Onye Ozuzu is a dance administrator, performing artist, choreographer, educator and researcher. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with a minor in Economics as well as a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Dance Performance and Choreography at Florida State University. She has most recently been serving as Associate Chair, Director of Dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While there, her work has been notable for its balance of visionary and practical progress in the arenas of curricular, artistic, and community development of diversity, collaboration and interdisciplinary performance arts. She teaches African-based contemporary dance technique, Composition, World Dance and Culture, Improvisation, Creative Dance for Children, and a graduate Seminar, The African in American, Perspectives and Implications: A Dancer’s View.
Onye has been actively making and performing work since 1997. Her work has been seen nationally and internationally at The Joyce Soho (Manhattan, NY), Kaay Fecc Festival De Toutes les Danses (Dakar, Senegal), La Festival del Caribe (Santiago, Cuba), Lisner Auditorium (Washington DC), McKenna Museum of African American Art (New Orleans, LA), as well as many anonymous site-specific locations around the world. She was a 2010 recipient of the Innovative Seed Grant, University of Colorado’s most prestigious research grant, for her ethnographic research project ADADIA African Drum and Dance in America: the Oral History Archive. This summer she is returning to EarthDance Workshop and Retreat Center and teaching at Bates Dance Festival where she continues to expand work as an AfroModern contemporary technique teacher and on Technology of the Circle, a group improvisation and interdisciplinary performance process. Her most recent choreographic endeavor, And They Lynched him on a Tree, is a multidisciplinary collaborative effort that premiered in February at the ATLAS Black Box Theatre, in Boulder, CO a center for the intersection of art, science and technology.
What is exciting about the Chicago dance scene right now?
As a newcomer to the scene, I won’t pretend to have a gasp on the rich and diverse scene(s). But, I CAN say that I have experienced some incredibly dynamic, smart, delicious, visually stunning, thoughtful, challenging, difficult and adventurous work in the short time I have been here. Some of my most memorable moments thus far, off the top of my head….I’ve seen haunting experimental dance films in Phil Reynold’s living room salon, an explosion of highly skilled and virtuosic performance at its most joyful at “Dance for Life” where the dance community shows up and dances for its own, raising money for healthcare and support services for artists, amazing interdisciplinary cutting edge performance at the MCA most notably Faustin Linyekula/Studios Kabako in “more more more…future” and the work of Marc Bamuthi Joseph with Theaster Gates in “red,black, and GREEN: a blues”, the final tour of Merce Cunningham’s company at the Harris, a tribute to Katherine Dunham at the Public Library, Bebe Miller in a solo with a long piece of yarn at Links hall, incredible talent from bright young people demonstrating a rich diversity of forms from tap to Jazz to traditional West African dance at Najwa Dance Corps, House heads bringin’ it back at The Shrine on First Fridays, Bill T. Jones in an inspiring and mesmerizing conversation with students here at the Dance Center, Peter Carpenter’s (of the Dance Center) most recent work, “Rituals of Abundance for Lean Times #5: Lavish Possession”, those amazing women rocking the stage at the House of Blues with Seun Kuti’s Band…. What’s most exciting about the Chicago Dance scene?, well for a still being initiated resident like myself ….its the Chicago Dance Scene. I’ve missed more than I’ve seen, I wish that I had made it to see Rennie Harris’ new work on Ailey, Chicago Human Rhythm Project and Fela at Broadway in Chicago, to dance with Mustapha Bangoura at Hamlin Park and I am still waiting for my Salsero to arrive. I look forward to seeing the dancing in the park this summer…and the ongoing collaborative process that is developing a new Cultural Plan for the City. Our Mayor has made the “call”, he wants to see Chicago become a national and international destination for dance. Columbia College Chicago has been doing this for some time, I am excited about getting a chance to participate in the next chapter of that.
Tell us about some of your upcoming projects in 2012.
2012 going to be continued to be filled with learning. New job, new city, an amazing and large new community of artists to call my colleagues, I plan to continue to become a part of this place, to learn my place in it and figure out what I have to bring to the table that can help dance at Columbia College Chicago continue to contribute richly to the field. As an independent artist in my own process I am likewise in a transitional phase, observing how my body is reacting to its new habitat, taking note of that, and thinking about where and when I will next be inspired to make work.
