Ohio Arts Organizations Announce Alexandra Barbier As The 2022 Community Commissioning Residency Artis

The Artist Selection Committee chose Alexandra Barbier for her refreshing perspective and exploration of queer Black dance vernacular.

By: Sep. 22, 2022
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Ohio Arts Organizations Announce Alexandra Barbier As The 2022 Community Commissioning Residency Artis

The National Center for Choreography - Akron (NCCAkron) and The University of Akron School of Dance, Theatre, and Arts Administration (DTAA) have announced this year's Community Commissioning Residency as a part of the Ideas in Motion program, October 9-21.

The 2022 Community Commissioning Residency artist is Alexandra Barbier (Urbana, IL), selected for her choreographic research involving queer Black dance vernacular and how it operates outside of the academic dance community.

The Community Commissioning Residency process invites DTAA faculty, students, and NCCAkron team members to nominate working choreographers to apply for this opportunity. Artist applications are reviewed by an Artist Selection Committee including members from The University of Akron dance faculty, students, and NCCAkron.

The Artist Selection Committee chose Alexandra Barbier for her refreshing perspective and exploration of queer Black dance vernacular such as twerking, waacking, and voguing. During her time on campus, Barbier will work alongside university students within their regularly scheduled classes such as ballet and jazz to explore the above mentioned movement vocabulary and will also offer a dance class outside the program for the general public.

A one hour open-to-the-public community class will be co-hosted with Downtown Akron Partnership at Cascade Plaza in downtown Akron on October 13 at 5:15pm. For more information or to register visit nccakron.orgevents.

"This Community Commissioning Residency is an invaluable asset to our students and community at large," says Assistant Lecturer Christine Howe,"I am very excited to see the curiosity and creativity that Alex will generate in their discussions of Black vernacular dance through the lens of social media and physical practice."

NCCAkron is partnering with the student dance organization Terpsichore to offer a class rooted in the posing, footwork, and arm gestures of punkin'/waacking technique, and a brief history of this form and its evolution. Terpsichore is a student-run dance organization led this year by DTAA senior Makenna Zelenak. The club seeks to bring UA dancers of all kinds together to perform and find community, regardless of their selected major. Club member and DTAA junior Molly Bagatto adds that "a large portion of our program will be able to relate to this incoming artist, which I believe makes our learning experience more exciting."

NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke remarks, "In our short operational history beginning in 2017-18, NCCAkron averages 24 in programmatic events open to UA students each year. Connecting an artist like Alex Barbier with a student-run club for the first time, further deepens and expands our working relationship with the UA community."

To conclude the residency, Alex will have a public work-in-process showing of her new solo work, Stations of Black Loss, on October 21. For more information visit nccakron.orgevents.


The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron supports the research and development of new work in dance by exploring the full potential of the creative process. In addition to offering studio and technical residencies to make new work, activities focus on catalyzing dialogue and experimentation; creating proximity among artists and dance thinkers; and aggregating resources around dance making. For more information, visit nccakron.org.

Photo credit: Alexandra Barbier performing Take this with you (photo Todd Collins)

 



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