On the move: Dance in the Annex begins educational partnership with Grand Rapids Ballet
Since 2009, the collective known more commonly as DITA has gained recognition for its classes, performances, and dance-on-film. Master classes once again resume this month, with world-renowned Graham Technique master teacher William Crowley.
While Grand Rapids can boast a lot of things—from Beer City USA to Furniture City to ArtPrize—one thing it isn’t known for is a plethora of professional dance companies and presenting dance, especially when it comes to modern dance. In 2009, the local scene’s leanness provided just the impetus needed for dancer/choreographer Amy Wilson and friends to form Dance in the Annex (DITA), a modern dance collective fostering an appreciation of dance through education and performance opportunities.
Since their formation, DITA has grown to regularly hosted master classes, and produced dance concerts, site-specific works, and dance-on-film works on a project basis.
Wilson says the collective was formed not only to support professional dancers in the area, but also to be a place where adults could take a modern dance class.
“We started once a month on Sundays, opening up classes to anyone over 16,” says Wilson. “Of course when you get a bunch of dancers in a room they inevitably want to start choreographing on each other and performing so things then evolved from there to where we are now.”
DITA’s latest class offering came last October. Wilson attributes this most recent gap in programming to DITA no longer calling the Wealthy Theatre Annex home. But a new partnership with Grand Rapids Ballet to their master classes is something Wilson feels will reenergize the organization as well as the Grand Rapids dance community’s interest in it.
“I had known executive director Glenn Del Vecchio and some of the people at Grand Rapids Ballet for years,” says Wilson. “In talking to him, he was into the idea of us bringing a master class there and reaching out to the greater dance community in the area.”
The first of those master classes will be held Sunday, March 18 from 4–5:45 p.m. at Grand Rapids Ballet’s studios as DITA welcomes world-renowned Graham Technique master teacher William Crowley.
Crowley, who received an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and trained at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York, has taught throughout the United States and Europe and was one of the first Americans to teach in Cuba since the 1959.
The intermediate/advanced level master class for dancers age 16 and older will introduce students to the Graham Technique, its basic principle of “contraction and release,” and the beneficial knowledge that comes from the awareness of one’s own center and core strength. The structure of the class will be composed of floor work, standing center work, and traveling exercises. Students will also be exposed to learning phrases of original choreography.
With the Grand Rapids dance scene light on professional dance offerings, Wilson says DITA has looked to another, more burgeoning area of the local dance scene to recruit its members.
“There’s a huge studio population in Grand Rapids that is mostly geared for younger dancers either recreational, competition or academy and those students have to be taught by someone,” says Wilson. “A lot of those who take our classes and perform with us are those dance educators.”
A graduate from Wichita State University’s College of Performing Arts in dance, Wilson counts herself as one of those local dance educators. She has taught at several area dance studios including Balletmore and Michigan Ballet Academy, and has served as a former adjunct dance teacher at Grand Valley State University’s Department of Music and Dance.
Also a part of DITA’s ranks are local movers: people who aren’t professional dancers and have careers outside of dance but still want to dance.
“Grand Rapids is a great place to live and to raise a family so people want to stay here, but for a dancer it’s hard to find your niche,” says Wilson.
Finding that niche was something Wilson says DITA also struggled with early on.
“In the beginning it was really hard trying to figure out what we wanted to be and who we wanted to represent,” says Wilson. “When we would produce our own work, we would have conversations on who gets to dance in the work. Are we just giving opportunities to former dancers trying to relive their dancer days or are we really trying to establish a collective of people who are really being thoughtful about process and intentional about what dance is and where we want to take it? It got really tricky.”
Wilson says those questions still haven’t been answered fully.
“Process is really important to me as DITA’s artistic director,” she says. “We want to be really intentional about who we are collaborating with and who we bring in on our projects.”
DITA has performed all over Grand Rapids over the past eight years, including at Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM), the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA), Art.Downtown, SiTE:LAB and as part of ArtPrize where DITA was awarded the Time Based Juror Award for their piece “respirador” (breather) in 2014.
More recently Wilson says DITA’s performance work has shifted focus from the concert stage to site-specific projects.
“We’re more interested in finding interesting locations and taking dance to the people rather than them coming to us,” says Wilson. “Being immersive with the art form is a lot more compelling to me right now.”
Perhaps the most intriguing of DITA’s offerings are its original dance-on-film works such as 2014’s “doom eager,” filmed during a SiTE:LAB “Blacktop” event where four dancers navigated an urban landscape of scaffolding, skating ramps and hundreds of onlookers; “As in Life,” a 2015 film that took place on a Rapid Transit System bus; and the new, as-yet-to-be-released film, “and spiders will destroy their own webs,” filmed in Tennessee at the time of the 2017 solar eclipse.
The upcoming master class at Grand Rapids Ballet isn’t the only thing on DITA’s horizon, as they once again ramp up programming and performances. The company is also in the process of creating a commissioned work for UICA’s annual Off the Wall fundraiser event on Tuesday, May 15.
The move to new projects and away from the Wealthy Theatre Annex, the place where the collective got its name, has been both “exciting and scary at the same time,” says Wilson. “The theatre served us very well and I have a lot of great memories there, but this is a good opportunity to move on from that space. There are a lot of possibilities out there.”
Dance in the Annex in Partnership with Grand Rapids Ballet presents an Int/Adv Graham Technique Master Class with William Crowley for dancers 16+ years old
Sunday, March 18
4-5:45 p.m.
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW, Grand Rapids
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$12 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers
For more information visit danceintheannex.com or contact Amy Wilson.
