Lynn and Rhea in the Golden Record
Posted on 11. Mar, 2012 by Lynn in Blog
Photo Credit: Ali Clark
Spring 2012 Update
Posted on 04. Mar, 2012 by Lynn in Blog
This Spring 2012, Ballet Quad Cities will again be performing two new contemporary ballets that I created for the company during a week residency in January. In March I will be setting a new work on North Carolina C.O.D.E Fad. In April I will be taking a duet to the American College Dance Festival Association, and in May visual artist Jaia Chen and I will be having our first art/dance opening at the Alabama Art Kitchen. This summer takes me to Salt Lake City where I will be starting my certification in Bartenieff/Laban Movement Studies.
Nice Review in The Birmingham News
Posted on 19. Jun, 2011 by Lynn in Blog
Arova Contemporary Ballet combines wit, sensuality in ‘Strapless’
By Michael Huebner — The Birmingham News
For its new show, “Strapless,” Arova Contemporary Ballet has again summoned a cadre of fine choreographers to set dance on a single theme. Inspired by Deborah Davis’ novel of the same title and a portrait by John Singer Sargent, Artistic Director Alison Cummins Page has tied nine dances together in a sweeping, sensual show that evokes the Paris of “Madame X,” the partially strapless subject of Sargent’s painting. The dances fade in and out of thematic focus like a Renoir painting, at times providing a sharp rendering, at other times a vague suggestion.
David Keener’s “The Innocent” is a partial remake of “The Rite of Spring,” set to the opening of Stravinsky’s ballet score. Although it vividly reflects the chaos of the music, the choreography is most remarkable for its literal adherence to the composer’s complex rhythms, which the dancers dutifully realized.
A Brahms’ intermezzo accompanied Kristin Marrs in her elegantly rendered solo, “As the Heart Grows Fonder.” Brandon Ragland continued in the classical vein with his lyrical “Impulsing Nuances.”Ashley McQueen’s flowing duo, “Strapless,” was danced in mirrored black costumes with shoulders covered on opposite sides. Later in the show, Lynn Andrews would return to that theme in “Heat, Light,” in which symmetry and black costumes again played a role.
Jennifer Medina contributed two pieces. “Resist/Resign” provided a window into the the emotional turmoil of a couple. “Women of the Cove,” inspired by a community of midwives in the Great Smoky Mountains, was an Alvin Ailey-inspired celebration, beautifully realized by the quintet of dancers.
“Strapless” is a well-conceived show by a dedicated group of dancers and choreographers. More than mere entertainment, it reveals wit, creativity and intelligence, and the means to communicate them.
Dances Along The Lines
Posted on 19. Jun, 2011 by Lynn in Blog
Performed by eleven professional dancers with 10 community members and accompanied by five musicians, Dances Along the Line winded through Railroad Park from the pavilion to the birch bowl in a 35 minute performance open and free to the public on April 10th and 17th 2011.Amococo-Architects Of Air
Posted on 23. Mar, 2011 by Lynn in Blog
During a visit to the Mesa Arts Center in AZ my sister and I had the opportunity to visit AMOCOCO, a large, instillation art work that played with light, sound and color. It was delightful, we were asked to remove our shoes (ok with me) and take our time walking the labyrinth of rooms. The light source was from the sun, so at different times of the day the lighting inside would change. I have more pictures up-loaded to my flicker sight, just visit the media page to see more. To read about the artist just click HERE.
Preview in the Sunday Quad-Cities Times
Posted on 06. Feb, 2011 by Lynn in Blog
Bettendorf native returns home to choreograph Ballet Quad-Cities
By: David Burke
Sunday, February 6th 2011
It’s been more than 10 years since Lynn Bowman Andrews was a student at the Ballet Quad-Cities school of dance, learning and performing throughout her middle school and high school years.
But coming back to Rock Island to choreograph Ballet Q-C in one portion of its “Love Songs” presentation next weekend has proven intimidating.
“You go through life and you keep reinventing yourself,” said the 29-year-old Bettendorf native, now living in Tuscaloosa, Ala. “I grew up here the longest, they know me and there’s kind of a sense of wanting to do good when you come home.
“Being physically here, I remember working so hard and seeing the older dancers and really wanting to ‘make it,’ ” she said. “And now I’m back.”
After graduating from Bettendorf High in 2000, she went to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in theater and dance. She moved to Washington, D.C., dancing for a small dance company. She applied for and received a fellowship that led to her master of fine arts degree in dance choreography at the University of Iowa.
She’s currently a dance instructor at a community college in Tuscaloosa, with interests in both modern dance and ballet. Her husband is finishing his master of fine arts degree in creative writing at Alabama.
