PoD Program | MarielisGarcia

Welcome to

Possibilities of Dialogue

Inspired by the parallels between making a dance and having a conversation, Possibilities of Dialogue is an abstracted collaborative creative process; moments of listening, curiosity, disagreement and spontaneity unfold through movement and text. It is often playful, lively and physically virtuosic, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes surprising and almost always responsive to and inclusive of the audience. Audience members are welcome to observe and interact through the invitations that are offered. Come discover!

Created and Performed by: David Norsworthy and Marielis Garcia

Original Music by: Noah Malcolm and Brad Wentworth

Dramaturgy by: Andrea Roberts, Michael Caldwell, JoAnna Mendl Shaw, Peter Kyle

Thank you for coming and sharing in this with us!

This New York City studio performance series is produced by MG DanceArts and supported by Emily and Sean Wentworth, Joan Woodworth, Nancy Wells, Jay Wentworth, Navarra Novy-Williams, Jenna Sherman and Deborah and Charles Adleman.

Possibilities of Dialogue was originally developed with the support of Dance Initiative (Carbondale, USA), Kaatsbaan International Dance Center (Tivoli, USA), Arts On Site (New York, USA), Inception to Exhibition (New York, USA) and Culture Mill (Saxapahaw, USA). An early April 2019 performance in Toronto was made possible through the support of North York Arts' Evolve! Program and TOES FOR DANCE, and was part of the DanceWorks CoWorks Series. Special thanks to City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting our creative process and the Toronto performances!

Team Biographies

David Norsworthy (Co-Artistic Director, Choreographer, Performer) is a Toronto-based internationally acclaimed dance artist who is “an exceptionally lucid performer, technically impressive and articulate with choreographic detail” (Globe and Mail). David has been privileged to perform and tour with companies including Peggy Baker Dance Projects (Toronto), Toronto Dance Theatre (Toronto), Dancenorth (Melbourne), ZviDance (New York), Brian Brooks (New York), Skånes Dansteater (Malmö) and Magma Dans (Stockholm) among others. Upcoming performances include the national Canadian tour of Peggy Baker’s newest work titled “who we are in the dark” and Merce Cunningham’s Centennial Celebration at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York). He has presented his choreographic work at the CanAsian Dance KickStart Festival (Toronto), Wave Rising Series (New York), Our Voices (Stockholm) and the OnSite/InSight Festival (Winston Salem) among other festivals. Recent commissions include Lamondance (Vancouver), Point Park University (Pittsburgh) and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (Toronto). A graduate of The Juilliard School (New York), David is the grateful recipient of the Living Arts Centre’s 2016 Ron Lenyk Arts Award and was one of three finalists for the Toronto Arts Foundation's 2018 Emerging Artist Award. www.davidnorsworthy.com

Marielis Garcia (Co-Artistic Director, Choreographer, Performer), a native New Yorker, has been a dance performance artist for over 10 years, and is director of MG DanceArts. She is currently a member of the Brian Brooks Moving Company and Helen Simoneau Danse. Garcia has had the privilege to perform and tour with Steps Repertory Ensemble (NY), Peter Kyle Dance (NY), iKapa (Cape Town), and Douglas Dunn and Dancers (NY), among others. She received her BFA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. Her work has been presented by Appalachian State University, Salem College, Howard Community College, University of North Carolina Greensboro and Bard College at Simon’s Rock. In 2014, La MaMa theater awarded Garcia with a three-week residency, supporting and presenting a new work in Spoleto, Italy, and in 2017 she was a University of North Carolina School of the Arts choreographic fellow. She is a 2017, 2018 and 2019 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant recipient. Marielis is co-director of STUFFED: Dinner and Dance, a free quarterly community event that serves a warm meal and dance performance. www.marielisgarcia.com

Noah Malcolm (Composer) is a composer, musician, and performer originally from PEI, residing in Toronto. For theatre, he has music directed over two dozen productions across the country, providing original arrangements/orchestrations for several. He has composed the scores for As You Like It (Theatre By The Bay) and the musicals Perry Loved Mary (3 years running) and PACKED (commissioned for Bravo Academy). In 2018, he was a resident composer of educational children’s songs for Innovations For Learning (Illinois). Other original songs have been heard at Forte Theatre (Calgary) and in Adulting (web-series). As an improviser, he accompanies live performances and has taught workshops at Randolph and Bravo Academies. He remains in demand as a collaborative pianist and arts educator. Recently, he provided the score, foley and sound design for a short film. As a singer-songwriter, his debut single ‘Pray’ has been heard on CBC and SiriusXM Radio.

