Contact: Lindsay Meeks
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Phone: (850)645-2894
Fax: (850) 644-1277

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 6, 2005    
 
THE FIRST U.S. BASED NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHOREOGRAPHY ANNOUNCES
CHOREOGRAPHIC FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS
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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Choreographers Jill Sigman/Thinkdance (NY), Yasuko Yokoshi
(NY), K.T. Niehoff /Lingo Dancetheater (WA), Adia Whitaker/Ase Dance Theatre
Collective (NY) and Benjamin Levy/Levy Dance (CA)  have been awarded
Choreographic Fellowships by the Maggie Allesee National Center for
Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University for the 2005-06 academic
year.  The recipients, who were selected through a national screening
process, will each receive $10,000 to conduct choreographic research in the
newly renovated dance and technology facilities at Florida State University.
 
Fifty-four choreographers were nominated for the award by peers in the U.S.
dance field (artists, presenters, funders, managers and agents).  Following
an initial screening by MANCC Director, Jennifer Bleill Calienes, fifteen of
the nominees were invited to respond to MANCC’s first Request For Proposals.
The final five fellows successfully articulated how MANCC’s laboratory
environment would advance their creative development through choreographic
research, and detailed innovative ways of sharing their creative process
with MANCC’s target audiences (beyond the historical menu of master class,
lecture/demonstration or performance).
 
The mission of Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography is to raise
the value of the creative process in dance by providing (1) a model of
support for professional choreographic creativity within a comprehensive,
graduate research university, (2) providing choreographers access to a
stimulating environment where experimentation, exploration and life-long
learning are both valued and encouraged, and (3) opportunities for
engagement with the creative process in dance for the national dance field
as well as for students, faculty, and community.
 
MANCC (pronounced man-see), located in Tallahassee, Florida, is the United
States’ first National Center for Choreography, and the first worldwide to
be housed on a university campus.   The center shares the newly renovated
dance facilities in Montgomery Hall with the Department of Dance on the
Florida State University campus. Montgomery Hall underwent a $17 million
retrofitting in 2004, establishing it as one of the premier facilities for
dance in the United States. Montgomery Hall now includes seven large dance
studios, a 400-seat theater, black box studio, music resource center,
computer and media lab, classrooms, offices, dressing rooms and a
conditioning studio for dancers.  In the 2004-05 season, MANCC hosted Tere
O’ Connor, Chuck Davis Project, Urban Bush Women, Murray Louis and
Australia’s Chunky Move. In addition to the fellows, MANCC will host Eiko
and Koma, Philadanco, Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer and Dutch Choreographer
Anouk van Dijk in the 2005-06 season.
 
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