Contemporary Dance Intensive:
The Apprentice Program (ages 12-16)  (Year Established: 2010)
July 9-27 1:00-5:15 p.m.

Liza Voll Photography

For on line application instructions and form, click here.
Once you are notified of your acceptance into the Contemporary Dance Intensive, please click here to download the required forms to complete the registration process.

Contemporary Dance Intensive is a program designed for serious dance students, ages 12-16, that offers rigorous training in contemporary ballet and modern dance in a supportive, challenging, and non-competitive environment, and serves as a springboard to the main Summer Stages Dance Workshop.

The three-week program provides daily classes daily classes in ballet and modern technique, as well as contemporary ballet and modern dance repertory, and classes in composition and a variety of dance forms including hip-hop and jazz. Choreography developed in the composition/repertory classes will be performed in a final showing at the end of the workshop. Students will also have the opportunity to attend informal studio presentations by the main Workshop resident artists and faculty.

The faculty for the intensive program will be drawn from Summer Stages main Workshop, establishing an authentic bridge between the apprentice and professional programs of our summer festival.  All faculty are committed to providing close personal attention to the development of each student. Technique classes will be held in Concord Academy’s state-of-the-art dance studio and repertory and composition in an array of campus facilities.

Applicants must schedule and attend an audition prior to enrollment. Auditions will be held on the following Sundays: February 5, March 18, April 29 and June 3 at 3pm in the dance studio at Concord Academy. Applicants are enrolled on a first-come, first-serve basis so students are strongly encouraged to audition early as enrollment is limited.

 

 

Faculty Bios

Seán Curran, Artistic Director of Seán Curran Company, began his dance training with traditional Irish step dancing as a young boy in Boston, Massachusetts. He went on to make his mark on the dance world as a leading dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for his performance in Secret Pastures. A graduate and guest faculty member of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Curran was an original member of the New York City cast of the Off-Broadway percussion extravaganza Stomp, performing in the show for four years. He has performed his solo evening of dances at venues throughout the United States as well as at Sweden's Danstation Theatre and France's EXIT Festival. Current and recent projects for Curran include productions of Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream for The Shakespeare Theater, the twentieth anniversary production of Nixon in China and Street Scene at Opera Theater of St. Louis; choreography for the New York City Opera productions of L'Etoile, Alcina, Turandot, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Capriccio, and Acis and Galetea; the Playwrights Horizons' production of My Life with Albertine; Shakespeare in the Park's As You Like It. He recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut choreographing Romeo and Juliette.   [more...]

Curran's work has appeared on Broadway in James Joyce's The Dead for Playwrights Horizons and The Rivals at Lincoln Center Theater. He has created works for Trinity Irish Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre's studio company, Denmark's Upper Cut Company, Sweden's Skänes Dance Theater, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Ririe Woodbury Dance Theater, and Dance Alloy, as well as for numerous college and university dance departments.Curran has taught extensively at the American Dance Festival, Harvard Summer Dance Center, Bates Dance Festival, and Boston's Conservatory of Music. Irish American Magazine selected Curran as one of its "Top 100" in the year 2000. Curran was awarded a Choreographer's Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2002. Happiest when making new work or performing, Seán Curran hopes to continue being an ambassador for the art of dance by building and educating the dance audiences of tomorrow.

Lauren Grant has danced with the Mark Morris Dance Group since 1996. Appearing in over 40 of Mark Morris’ works, she performs leading roles in The Hard Nut and Mozart Dances. Her television appearances with the company include The South Bank Show, Kennedy Center Honors, and Live From Lincoln Center.  She has been featured in Time Out New York, Dance Magazine, the book Meet the Dancers, and is the subject of a photograph by Annie Leibovitz.   Ms. Grant is on faculty at MMDG's school, leads classes for the company, and teaches dance at such universities and schools as the Central School of Ballet in London, England; Dancebase in Edinburgh, Scotland; George Mason University; University of Illinois; University of Michigan; New York University; University of Washington; Florida State University; and Cornish College, among others. After spending her childhood in Highland Park, Illinois, she moved to New York to attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with a BFA in dance

Melodie Jeffery-Cassell, currently on faculty at Walnut Hill School and Boston Ballet, received her degree inTheater Arts/Dance from Cal State University, Hayward. Her modern/ballet training in the San Francisco bay area (ODC Theater, Shawl-AndersonDance Center) led her to perform with Randee Paufve, Nina Haft, and Dandelion Dance Theater. Once relocating to NYC, Ms. Jeffery-Cassell performed with Bernier Dance, Pascal Rekeort, and YC Movement Theatre. As rehearsal director and principal performer for YC MovementTheatre, Melodie has performed in YC’s Sunlight Interior, Moonlight:Suite of Images, and the Off-Broadway production Moonlight Interior. While in NYC, Melodie was on faculty at The Brearley School, Peridance International Dance Center and the Mark Morris Dance Center. She and her husband Yo-el Cassell also co-founded The Horizon Summer Workshop Series in Tarrytown NY, which educates students in the art of dance/movementand theater.

Teri Weksler is a graduate of the Juilliard School, and danced in the companies of 5 by 2, Hannah Kahn, Daniel Lewis, and Jim Self, in repertory including works by renowned choreographers Anna Sokolow, Paul Taylor, Doris Humphrey, Jose Limon, and Pilobolus. She received a New York Dance and Performance Award or "Bessie" for "…a career of virtuosic dancing…." in 1984. She has appeared with the Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Dallas Civic Opera, and was Prima Ballerina with the Rome Opera Ballet in a Phillip Glass-Robert Wilson production, "the civil wars." Ms. Weksler was a founding and prominent member of the Mark Morris Dance Group, touring and teaching all over the world from 1980-1990, and then as guest performer with the company in later years in the Jacob’s Pillow and Edinborough Festivals.   [more...]

After moving to Birmingham, Alabama, she was invited to dance with Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, a company of "the world’s best modern dancers." This past year, Weksler was guest artist at Miami New World School of the Arts, Boston Ballet, and Summer Stages Dance. The Mark Morris Dance Group asked Ms. Weksler to perform in the new Romeo and Juliet created by Mr. Morris, which premiered at Bard College in July 2008, and toured 10 cities worldwide. Film and television credits include the PBS programs Great Performances and Dance in America, Camera Three, Good Morning America, and the award-winning film Beehive. Weksler is on the faculty at Birmingham-Southern College and the Alabama Ballet, where she choreographed her sixth work for the company for their 2009-2010 season.

 

For more information on the Contemporary Dance Intensive:  The Apprentice Program, please call 978.402.2339.
For directions to the Dance Studio at Concord Academy, click here.