Brad Wentworth (Composer) is a freelance drummer in New York City. He has performed with Oliver Wood, Melissa Ferrick, Michael Bellar’s As-Is Ensemble and Howie Day and currently performs with The Sweet Remains, Fever High and other artists. Brad also plays drums on Broadway, currently at Dear Evan Hansen and Frozen. Since 2007 Brad has been a frequent collaborator with choreographer Peter Kyle including 2015’s evening length solo composition for drums, percussion and electronics entitled, Vigilance. He has also worked with Doug Varone and Dancers, Parson’s Dance and The Nikolais-Louis Foundation among others. Brad is on faculty teaching drum set at Hunter College and the 92nd St Y. He received a Bachelor’s Degree from The Manhattan School of Music in 2002, where he studied with John Riley. www.bradwentworth.com

Andrea Roberts (Mentor/Outside Eye- Toronto) is a rehearsal director, arts administrator, dance historian, and database enthusiast. She spends her days at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and has been involved in the creative process of more than twenty choreographers in as many years. She holds an MA in dance studies from York University, and a certificate in Information Systems Management from Ryerson University. She has presented several papers throughout North America that investigate various aspects of creation, preservation, and (re)interpretation, and she maintains an active interest in the conversations around performance archives. Most recently Andrea was on the artistic team for Sylvain Émard's Le Grand Continental, coaching community members and performing in Toronto's 2018 Luminato Festival. She also just completed a research project that looked at Susie Burpee’s role as interpreter in Tedd Robinson’s choreography from 1996-2018. Andrea is currently writing a book chapter on digital dance and “the archived body”.

Michael Caldwell by Zhenya Cerneacov.jpg

Michael Caldwell (Mentor/Outside Eye- Toronto) is a Toronto-based choreographer, performer, curator, and arts advocate. An 'intense dynamo on stage' (Scene4) with 'exceptional interpretive skills' (Globe & Mail), Caldwell has performed/collaborated with over 50 of Canada's esteemed dance creators/ companies. His performances have earned him two (2) Dora Mavor Moore Awards for outstanding performance in dance. Caldwell’s more recent choreographic work explores the intersection of movement, sound, and visual art in contemporary performance. Caldwell is a two-time K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation Artist Award finalist. He serves as executive producer for the Fall for Dance North Festival and as associate artistic director of the Festival of Dance Annapolis Royal. With a bachelor’s degree in film/art history from Syracuse University, Caldwell sits on the artistic advisory committee at Dancemakers and Citadel + Compagnie, and on the board of directors at the Dancer Transition Resource Centre.

JoAnna Mendl Shaw (Mentor/Outside Eye- New York City) has been choreographing performance works for stage, rural and urban landscapes since the 1980’s. Artistic Director of The Equus Projects, Shaw tours throughout the States and Europe creating site-specific performance works that often bring dancers and horses into shared landscapes. The Equus Projects has created commissioned works in 18 States including the multi-year, Pullman Project, an immersive community based work in the historic Pullman District in south Chicago. Shaw has taught on faculty at NYU/Tisch, The Juilliard School, Ailey BFA Program, Marymount, Princeton, Mount Holyoke and Montclair State. The recipient of two NEA Choreographic Fellowships and multiple NEA grants for Interdisciplinary Performance, Shaw’s work has also been funded by the Rockefeller, Harkness, Jerome Robbins, O’Donnell-Greene and Oppenheimer Foundations and the National Performance Network. www.equus-onsite.org

Peter Kyle (Mentor/Outside Eye- New York City) is Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance, founded in New York City in 2006, and recently relocated to Hartford, CT, where he is Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance, at Trinity College. He is also Associate Director at Bearnstow, an historic summer arts retreat in rural Maine. Early in his career he toured around the world as a soloist with Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance, and is an active proponent of that legacy. He has also performed in the companies of Mark Morris, Erick Hawkins, Gina Gibney, Laura Glenn and the theater company P3/east, among others. He has received numerous grants and awards, including as a Fulbright Specialist grantee, and regularly works internationally as a teacher, performer, and choreographer, most recently in Ukraine where his project, Dancing Through Translation was supported by a grant from the Public Diplomacy Program of the U.S. Embassy. www.peterkyledance.org