Dance pro Amy Miller comes full circle with Gibney
Ravenna native Amy Miller, who danced professionally in Akron and Cleveland for decades, is looking forward to coming back to the place where it all started for her to teach a weeklong dance residency with Gibney Company at the University of Akron.
The New York contemporary dance company arrives Monday to teach classes and will kick off DanceCleveland's 2022-23 season with a mixed-repertory performance at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron. The week in Akron also will be a homecoming for founder and director Gina Gibney, who is a native of Ontario, Ohio, and a dance alumna of Case Western Reserve University.
Miller studied at the Dance Institute at the University of Akron as a child and became an apprentice for the Ohio Ballet at age 15, under the tutelage of founder Heinz Poll. She received her bachelor's degree in dance at the University of Akron and danced with the Ohio Ballet for more than a decade, from 1991 to 2001.
Now, she'll spend the week teaching UA dance students and community members at the same place where she received so much support and training as a younger dancer. Miller, who after 30 years of dancing recently transitioned from a Gibney Company performer and director to a new position as Gibney's director of engagement, has run teaching residencies everywhere from Oberlin College to Brown University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
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Miller moved to New York in 2010 and joined Gibney Company in 2012. A big part of working with Gibney, she said, has been questioning what movement is in people's lives, in the dance field and in the arts field.
Just as importantly, Gibney artists question how dance manifests itself in social justice movements. Miller's new job focuses on building educational partnerships with university dance departments across the country to "braid together" artistry and social justice.
"I still feel myself to be dancing and choreographing and an artist. It just looks different now," she said in late September from Bard College in upstate New York, where she's a teaching artist in the dance program's partnership with Gibney.
"I'm moving ideas in a much deeper way that I was before because time has opened up."
In Northeast Ohio, Miller was a founding member of contemporary dance company GroundWorks DanceTheater in 1998, working closely with founder and artistic director David Shimotakahara for nearly 13 years as a dancer and choreographer. She continues to serve as an artistic adviser for GroundWorks.
Miller thanks longtime friend Shimotakakara, who was Ohio Ballet's rehearsal director when she was an apprentice, and former company members Xochitl Tejeda de Cerda and Stephani Achuff Foraker for taking her under their wings when she was 15.
"I really think I learned so much about the dance world by witnessing them and being supported by them," Miller said.
The dance world is actually a relatively small one. Miller originally got to know Gibney in the early 2000s, when Gibney set a dance work on GroundWorks DanceTheater.
"Irregardless of what city we are in or what country we are in, that all of us are part of an ecosystem" in which every dance artist has something to offer, she said.
On Saturday, Gibney Company will perform the new work "Oh Courage!" by popular, Tony Award-winning choreographer Sonya Tayeh of TV's "So You Think You can Dance" fame. Her dance celebrates change and truth, with music by the Bengsons.
They'll also perform the Midwest premiere of Johan Inger's "Bliss," with music by American jazz legend Keith Jarrett, and the trio "Lusus Naturae," a work by Gibney dancer and choreographer Rena Butler that deconstructs the character of "King Kong."
The elite, 13-member dance company calls its dancers artistic associates. They not only dance, but also develop their own fellowships rooted in social justice projects.
The Gibney organization has three prongs: its dance company; its two performance and event spaces in New York that include 23 studios; and its community action component, which works with social workers and activists focusing on gender-based violence and domestic violence, including movement workshops for survivors who have survived trauma.
In Akron, Miller will teach a free Move to Move Beyond Workshop for all community members from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Studio 194 at the University of Akron's Guzzetta Hall. No dance experience is necessary. Registration is free and all participants and observers are asked to wear a mask.
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Gibney has offered the collaborative movement workshop for more than 20 years in domestic violence shelters. It's a four-part workshop that encourages choice, self-expression, trust-building and sharing through movement.
"If trauma is about a lack of control or someone having power and control over our choices from the outside, then offering opportunities for choice can be a way to address trauma and move through," Miller said. "All of us have experienced trauma ... We're also acknowledging that every one of us deals with the lack of sense of autonomy and power in our lives, even in small ways."
Miller and the Gibney dancers will teach all of the UA dance program's ballet and contemporary classes this week and they'll have daily seminars on "moving for justice."
"Dancers, we move our bodies but we also have ideas. We have a lot to say. We have opinions. We generate ideas," she said.
Miller also will lead a free advanced contemporary master class from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in Studio 194 Saturday for advanced dancers 14 and older. Registration is required.
For both classes, see www.dancecleveland.org/master-classes.
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She'll also work with Gibney and the artistic associates in the Food for Thought choreographic workshop from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Studio 194, where community members can watch the choreographic process evolve as UA students and regional choreographers share their works in process with the visiting artists. After receiving feedback from the Gibney artists, local choreographers will present changes they've made based on feedback.
The event is an open house for observers. All are asked to bring a nonperishable food item. DanceCleveland last presented Gibney Company in 2002 and last presented its "Food For Thought" program in 2004 at Cleveland State University.
Miller's also pleased that her former company, GroundWorks, is performing in Akron at the Knight Stage the same day that Gibney will perform at E.J. Thomas Hall. Dance lovers can see both shows Saturday — GroundWorks at 3 p.m. at the Akron Civic Theatre location and Gibney at 7:30 p.m. at UA — for $40. See https://form.jotform.com/222317448159156 to order tickets to both performances.
Also celebrating Gibney's week in Akron and its day of dance with GroundWorks, Chill downtown has created a limited edition "Gibney GroundWorks Duo" flavored ice cream at its shop at 209 S. Main St.
Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
Dance performance: Gibney Company, presented by DanceCleveland
Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, 198 Hill St., University of Akron
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $25-$50
Information: dancecleveland.org or 330-972-7570
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Dance pro Miller return to roots for weeklong Gibney residency at UA
