DANCE RESIDENCIES, 2008-2009
Dancing People Company
Dancing People Company started in 1994, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when founder Robin Stiehm decided to scale back her performing career in order to devote more time to choreography. We quickly gained a reputation as an innovative and cohesive modern dance company. 
Before long, we were performing for appreciative audiences all over Minnesota and the Midwest. DPC was invited to perform at several international festivals including those in Poland, Russia and Japan. In fact, we believe we were the first American modern dance company to perform in Belarus!
Our dances ride the fine edge of post-modernism while maintaining a lyricism and humanism that audiences welcome. Our dances are about people and their innate desire to communicate, connect, and discover a common voice. Our work was described by the Mpls. City Pages as "…abstract in the best sense of that elusive term - emotion contained and transfigured by form."
In 2003 DPC relocated to Ashland, Oregon where we are developing a strong base of support. Our company of six dancers performs in Ashland and the surrounding Rogue Valley communities and tours nationally, with a current focus in the Pacific Northwest. We are developing a school and training program that adheres to our philosophy that dance is an accessible art form that illuminates the commonality of human experience- that dance is an important means of expressing our every day lives.
In 2005 Peggy Paver, originally from Tucson, joined the company as Co-Artistic Director. With the addition of her choreographic and teaching expertise, DPC is expanding our education and community involvement programs. We now provide dance and performance opportunities for all members of our Ashland community that focus on giving voice to their stories and experiences. We also conduct workshops in the towns where we tour, which help residents of that community connect and find a shared artistic voice. Through our evocative, virtuosic performances and our profound workshops, people learn to embody the power of dance.
Robin Stiehm
Robin Stiehm, founder (1994) and co-director of Dancing People Company, started dancing in 1969 and has been dancing professionally since 1975. She began choreographing in 1989, while still dancing at MN’s New Dance Ensemble. Fifteen years of professional performance experience provided a formidable foundation for her transition
into the realm of choreography. She has received funding from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She was the 2000 recipient of the Bush Foundation’s Artist Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards in the Midwest region. In both 1999 and 2001 she received Minneapolis’ City Pages “Best Choreographer” award. Audiences applaud her dances for their evocative landscapes that engage the emotion and the intellect. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said: “Stiehm’s choreography shows an ever-developing intelligence, rigor and artistic maturity…”Robin Stiehm, founder (1994) and co-director of DPC, started dancing in 1969 and has been dancing professionally since 1975. She began choreographing in 1989, while still dancing at MN’s New Dance Ensemble. Fifteen years of professional performance experience provided a formidable foundation for her transition into the realm of choreography. She has received funding from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She was the 2000 recipient of the Bush Foundation’s Artist Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards in the Midwest region. In both 1999 and 2001 she received Minneapolis’ City Pages “Best Choreographer” award. Audiences applaud her dances for their evocative landscapes that engage the emotion and the intellect. The Minneapolis Star Tribune said: “Stiehm’s choreography shows an ever-developing intelligence, rigor and artistic maturity…”
Eisenhower Dance Ensemble
Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, Michigan's premier contemporary dance company, begins its seventeenth professional season during the 2007-08 season. Artistic director Laurie Eisenhower founded the company in the summer of 1991 in metropolitan Detroit. Since its inception, the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble has been dedicated to the performance of a diverse range of contemporary dance works.
Along with Ms. Eisenhower's highly acclaimed choreography, EDE is interested in showcasing the works of young talented artists along with choreographers with established reputations. The company boasts works by internationally known choreographers such as David Parsons, Mel Wong, Pascal Rioult, Mark Dendy, Douglas Nielsen, Bill Evans, Lila York, David Dorfman, Colin Connor, Billy Siegenfeld, and Gesel Mason among others. This season, EDE commissioned new works by Michael Foley and Kiesha Lalama-White, nationally known choreographers. In addition, the company initiated its first choreographers' competition to encourage the creation of new choreographic work. The winner of that competition, Eddy O'Campo, will be creating a new work on the ensemble during the 2008-09 season.
With support from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the company has also collaborated with numerous Michigan artists including choreographers Steven Iannacone, Erica Wilson-Perkins, Whitley Setrakian, Bill DeYoung, Lindsey Thomas, and Gregory Patterson; composers Ben Miller, Karl Boelter, John Reneaud, Stanley Hollingsworth, and Steve Sylvester; and designers Bruce Scott, Susan Barrett, and M.E. Cameron-Scott. Consistent with EDE's spirit of collaboration, the ensemble has performed Carmina Burana with the Rackham Symphony Choir, Amahl and the Night Visitors with both the Motor City Lyric Opera and The Toledo Opera, Aida with the Michigan Opera Theatre, in concert with the Immigrant Suns and with the Warren (MI) Symphony Orchestra.