Andrews said she enjoys the “delightfully creative challenge” of choreography.
“I just get so immersed in it while I’m there. Nothing else matters but being with the dancers and just making dances,” she said. “Besides dancing, making the dance is the best thing.”
Ballet Q-C executive director Joedy Cook invited Andrews to return and gave her only a few parameters: All 11 of the company dancers should be used, it should be a longer group piece and it should fit into the theme of “Love Stories.”
Andrews created a piece with the working title “Delicatessen,” where love finds workers who toil side by side.
“It’s merging my modern sensibilities but also my ballet upbringing,” she said. “It’s a little bit different.”
Andrews said she’s working in a way she prefers, in collaboration with the dancers.
“They really all kind of come up with an idea or a movement phase and I’ll watch them go through it,” she said.
There were a few familiar faces in the company when she returned. She grew up with fellow dancer Heidi Dunn in the Bettendorf schools and danced in classes with artistic director Courtney Lyon and ballet mistress Erica Atwood.
Andrews dreams of one day teaching more at the university level or of having a company all her own.
“It’d be great to have a group, but right now I can’t think of anything better than having great opportunities like this to travel and work and make art,” she said.
River City Reader Preview
Posted on 31. Jan, 2011 by Lynn in Blog
Eleven Dancers! Five Days! Seventeen Minutes of Music! Go!: Ballet Quad Cities Veteran Lynn Andrews Choreographs for “Love Stories,” February 12 and 13
Written by: Mike Schulz
Since it’s called Love Stories, you’d rightfully expect Ballet Quad Cities’ latest presentation to be chockablock with stirring physicality and sensual pas de deux. And indeed, this Valentine’s Day-inspired outing – given the same title as last February’s Ballet Quad Cities production, but boasting new vignettes by a quintet of choreographers – will find the company’s professional dancers expressing, in thrillingly nonverbal fashion, what Executive Director Joedy Cook describes as “the many angles to love.”
Yet for her contribution to Love Stories, 29-year-old choreographer and Ballet Quad Cities veteran Lynn Andrews appears to have been inspired less by romantic love than her sheer love of dance. That, and perhaps her love of a challenge.
“We did it in five days,” said Andrews of the clever, exuberant piece that I watched, in rehearsal, during our early-January conversation. “And it was crazy. It was like, ‘Eleven dancers! Five days! Seventeen minutes of music! Go!’
“So I haven’t been sleeping so well these past few nights,” she added with a laugh. “But now, I’m in a pretty good spot.”
As, I must say, are Ballet Quad Cities’ company members. Love Stories will be staged at Davenport North High School’s Holzworth Performing Arts Center on February 12 and 13, but at the rehearsal I attended, with more than a month before the first performance, Andrews’ vignette already looked to be in outstanding shape.
Titled “Delicatessan,” and borrowing music from the 1991 French film of the same name, Andrews’ Love Stories contribution is a tightly paced blend of mixed- and same-sex group routines and the inevitable romantic pas de deux, all underscored by a variety of songs with Latin, French, and 1920s-American stylings. And with Ballet Quad Cities’ company members not only tackling the demanding choreography, but doing so while also miming such activities as flattening dough with rolling pins, baking cakes, and flipping pizzas in the air, Andrews’ offering is a dynamically engaging yet down-to-earth piece of work – a showcase for both the dancers’ gifts and its creator’s obvious talent and imagination.
“I like people-watching,” said Andrews of the inspiration for her choreography. “I likepedestrians. And so I really like infusing everyday gestures with this kind of large, virtuosic movement.”
Though Andrews is now back home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the Bettendorf native’sLove Stories tenure served as a return to Ballet Quad Cities for the choreographer, who was a dance student with the company “for seven, eight years, all through middle and high school.
“I started pretty late,” said Andrews of her beginnings in ballet at age 12. But in the mid-’90s, “I saw The Nutcracker the Capitol [Theatre in Davenport], and I fell in love. I wasn’t, like, ‘I want to be a fairy princess,’ but I was energized by the movement, and the excitement, and the energy – everything. And I wanted to be part of it. I was like, ‘I’ll pull the curtain. I don’t care.’”
A few months after her Capitol Theatre visit, said Andrews, her mother enrolled her at City Center School for the Arts, the former name of what is now Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance. And after her many years as a student with the company – with which she was eventually able to realize her Nutcrackerdream – Andrews’ adoration for dance led a theatre-dance major at Decorah, Iowa’s Luther College, a year spent at London’s prestigious Laban Centre for Contemporary Dance, an MFA in choreography from the University of Iowa, and professional credits throughout the country as a dancer, choreographer, and instructor.
