Rhythmically Speaking Call for Choreographer Interest

Rhythmically Speaking is a Twin Cities-based dance company with a 16-year history and a national reputation for excellence in sparking vibrancy and connectedness through jazz and American social dance ideas. Every Summer, we produce a stage show featuring concert dance works by local and visiting artists meant to demonstrate the width and breadth of what ‘jazz’ in dance can look and feel like, embody and communicate. Every other year – including this year – we also co-produce jazz film screenings in conjunction with the Summer show in partnership with Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (CO), one of the longest-running and most reputable screendance festivals in the nation. This call for choreographer interest helps us get to know artists who may be interested in working with us on these programs.

Eligibility:

Artists 21 and older at any point in their careers who are actively creating concert dance work in jazz and/ or American social dance ideas (ex: tap and hip-hop styles) are welcomed to submit.

Summer Program Details:

We program four works total for our annual Summer show – existing repertoire by two visiting artists (based outside of Minnesota), a new work from a local (Minnesota-based) artist and a new work from RS Artistic and Executive Director Erinn Liebhard. We usually program works that run 12-20 minutes in length that are built for eight or fewer dancers (and flexibility on number of performers is helpful). The RS company dancers are skilled in various approaches to jazz, and have basic to intermediate skills in swing, tap and hip-hop styles (depending on the dancer). We are open to discussion about including shorter pieces on a program in order for the choreographer to spend some of their time with us training the dancers in their style/s. We usually ask each year’s choreographers to teach a public class while they are working with us.

Target Dates for our Summer 2025 Program:

• 4/28 – 5/28 (no 5/26): Local Artist Rehearsals (M/W 1-5pm in Twin Cities)
• 7/7 – 7/12: Visiting Artist #1 Rehearsals (M-Sat 1-5pm in Twin Cities)
• 7/21 – 7/26: Visiting Artist #2 Rehearsals (M-Sat 1-5pm in Twin Cities)
• 8/11 – 8/16: Production Week (encouraged but not required for Visiting Choreographers)

Artists selected to present a stage work in a given year receive full rehearsal and production support and an honorarium of at least $1,500.00 (which may increase pending success of development efforts and ticket sales). The honorarium is offered at the same rate for local and visiting artists, given the former will be in rehearsal more (40 hours to make a new work as opposed to 24 to remount an existing work) and the later will have travel costs (to help defray these costs, homestays may be available for visiting artists).

To Submit:

Fill out this Call for Choreographer Interest form, which will ask for contact info, a bio, a short artist statement and video samples of stage works. This form will be active until 12/1/24.

Then What?:

Submissions will be collected into an ongoing record of people and their works that may be a good fit for us to present as a part of future Summer productions, including our Summer 2025 show, which will run August 14-16, 2025 at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. 

Film Screening Details:

A panel will select 7-10 films to be screened at events in both Colorado and Minnesota. Screen works submissions must be between 2-20 minutes in length. Artists selected to present screen works will receive laurels from one of the longest-running dance film festivals in the USA to display in advertising their work, audience/ artist dialogue opportunities, and be considered for university and international screenings of their work and an Audience Choice Award. Submissions – run through Sans Souci – will be open in early January 2025. To keep up to date on submission opening, deadlines and selection, subscribe to San Souci’s email list.

Questions?:

Reach out to Rhythmically Speaking Artistic and Executive Director Erinn Liebhard at rhythmicallyspeakingdance@gmail.com. We are excited to find out more about who’s making what out there when it comes to jazz, and we thank you for your interest