MIDDAY
SHUFFLE
MIDDAY is now accepting applications to teach MIDDAY SHUFFLE!
MIDDAY
Short Series
THURSDAYS
@ 12:00 - 2:00 PM
Rough Drafts
Application Deadline:
Sunday, November 10 @ 11:59 PM
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Program Description:
Up to six artists/companies will be selected to participate in this pilot program. All program components (classes, showings, and showcase) will take place at Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow St, Cambridge MA. Pending funding, program artists will receive high-quality photos and video from the final showcases to use for their own promotional materials, grant applications, and more.
NOTE: This program is meant to supplement artists' current plans to create, continue developing, or re-investigate a choreographic project. Rough Drafts is not a choreographic residency and does not provide funds or rehearsal space; rather, it is a professional development opportunity intended to support artists in optimizing their current projects as a tool to reach future artistic goals.
Eligibility Criteria:
Contemporary/modern dance-makers with 1-10 years of professional experience are invited to apply to this program. Artists may apply alone or with collaborators, although all members of the choreographic team must have a minimum of one year of professional choreographic experience. Choreographers must be at least 20-years-old and based in the Boston area (inside of the 495 loop). Applicants may propose a solo work or group works with up to 8 artists, including the choreographer(s), if performing. Proposed works may be at any stage of development. Work shown in this program may not exceed 15 minutes, although this may be an excerpt of an evening-length work.
Rough Draft Series Recipients (2023-2024)
Leah Misano
Leah Misano is a freelance dance and movement artist. Hailing from South Carolina, she has found a home in Boston since attending the Boston Conservatory (BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance). Leah spent the 2022-2023 season performing with Whim W’Him Seattle Contemporary Dance where she worked on several new creations. Upon returning to the Boston area, Leah is looking forward to working with her mentor, Jun Kuribayashi and diving back into her own movement practice.
Jessica Roseman
Jessica Roseman is a mother, choreographer, and movement educator. Her multi-year restorative practice NOURISH has earned numerous social justice grant awards, inviting deep physical connection to ourselves, each other, and our environment by recognizing and choosing what we need in the moment. Her solo dance performances address ancestry, identity, and wellness by incorporating techniques from her work as a Feldenkrais Practitioner, Gyrotonic Instructor, and massage therapist. Jess is excited and confounded by physical challenges, and revealing untold stories to make meaningful movement for a maturing body. She has been inspired and influenced by working with Bebe Miller, Deborah Hay, Lavinia Williams, and Eiko Otake.
Jess holds a BA in Dance and African American Studies from Wesleyan University, and in the 90’s she co-founded Prowess Dance Arts for women of color in New York. She was appointed to NEFA’s Regional Dance Development Initiative (RDDI) cohort to help build sustainable choreographic landscapes in New England. Jessica is the inaugural Artist in Residence at Lexington Community Farm, Cambridge Community Foundation’s Arrow Street Arts Fund, and recently was awarded a Studios at Mass MoCA Residency Fellowship. She is a proud mentor for the Asian American Ballet Project through the Network of Arts Administrators of Color / ArtsBoston. A New England States Touring Artist, Jessica performs, teaches, mentors, and lectures nationally. She lives in unceded territory of the Massachusett & Pawtucket people, known as Lexington, MA, with her twin teens.
Detritus Dance
Detritus Dance, founded in 2021 by co-Artistic Visionaries Caroline Bradbury and Claire Lane, is a multimedia performance collective that amplifies intersectional feminist and queer story-telling through contemporary dance, collage, and text. detritus dance draws their movement research from a vast body of feminist scholars and artists whom they join in working towards dismantling patriarchal systems through subversive gender performance. detritus dance has performed at notable venues including the Center for the Arts at the Somerville Armory, The Dance Complex, the Cambridge Foundry, and Boston WiP at Tufts University. They received the Somerville Arts Council ArtAssembled AIR fellowship, a Somerville Local Cultural Council Grant and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund for the development and production of their inaugural work “in the Ether.” They have taught community workshops and professional-level classes with Urbanity Dance Company, Midday Movement Series, and José Mateo Ballet Theater. Claire and Caroline integrate a breadth of international perspectives including Gaga technique, Flying Low, and Physical Theater in their approach to dance-making.
Amelia Estrada
Amelia Rose Estrada is a queer, Latina-Jewish performance maker and scholar. She is interested in crafting work that speaks to Latinidad, gender, queerness, and intergenerational ancestral relationality. Her creative practice draws on methods from dance, performance art, and theater. Her choreography has been presented at University Settlement in NYC, SPACE in Portland, Maine, the Spark Theater Festival NYC, and at Cuerpo Mediado Festival de Videodanza in Rosario, Argentina, among others. As a theater creative, Amelia co-choreographed CarmXn, a modern adaptation of the opera Carmen with Hogfish Maine, was the associate choreographer for Moonbox’s production of Sweeney Todd, and co-directed and choreographed the musical adaptation of Twelfth Night at Tufts University. In addition to her individual projects, Amelia makes lesbian dance theater with her artistic partner, Elle Jansen, under the company name MELLE. As a freelance performing artist, Amelia has performed for and been inspired by her work with Edwin and Matt Cahill, Joy Clark, Eventual Dance Company, Brian Sanders' JUNK, and Leilani Chirino Dance and Drum Ensemble, among others. Amelia is also a PhD candidate in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and her current research focuses on how dance participates in the cultural and national imaginary of Dominicanidad in the Dominican Republic and diaspora.
Cassie Wang
Cassie Wang (she/her) is a Boston-based multidisciplinary artist with a focus on contemporary dance performance. Originally from Kansas City, she grew up training at the American Dance Center under the direction of Kristopher Estes-Brown and Jennifer Tierney. She graduated magna cum laude in 2021 from Pomona College with a B.A. in Computer Science and minors in Dance and Media Studies. There, she had the opportunity to originate works with choreographers such as Derion Loman, Becca Lemme, Iyun Ashani Harrison, and Ronit Ziv. She has also trained with the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, BODYTRAFFIC, GagaLab, and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Cassie was the recipient of the DanceJerusalem Scholarship and the Virginia Princehouse Allen Dance Award. Currently, Cassie is a company member with VLA DANCE and KAIROS Dance Theater and freelances with local choreographers— most recently Jessi Stegall, Luminarium Dance, Dara Capley, and Chavi Bansal. Her choreographic works have been presented at the Solstice Dance Project, ACDA Baja, and NACHMO Boston. As a 2022 Emerging Artist Fellow with Dunamis, she recently presented her first multidisciplinary project for her capstone involving choreography, animation, and painting. Working to combine her backgrounds in dance, digital art, animation, and tech, Cassie is intrigued by the creative possibilities that lie at the intersection of art and technology.
Dara Capley
Dara is a dancer and choreographer who seeks to make innovative and explorative work. Dara has grown from performing works by Christopher Huggins, Mary Ellen Beaudreau, José Limón, Gina Patterson, Dominic Walsh, Ty Parmenter, Katherine Bickford, Holly Stone, Ellice Patterson, Yury Yanowsky, and Jessi Stegall. Dara’s choreography, which focuses on texture and initiation points of movement, has been presented by RI Women’s Choreography Project, WaterFire Arts, The Dance Complex, Revolve Dance Project, and Dance Canvas.