Janusphere set to Unfurl with New Dancers at the Newport Dance Festival

Janusphere is creating new work, with new dancers, and preparing for upcoming performances at the Newport Dance Festival in Newport, RI. JDC director, Darion Smith and collaborating artistic colleagues, are embarking on new projects. We look forward to sharing more about these artists and collaborations in our next blog.

Check out photos and our video below featuring images from Smith’s inspiring nature walks and rehearsal excerpts from Unfurl (2021).

“Unfurl came from a need to explore during a very depressing time. I was taking walks out in the forest and became impressed with the patterns of change that the seasons influence. There’s tons of beauty and a kind of magic happening all the time in nature. Those moments in nature rub off on me and enter my creative process.

One of those moments involved the weekly ritual of passing by a series of frozen puddles on one of my walking paths. When winter’s freeze finally softened its grip on the landscape, the defrosted puddles turned into uniquely perfect reflection pools. When you looked into one you could see an inverted and slightly altered version of the world. You could also see through to the bottom, where the foliage, twigs, and earth from this dimension were laying, quietly. It became an otherworldly vista. Of course, in time it would all evaporate.

Fast forward into the near future and the entire process repeats itself. It might seem less interesting to some but during those moments, a spark went off inside. I started to wonder about the power to reflect and what a reflection meant to a person who was wondering how to make sense of a changed world that continues changing rapidly and radically.

This is certainly one part of nature that spoke to me at a time in my life when I became open enough and was able to listen. With me looking inward and witnessing others around me experiencing similar reflective moments, I decided to embrace what I saw and less of how I felt. In retrospection, it could have been a way of choosing what to process through creation but without making a conscious choice of it, initially.” -Darion Smith

See us perform Unfurl live at the Newport Dance Festival in Newport, RI July 22 & 23 at 7:00pm.

Alison Bartels, Ariarna Murphy, and Jacob Rice are the latest dancers to join Janusphere Dance Company!

Find out more about these incredible artists by visiting our Dancers page.

Take a video tour of Every Word was Once an Animal

We’re excited to share with you a video tour of Every Word was Once an Animal currently on exhibit the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Inside the video tour, Janusphere Director Darion Smith combines movement gesture and spoken text to discuss his collaborative role on the dance elements in the project. The video tour also features rehearsal excerpts narrated by Smith explaining how they connect to Carla Bengtson’s world of nonverbal communication and multi-sensory immersion.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the live interactive dance elements had to be canceled and the museum remains closed to visitors until further notice. Currently, Smith is planning the creation of an evening-length performance in collaboration with composer Juliet Palmer, where dance and sound will continue to shape an experience inspired by their work with Every Word was Once an Animal. We look forward to sharing updates on this next chapter including audition information for dancers, event dates and locations. Stay tuned!

En Bach, New from Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith

Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith premieres new choreography this month. The piece, En Bach, was commissioned by Misako Ballet and premieres on Sunday, February 16th at the Jim Rouse Theater.

Choreographed by Darion Smith, the contemporary dance work explores the architecture of the body in close relationship to Bach harpsichord concertos. In three movements, dancers move the space around them with high energy movement motifs.

Now in rehearsals, the dancers and Smith are busy preparing for the upcoming performance.

In addition to En Bach, the February 16th dance concert, which begins at 2:00 pm, will feature the premiere of "The Moon Princess", a one-act ballet created by Misako Aoki, as well as classical selections from "Paquita", "La Bayadere", and "Le Corsaire" and guest artists "KIMONOdeSisters".

Dance Festival 2020

Join Janusphere Director Darion Smith and other companies and students dancers at the Howard Community College Dance Festival.

The Dance Festival runs from February 8 - 9. Come see a creative, energetic expression of dance from multiple perspectives.

Stay tuned for more details about the evolution of this winter’s dance festival, and get a behind the scenes look at the choreography and pre-production process.

Festivals like this are labors of love and celebrations of dance - what better way to get ready for the Valentine’s Season!

