Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company

PERCEPTIONS DANCE

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PERCEPTIONS WEST

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Perceptions West ABOUT About Perceptions WestIn continuing with the mission of creating art while providing opportunity to artists, Perceptions Dance has launched Perceptions West, an inclusive performance project branch of the company. Perceptions West aims to spread the stylings of Artistic Director and choreographer Melissa Gendreau throughout the western part of the country, while providing an opportunity to artists in the field of dance to work in a collaborative manner. Through an experimental process of creation and mentorship, Assistant Director Molly Fletcher Lynch will lead dancers through new work processes within the Perceptions Dance mission and vision. Perceptions West brings a new method of creating works, using "Creation Collaborators" to design entire works: from choreography to direction, music and costumes, titles and more, fostering a challenge to have all participants give feedback, opinions and equal input into creating a final work of art.Perception Dance is "shifting perceptions" by working in a new environment, with new dancers in an experimental dance lab format. Assistant Director Molly Fletcher Lynch will set Perceptions core movement on dancers while exploring new ideas and performance material from May through January 2012 at The Garage in San Francisco. PerceptionsWest conluded their 9 month residency at The Garage in San Francisco with an evening concert of works created on January 20th & 21st..Check out the Garage
UPCOMING

Upcoming Events

PerceptionsWest at the Garage

Original Works. Original Music. Original People

PerceptionsWest closes in on the end of their residency at the Garage and shares three new works created in this time. This collaborative company has joined creative forces to include you in an evening of matters both silly and serious, combined with live music, beatboxing and some badass dancing

Works:

The Furthest Distance Between Two Points

The Return

Table Talk*

*extended evening length version

January 20th & 21st

The Garage - San Francisco

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Created & Performed by Molly Fletcher Lynch, Jessie Cosentino, Jordan Kitzman, Mikaela Brady, Annie Thatcher-Stephens, and Daphne Zneimer, Melissa Gendreau. Musicians: Jesse Seaver (beatboxer and composer) and Stephen Etheredge (guitar)

MOLLY

Molly Fletcher Lynch Perceptions West Director

Molly Fletcher Lynch is a professionally trained dancer with a wide range of training including modern, contemporary, ballet, african, hip hop and musical theater. Molly graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2007 where she studied sociology, psychology and dance. After graduating Molly moved to Boston where she began working as a dancer with the Heather Bryce Dance Company, Kelley Donovan and Dancers and Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company. In 2009 Molly relocated to New York where she worked with ANAHATA Dance, Keen Dance Theater and performed inthe off-off-Broadway musical "Rock-On! Live for the Music". Molly recieved her Yoga Teacher certification through Yoga Effects in 2009, and trained/worked as a Sage movement instructor for Studio Anya, a neo-yogic movement studio based out of Chelsea, NY. Molly has been a part of Perceptions Dance since 2007, serving as a dancer, Outreach Coordinator, Assistant Director, and now the Director of Perceptions West. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Melissa Gendreau, Molly continues to spread the mission of Perceptions Dance by facilitating a collaboration between dancers and choreographers on the west coast, creating opportunity and artistic entertainment for audiences.
COLLABORATORS

Collaborators

Molly Fletcher Lynch
Jessie Cosentino
Jordan Kitzman
Daphne Zneimer
Annie Thatcher-Stephens
Mikaela Brady

Molly Fletcher Lynch Molly Headshot.jpg

Molly Fletcher LynchPerceptions West DirectorMolly Fletcher Lynch is a professionally trained dancer with a wide range of training including modern, contemporary, ballet, african, hip hop and musical theater. Molly graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2007 where she studied sociology, psychology and dance. After graduating Molly moved to Boston where she began working as a dancer with the Heather Bryce Dance Company, Kelley Donovan and Dancers and Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company. In 2009 Molly relocated to New York where she worked with ANAHATA Dance, Keen Dance Theater and performed inthe off-off-Broadway musical "Rock-On! Live for the Music". Molly recieved her Yoga Teacher certification through Yoga Effects in 2009, and trained/worked as a Sage movement instructor for Studio Anya, a neo-yogic movement studio based out of Chelsea, NY. Molly has been a part of Perceptions Dance since 2007, serving as a dancer, Outreach Coordinator, Assistant Director, and now the Director of Perceptions West. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Melissa Gendreau, Molly continues to spread the mission of Perceptions Dance by facilitating a collaboration between dancers and choreographers on the west coast, creating opportunity and artistic entertainment for audiences.

Jessie Cosentino

Jessie CosentinoCreation Collaborator - "Table Talk"Jessie Cosentino graduated with a BFA in dance from Western Michigan University in May 2009 and moved to New York City the following September. Jessie had the privilege of performing in several different projects with companies such as Broadway Meets Jazz, barbie diewald &c. dance initiative, and Maria Colaco Dance Company. Jessie was also featured in a music video for musical artist Athena Reich, which was nominated for best video of the year at the 2010 OutMusic Awards.In November 2009 she was contracted as a dancer with Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company. She then co-founded a collaborative dance company, TrioDance Collective, with two other NYC based choreographers. TrioDance produced two concerts in 2010 at the Triskelion Arts Center in Brooklyn and was featured in several different showings and festivals. Now heading for the west coast, Jessie has launched her own entertainment company entitled, Cardinalidae. The company will make its debut in Kalamazoo, Michigan in June 2011 and premier in San Francisco the following September. Aside from the company, she will be joining some friends from New York as one of the first members of Perceptions West.