If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out in Chicago, what would we do?
I love the LAKE! Its quite a gift to have this beautiful blue body lapping up against the shores of such and urban environment. So come this summer, let’s go by the Lake, watch my 3 year-old chase sea gulls with ferocity, have a chicago style turkey or tofu-dog with the onions and tomatoes, check out the international conversation among the who’s who of the worlds architects in the dives and dips of Chicago’s dynamic skyline, and then head to the south side to a Senegalese restaurant, Yassa, that I have been waiting to check out.
Onye Ozuzu was interviewed in Time Out Chicago. Read the article here
Richard Woodbury is an educator, composer and sound designer serving as Associate Professor and “Distinguished Faculty Artist” in the Dance Department at Columbia College Chicago. A faculty member since 1977 and Associate Chair of the Dance Department from 1986 to 2006, Richard has been a key contributor to the growth and development of the Dance Department and its programs. He has composed numerous scores for dance including Stupormarket, Monument and Overflow for The Seldoms, Short Stories for Hedwig Dances, Pentimento for The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, and has performed live with The Merce Cunningham Dance Company and The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Richard’s credits in theater include music and/or sound design for Tony Award winning Broadway productions of: August: Osage County, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Death of a Salesman, and The Young Man from Atlanta, numerous productions at Chicago’s renowned Goodman and Steppenwolf Theaters, and productions at the Stratford Festival in Canada, London’s Lyric and National Theatres, Theatre Marigny, Paris, France, and regional theaters across the United States. Richard has received Joseph Jefferson and Helen Hayes Awards for outstanding sound design, and the Ruth Page award for Outstanding Collaborative Artist, as well as nominations for Drama Desk and Ovation awards. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with concentrations in music and dance from the Experimental College of the University of Minnesota (1976).
What is exciting about the Chicago dance scene right now?
So much. Quantity, quality and diversity of artists, activities and venues.
Tell us about some of your upcoming projects in 2012.
I will be teaching a dance making class in the fall that will focus on music and dance collaborations. My own work as a composer will be larger devoted to theatre works in 2012. I do plan to finally develop a website.
If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out in Chicago, what would we do?
I love to show off the city itself. We’d take an Architectural Tour via a boat on the Chicago River and then stroll through Millennium Park on our way to the Art Institute.
What is your favorite drink and where do you get it?
A glass of serious red wine (Brunello) at home with my wife and a meal we’ve prepared for ourselves.
Tell us something surprising about yourself.
I was a minor rock star in Pakistan in 1969
Colleen Halloran is a Chicago-born choreographer, filmmaker and educator who has taught at Columbia College Chicago since 1997. She is intrigued by the intersection and manipulation of movement, image, and story to arrive at a collective “whole”. Such companies as Mordine & Company Dance Theatre, The Dance COLEctive, and Same Planet, Different World Dance Theatre have commissioned Colleen’s dance works for the stage. Her short films have screened in Japan, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Chicago. Her feature screenplays have been finalists for The Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2009 and 2010. www.colleenhalloran.com
What is exciting about the Chicago dance scene right now?
There is a current trend with young, talented choreographers who are finding their creative outlet in site- specific work outside of the “norm”. They are going into bars and non-traditional spaces to find new audiences.
Tell us about some of your upcoming projects in 2012.
Three projects in the works: a new Dance for Camera shooting in May, a new dance for stage that will premiere in September, and currently in pre-production on a short film that I wrote and will direct.
If we were going to spend the day with you hanging out in Chicago, what would we do?
If it’s summer, we will go to a Cubs game because I am a glutton for punishment. If it’s winter, you can watch me shovel a foot of snow from in front of the house. Good times.
What is your favorite drink and where do you get it?
Thai Iced Coffee from Siam Café in Uptown
Tell us something surprising about yourself.
I am often mistaken for an uncover detective because I drive a gigantic old man car and I am not an old man…by process of elimination- that makes me a Chicago undercover cop.
