Dance COLEctive Summer Technique Week with a Twist!

Shannon Edwards Archives

For more than 12 years The Dance COLEctive has conducted an annual Summer Dance Workshop.  The beginning of this year, our 20th Anniversary Season is no different really....

The Dance COLEctive Summer Technique Week with a Twist is a great way to be exposed to the company.  While we are not having an official audition this season we are scouting for dancers to participate in our 20th Anniversary Performances.  Read long time company member Shannon McGuire Edwards' story about her first workshop and how it impacted her journey to join the company.  

Shannon says:
 
It was the summer after graduation in 2009. I never had the privilege of taking Margi's class in college, but I did have her as a sub once. I remember loving her class and found myself particularly eager to master "the run around".  So I signed up for the summer intensive. I was planning on attending the audition at the end of the week. I especially remember Margi talking about weight in the pelvis, the importance of authentic touch, and allowing the body to sink into the floor. These are concepts that still resonate with me show in the work I do with The Dance COLEctive. I still take Margi's class today and think about the special corrections and notes she gave me during those five, intense days at the TDC Summer Workshop.

This is the calendar still hanging in my bedroom at my mom's house. It's still on this page and I look at it often remembering how important that week was to me. (On the 8th it says "audition" and "family" because I went to my family reunion a day late so I could make it to the audition).

Margi says:

I remember Shannon working so diligently as a student in my Repertory Performance Workshop class at Columbia College.  I was drawn to her work ethic and to her powerful presence as a performer.  It has been such a pleasure to watch Shannon grow as a person and an artist in her years with the company and I am still magically drawn to her beauty and vulnerability as a performer.  

This year, in honor of our 20th Anniversary, we will not only do technique but we will teach repertory from our long history.  Should be fun! 

You can find more information here!

Submitted by TDC dancer Shannon Edwards, August 2, 2015.   

It felt right. I felt lucky!

Liz & Shannon      Photo by William Frederking

This past May I graduated from Ohio University with a BFA in dance. With a degree in hand and most of my belongings packed up in my parents Subaru I made my way to Chicago.  With only a week of city livin’ under my belt I found my way to Margi’s Dance COLEctive Technique Week, at the end of which would be my first professional audition.  Getting back to technique and meeting so many wonderful people was such a great way to get me introduced to this city. I was excited about the promise of being a part of a company so soon in my career.
 

Not long after the call back I got the email that told me I would be an apprentice with the company.

It felt right.  I felt lucky!

It made me happy for the 17 year-old Liz that convinced her Mom she should be a dance major in college.

After a quick call to my family with a slight undertone of “I told you so”, I got ready for my first rehearsal.

Coming right out of a college program that valued the choreographic process, and building of the artistic voice, Margi’s work felt right at home. Discovering that my voice would be heard, even as an apprentice was an exciting venture. And finding a dance community that I could be a part of so soon was more than I could have hoped.

I dearly miss the group of dancers I left when I graduated. And in this -15 degree weather I am noticing now more than ever that I am no longer in the soft warm blanket that college had me wrapped up in. But The Dance COLEctive makes me feel supported and heard and warm.  I certainly didn’t expect to be a part of such a creative and open group of dancers so early on in my career in Chicago. Plus, knowing that I am following in the footsteps of many, many great women is something pretty exciting.
 

Submitted by TDC Apprentice, Liz Conway, February 19, 2015.

I began dancing, like many others, at the ripe old age of three

I began dancing, like many others, at the ripe old age of three. I began at a studio in Dixon, Illinois. I spent almost the next decade studying the basics and dipped into the world of competitive dance. Although I had a short run in competitions, I learned and saw things that would forever shape my dancing; awareness. Soon after I moved with my mom and sisters to Chicago where I began in a more classical curriculum in the city. It was a program that emphasized strict discipline and poise. So there I picked up a new essential in dance studies. I later studied dance in my Chicago High School program. There I witnessed and learned the depth of modern dance. I learned to watch and analyze dance in a literate manner. I attended Columbia College and majored in dance. There, I was enlightened. I found a purpose in dance. I discovered the art of dance. I did more than take class, I participated in dance discourse and  embodied a new texture through improvisation and release based techniques. I took one of my last required classes in my very last semester at Columbia. Margi taught the Repertory Performance Workshop. In the very first class, Margi reviewed with us three basic movement principles; walking, running and standing still. Those being things we learn in life many times before we even talk, this lesson was still profound to me. Because in dance, we forget how to just stand, just walk, and just run. When standing still, there is purpose and presence. Walking and running is human and powerful as just that. As a performer, this deeply resonated with me. She continued to the shape and refine our performances with both major and subtle notes. Not feeling completely quenched in just one semester, I registered for The Dance COLEctive's Summer Workshop so I could squeeze more out of Margi. Although I would miss most of my family's annual reunion, I went to the audition the Saturday after the workshop. Thankfully I did, because I graciously accepted the company's offer to apprentice in the 2009-2010 season. The following season I accepted a company member position. I have been ecstatically dancing with The Dance COLEctive ever since then.

Submitted by TDC Dancer Shannon McGuire-Edwards on Thursday, December 6, 2012.