Teacher Bios: Lauren

Lauren Sion will be teaching at our upcoming workshop, here is a little bio about her!!
Lauren Sion graduated with a B.A in Dance from Muhlenberg College in 2008 with Magna Cum Laude Honors and since then has gone on to perform extensively throughout the tri-state area with several dance companies. She has been an established dance teacher throughout the Lehigh Valley for 7 years - currently a full-time teacher at Nardi Dance Studios in Easton, PA - and is extremely excited to be teaching contemporary lyrical!

Can't wait to see you all there!!

Workshop Teacher Bios: Emma!!!

Emma MacDonald will be teaching at our upcoming workshop. Here is a little bio about her!!

Emma MacDonald is on the cusp of graduating with a BFA in Dance and concentration in Improvisation from Temple University. She is originally from Hartford, Connecticut, where she began dancing at the humble Limelite Studios, learning jazz and tap for ten years. She then moved on to the competitive Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in high school, with a major in dance and minor in Theater. In her four years at Temple, she has had many wonderful opportunities to further her career in dance. She has presented three works in the student concert, worked with Joellen Meglin and Kun-Yang Lin in Crystallina, Leah Stein in Across the Grid, and Jillian Harris in The Gjeilo Project. She also had the immense pleasure of working with Jillian Harris in Inferno, a site specific work in Rome, Italy. She would like to thank Jillian for supporting her during her time in Rome and in her senior year. It is in her Creative Process course that the idea for this senior thesis took root.

Emma is interested in approaching dance from an intellectual point of view and using dance as a tool for social action and community building. Her education at Temple University, specifically in the dance department, has encouraged and enabled her to begin to do so. She is excited to finally free herself into the world and attack it with all that she has to offer, from all that she has learned.

Workshop Teacher Bios: Julee!

Julee Mahon will be teaching at our upcoming workshop, here is a little about her...

Julee Mahon is originally a native of New Jersey, and is currently on the road to graduation, from Temple University, with a BFA degree in Dance and a minor in history. She has performed in countess works at Temple with faculty such as Kun- Yang Lin, Joellen Meglin, Philip Grosser, Jillian Harris, and Dr. Laura Katz- Rizzo as well as with guest artists such as Tiffany Mills, LevyDance, and Leah Stein. After graduation Julee plans on staying in Philadelphia to continue performing and showing work, in hopes to dive deeper into the Philadelphia dance community!

Can't wait to see you all there!!

Workshop Teacher Bios: Antoinette!!

Antoinette Guinyard will be teaching at our upcoming workshop (https://www.facebook.com/events/116314531891344/ 
Here is a small Bio about her!! 
Antoinette Guinyard attended Rowan University where she received a bachelor's degree in Business Marketing and a Concentration in Dance. She is a Soulmate dancer for the Philadelphia Soul, performing at the Wells Fargo Center. Antoinette is also an accomplished model, working for clients such as Gatorade, Sears, Champion at Target, East Coast Sports, LStudio, Irina Sigal, Joan Shepp, Sean Anthony, Tropicana Casino, The Pier Shops at Caesars, Maternity for Two, QVC , Clinique, and Sketchers. She thanks CoEXISTdance for another chance to dance!

Connecting to Hope

I am anxious to be diving into a new kind of dancing for the company.  I have started learning the solo, Universal Undertow.  I am excited to be working on a solo, a more intimate kind of rehearsal with Kathleen.  It is especially so intimate because of the subject matter—sickness.  Normally I am focused on feeling the group dynamic, finding synchronization amongst the dancers’ individualities.  Universal Undertow invites me to dig inward…really, it’s forcing me to evaluate how I feel and how that translates into my dancing.  I can’t hide behind a group consensus of how to express the movement.

