June 15- August 7, 2020
Virtual Summer Intensive & Classes LIVE via ZOOM. And, to make sure we reach everyone, we will also have recorded classes.
Join us dancing with world acclaimed guest artists from around the country – along-side Kanopy’s Artistic Directors and Faculty. Deepen your dance technique and artistry. Engage in creative activities. Learn, and learn about, these modern dance techniques, their different foundations toward the physical art of movement, their beginnings, and how artists through time create and find inspiration.
Faculty:
- Robert E. Cleary, Artistic Director, Kanopy Dance, Madison, WI.
- Georgia Corner, Kanopy faculty; former principal dancer Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Madison, WI.
- Samantha Geracht, artistic director Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble, New York, New York.
- Deborah Goodman, master teacher in Humphrey and Graham Techniques, Loyola College, Chicago, IL.
- Sandra Kaufmann, former principal dancer Martha Graham Dance Company; Director Loyola College Dance Program, Chicago, IL.
- Joy McEwen, former principal dancer Erick Hawkins Dance Company, faculty, Purdue University, IN.
- Maya Finman Palmer, former Kanopy2 dancer; Professional Program, Alvin Ailey Dance Company, New York, New York.
- Lisa Thurrell, Artistic Director, Kanopy Dance, Madison, WI
Samantha Geracht, Artistic Director of Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble, was a member of Anna Sokolow’s Players’ Project for eleven years, and when the name changed, became a founding member of Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble (2004). As a Sokolow authority, Ms. Geracht reconstructs Sokolow works on students and professional companies as well as teaching Sokolow technique classes. Recently she reconstructed Ms. Sokolow’s Ride the Culture Loop on the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble, a suite from Rooms at Franklin and Marshall College and The Unanswered Question on the students studying in the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble classes. Ms. Geracht danced extensively with Deborah Carr, Theatre Dance Ensemble, performing the works of Charles Weidman, Doris Humphrey and Ms. Carr. She has performed with Jim May, Gail Corbin, Richard Biles, Claudia Gitelman, David Parker and The Bang Group, Rae Ballard’s Thoughts In Motion; and performs and presents her own choreography. Ms. Geracht holds a BS in dance from the University of Wisconsin. After graduating from UW she studied extensively at the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab in New York City. Over the course of her 25-year career she continuously trains under Betty Jones, Fritz Luden and her mentor Jim May. Anna Sokolow (1910-2000) began her career as a dancer with Martha Graham. The work of Ms. Sokolow has had and continues to have a profound effect on the course of contemporary dance throughout the world. Called the “Solzhenitsyn of twentieth-century dance,” she consistently and uncompromisingly reflected the realities of society through her work.
Deborah Goodman, master teacher and performer, Humphrey and Graham techniques. Her expertise in American modern dance features extensive experience performing and teaching Humphrey/Weidman technique and repertory. As a scholarship student to the Martha Graham School in NYC, Yuriko selected Deborah as her demonstrator, meticulously training her in the early technique and repertory of Martha Graham. Deborah performed in the reconstruction of Martha Graham’s Panorama, and took part in the reconstruction of Ms. Graham’s original work, Prelude to Action from Sketches from Chronicle. She remains an international authority on the early technique and continues to teach at the Martha Graham School summer intensive courses. She danced with celebrated choreographers Richard Move and Goldhuber/Lasky in New York and MOMENTA Dance Company in Oak Park. Deborah is the rehearsal Director for Winifred Haun & Dancers. She the founder and curator the Chicago Inclusive Dance Festival and works with dancers of all abilities as well with as elite students. Deborah has served on the dance faculty of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, New York University, Long Island University, The Connecticut Conservatory of the Performing Arts and Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts in New York and in Chicago at The Chicago Academy for the Arts, The Academy of Movement and Music and Loyola University Chicago.