Jordan Kitzman

Jordan KitzmanCreation Collaborator - "Table Talk"Jordan Kitzman is a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2004 with a degree in Interior design. While in college, her second home was the UW dance department, where she had the opportunity to dance with professors Li Chiao-Ping and Jin-Wen Yu. After college Jordan moved to New York to pursue her design career, but as luck would have it, reconnected with a fellow Madison graduate and began dancing again with ANAHATA Dance. Jordan recently relocated to San Francisco and currently works as a product designer for Pottery Barn. She is excited to explore her new city and everything it has to offer including the new dance company Perceptions West!

Daphne Zneimer

Daphne Zneimer Creation Collaborator - "Table Talk"Originally from Los Angeles, Daphne has danced with the Los Angeles Classical Ballet and Aeolian Ballet Theatre. She graduated from the Hartt School in Hartford, CT with a BFA in Ballet Pedagogy. There she performed leading roles in La Bayadere, Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire, the title role in Jean Grand Maitre's Romeo and Juliet and danced with the Adam Miller Dance Project. Since moving to San Francisco she has danced with Liss Fain Dance Company and is currently a member with Napoles Ballet Theatre.

Annie Thatcher-Stephens Headshot Annie blackandwhite.jpg

Annie Thatcher-StephensCreation Collaborator - "Table Talk"Annie has been living in the Bay Area since graduating from the Hartt School/University of Hartford in 2005 (BFA Dance Performance). She has performed and toured with several Bay Area choreographers and companies including Ruth Botchan, Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, Copious Dance Theatre, Jaime Venci and Jetta Martin. Annie also had the opportunity to perform with David Dorfman Dance in his SF premier of The Underground.As a student, Annie trained extensively in ballet at Long Beach Ballet Arts Center in Southern California spending summers at Joffrey Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and the School of the Hartford Ballet. She has also studied at the Limon Institute and Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance in NYC. While at the University of Hartford, Annie performed with Dance Connecticut as well as dancing the works of Martha Graham, Jean Grand-Maitre, Peggy Lyman, Kirk Perterson, and Katie Stevenson-Nollet. Outside of dance, Annie is a certified personal trainer whoenjoys anything outdoors, snacking, Giants baseball, and practicing the AlexanderTechnique.

Mikaela Brady Makeala Brady.jpg

Mikaela BradyCreation Collaborator - "Table Talk"Mikaela Brady, a California native, graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the spring of 2008. She primarily studied modern dance, under Betsy Fisher, Gregg Lizenbery, and Peggy Gatither Adams, performing historical modern pieces by artists such as Alwin Nikolai, Doris Humphery, Bebe Miller, and Shapiro and Smith. Mikaelas strong physicality stems from her competitive gymnastic background where she learned the fundamentals of ballet as a part of her artistic gymnastic training. She discovered her passion for movement at a young age and has continued to be driven kinesthetically in all areas of her life. After living four years in Hawaii studying fundamentals of movement, kinesiology of the body, as well as the foundations of modern dance, ballet, and hula, Mikaela has returned to the Bay Area to grow as a performance artist and to coach and inspire young dancers and gymnasts.

PAST Past Events"The Return""The Return" is a collaborative work-in-progress by Molly Fletcher Lynch and Kristin Rooney-Nguyen that explores the notion that loss provides renewal, even when it's hard to find. The choreography is based on the cyclical nature of life and the act of returning to some state or way of being that has been left behind. Premier Performance:January 20th & 21stThe Garage - San FranciscoCreation Collaborators: Molly Fletcher Lynch & Kristin Rooney-NguyenLive music by Stephen Etheredge "Table Talk""Table Talk", where everyone at the table has their say. Simply joining in on the conversation or off on a tangent, this conversation of movement unfolds, morphs and expands, without ever feeling out of the loop. The dancers of Perceptions West explore and pick apart the intricacies of group dynamics and the ever changing, yet delicate art form of communication through conversation. Words are the initiation of creation for this group, only going off of what others have to say and telling their own story through tangents and and often broken up bites of conversation. Each person and personality vital to the conversation and fully alive in the moment, Table Talk strives to bring the audience in on the conversation, right from our own words.Premier Performance:November 2nd & 3rdThe Garage - San FranciscoCollaboration Creators: Molly Fletcher Lynch, Jessie Cosentino, Annie Thatcher-Stephens, Daphne Zneimer, Jordan Kitzman, Mikaela BradyMusic Composed by: Jesse Seaver"The Furthest Distance Between Two Points""The Furthest Distance Between Two Points" is an multimedia duet developed by Perceptions West Director Molly Fletcher Lynch and Perceptions Dance Artistic Director Melissa Gendreau. The piece explores what it means to create, collaborate and ultimately continue a friendship across distance and throughout time. These bi-coastal directors utilize multimedia and social media to create a duet through two solos performed simultaneously, ultimately to be performed on both coasts in one theater setting.Premier Performance:July 27th & 28thThe Garage - San FranciscoCollaboration Creators: Molly Fletcher Lynch & Melissa Gendreau

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