New Year in the Sphere 2020

Welcome to a new year - and a new decade - of dance!

Today, we’re looking back at a fall 2019 performance, and looking ahead to some of the upcoming events we are excited to share with you.

Photo by Hank Wang

Coucharoucha!

This brand new dance work premiered November 15, 2019, at the Smith Theater. The performance was part of the HCC Dance Showcase.

Coucharoucha is a dance theater work. It explores the relationships of inspired characters and gives dancers and audience members the opportunity to think about what inspires us as artists and individuals.   

Photo by Hank Wang

En Bach

On the horizon, we have a premiere coming up in February and more projects and performances this spring.

This February 16th, we will premiere En Bach at the Jim Rouse Theater. En Bach is a new dance work commissioned by Misako Ballet.

Choreographed by Darion Smith, the contemporary dance work explores the architecture of the body in close relationship to Bach harpsichord concertos. In three movements, dancers move the space around them with high energy movement motifs.

Looking forward to sharing more details and JDC news with you in the coming weeks and to celebrating this new decade of dance, creativity, and energy.

Darion Smith Receives the Mark Ryder Original Choreography Award

On Friday, September 13, 2019, Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith received the Mark Ryder Original Choreography Award.

Awarded by the Howard County Arts Council and the Community Council of Howard County, the Mark Ryder Original Choreography Award “recognizes individual creative expression” for choreographers creating a new work.. Additionally, according to the Howard County Arts Council, the award “broadens opportunities for artists and encourage[s] and sustain[s] their pursuit of artistic excellence.”

We congratulate Darion Smith on his receipt of the award. Stay tuned here on the blog for updates and sneak peeks as the work develops!

Every Word, Every Day: Dispatches from Creative Residency in Eugene, OR

Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith shares dispatches from his creative residency in Eugene, Oregon, where he is working with an interdisciplinary team of artists on the ongoing collaborative project Every Word Was Once an Animal.

New Discoveries

Every day has provided opportunities to reflect on the intersection of dance and other mediums, and the ways in which they coalesce. The residency has been fulfilling with new discoveries daily.

Our process includes visiting sites that include lava fields, forests, creek beds and dams. Here, we are experimenting with sound, video, dance, and Carla Bengtson's art work and overarching concept of the collaborative work we are doing.

Diverse Landscapes

It's been rewarding to work with dance in the various landscapes and through the lens of this project. We'll be taking what we have been discovering in the field and distilling it into the preview showing format at CFAR in Eugene, OR. For me, the next big step for me in this process is working with the dancers in the space at CFAR.

Updates

Our team of collaborators from across artistic disciplines will be developing this work into a 7 week exhibit spanning March - April 2020 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

The preview at CFAR will help to gain perspective and generate more questions about the project going forward. We look forward to sharing its developments as the project continues to evolve.

Every Word Was Once An Animal (team)

Visual Artist and Concept: Carla Bengtson

Composer: Juliet Palmer

Visual Artist: Jessie Vala

Dance Artist: Darion Smith

Heading West in August

This August, Janusphere Dance Company Artistic Director Darion Smith begins a creative residency in Eugene, OR, working on the ongoing collaboration Lizard Project/Every Word Was Once an Animal.

An intimate showing of the project will take place August 16th, and the work will be developed further over the next year, including more showings and interactive exhibits.

As we prepare for the creative residency in Eugene, we're sharing with you a roundup of some of our stories highlighting the project and its progress since its inception back in 2017.

It all started with a simple question...

Can I Make Art that is Felt as Much as it is Seen?

In dance making and in art, I am noticing that conventional approaches are good in small doses but too much keeps you stuck in one place. To be honest, I am sort of scared of changing perspectives... that's actually what makes it fun. It is meaningful (despite how scary it can feel) to use these skills and knowledge to go where I haven't been by following my intuition and then to use those same devices again to make intentional choices.

Source: by Biodiversity Heritage Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0

This creative approach keeps me (and my collaborators, and my artistic inspirations) from being crushed by externally driven expectations that are somehow less and less appealing to me...

