The nEW Festival has announced the participants selected for the 2011-2012 Choreographers Program: Jung-Eun Kim, Daniele Strawmyre, Beau Hancock, and Jodi Obeid. These artists were chosen from a pool of 29 applicants for their professionalism and creative potential within the field of dance. Each choreographer will participate in nEW’s Artist Retreat at Silo Farms in May 2011 and develop work for festival production at The Painted Bride Art Center in January 2012. This is the first group of artists chosen under the leadership of Megan Mazarick, Karl Schappell, and Nora Gibson, the collaborative Artistic Directors of nEW Festival.
All four choreographers are based in Philadelphia and have diverse backgrounds as performers and dance-makers.
Jung-Eun Kim (aka Je Kim) hails from Seoul, South Korea and is a media designer and dance-maker. Her work has been presented in galleries, as site-specific installations, and within performance venues in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Daniele Strawmyre is the director of interdisciplinary performance company, readySetGo. She has recently shown her work, Kaidan Insuto, as part of Philadelphia Live Arts Festival 2010 and as a resident artist at Fidget Space.
Beau Hancock is a choreographer, and co-founder of Stone Depot Dance Lab (Philadelphia) and Bowery Dancers (Kansas). He has performed in the works of several Philadelphia and New York-based artists (Merian Soto, Kun Yang Lin, Ben Munisteri, Ellen Cornfield, Douglas Dunn, etc.) and is currently pursuing his MFA in Dance at Temple University as a University Fellow.
Jodi Obeid arrived in Philadelphia in 2003 from Brussels, Belgium but is a native of Pennsylvania. She received her MA in Dance from the American University, and her BA in French and Dance from Goucher College and the Sorbonne University in Paris.
The nEW Festival was created by Melanie Stewart in 2003 as a dance-driven artist-fueled cooperative production initiative. It has grown into a festival that offers a performance opportunities for emerging choreographers, a community for the exchange of ideas and future artistic alliances, and master classes. Central to nEW’s mission is the creation of an artistic community. Its goal is to facilitate a continuity of artistic thought and professional growth as between its participants during and beyond the parameters of the residency.