Currently teaching a course at the University of Alabama and choreographing projects for Tuscaloosa’s Shelton State Community College, Andrews said, “I really grew up doing ballet here [at Ballet Quad Cities], even though I knew I was never going to be a ballerina. But I knew I wanted to keep on dancing, so this – teaching dance and choreographing – was a way to keep that going.”
Yet in addition to teaching and working with the Birmingham-based modern-dance company AROVA Contemporary Ballet, Andrews also continues to assume guest-choreographer responsibilities for other companies nationwide, and is happy that her schedule allowed her to accept Joedy Cook’s offer – made this past July – to choreograph for Love Stories.
“It’s all about networking,” said Andrews. “I had stayed in contact with Joedy and with Courtney [Lyon, Ballet Quad Cities’ artistic director], and expressed my desire to make something for the company. And since I was going to be here anyway, and I could stay with my folks, it was perfect timing.”
Cook agreed: “Lynn graduated from [the University of] Iowa last spring, and that’s when we seriously started thinking about bringing her back to do a piece. … And because she was going to be in the area for the holidays, we were able to bring her in.
“I mean, she is just a really good choreographer,” enthused Cook, who stressed, “and I like her style because it is fresh and happy. The movement is so uplifting, and her choices of music are just so wonderful … .
“And, I have to say, her style looks great on our dancers,” she added with a laugh.
Andrews’ Alabama schedule, however, meant that while she was in the Quad Cities, she could only work with her dancers for five days, with between four and six hours a day scheduled for rehearsal. The Love Stories choreographer, however, came prepared.
“Because I knew I was going to be working in such a short amount of time,” said Andrews, “I really tried to get super-organized. I mean, sometimes I start with music, then go to the dance; sometimes I start with movement, and then decide on the music way later. But for this, I had all the music picked out ahead of time, and I knew ‘This is going to be the group section, this one’s the double duet, this one’s just the ladies, this one’s just the men … .’”
Yet even given her preparation, Andrews said her planned choreography would routinely change based on how the dancers themselves responded to both her music and her movements.
“I’d give them choreography,” she said, “and all of a sudden the dancers would be doing some lift and just invent something, and go into something else, and I’d go, ‘Hmm … I likethat!’ There’s a lot of happy accidents involved. A lot of ‘Keep that!’”
Unfortunately for Andrews, her schedule will likely prohibit her from catching Love Stories during its Davenport performances. But she is grateful for the opportunity to have briefly returned to Ballet Quad Cities, and said she knows that her piece “is in good hands with the ballet mistress, Erica [Attwood]. She was a ballet dancer when I was growing up here, and she’s very clear and clarified in what she does.
“I’m hoping I’ll get a nice copy on video.”
Ballet Quad Cities’ Love Stories will be performed at Davenport North High School’s Holzworth Performing Arts Center at 2 & 7 p.m. on Saturday, February 12, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 13. For tickets, call (515)244-2771; for further information, contact Ballet Quad Cities at (309)786-3779 or BalletQuadCities.com.
Video/Crossing The Field
Posted on 17. Dec, 2010 by Lynn in Blog
Crossing The Field: Click Here
Crossing The Field: Click Here
Here is a peak into the dance “Crossing The Field” created in collaboration with students from the University of Alabama’s department of Theatre/Dance. During the two month intensive the dancers and I worked collaboratively creating movement for the dance, during the initial first weeks of the project a furry of movement invention was done (at times to the questioning faces of the dancers wondering if this was going anywhere). Initially I was interested in ‘solos’ and how I could cultivate the ‘best’ gestures, movements, interesting walks, exciting turns, sharp kicks, and hard landings that the dancers had to offer. From this initial creating and collecting stage of the dancers ‘most-them solos’ we layered, chopped up, re-taught and choreographed “Crossing The Field” a thirteen mintue dance with music by The Books.
Dance Concert/University of Alabama
Posted on 04. Dec, 2010 by Lynn in Blog
For the past three months I have been engaged as a guest choreographer for the University of Alabama’s Dance Department. Working collaboratively with ten students we created a thirteen minute dance that was performed Friday December 3rd at Morgan Auditorium to a full house of friends and family. Title of the dance, Crossing The Field, with lighting design by, Lyndell McDonald.
Too se more photo click HERE
Arova = Five Stars
Posted on 14. Nov, 2010 by Lynn in Blog
The Review: Birmingham News
“Lynn Andrews’ “Dans L’Obscurite” established what would become a recurring dream — the first of three appearances by a woman in a sheer white gown gliding while carrying a lantern”…