Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District's newsletter,
featuring the events, stories, and people of our community

Thursday, May 7, 5:00-7:00pm

Nevada City Picture Framing & Gallery
571 Searls Ave #B, Nevada City

Join us for the May Creatives Meetup at Nevada City Picture Framing and Gallery as they celebrate their grand opening under new ownership and their premier gallery show "Alpenglow" featuring the works of Forest Aliya.

GVNC: What is Embodiment Dance Collective?

Embodiment Dance Collective: Helen Fitanides and Kirstin Brown are the co-founders of Embodiment Dance Collective, an aerial dance collaborative focused on authentic connection and expression. Our mission is to build works that 1) speak from a diversity of lived experiences and perspectives, and 2) genuinely connect with the audience, leaving them feeling engaged and connected to their community. We believe it is more important than ever to create art that stirs up emotions, thoughts, and how people see the world.

GVNC: At what point in your life did you realize your calling?

Embodiment Dance Collective: Movement has always been an important part of our lives, and we both grew up dancing on the ground. Kirstin’s mom was too embarrassed to take a tap class herself, and so sent her daughter instead! Kirstin was quickly engrossed in many forms of dance. Neither of us discovered aerial until we were adults. Helen pushed through a fear of heights to take an aerial workshop in college; she was so sore the next day that she couldn’t stand up straight, but she hasn’t looked back! Aerial dance holds a combination of high challenge, giddy fun, and next level potential for self expression, and it hooked us both deeply. We found each other at UpSwing Aerial Dance Company in Berkeley over a decade ago, and found that we were both inspired to create work that moves people. Since then we have been dancing together on various ropes, fabrics, metal objects, walls, and sometimes even the floor!

GVNC: Tell us about your creative process.

Embodiment Dance Collective: Our creative process is completely opposite, and therefore well matched! Kirstin brings visionary goals and musical inspiration, while Helen brings analytical realism and a “how to” roadmap for how to achieve those goals. (However, after more than a decade of working together, they are now starting to occasionally switch roles… as all couples in long term relationships do from time to time.)

GVNC: What inspires you?

Embodiment Dance Collective: Music is a huge inspiration for our creative process, and often drives the generation of new work. We are also inspired by our lives, our experiences, politics, and our own emotional processing needs.

GVNC: What are you most proud of? 

Embodiment Dance Collective: Last year we held a 14-week workshop for local movement artists, the goal of which was to explore ways to access deeply vulnerable emotions and then share them with an audience during a performance. We did not know how many people would sign up (it’s not everyone's idea of a good time!) but we were happily surprised to have 15 participants and a very well-received show at the end of the series! We’re proud of the participants for going out on a limb with us, and grateful for the opportunity to break down and grow with our community. 

GVNC: Name two Nevada county artists you admire and why.

Embodiment Dance Collective: Azriel LaMarca, because she creates such a safe space and safe community. Her movement classes have healed past trauma (acquired from other forms of dance) through radical openness and bringing a focus to how the movement feels, rather than how the movement looks from the outside. 

Delana Motter, for bringing such a diverse range of emotions into her butoh practice. Her performances encourage us to access deeper vulnerability and express an even wider range of emotions in our work.

GVNC: What’s coming up for you?

Embodiment Dance Collective: We are presenting three short shows of original work on the themes of balance, flow, and connectivity during Sierra Streams Fest on Saturday May 16th! This event celebrates the 30th anniversary of Sierra Streams Institute and brings together art and science in an engaging, family friendly event in Pioneer Park from 1-5pm. Our shows will be at approximately 1:30pm, 2:30pm, and 3:30pm, and we are excited to be incorporating other aerialists in our work for the first time! For more information, click here.  

We will also be among the artists bringing aerial performance to the grand opening party for Soulful Kitchen in Grass Valley on Friday May 8th. Come out for delicious food and a teaser of some of the Embodiment pieces that will be performed at Sierra Streams Fest the next weekend. For more information, click here. 

GVNC: How can our readers learn more about you?

• Website: www.embodimentdancecollective.org/

• Email: info@embodimentdancecollective.org

• Instagram: EmbodimentDanceCollective

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Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District
PO Box 1833
Nevada City, CA 95959-1833