Tiffany Mills || The Playground NYC
Company:
The Playground NYC
Tiffany Mills
Thursday, 10/20 || 10:00-11:45am, $6
Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, NYC
Entrance 53A Chambers Street
The Playground NYC allows dancers to experience various choreographic styles and ideas, engage with a new community of dancers, and gather resourceful information and inspiration from the array of choreographers involved. In turn, established choreographers are paid for their creative investigations, are given free space to explore new movements with professional dancers, and are provided with the opportunity to establish relationships with new dancers and fellow choreographers.
Class Description:
This class is an in-depth exploration into improvisation. We push boundaries, test extremes, and enjoy falling, in pursuit of finding a rich language and meaningful journey. Class begins by bringing attention to our internal environment, working primarily with imagery and breath. From here we focus on weight, space, gravity, and momentum as tools to ground and fly. We hone and sensitize ourselves to various qualities and states by bringing awareness to the layers of our body (skin, bone, muscle, organs, etc). Special attention is directed to our senses, heightening all five, to become better at listening and dialoguing through movement. Our progression into improvisation delves further into anatomical structures, destabilizing movement habits and assumptions, while recognizing and nurturing different personalities and individual predispositions. We encourage risk-taking and welcome unfamiliarity. Class culminates with physically robust improvisations where students can draw upon their experiences throughout the class. We actively straddle the line between conscious, intellectual engagement, and abandonment, making space for movement and interactions that surprise and resonate.
Bio:
Tiffany Mills (choreographer and artistic director) founded the New York City-based Tiffany Mills Company in 2000. She has created over 25 works performed with a “fearless sense of freedom and exhilaration” (Washington Post). Notable NYC seasons include: La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival (2016, 2021, 2022); The Flea Theater as a Resident Artist (2018, 2019); BAM/Kennedy Center’s Professional Development Program, which culminated in a NYC season at BAM Fisher (2013). The company’s work has been presented at: PICA’s TBA Festival (OR), Wexner Center (OH), Contemporary Dance Theater (OH), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Residency (MA), Dance Place (Washington D.C.), Austin Dance Festival (TX), Guggenheim Museum Works & Process Series, Duke on 42nd Street, Symphony Space Dance Sampler, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Dance Now at Joe’s Pub, Dancing in the Streets, Joyce SoHo, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project’s City/Dans Series, Dance Theater Workshop Fresh Tracks, PS 122 Avant Garde Arama, Movement Research at Judson Church, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, HERE Art Center, and in Russia, Italy, Mexico, and Canada. The company holds an annual winter and summer intensive (2006–present). Mills’ guest teaching includes: Trisha Brown Studios, Dance New Amsterdam, Gibney Dance Center, Peridance, The Playground, Earthdance (MA), Velocity (WA), Conduit (OR), ACDA, universities and festivals nationally and internationally. Mills has received awards and residencies from: Artpark (2022), NYU’s Tisch Summer Dance Festival (2015, 2020), National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron working with Dancing Wheels and AXIS (2019), CUNY Dance Initiative, (2014–15, 2017), BAM/DVIAM PDP (2012–13), the Joyce Theater’s Mellon Anchor Tenant Program (2011–16), Baryshnikov Arts Center (2010), LMCC Swing Space (2008–09, 2012), HERE Art Center (2002–03), as well as University of Oregon Alumni Award & Boekhelheide Creativity Award (2005 and 2006), Bogliasco/Jerome Robbins Foundation Fellowship, Italy (2007), and Bates Dance Festival’s Emerging Choreographer Award (1998). Mills has received funding from the Asian Cultural Council, Mertz Gilmore (via La MaMa), Doris Duke Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, NET/TEN, Evelyn Sharp Foundation, Harkness Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, Sorin Charitable Trust, Puffin, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, O’Donnell Green Foundation, New Music USA, Dance/NYC Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund, Cultural Solidarity Fund, amongst others. Mills received a BA in dance from the University of Oregon and an MFA in choreography from Ohio State University.
www.tiffanymillscompany.org
PC: Steven Pisano
