A panel discussion with Northrop 2014 McKnight Choreographer Fellows Wynn Fricke, Joanie Smith, and Penelope Freeh, moderated by Program Director Mary Ellen Childs. Hear these three choreographers in a thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of creative process in making dances.
Penelope Freeh won a SAGE Award for Outstanding Performer in 2010. With composer Jocelyn Hagen she received a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Arts Activities Grant (2013) and two American Composers Forum New Music for Dance Grants (2010, 2014). Additional awards include: McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (1998), MN State Arts Board Fellowship (1998), two Career Opportunity Grants (1999, 2001) and Artist Initiative Grant (2012), and a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant (2001). In May 2008 she was featured in Dance Magazine. Freeh danced for James Sewell Ballet for 17 years, serving as Artistic Associate from 2007-11. She is affiliate faculty at the University of MN and Zenon and summer faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
Wynn Fricke is a choreographer, dancer and somatic movement educator. She has served on the faculties of the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, Winona State University and as choreographer-in-residence for Minnesota Dance Theater. She is currently director of the dance program at Macalester College. For nine years, she danced with Zenon Dance Company and in 1997 became founder and artistic director of Borrowed Bones Dance Theater. She has received commissions from Ballet Arts Minnesota, James Sewell Ballet, Ruth MacKenzie for her creation of Kalevala, Dream of the Salmon Maiden, and Zenon Dance Company; her choreography has been produced abroad in Russia and Micronesia.
Joanie Smith founded Shapiro & Smith Dance with Danial Shapiro in 1987, developing a collaborative method to create their work. Danial Shapiro died in 2006 and now Joanie Smith serves as sole Artistic Director. Shapiro & Smith’s work has been commissioned by companies as diverse as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the PACT Company of South Africa. The Company has toured all over the U.S. and abroad including performing four times at The Joyce Theater in New York City, ten years at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis and now three seasons at The Cowles Center For Dance And The Performing Arts. Over 600 dancers have performed, “To Have And To Hold,” and S & S’s production of ANYTOWN had more than 40 performances across the U.S., including The Joyce Theater and The Guthrie Theater.
More information here