News from DanceBreak @Lincoln Center

DanceBreak presented a Director-Choreographer Panel/Workshop on August 8th, as part of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab.

The distinguished panel included: Director-Choreographer team – Daniel Fish and Peter Pucci, (DB Board member) Melinda Atwood (DanceBreak Founder/Board President), Andrew Asnes (Producer/ DB Board member) Matt Williams (choreographer) and was lead and moderated by Staś Kmieć (Director/Choreographer).

The panel addressed director-choreographer collaborations, offering advice and discussing the working process. Asnes detailed "the balance between Art and Commercial Theater," and the producer's perspective in hiring director-choreographer teams.

Melinda Atwood said, “ Effective communication between a choreographer and a director is crucial to any successful collaboration. This was a wonderful opportunity for DanceBreak to be able to work with these young directors, in a very hands on way, to address some of the issues that arise in many working situations. We were delighted to have this chance to address some of these concerns.”

Participating in the workshop, which matched choreographers with Lab directors, were Malinda Ray Allen and DanceBreak choreographer alumni Barry McNabb, Lainie Sankura, Matt Williams and Staś Kmieć.

Each workshop exercise utilized excerpts from Aristophanes' The Birds juxtaposed with a diverse choreographic approach, ranging from 50s theater jazz and period 1920s styles to contemporary dance. This allowed the directors the opportunity to also experience the role of the actor – moving/dancing in order to better understand the process of learning movement/choreography.

“What we explored was how the visual element of dance can translate the message of a theatrical work, be that play, musical or opera,” said Staś Kmieć. “Choreography can establish or contribute to establishing a specific period; it can be a showpiece; or it can be an integral point of the plot by conveying in movement what would take pages of dialogue to achieve.”

The Directors Lab is an annual developmental program for nurturing stage directors from around the country and around the world. It is a series of workshops, readings, rehearsals, investigations, roundtable discussions, and studio productions to provide young directors with an intensive study of their craft while fostering collaborative relationships among a peer community of artists.

The 3-week Lab, which took place July 20 - August 8, was geared toward professional directors in early career stages and brought together 64 international directors.