IN RESIDENCE: AUGUST 11 - 26, 2023
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
The overall project concept of Telephone 2.0 is to create a unified, collaborative project with multiple artists of different mediums, that uses dance/movement as a catalyst to create other forms of art.
The entire exhibit will have three sections that act as a daisy chain of inspiration: (1) dance, (2) other art forms, (3) final section ending with dance. Telephone will start with a choreographed dance that the other artists will watch and respond to in their own preferred medium. Their response will showcase their individual perspectives, and how they actively translate what they see, understand, feel, and ideas received from the movement they watch. Then I, as the choreographer, will look at all the artworks they created and actively translate them into movement from my personal perspective.
The primary purpose of the project is to bring multiple perspectives and multiple representations of a single idea into the same space, this concept provides various in-ways for the audience to connect to the concept being “discussed”. The second purpose is to intertwine dance with forms of art that aren’t usually seen in the same space and to bridge the gap between performance art and visual art.
Looking for ways to support this project??
Come to one of the residency events this August and consider bidding in the silent auction! The silent auction is currently open and will close on August 26th at 9:00 PM. 100% of the proceeds from the artwork sold will go to the artists who helped support the production of Telephone 2.0.
RESIDENCY EVENTS:
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
KEELEY DUNNAM
Keeley Dunnam received her M.F.A at Sam Houston State University in 2022, and her B.F.A. in Dance from the University of North Texas in 2018. Keeley has performed with companies Company XV, Pilot Dance Project, PDC Works, AmpDance, and Impulse Dance Project. Her work, “NArrow is the Way” was showcased in imPULSE Dance Project’s annual summer show in 2018, “Same but Different but Same” was showcased in Mind the Gap in 2022, and “Interrealational Transactions” premiered in Mind the Gap 2023. Keeley was named Artist in Residence by Dance Source Houston for the 2022-23 year and produced and eighteen-minute-long group piece called “Into the Shimmer” for the Barnstorm Dance Festival in 2023. Keeley continues to focus her choreographic works towards building community by using movement as a means of communication, and to create meaningful interactions between art and the public.
COLLABORATING ARTISTS:
SUSANNE SLADE KELLY
Susanne Slade Kelly is a multi-media artist from Houston. She’s a potter, painter, jeweler, and is currently professionally enjoying a combination of all her passions as a floral designer in the wedding industry. In her spare time she gardens and enjoys time with her 6 pets and husband.
JULIE McLEMORE
Photography Angels is a positivity-based brand and business founded by the Mexican artist, Julie McLemore (née Loyde) back in 2019.
Julie moved to the United States at the age of 14 years old to complete her education and achieve a bachelors degree in criminology. During her senior year of high school Photography Angels was born and has been standing ever since.
DELANIE MOLNAR
Delanie Molnar is a composer, clarinetist, and software developer based in Portland, Oregon. Delanie’s music explores the kinesthetic energy of melody and gesture, how that energy shapes a note, phrase, or a moment in time. Her sound is marked by evolutions of timbre across a piece, distinct melodic lines, rhythmic intensity, and creative utilization of space and silence. Her artistic intent is to create musical landscapes that draw in the listener to a personal world of energy, atmosphere, colors, and textures that is singular to that piece; a world in which only that music lives and the listener is invited to come live within it and experience it for a time.
Delanie received her MM, Composition from Bowling Green State University in May 2021 through compositional studies with Elainie Lillios, Christopher Dietz, and Mikel Kuehn. She previously graduated from the University of North Texas with her BM, Composition in 2019, studying composition with Drew Schnurr, Kirsten Broberg, Sungji Hong, Andrew May, and Seth Shafer, and clarinet studies with John Scott. Her current projects explore inspiration from literature, experimental formal structures, and engagement with approaches to implied narrative.
AMANDA FRAIZER
As an artist I, Amanda Fraizer, try to provoke and awe my audience with the use of bold colors, heavy emotion, and striking imagery. A lot of my work contains hands, usually my own, as a human element. The use of hands can provide motion and new posing elements that can create a new emotion within the piece.
REBEKAH ALDERFER
Rebekah Alderfer is a graduate from Trinity University in San Antonio with a Bachelor of Arts. She has since worked in the TV, radio, and education industries. She currently is in her 7th year of teaching 2D and 3D art and AP art history to high school students in the Sugar Land area.
