PROJECTS

You Are Not My Enemy
BRDC was awarded a microgrant in June 2016 to develop a community-centered project using commissioned choreography by Jane Hawley, titled You Are Not My Enemy. This material is the base for an all-abilities, multi-generational dance workshop hosted in Denton, TX. You Are Not My Enemy challenges how we relate to one another and opens conversations about prevalent issues that we all face. BRDC has presented this work at Dallas Dances, TDIF, TCC, TCU, and Dance Co-op. TheaterJones deemed the work raw and promising. Photo by Sharen Bradford.

The Theatrical Piano: Songs, Sirens & Social Issues
Choreographer: Amanda Jackson | Curator & Pianist: Jeff Lankov
This cutting-edge multimedia program combined live music with theatre, dance, spoken word, and computer-generated sounds in unusual juxtapositions that encouraged audience members to contemplate their own preconceptions about topics including homelessness, body image, AIDS, gun control, and patriotism. Premiered at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival 2016 with choreography reviewed as witty, striking, and powerful by TheaterJones and Dallas Morning News. Photo by Ron Heflin.

Suite Female: Parts X-XX
Choreographer: Rebecca Bryant | Original Sound Composition: Don Nichols
Four female performers and their onstage female “producers” dig up ideas of viewing, labeling, and power by controlling the visual representation of themselves. Explosive dancing, campy gestures, and poetically-charged solo moments build potent metaphors with absurd props that can shape-shift. SF X-XX premiered in June 2015 at Highways Performance Space in California. BRDC's most recent performance was at WAH! Fest in San Francisco.

When the Birds Fell
Choreographer: Amanda Jackson
Voted "Best in Fest" at the 2015 {254}Dance-Fest in Waco, TX! Seven dancers flock, fall, catch, resist, and release to physically represent a way of understanding human relationships. Accounts of thousands of birds mysteriously falling from the sky in recent past also served as a broader metaphor for accepting the unknown. Photo by Lynn Lane.

Acts of Absence
Choreographers: Sarah Gamblin, Whitney Geldon, Amanda Jackson, Lily Sloan
Sound Composition: Momentary Gamelan Ensemble | Digital Media Design: Scott Martin
Acts of Absence premiered at New Genre Arts Festival in 2014 and was later commissioned by Flatlands Dance Theatre. This evening of dance, music, and digital media performance explored the desire for connection in a world defined by vastness and presented a wide range of physicalities and psychological locations.

Converge
Choreographers: Crysta Caulkins Clouse, Whitney Geldon, Amanda Jackson, Meredith Knight, Lily Sloan
Sound Composition: Westin Ox-King Portillo and Momentary Gamelan Ensemble
Converge was an evening of new dance works investigating intersections between loops, disruption, endurance, and construction. Featuring complex partnering, self-imposed obstacles, and impulsive design, Converge aimed to test the boundaries of physical and conceptual dynamics. Converge included over 20 highly skilled dancers from across the DFW Metroplex and utilized moveable wall structures.

Suite Female: Part I & Suite Female: Parts II-VIII
Choreographer, Sound Composition & Digital Media Design: Rebecca Bryant
This series investigates the cultural construction of female identity within American culture. We have presented Bryant's work at Texas Christian University and Tarrant County College in Fort Worth; University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University in Denton; Eastfield College in Mesquite; {254}Dance-Fest in Waco; and The Exchange in Tulsa, OK.

Grit
Choreographers: BRDC | Original Sound Composition: John Osburn
Grit was created from the impulse to move dynamically together, exploring action words like: press, pull, battle, impact, explode, ground, tough, fall, and let go. Grit has been performed at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth; Brazos Dance Festival in College Station; and North Central Texas College in Gainesville. The creative process for the work also sparked BRDC's first annual summer dance intensive, then called The Grit Intensive.

Homing Where I Roam
Choreographers: Crysta Caulkins-Clouse, Whitney Geldon, Amanda Jackson, Lily Sloan
BRDC produced a thematic evening of dance around the idea of home. Three separate works were presented: Upstairs, collaboratively created by Amanda Jackson and Whitney Geldon; This Person's Life by Crysta Caulkins-Clouse; and Over the River by Lily Sloan. Each work explored the central idea of home through explorations of a century old house, autobiographical stories, and familial relationships during the holidays.

Big Fri Performance Series
Over the course of a year, Big Rig Dance Collective presented monthly performance installations and events throughout the downtown square in Denton, TX. These events included collaborations with musicians like Ryan Thomas Becker and Tony Ferrera, as well as sparked the first introduction with long-time collaborators Hentai Improvising Orchestra. We also collaborated with dance artists and companies such as Simple Sparrow Dance Company, Danielle Georgiou Dance Group, Melissa Watt, Matthew Cumbie, and Alek Trail.

Collaborative Improvisations
BRDC has had the pleasure of collaborating and improvising with several talented musicians. We have created 3-hour sound and movement installations with Impulse, a group of improvising musicians and composers from University of North Texas. We have also performed with Fort Worth-based Hentai Improvising Orchestra at Arts Goggle in Landers Machine Shop and created the work Acres and Perches together, which premiered at the 2013 Barefoot Brigade Dance Festival in Dallas.

Projects