Changes and growth throughout the project…

Lizard Finds a Home

A collaborative project between art, dance, science, and the humanities, Lizard is a multi-media installation and interactive dance performance that will be welcomed by museum goers of all ages and interests.

The project, which is the product of the ongoing creative explorations of Smith and Bengtson, promises to deliver an immersive experience on how lizards and humans communicate, the process of learning a physical language, and how we learn to see and understand movement in a new environment.

The next phase brings us to Eugene in August. We invite you to continue on this journey with us.

Updates from Summer Intensive at CDT

As the Columbus Dance Theatre Summer Intensive comes to a close, Darion Smith looks at some of the challenges and accomplishments that marked the experience for the students, and for him.

“It was a fun challenge teaching a piece that I created for six dancers to twenty one dancers,” says Smith. He explains how working with a prop that the dancers helped to create contributed to making the experience even more engaging for them.

For Smith, he got to have a fresh look at a work he created almost exactly one year ago.

“I could see new possibilities to explore in the future,” he says. Of the dancers who attended the Summer Intensive, Smith says, “they were very dedicated, passionate, hardworking.”

Students will perform Ript Dash on Friday, June 14 at the CDT theater in a culminating performance of the 2019 Summer Intensive Program.

Reuniting with Old Friends to Promote Dance Education

Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith is in Columbus, Ohio, teaching in Columbus Dance Theatre's Summer Intensive program. Darion says “I am enthusiastic to work with the new leadership of CDT.”

The positive new direction at CDT includes working with new leadership, both of whom have connections to Janusphere Dance Company. The new Columbus Dance Theatre Artistic Director Seth Wilson is a former JDC dancer and the new Executive Director is Jaime Kotrba, a JDC co-founder and former JDC dancer.

Darion, Seth and Jaime met at Dance Theatre of Harlem's DTH Ensemble in 2002 and have shared a commitment to creating dance works and promoting dance education for the next generation of students and performers.

As an instructor at this year’s Summer Intensive, Darion is teaching a selection of technique and choreography , pas de deux, modern, variations, ballet technique, and repertory, each day. Over the course of their time in the program, students will grow in skill and creativity, and explore new concepts.

Look for more updates from Columbus, OH, here and on Facebook and Instagram!

Spring News from the Sphere

This time of year is packed for dance educators and dance students as they prepare and present their final showcases and collect thoughts and lessons learned over the course of the year.

Photo by Hank Wang

For Janusphere Artistic Director Darion Smith this spring has been full of creative energy and achievement. He guided his Howard Community College dance students through another successful semester. His newest choreography for student dancers premiered. And we was featured in a video created by the College’s Dance Department.

Additionally, spring brings new announcements about artistic collaborations and residencies coming up in the next few months.

This includes an upcoming weeklong residency at the CDT and a creative residency that is part of the Lizard Project collaboration between Smith and Carla Bengtson.

Stay tuned for more updates, events and conversations here on the blog and on Facebook and Instagram.

3 Questions with Darion Smith: Performance Recap

We sat down with Darion Smith to chat about the premiere of his latest choreography at HCC. The choreographer and Janusphere Artistic Director shares what the experience was like not only for him, but for the dancers - including what it was like for students to move from the studio to the stage.

Photo by Hank Wang/Costumes by Jessica Welch

What was the most surprising part of the performance experience?

I wouldn't say there were any real surprises in the performance experience for me personally. That's probably because I was so in tune to what was going on.

I did notice the dancers were dynamic and nuanced during the performances. And although I don't know if they were surprised during the performances, they didn't divulge that information to me. When we talked about small issues that came up between each performance we were able to find quality solutions.

Moving the work from the studio to the stage made traveling in and out of the wings with large props more of a task because it added distance as well as having to navigate lighting instruments, legs, and wings which also became a challenge. So we had to run through that section whenever there was extra time on stage. 

What kind of feedback did the dancers give about the overall process, and the performance itself? 

