“What’s the path from idea to dancing?
Where did you get stuck today, and is it the same as yesterday? What are current obstacles in current work? Where is the flow heading? These are useful questions (which we may not solve) to instigate action and conversation, to help in using our studio mindset (which one do I put on to begin?) as a creative and technical practice. During the course of our workshops we use improvisational structures and compositional trial-and-outcome to generate movement vocabulary as well as context. Locating intention and focus in the body, in dynamic, in phrase-making and state-making, we will accumulate dance materials in line, hopefully, with our lives.”
–Bebe Miller
COMMISSIONS
The company is available to set new or existing work on professional companies and university dance departments. Contact us to find out about commissioning work by Bebe Miller. Recent commissions include:
Events and Other So-Called Virtues (2015)
Ohio State University, 2015 (premiere)
Six People In A Room And Something Happens (2007)
University of Washington, 2007
Resistance lessened or increased and taken (2006)
Ohio State University, 2006 (premiere)
Cornish School of the Arts, 2006
University of Minnesota, 2007
Prey (2000)
Ohio State University, 2000 (premiere)
Kenyon College, 2002, 2015
University of Montana, 2010
Brigham Young University, 2011
Emory University/Agnes Scott College, 2014
Cantos Gordos (1994)
University of Washington, Chamber Dance Company, 2002, 2011
The Hendrix Project (1991)
Ohio State University, 2005 (as The Blues Project)
Ohio State University, 2013 (as Hendrix Redux)
“My interests as a choreographer and teacher are in finding context in the physical expression, along with its reverse: using physicality as a device for locating oneself in our current times. How we listen to the weight of a gesture, how we qualify the space between movers is a constant current, in line with how we see ourselves in the world. If we take it on faith that our composing eye is active while we’re making sense of the world around us, the connection between idea and action can be seen as discovery rather than solution.”
–Bebe Miller
TEACHING
Company members and collaborators are available for teaching workshops in your community while on tour and at other times during the year. Contact us to find out about teaching in your community.
Workshops taught by Bebe Miller Company
2015 BMC Summer Intensive, Columbus, OH
2013 Bates Dance Festival, Lewiston, ME
2012 BMC Salon Series II, Columbus, OH
2011 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2010 Seattle Festival of Dance and Improvisation, Seattle, WA
2010 Strictly Seattle, Seattle, WA
2010 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2009 Dance Art Group, Seattle, WA
2009 Bates Dance Festival, Lewiston, ME
2009 University of Montana, Missoula, MT
2008 BMC Salon Series I, Columbus, OH
2008 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2007 Cowles Chair, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
2007 University of Washington, Seattle, WA
2006 Cornish School of the Arts, Seattle, WA
2006 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2005 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2004 Velocity Studio, Seattle, WA
2004 Bates Dance Festival, Lewiston, ME
2003 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2002 DanceWorks Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
2002 Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
2002 University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
2002 Washington University, St. Louis, MO
2002 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2001 Conduit Studio, Portland, OR
2001 Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT
2001 Bates Dance Festival, Lewiston, ME
2001 Hollins University, Hollins, VA
2001 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
2001 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
2000 Movement Research, New York, NY
2000 Bearnstow Summer Workshops, Mt. Vernon, ME
Sample descriptions from recent workshops:
CREATIVE PROCESS The aim of this course is the investigation of creative process in relation to choreography, both in solo and group work. The emphasis is on identifying and developing one’s own creative strategies as the contextual framework for choreographic content, and to aid in the comprehensive collection of embodied ideas and practices that underlies choreography. By identifying preferences and habits students will bring them to the choreographic table as options to keep or move beyond. Students will be asked to differentiate diverse approaches to creative process, and encouraged to share their observances in order to develop a useful diversity of options. This course aims at articulating a choreographic practice as a set of choices that are parallel to one’s world-view.
IMPROVISATION Dance improvisation is a practice that gives us the opportunity to invent our own movements and to dance with others using informed choices made in the moment. This course is a working exploration of improvisation as a creative endeavor, by which we spontaneously organize space, context, ideas and dynamics in motion. We will look at how we approach/arrive at an idea, how we make choices, how we behave in relationship, in time and in space, and, finally, how we shape this exploration in performance. Synthesizing thought and action, mind and body we’ll work to find a range of ways of discovering and deepening our dance experience, together. The experiential nature of improvisation depends on a safe, non-judgmental place of inquiry, but it also needs your observations and opinions. The work is an exchange: everyone’s input is vital, and the success of the course will depend on your commitment to the process. We will spend time talking, writing, reading as well as dancing, and will culminate in an improvisation performance at the end of the quarter. This course is designed for intermediate to advanced dancers.
CONTEMPORARY TECHNIQUE The goal of this course is to build on and further develop skills involving the articulated use of weight, the alignment of skeletal, muscular and other support systems, and a mindfulness of the synthesis and subtleties of the physical, dynamic and intuitive needed to dance fully in space. We’ll explore somatics-based systems of support to deepen our foundational knowledge and experience, moving deliberately through systems that support a healthy, balanced dance practice. This class is also a means of delivering my aesthetic approach to dancing and movement, and I will allow the form of the class to shift and adapt as needed.
RESIDENCY ACTIVITIES
When on tour the company works with the presenter’s community to create dynamic and relevant activities to foster audience interaction with the artists. Past events include facilitated audience Q & A’s, presentations of technology uses in the creative process in collaboration with Apple stores. Contact us to design residency activities in your community.