Eisenhower Dance Ensemble has produced several full-evening length touring productions. These include Motown in Motion, a visual salute to the tunes that made Motown records famous, Laugh Tracks, an evening of comedy in dance, Igor Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale with the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings as part of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and Bright Side of the Road: Dances from the Heart of Rock and Roll, a heartfelt tribute to Folk and Rock music.
Considered by many critics to be one of the finest contemporary dance companies in the nation, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble has received overwhelming critical acclaim along with enthusiastic audience support: "a hearty, no-nonsense way of moving" (Jack Anderson, New York Times), "stunning" (Gloria Shay, Holland Sentinel), "intelligently crafted repertoire" (Susan Isaacs-Nisbett, Dance Magazine), "dance that touches the soul" (Susan Hall-Balduf, Detroit Free Press), and "An eye-popping production (Carmina Burana) that seemed to be a pronouncement that the company had stepped to a new plane" (David Lyman, Detroit Free Press). The company's concert schedule has taken it to theatres throughout the United States and as far as St. Petersburg, Russia.
Educational and outreach projects are an important part of Eisenhower Dance Ensemble's mission. EDE dancers have participated in numerous school residencies with Artists-in-the-Schools funding from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. In 1992, EDE began a three-year educational program in the Troy School District. Since that time, the company completed similar projects in school districts in throughout the State of Michigan. These educational residencies provide a comprehensive program for students; the EDE dancers teach classes, direct students in performances, conduct workshops and master classes, and present performances. These programs offer students the rare opportunity for in-depth creative study and movement exploration. More recently, EDE initiated a new educational program, Healthy Kids, a collaboration with the Beaumont Weight Control Center. This new project uses dance as an intervention in addressing overweight issues in children. Its first implementation is a program involving fourth graders in the Pontiac School District.
Since 1991, EDE has also offered its Kids'n Motion lecture demonstration. This fast-paced, fun-filled, and interactive program provides many students with their first dance experience. Hundreds of Kids'n Motion shows have been presented in the Detroit Metro area, throughout Michigan, and in the Chicago area.
In September of 1995, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble opened the doors to the EDE Center for Dance. Located in Rochester Hills, the Center serves as a base for the company's community outreach and education programs. For its seventeenth season, EDE has a full schedule of rehearsals, performances, educational programs, and community outreach projects that will keep the company busier than ever, creating and sharing the art of dance!
Brent Schneider
Brent Schneider is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Dance at the University of Utah where he has been teaching for 11 years and also served as interim Chair. Mr. Schneider has taught a wide range of classes including: all levels of modern dance technique, folk forms, teaching methods, choreography, arts marketing and publicity, dance administration, and has served as Co-Director of the Performing
Dance Company. Additionally, he has created several new courses in the Department including Cultural Dance Forms and Graduate and Undergraduate classes in Digital Technologies for Dance. Prior to joining the Faculty at the University of Utah, Mr. Schneider taught as an adjunct professor for seven years at Weber State University. He has been a faculty member for numerous conferences for the American College Dance Festival Association, Utah Theatre Association, and Rocky Mountain Theater Association, as well as Director of Modern Dance for Regional Dance America's Choreography Conferences.
He performed for seven years with Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) in Salt Lake City, where he also served as a teacher, rehearsal assistant, marketing and booking director, and Board Member. He continues his relationship with RDT as a choreographer, company teacher, and master teacher for their summer workshop. He has performed and choreographed in many dance styles including modern, folk, ballroom, musical theatre, tap, jazz and ballet, and continues to direct and choreograph extensively for regional dance groups and theater companies, including the Salt Lake Acting Company, Egyptian Theatre Company, and the Grand Theatre. Professor Schneider’s modern dance choreography has been performed in Taiwan, Costa Rica, and throughout the United States.
His interests in interdisciplinary arts have been a driving force for recent works. Professor Schneider produced Perspectives: Men, Motion & Media, an evening of his own multi-media choreography at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in 2006, as well as a video installation and constructed environment as part of META: Media Experiments in Technology and the Arts at the University of Utah in 2007 sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Arts and Technology. He is very active in promoting dance and arts education and serves as a National Board Member for the American College Dance Festival Association and as a Board Member for the Salt Lake City Arts Council. Professor Schneider was a founding Executive Board Member for the Utah Dance Education Organization, a position he held for 5 years, and continues to be an active member of that organization as well as the National Folk Organization and the National Dance Education Organization.