I haven't received feedback from the dancers. I observed them problem solving frequently throughout the entire process, performances included. Of course, each dance piece engages the dancers in a different way.

Photo by Hank Wang/Costumes by Jessica Welch

In Leaving Now for Later, I also observed the dancers were highly engaged with one another as they rely on each other during the work for cueing, sometimes it's verbal cueing and sometimes it's visual. 

Does it feel like your initial vision was carried out, or were changes made that affected the scope of the experience and the piece itself (for you, as a choreographer and a dance educator)?

I originally created the work as a sketch in four sections and along the way I edited one of them out. This made the work more compact and the three sections that remained were more developed as a result.

Speaking as a choreographer, I feel that I was able to get close to what I had imagined and I also left room for things that presented a question mark to develop organically with the rest of the work. When the work strayed from what I had expected I didn't mind because it gave me a fresh look into a place I probably wouldn't have ventured.

Photo by Hank Wang/Costumes by Jessica Welch

Speaking as a dance educator, it's always a challenge to facilitate learning in choreography because there's room for interpretation - even more so these days - depending on the task. There are some things I'll show and teach how to do, and there are things that the dancers learn by being inside of the work. It's a delicate balance between too much information and not enough.

On the one hand, I want them to know what to do, but on the other hand, I don't always want them to think too far ahead and rest on the idea of knowing the work so well that they can either embellish in ways that are unnecessary or not live on the edge -so to speak- inside of the work. There is such a thing a stale or sterile performance. It's like the dancers know it so well that it becomes routine. I like clean and tidy performances but I prefer to see dancers/performers take risks at every turn. It makes the choreography come to life. I think that's a valuable artistic aspect for students to grasp in practice.

Get Out and See Some Dance This Weekend

A message from Artistic Director Darion Smith and some video previews of Leaving Now for Later.

Check out the videos on our Facebook Playlist, and come see the premiere this Friday!

It's exciting to see these students take the stage and breathe life into each of the choreography works in the HCC Program that premieres this Friday at HCC’s Smith Theatre, located in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center.

I'm fortunate to have worked on "Leaving Now for Later" with an inspiring cast who take risks, push their physical boundaries, and are constantly developing their artistic voices. Dance as a performing art contains the ability to create captivating metaphors that give a fresh look at life and our world, that's why I love it so much. Get out and see some dance this weekend!

https://www.facebook.com/events/351683345435674/

More than a Performance, Preparing Dancers for Life On and Off the Stage

We sat down to talk with our Artistic Director Darion Smith, whose newest work for student dancers, Leaving Now for Later, is coming to the stage April 5, 2019. Darion shares his thoughts on dance education and choreography in the higher education setting.

Life Lessons for Students Learning Choreography

For dancers, learning choreography by also participating in its creation provides a rich opportunity to build and practice skills that are necessary for success in life on and off the stage.

Within the process of choreography and performance invaluable moments arise where thought processes are being constantly challenged and you are being called upon to make decisions.

From rehearsal video for Smith’s Leaving Now for Later

Building Problem Solving Skills through Movement

Learning choreography is, basically, a problem solving obstacle course. Each time you work through new choreography, you create new tools, or fortify the tools you already possess. This is not just for the dancer, it is also the case for the choreographer.

The choreographer presents a problem and, together, the choreographer and dancer(s) work collaboratively to create solutions. There are parallel creative processes in other fields, including the sciences, math, music, and engineering. 

Artistic Development

For Smith, he feels he becomes more of an artist than an educator when immersed in a creative endeavor like this one. In the moment, he is not expressly trying to “educate.” Rather, he is aiming to solve a problem. In the development of a new work like this one, that problem, and its path to resolution, can be intense.

From rehearsal video for Smith’s Leaving Now for Later

However as an educator, and because of his experiences, he is able to see things throughout the process that the young dancers cannot. As a result. Smith is teaching them to learn by taking risks, making mistakes, and anticipating problems and solutions in a way that better prepares them for the role at hand, and the roles to come.

