Our students were expertly led through this exciting and defining experience by Nancy Allison, a sensitive and demanding dance professional and master of Erdman’s work.”

Mary Margaret Holt
Director
University of Oklahoma School of Dance


Staging of Suite of Three:
3 Solos by Jean Erdman at University of Idaho

Click here to see a rehearsal


Click on title in video to view full credits.

“Nancy— Thank you for bringing Jean Erdman's and your gift of dance to our university. I never know how older modern dance will go over with our audience, but the solos were a hit. People also loved the video introductions. Our Dean went Saturday night and was very impressed as were some donors.”

Greg Halloran
Associate Professor of Dance
University of Idaho



Creature on a Journey
staging at University of Washington

Click here to see an excerpt from the NEA sponsored residency that included:


Click on title in video to view full credits.

“Creature was a major hit!”

Hannah C. Wiley
Professor/Artistic Director
Chamber Dance Company


Hamadryad staging at University of Hawaii/Manoa

Click here to see a photomontage of the five-month project that included:


Click on title in video to view full credits.

“ These early works show a respect for form and spatial exploration… very modern”

Carol Egan
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

“ Thanks, Nancy. It was great to have you via Skype yesterday. Your direction was terrific. We all learned so much. What a joy!”

Elizabeth Fischer
Professor/Producer
Look Back/Move Forward 50th Anniversary ConcertT


Learn a simplified version of a classic Erdman dance

In Daughters: An Etude, a work for up to seven dancers, simplified forms of Erdman’s richly textured choreography from Daughters of the Lonesome Isle are accompanied by an edited version of John Cage’s landmark commissioned score on prepared piano. Costumes by Karen Young capture the shape and movement of the 1945 originals allowing younger, or less technically advanced dancers and their audiences an opportunity to experience the richness of Erdman’s movement language, musicality and aesthetic vision.

Click here to see excerpts from a performance by the
Harkness Repertory Ensemble


Click on title in video to view full credits.  

“Thanks again for the wonderful work you did with the kids. You really did bring something out of these girls that was special to see.”

Ryan Corriston
Director
Harkness Repertory Ensemble

“I so appreciate the wonderful work you did with the Harkness Rep. dancers. They are so lucky. We are so lucky.”

Renata Celichowska
Director
92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center


Host a Workshop for Your Community

Workshops can be included in staging packages or function as stand alone activities. Erdman’s dances built on basic body actions in archetypal structures are ideally suited for working with special populations. JED has helped design workshops, often led by students trained by Allison during her residencies, for:

Click here to see excerpts from the workshop based on Creature on a Journey taught by UW grad student Megan Brunsvold at University of Washington Integrated Dance Summer Intensive:


Visit JED Vimeo channel to see video with full credits. Click here.

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