Having dealt with personal sickness all my life and now my mother’s cancer/chemo, the piece plucks closely at my heart.  More than other repertory, I can very directly identify with and embody the emotions that the dance addresses.  With every movement I resonate connectivity.  I rub my stomach to soothe it and I am reminded of the times I grip my abdomen from pain.  I raise myself from the floor to sitting and I see my mother in her attempts to stand during weakness.  My tense hands throw themselves in the air before falling to the ground—a rollercoaster of built frustration and hopelessness.  Through this hopelessness I find support.  I find the ground.  I find strength.  Through this dance, I’m learning how I’m actually coping with the sickness in my family-current and past.

Lately I find it much too easy to dismiss hope and embrace despair.  But it’s hard to get away from it, especially since my mother put hope in my name.  Regardless of how much we get defeated and encounter new villains, hope endures.  Like a beacon, it moves in the rocky ocean, waiting to be seen.  Whether I pout or maintain my proactive, optimistic lifestyle, life continues throwing rocks and flowers at me.  Through writing and dancing I confront the aggravation, pain, and struggle of sickness in Universal Undertow.  Equally, we celebrate the patience and empowerment from fighting for life.  Sometimes all we have is hope…there’s nothing else tangible, no written promises.  As humans without the power of a fortune teller, we are forced to rely on this feeling and invisible light.  And in this process we gather a deeper appreciation for life’s quirks and unexpected ways, which becomes easily drowned out during our experiences.  I’m especially hopeful that the piece will reach out to all viewers in some manner, whether they are regular dance viewers, or new to the modern dance scene.  What’s most important for me here is to share my own experiences as honestly as possible so that someone else can feed from the hope I offer and possess.  I want to connect through hope.

May each day fill you with new hope and bright perspective.  Help others discover their own hope.  Go watch a ladybug crawl or listen to the wind blow.  Take advantage of the small things in life which are not actually so trivial.

Love, Whitney Hope

Tribute: CoEXISTdancers

So the last time I was here I wrote about "The Necessity to Move" and my fear of CoEXIST falling onto a plateau, being stagnant, and lacking in progression.  I am happy to write that although this is something I think about with CoEXISTdance each and everyday (usually while in the car, when I should be paying attention to the road perhaps) I am making baby steps towards a solution.  No, I have not whipped up some brilliant, 20-page business plan, but I have discovered and experimented with small tricks and strategies to continue to attract new audiences, expand the popularity of our company, and most simply just to keep PROGRESSING instead of simply MAINTAINING.

I would not have the confidence of an Artistic Director and the courage to continuously push myself to think outside of the box without my team.  The CoEXISTdancers remind me of my own Mother in the sense that they support me no matter what. They have no idea how much their own solid foundation has allowed me to soar.  I am beyond thankful for the beautiful group of women I have carrying out the same mission I dreamt up, through their dancing, their actions, their collaborations, and their ideas. So I would like to take a quick second to recognize each and every one of them :)

Megan has been part of CoEXISTdance since its birth.  She has such a purity about her and I think it is because she is so honest ALL of the time, with both herself and with others. She never pretends, she confronts reality and truth and accepts them.  I wish there were more people in the world like this, myself included.  She has assumed a leadership role with the company; I love watching her help others figure out the certain mechanics of a movement (the baby freeze) or assist others with an injury, prescribing how to strengthen the area, stretch the area, etc.  She is always so happy to be at rehearsal and she is always laughing and causing us to laugh, an important ingredient to success I have found.

Tia came on board during CoEXISTdance's rebirth in 2011. From the get go, she blew me away with her professionalism and dedication to CoEXISTdance. It was evident that CoEXISTdance was a priority based on her attendance, work ethic in rehearsal, and participation in outside events.  She has impressed me even more by consistently maintaining that same professionalism and work ethic, something which I think is easier said than done.  She is a BEAUTIFUL mover and she has a way of capturing my own personal dynamics and movement style quirks immediately after learning new material.  Her own sense of humor has carried us through MANY rehearsals, again adding laughter into our recipe for success.