In this sense, he is teaching students in a powerful and practical way. Rather than educating them for the sake of educating them in a general sense, he is working with them to build the practical skills that make them stronger, more confident problem solvers and creative thinkers, in addition to stronger and more confident dancers.

Attend the Premiere

All of this hard work in the studio will culminate in a premiere performance April 5th - April 7th at the Smith Theatre, located in the Horowitz Center, on the Howard Community College campus, in Columbia, Maryland.

Update: Dance Education and New Work from Darion Smith

Last week on the blog we talked about a new work from Darion Smith that explores movement and meaning with an all female cast of dancers.

Smith and the dancers are in rehearsals now, and we’re going behind the scenes to take a look at how the piece is evolving. The rehearsal process is short and intense. This speaks to some of the creativity and ingenuity that is an intrinsic part of working in dance education. Smith says, “we had such a short rehearsal time which forced me to focus on revising the choreography and dancer qualities.”

Throughout the process, in addition to bringing choreographic elements to life, dancers are learning the mechanics of putting together a piece for the stage, and how to work together to communicate the aim and the story of the piece.

We’ll be bringing you more, soon, as things continue to develop. Smith’s latest dance work will premiere April 5, 2019, at Howard Community College's Smith Theatre.

Creating Meaning in New Ways: Preview of New Work by Darion Smith

Choreographer Darion Smith is bringing a new work to life, featuring a five member, all-female cast. The dance work explores the tempo and intensity of select movements and tasks that involve large-scale props. It plays against - and with - the inevitability of gravity. To do this, Smith has designed gestural patterns that reflect some personal input from the dancers.

The randomness and disconnectedness of each section of the piece is apparent and purposeful. Smith has choreographed it this way in order to explore new dimensions as a choreographer. He says, “I'm trying to find new ways to create meaning and metaphor using methods I'm unfamiliar with, as well as those that are completely improvised.”

This new dance work is unique because it is being developed during a very short creative residency with the dancers. They meet once a week, complete run-throughs, and receive feedback.

For Smith, who is always excited to try something new, or to try something he has done before with a new twist, the excitement of this work comes with setting dancers on the path to develop their craft in new and more sophisticated ways.

“I'm excited to see how the dancers develop themselves inside of the work and what they will take away from the process,” says Smith. He is hopeful that this newest piece for emerging dancers provides new perspectives to everyone who is working on it.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the blog, when Darion Smith talks about the connections between dance education and choreography, and we share more details about the upcoming April 5, 2019, premiere at Howard Community College's Smith Theatre.

Let it Go Behind the Scenes with Darion Smith and Sarah Gomez

As promised, we have more behind the scenes updates from the rehearsals for Darion Smith’s Let it Go.

In the new piece, Sarah Gomez joins choreographer Darion Smith in the work, created for two dancers.

Let it Go premieres Friday, November 16, at the Horowitz Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College.

Show Times and Ticket Information

The HCC Dance Showcase, which includes dance works created by both faculty and students, will run two performances: Friday, November 16th (3:00 p.m.); and Saturday, November 17th (7:00 p.m.). Showcase performances will be held in the Howard Community College Smith Theatre, housed in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center.

The address is 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia, MD, 21044. 

Premiere at Horowitz Performing Arts Center

Darion Smith’s new work, Let it Go, premieres November 16 and 17 at the Horowitz Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College in Maryland.

Let It Go, the first work that Smith has choreographed and premiered at Howard Community College, is part of a larger show, the HCC Dance Showcase. This fall’s Showcase features dance works created by faculty, alongside student works in the same program. 

Let It Go is a work for two dancers. Sarah Gomez and Darion Smith will present Let it Go at the premiere. Gomez and Smith will explore an obstacle course built from physical props and set pieces, examine aspects of the human condition, and tangle and untangle personal stories.     

Stay tuned for more about the choreography process and how the idea of Let it Go took shape. Behind the scenes rehearsal photos and video previews coming soon!

