Houston Met Dance and The Miller Advisory Board present Fall 2022 ExtravaDANCE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

jhon r. stronks

Director of Programming

Houston Met Dance 

713.522.6375

office@metdance.org

Houston Met Dance and The Miller Advisory Board present Fall 2022 ExtravaDANCE #YAYDANCE

HOUSTON, TX August 29, 2022 – Houston Met Dance (HMDC) and The Miller Advisory Board will present Fall 2022 ExtravaDANCE! featuring one of Houston’s newest dance companies Social Movement Contemporary Dance, HMDC activates their residency programming, designed to connect Houston Dance artists and support choreographic development for the purpose of bringing to life an evening that embodies and incites the exclamation YAY DANCE!, on Friday, September 9, 2022 at 8:00pm at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The evening includes special dance and music collaborations created specifically for Miller Outdoor Theatre, including Virtuosi of Houston, a Premier Young Artists Chamber Orchestra.

For 26 years HMDC has been committed to supporting the creation and presentation of dance in Houston by providing space and support that helps sustain the dance ecosystem. Through residency programming that provides choreographers with time in space we are able to assist independent artists as well as small dance companies in continuing their open public classes, the creation and rehearsal of new work as well as opportunities to present these new works in The Phoenix Studio Theatre, our new performance space. 

These residency programs contribute to artistic growth and organizational capacity building, expanding the potential of each artist and company to employ dancers, teachers and choreographers to produce new choreographic work. HMDC’s commitment to the dance ecosystem helps stabilize the dance community and ensure the continuation of new dance creation in the future. This performance is but one expression of how HMDC is serving its community.

Ticket and Event Details:

Fall 2022 ExtravaDANCE 

Date: Friday September 9th 2022

Time: 8:00pm

Tickets: Free

Location: Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Dr., Houston, TX 77030

Tickets are required for covered seating only. Free tickets are available at www.milleroutdoortheatre.com one day prior to the performance starting at 10:00 AM. A limited amount of tickets will be available at the box office which opens an hour before the performance starts. As always, you never need a ticket for the Hill! Just bring a blanket or a lawn chair, a picnic, and you’re good to go.

Priority Seating is available through Houston Met Dance 

This years featured company:

Social Movement Contemporary Dance, one of Houston’s newest dance companies under the Artistic Direction of Elijah Alhadji Gibson, presenting 2 works, Autonomy a work celebrates the strength, power, perseverance, and diversity of all women through a series of solos, and The Culture  a work that takes ownership of the now-global Hip Hop phenomenon through expression of Hip Hop’s five pillars – breakdancing, MCing, DJing, graffiti, and knowledge to spread the message of equality. Both SMCD offerings exemplify Elijah’s passion for “generating thought-provoking work that reflects his belief that dance mirrors how people embrace and/or resist the cultural boundaries, limitations, and expectations laid upon them by social constructs.” https://www.socialmovementdance.com

This years guests artists:

Nigerian – American choreographer, and creative director Kemi OG presents Internal Dialogue an African dance stage projection. Internal Dialogue explores the inner thoughts of a black woman dealing with ambition, mental cycles, trauma, emotional support, and what it means to heal and to have self-love. The piece uses projection, African dance fusion choreography (“Afrodance or Afrofusion”) to visualize the different aspects of one’s personality and how they interact while trying to make sense of everyday events and the things we cannot control. The project was created as a result of an Artist in the Residence Program at Dance Source Houston. It premiered on June 9th at the Barnstorm Dance Festival in Houston, Texas. https://www.ilubeats.com/internaldialogue 

Virtuosi of Houston a Premier Young Artists Chamber Orchestra in collaboration with HMDC faculty members and independent choreographers Brittany Bass, Lori Yuill, jhon r. Stronks present  Air, Fire Water. This partnership places Virtuosi of Houston’s vision of helping young musicians thrive as performers, educators and arts advocates at the physical intersection of Bass, Yuill and stronks’ movement research and HMDC’s commitment to connecting artists. Devised through conversations around collaborative potentialities this work illustrates the desire to explore the space between disparate experiences in an effort to expand capacity and reinforce connection.  https://virtuosiofhouston.org, https://www.bbass.dance/bio, https://www.loriyuill.com/about, https://thereinthesunlight.com

Fall 2022 ExtravaDance also includes performances by the following HMDC resident dance companies and independent dance makers:

Group Acorde whose mission is to cultivate and educate diverse audiences through live, thought-provoking, original and affordable performance collaborations between contemporary dance and experimental music. Group Acorde will present RYB, a choreographic collaboration between Roberta Paixao Cortes and Lindsey McGill with music composed and performed live by Thomas Helton. https://www.groupacorde.org/the-company

Houston Met Alumni and Bessie Award winner Jasmine Hearn and HMDC Director of Programming jhon r. stronks [Jas + jhx] will continue their durational and nonlinear collaboration and conversation on form, food, intuition, improvisation, Jazz, grief, joy, choreography, care, and memory. In their 7 minute piece, they will dance, sing, remember, and imagine as part of their shared history and Jasmine’s pedagogical project, A Patient Practice. 

KoumanKe’le African Dance and Drum Ensemble a dynamic and energetic performance troupe that presents traditional West, South and Central African Dance and culture and its transitions across the USA. Comprised of diasporic people, under the tutelage of continental Africans, KoumanKe’le’ African Dance & Drum Ensemble’s repertoire includes traditional and contemporary dances of Guinea, Mali, South Africa, Senegal and the Congo. https://www.koumankele.com

The Pilot Dance Project performs Adam Castañeda’s (Artistic and Executive Director) Weaving Northside, a work originally commissioned by visual artists Tami Moschioni and Nicola Parente and premiered in a site-specific format in November 2020 at the Leonel Castillo Community Center. The work was restaged in June 2022 for Dance Source Houston’s Barnstorm Dance Fest produced at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH). https://www.pilotdanceproject.org/about

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About Houston Met Dance

The Houston Met Dance is a multi-functional dance organization that excels at instilling passion and excitement for dance in its students, training the talented youth of Houston and preparing them for careers in dance performance, and inspiring children through the art of dance. 

For 26 years Houston Met Dance has been committed to supporting the creation and presentation of dance in Houston by providing space and support that helps sustain the dance ecosystem. Through residency programming that provides choreographers with time in space we are able to assist independent artists as well as small dance companies in continuing their open public classes, the creation and rehearsal of new work as well as opportunities to present these new works in The Phoenix Studio Theatre, our new performance space. 

The Houston Met Dance offers  children, youth, teen and adult classes where everyone can enjoy the artistic and physical benefits of dance in a vast range of genres and modalities regardless of age or experience level. The Houston Met Dance currently serves over 1,000 students per week while providing much needed space for many other local art organizations. 

The Houston Met Dance Educational Outreach aims to excite, inspire, and expose the art of dance to as many spectators as possible. Our educational outreach program engages over 7,000 students K-12 from a minimum of 15-20 schools each season through free performances at the Miller Outdoor Theater and in-school lecture demonstrations. 

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