Whitney also joined CoEXISTdance on the same day as Tia.  One of the most outstanding qualities of Whitney is her pursuit of absolute perfection.  Once she has learned a new phrase of movement, she repeats the movement over and over again, pulling it apart, questioning the dynamics and focus, and never stopping until she is 100% satisfied with herself.  It is such an honor as a choreographer to watch a dancer take what you have given them so seriously, treating it with the utmost respect and striving to maintain its originality.  She has also been such a professional and diligent coEXISTdancer.  Her willingness to open up and talk with me and all of the dancers about what is going on outside of rehearsal has really helped us to bond more as a family than as a group of professionals.

I have known Sara since 2006, when she came in as a freshman at DeSales University.  I still remember how pleasantly surprised I was when I saw her walk into the CoEXISTdance audition last year!  As if her dancing were not beautiful enough, it felt so nice to connect a piece of my past to my present work. It's a really colorful blend of memories, memory-making, past training, and new movements.  She is never shy to call me out of pulling out a move similar to one of our old professors!  In addition to our past connection, Sara is so loving.  She is the first dancer to notice when another dancer is struggling, in pain, or feeling under the weather.  She is a great listener and advice-giver.  As an Artistic Director, what I love most is that her love pours out in her dancing.  It is evident to anyone watching her how much she loves what she is doing, who she is dancing for, and who she is dancing with.  It's a rare and beautiful quality.

Lauren also joined our team in 2011. We had met a few times before, attending neighboring colleges, but I never imagined that we would have worked so closely together!  Lauren is an extremely technical dancer, her rigorous training is transparent in every movement she does.  She has such a fluid quality to her dancing, but she can also execute small and sharp movements beautifully.  One of my favorite things about Lauren is her fearlessness. She is never scared to try one of my crazy ideas that usually start with, "I have this idea, but its only in my head right now I'm not sure if it's physically possible".  Whether its throwing herself upside down on a stool, jumping into a new lift, or balancing in the baby freeze, she is not only fearless but relentless.  She is so strong in a physical, mental, and emotional sense.  She will continue to fight until everything is exactly the way it should be.

Brittany jumped on board this past January.  She immediately molded as another member of our CoEXIST family, picking up the same work ethic as the others, opening up to everyone, and being honest.  Brittany is so full of life and energy; she is always so excited to be at rehearsal and so eager to learn new material.  She has been so flexible in terms of jumping into previous pieces, learning another dancer's part, and simultaneously being cast into new pieces. Her passion for dance is so obvious based not only on her eagerness, but on her diligence with new movements, her professionalism, and her dedication.  She is clearly a part of CoEXISTdance both inside and outside of rehearsal.  I am so excited to watch her grow through her journey with CoEXISTdance, and of course I am so excited to see how CoEXISTdance will continue to blossom through her efforts and contributions to the company.

Antoinette entered CoEXISTdance at the same time as Brittany.  She is a natural leader, she has already contributed several great ideas for the company to do.  She has also offered advice, ideas, and words of encouragement to the other dancers in times of frustration.  She has certainly assumed a motherly role and she is so generous with her time, energy, and resources.  It is so clear to me that she wants the absolute best for CoEXISTdance.  Again, to see that sort of intention in another dancer is just utterly uplifting. To realize that another individual is just invested in your dream as you are is beyond touching.    She is also a beautiful mover, another one who really pulls apart as many details and dynamics to make the movement as accurate as possible.

I could not have drawn up a better team for CoEXISTdance.  This blog is a tribute to my dancers and all of their hard work and dedication.  You will probably never know exactly how much this means to me. "Thank you" does not even begin to do it justice.  I love you very much and thank you for building CoEXISTdance with me!

Kathleen :)

Desales University Alumni Concert on March 16, 2013.

Some of the awesome photos captured during our performance at the Desales University Alumni Concert on March 16, 2013. Thank you so much for letting us be a part of such a great show.