Premiere at Bellingham Repertory Dance Company: Sacrifice Choreographed by Darion Smith

A few months ago, we told you about Artistic Director Darion Smith’s residency at Bellingham Repertory Dance Company. The work that Smith developed at Bellingham Repertory Dance Company in July premieres this weekend, October 26, 2018, and runs for two weeks.

Titled Sacrifice, the dance piece is a trio for three women. It features musical premieres from Christian Cherry along with music from Richard Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries.

Darion Smith in rehearsal, Bellingham Repertory Dance Company

Reflecting on choreographing Sacrifice and working with the dancers at Bellingham Repertory Dance Company, Smith says, “I came to BRD with some ideas in mind but spent the first part of rehearsal process getting to know the dancers and how they move.”

The resulting work, he says, includes “sprinkles of humor but also dramatic, ritualistic, and highly energetic moments that align with the music.”

In addition to the musical features, the dance work encorporates a fabric prop that the dancers have had to get used to working with, all of which come together to create an experience for dancers and audience to enjoy and that will leave them talking about Sacrifice.   

Game Change: When Practical Challenges Influence Art Making

On the blog today, we’re spotlighting Artistic Director Darion Smith’s recent new choreography, Game Change. In so doing, we are also looking at how practical challenges, like choreographing for students as opposed to professional company dancers, influences how a choreographer makes art, and how that art takes shape.

Game Change, choreographed by Darion Smith, was selected to represent the University of Oregon at the ACDA North West Regional Conference 2018 in Boulder, CO, in March.

University of Oregon dance students in Darion Smith’s Game Change at ACDA Conference. Photo by Pam Cressall

As Smith explains it, Game Change is “a representation of nuance in my creative process.” That creative process was specifically influenced by his time as both a graduate student and an instructor in the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance. Now teaching in the Howard Community College Department of Dance, Smith reflects on his time at University of Oregon, and the impact that academic exploration and teaching dance students has had on the creative process and the work it produced.

He says, “from the moment I arrived at the University of Oregon, I realized that I had a new space to be creative in and a new set of constraints. In some regards there were no constraints to what I wanted to make,” at the same time, because he was working with students, as opposed to members of the professional Janusphere Dance Company, there were other factors to consider, from learning outcomes, to range, to readiness.

University of Oregon dance student in Darion Smith’s Game Change at ACDA Conference. Photo by Pam Cressall

Talking about Game Change, Smith walks us through some of his process, starting with the early stages of turning “an idea that floats in the mind” into movement. If, as he explains, that idea “merits enough interest,” he tries to work it out in some physical form, often starting in his own kitchen or living room, exploring the idea ans seeing where it takes him.

From the Living Room to the Classroom

When it is time to take the next steps toward creating the work, by bringing the choreography to dancers, a choreographer needs to transfer those movement ideas in specific ways. “A lot of how I worked in the past was by showing movement phrases to dancers and them picking it up,” says Smith. Once the phrase was learned, he would move onto other aspects of putting the choreography together.

Smith says that, while he was able to use this mode of making dances to some degree with students, he did recognize that, “working with professional dancers, I was able to choose the dancers for specific qualities, making this mode of translating choreography very effective.” In the classroom studio setting, he saw that “working with a diversity of levels and experience at university taught me that this mode does not translate as clearly as it did in a professional setting.” Choreographing for students required more. That lead to an enriched creative process and it pushed Smith, as a choreographer and an educator, to “see and explore other qualities in the dancers I was working with" and to explore new methods of generating a dance that has structure and unique qualities.”

Improvisational Techniques and Adding Voice

Part of this exploration included incorporating improvisational tasks and the use of the voice. “I was happy to use my work to get to know the dancers as artists and individuals, by inviting them to incorporate more of themselves into the work.”

University of Oregon dance student in Darion Smith’s Game Change at ACDA Conference. Photo by Pam Cressall

As a result, he created three distinct worlds in Game Change, the through line of which was the dancers.

The ACDA Conference was the perfect environment to present Game Change, because its choreography and execution are unique to the dance education experience, and the role that dance education plays in the creative process for both choreographers and students of dance.