Dancer and Choreographer, Sierra Johnson, originally from Sugar Land, Tx, started her dance career at the young age of six. Her passion and love for dance continued with her through High School, John Foster Dulles High School, where studied the technical and performance side of drill team dance. After graduating, Sierra was ready to study more and take on balancing a career in the performance, creation, and technical aspects of dance. She went on to study dance at Sam Houston State University in 2017 and received her bachelor’s degree in 2021. While she was there she had been included in many undergraduate pieces such as Dances @8 and Senior Studio; She had also worked with many grad students and faculty members. Choreographing dances’ is one thing that Sierra loves to do. Throughout her study she has taken many choreography classes and showcased her first piece Leveret in spring of 2021. Her most recent performance took place in the summer of 2023 at the Barnstorm Dance Festival hosted by Dance Source Houston. Sierra is a well rounded dancer and has extensive training in modern, contemporary, ballet, jazz, drill team, floorwork, and some hip hop.
SIERRA JOHNSON
HANNAH DUNNING
Hannah Dunning is a native Houstonian. She studied dance at Houston Community College where she performed with the school’s African Drum and Dance Ensemble and Contemporary Dance Ensemble. She performed in Seat of Unrest, choreographed by Jen Salter at the 2017 ACDA Gala at Collin College. Hannah studied West African Dance with Julie Bata and Gabriel Bata and has performed with them many times, the most recent being Weaving the Circle in March 2020. Hannah has been a member of the Pilot Dance Project since April 2021 when she performed in their production of Tether. Hannah toured with the company in 2021 and 2022 to perform in the Oklahoma City Fringe Festival. In 2022, Hannah danced in Silenced Souls by Dorianne Castillo at the second Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival, and for the Pilot Dance Project in Lazarus in the Promised Land.
MADELINE ALDANA-GRAY
Madeline Aldana-Gray is a mover, maker, and educator based in The Woodlands, Texas. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance from Sam Houston State University in Fall, 2020. At SHSU, Madeline danced in works by Dionne Noble, Jennifer Pontius, Donald Shorter, and Keeley Dunnam as well as creating many of her own works featuring fellow students. While at Sam Houston she also pursued a pilates certification under Betty Nicolay. She is always looking for ways to share her bright outlook of the world, especially through dance film making and choreographing. Now in her 9th year of teaching and too-many-to-count of dancing, Madeline looks forward to sharing her immense love and passion of movement, wellness, and creative expression with everyone of all ages and walks of life.
STEPHANIE VALLE CRUZ
Stephanie Valle Cruz is a native of Puerto Rico. She is a choreographer, educator, dancer, and artist. She was invested in her culture and folkloric roots at a young age, dancing Bomba and Plena. She continued training in various dance forms and participated in diverse events around the island. Her first solo project was “Transformacion” which sold out on the island. She possesses her Bachelors Degree in Dance Studies from Texas Women’s University and is currently a third-year graduate candidate at Sam Houston State University in Texas. Stephanie has been able to perform with the Jordan Fuch’s Company, International Dance Company, imPULSE Dance Project, Vive Les Arts, and Waco Civic Theater. She has performed for choreographers like Jalila Bell from NYC and in different independent and self-created works around Texas and Puerto Rico. Her research focuses on the exploration of patterns defined by gender roles. Stephanie’s choreographic works have also been performed in different venues and events, including LatinX Festival.
MIA PHAM
Mia Pham is a graduate of the University of Houston. She majored in Management Information Systems and minored in English and Dance. She studied rigorously under a number of ballet masters such as Robert Underwood, Catrina Steele, and Daymel Sanchez. She has performed in many ballet productions such as The Nutcracker, Le Sylphides, and Raymonda. She began training in modern dance at the University of Houston as a dance minor. There she has performed in numerous shows such as Emerging Choreogrpher’s Showcase, Ensemble Dance Works, UH goes to the Match, Barnstorm Dance Festival, The Gala at the American College Dance Association, Dancescape 2020, as well as many other projects in the Houston area. Recently, she has worked with Pilot Dance Project, Psophonia, KSD, and 6 Degrees.
ABOUT THE RESIDENCY PROGRAM:
Powered by Fresh Arts, the Space Taking Artist Residency is an opportunity for traditionally underrepresented local artists to experiment and “takeover” a public space in new and innovative ways. For 2023, three projects were provided a space for one month, marketing & project support, and a stipend to see their ideas.
PROGRAM SPONSORS:
The Space Taking Artist Residency is funded in part by a grant from Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Endowment, and Brown Foundation. A special thank you to MECA – Multicultural Education & Counseling through the Arts – for supporting and creating space.