Sandra Kaufmann is internationally recognized as a leading authority in classical American modern dance technique and repertory. She danced for the Martha Graham Dance Company and served as artistic director of Graham II. Her thirty-year performance career features work with celebrated choreographers, Pearl Lang and Richard Move, with Silo Dancers and MOMENTA, where she has performed significant choreography by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, and as a freelance artist. Sandra continues to work for the Graham center teaching for their summer intensive courses and serving as a regisseur for both Graham and Humphrey repertory. She directs and performs in programs featuring significant historic solos, with her recent program, “The Legacy of the New Dance Group,” invited to perform in Washington DC at the Library of Congress. Sandra’s award-winning choreography encompasses concert dance, film/video, opera, musical theatre, interdisciplinary collaborations and site-specific works. She has served on the faculty of Barnard College, New York University, Chicago Academy for the Arts, The Academy of Movement and Music and as the founding director of Dance at Loyola University Chicago.
Joy McEwen, former Principal Dancer in the Erik Hawkins Dance Company. Hawkins, a modern dance pioneer, was known as the “poet of modern dance” and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. During her years with the company, she performed at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina, Jacob’s Pillow Festival in Massachusetts, in addition to Hawkins annual season in New York City at the Joyce Theater. While in New York City, Mrs. McEwen co-founded The Wellspring Project (Dance), which continued the Hawkins legacy by commissioning original works. She has also performed with companies such as the Nancy Meehan Dance Company, LIFEDANCE/Gloria McLean and Dancers and Valerie Green Dance Entropy. Highlights of her time in New York included performing at Lincoln Center, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, The 92nd Street Harkness Dance Center, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery and dancing alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov. Mrs. McEwen has performed and taught in Portugal, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Canada, Yeshiva University (NY), Hunter College (NY), and Marymount Manhattan College (NY) and as a guest artist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Mrs. McEwen received a Master of Fine Arts: Performing Arts- Concentration in Dance, from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts. She began her formal dance education at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Following her years there, she attended the University of Michigan, where she received a BFA in Dance. She is a past winner of the Indiana Dance Educator of the Year Award, presented by the Indiana Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (IAHPERD). Currently McEwen is faculty at Purdue University and the Director of Auxiliaries and Golduster Dance Team.
Georgia Corner, former Principal Dancer in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and Kanopy faculty, is a dancer and teacher with over twenty years of experience performing, teaching, and producing dance. She performed for five years with the Erik Hawkins Dance Company; for two years with Douglas Dunn and Dancers, and New York based companies of Lise Brenner, Kriota Willberg, and Karen Bernard. She also performed throughout Minnesota with Ballet Harren, and performed domestically and internationally for eight years with Ballet Mink Colbert. In 1998, she founded and went on to co-direct and dance in The Wellspring Project, a repertory company based in the Hawkins technique. Over six years, Wellspring commissioned and premiered over a dozen new dances, produced five New York seasons, performed throughout New England, and appeared in Toronto and Montreal. Corner developed a lecture demonstration about modern dance for Wellspring and grants which were funded by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Bossak Heilbronn Foundation. In 2002 Wellspring produced the Erik Hawkins Legacy Forum in conjunction with Hunter College, which drew teacher and students from across the country and abroad. While in New York, Corner taught modern technique at the Erik Hawkins School of Dance and at the 92nd Street Y, both cradles of modern dance. For twelve years she directed the Broome Corner Studio, which offered classes, rehearsal and performance space to the New York dance community. She has been a guest artist at the University of Nebraska-Las Vegas, and has taught workshops and master classes for groups of every age and experience level.
Maya Finman Palmer, Kanopy2 alum, studied at Kanopy Academy of Dance from age 6-19. During her years of intense training at Kanopy, studying under its Artistic Directors and faculty, she also studied under Kanopy’s guest artists: Martin Lofsnes, Sandra Kaufmann, Donlin Foreman, Pascal Rioult, Miki Orihara, Samantha Geracht, Virginie Mecene, Kevin Predmore and Lone Kjaer Larsen. At Kanopy she was also fortunate to study under guest physical theater artists Amit Lahav, Gecko Theatre, UK, and Steve Wasson and Corinne Soum, Theatre l’ange Fou. At Martha Graham Center in NYC she studied with Steve Rooks. Currently she is in the Advanced 3 year Professional Program at Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York City. At Alvin Ailey School she has trained under Amy Hall, Bradly Shelver, Matthew Rushing, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Judine Somerville, and others.
Robert E. Cleary, Co-Artistic Director Kanopy Dance Company
Lisa Thurrell, Co-Artistic Director Kanopy Dance Company