The Emerging Choreographers Project was started by local dancer and choreographer Anna Pillot in 2017 to highlight up-and-coming choreographers in the Capital Region. It first debuted in Albany Center Gallery, showcasing pieces by six choreographers who engaged in post-performance audience talkbacks. The first and second iterations of the project drew hundreds of curious dance enthusiasts. Now in its third year, the project will showcase works by eight artists and has grown enough to need the stage space and seating of Cohoes Music Hall.
Two choreographers from this year’s show recently spoke with The Collaborative about preparing their work for the Aug. 15-16 shows.
Laura Teeter has been dancing with Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company since 2004. She is the assistant to the artistic director at the Albany-based company.
Teeter has prepared a slow and deliberate 4-minute piece to Mozart’s “Requiem,” titled “All Has Been Recorded.” It will be performed as a duet with former Pilobolus dancer Damon Honeycutt. She describes the work as “two amoebas moving together in space.”
“I feel like this piece is really coming full circle,” she explains. “I’ve been working on the Mozart ‘Requiem’ in many, many sections over the years. Section three is a solo, I’ve fleshed out sections one and two in unison as ensembles and then this duet will follow that. So someday, somewhere, I’ll have it all.”
The piece that will be performed by Lindy hop choreographer Dorothy Boice and her partner Robert Robles-Mejia originally debuted as a 4-minute, 14-person group work in April. Boice is adapting the piece to work as a duet.
Boice has been dancing Lindy hop for 14 years. The freedom and lightness of the American jazz style consumed her as a teenager, coming off of a rigorous and disciplined competitive gymnastics career in High Falls. She was drawn to the Capital Region by the Lindy hop scene and began teaching independent adult classes at Troy Dance Factory.
Boise hopes her August performance at Cohoes Music Hall will continue to spark interest in the mostly underground, close-knit, local Lindy hop dance community.
“I’ve just started to get back into teaching Lindy full time…It’s great because people get to a certain point, as far as their technique, and then they just plateau and stay there. I know a large group of people who are unsatisfied with that. They want to learn more, they’re hungry,” she says.
Emerging Choreographers Project take place Aug. 15-16 at 7:30 PM at Cohoes Music Hall.
