Author: alexismitchell

Frontiers in Neurology, August 25, 2016
An opinion article I was invited to contribute to the Fontiers in Neurology research topic forum on “Sound, Music and Movement in Parkinson Disease.” I share experiences of dancing with elders living with degenerative disease, and suggestions to researchers for further investigation from the experiential point of view.

Utah Repertory Dance Theatre In summer ’16 I was on faculty along with Danielle Agami of Ate9 Dance Company, for Repertory Dance Theatre Summer Intensive. While there, I taught students and company members techniques of “spontaneous composition” and a one-day workshop of “contact improvisation” for people with Parkinson Disease.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University Memories are not just “in our heads.” The stories of our lives are whole-person experiences, so activating our imagination through visual images and movement can evoke the pathways of reminiscence. On Saturday April 30th, I and students of Performing Arts and Brown School led an event as part […]

Utah Repertory Dance Theatre / Rose Wagner Auditorium In February 2016, I was invited to participate in an exciting dance concert event at my dance “Alma Mater” Utah Repertory Dance Theatre. I along with 3 other choreographers were given seven dancers and four hours to choreograph a new dance, followed by the concert-staged performance the […]

St. Louis County Library Branches In spring of 2015 to Fall of 2016, I and my dance students in the Performing Arts Department led eleven workshops for people with memory loss, at branch libraries of the St. Louis County Library system. Together we used poetry and movement to evoke stories from our lives. These were […]

Dance & Somatics: the Mind in the Movement Dance Closeup, September 4,5,6 8pm Mertz Dance Studio.  In 2014, I presented “December” (2000). The work explores the fragmentary nature of memory, creating a series of non-linear, moving “photographs” that are formed as viewers open and close their eyes to the rhythm of human breathing. as part of the […]

Beijing United Family Hospital I visted Beijing United Family Hopsital where I was invited to give a lecture on the Alexander Technique. As I discovered, this work has not yet had very broad exposure in China, so it was an honor to introduce many of Beijing’s top physicians to Alexander principles and methods.

May 20-June 21, David Marchant and ZoMotion was hosted by “The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu.” This one-month fellowship provided us with housing, food and facilities to practice, lead workshops and give an audience-integrated performance experience. The facility is located walking distance to the Great Wall.  We had a truly amazing experience in China this summer. I gave a lecture […]

Contact Quarterly Summer/Fall 2011 Vol. 36.2 In spring of 2009 I collaborated with Washington University Physical Therapy Professor Gammon Earhart and Graduate Student Jennifer Sylvester to do a two-week pilot study to assess the effectiveness of Contact Improvisation as an intevention for Parkinson’s Disease.  I wrote a summary article published online at Contact Quarterly, published in […]

Complementary Therapies in Medicine, October 2010 Author’s Personal Copy Note: This article is published in October 2010 issue of Complementary Therapies in Medicine, vol. 18, issue 5.  To visit publishers web site to obtain published article, click here. Effects of a Short Duration, High Dose Contact Improvisation Dance Workshop on Parkinson Disease: A Pilot Study David Marchant, […]

In the fall I led a one-day workshop for a group of social workers at Synergy Services in Kansas City on “resiliency” and somatic practice.  We were exploring the idea that mental, social, and personal well being can be approached through movement practices that encourage self-awareness, and study of one’s movement habits.

Holly and I collaborated a new work, “It Sang A Long Time Ago,” a duet for student dancers.  This work represented Wash U at the American College Dance Conference at University of Illinois.  At the festival the work was honored with “Best of Festival” encore performance, and was selected 2nd alternate for the National Festival.

In June 2010 I was an invited presenter at the national conference of the American Society of  Alexander Teachers (AmSAT).  While there I gave a workshop on “Quadruped.” I developed this approach originally as a dance technique application of Alexander principles;  this was first time I introduced it to the Alexander professional community.

In June 2010, I was on the faculty of the Wash U study abroad program, MADE in France, in Paris and Burgundy.  Holly came along with me as well as our new son, Elliot. This year’s theme investigated the intersection of movement and sound.  I gave master classes in technique and on Leonardo’s Chimes, v3.1, now working […]

In April, John Toenjes and I gave a TED talk at the TEDx event in Urbana, Illinois.  We demonstrated the prototype of a computer dance/music system.  It is a musical instrument you play by dancing.  Here is the link to a video of our Talk.

In February I traveled to Purdue University to give a week of master classes, and restaged my choreography, 9.8m/sec2 on the student performing company.

In April, John Teonjes, Ben Smith and I set up the Leonardo’s Chimes interactive dance/music environment at the HASTAC Conference 2009, at University of Illinois.  We introduced the instrument as a movement/music educational game system.

January 2009 I was honored to be asked back a second time to Scripps and Pomona Colleges in California again this year.  I was there in February for 4 days working with their very interesting, bright students on Quadruped, and other philosophies in action.

Tate Modern Art Museum, London In November 2008 I was invited to London for for the London Consortium conference, “Take a Deep Breath” at the Tate Modern where I performed the solo “December” and gave a talk titled: Respiration: Visible/InvisibleA performance and discussion of the experience of audience participation & induced collective, sympathetic breathing during a theatrical artistic dance. It […]

In October 2008, Holly and I did a ZoMotion event on Washington University campus as part of the Freshmen Reading program of events surrounding the book, “Field Notes from a Catastrophe.”  It is an evironmental message, and our work provides an opportunity to encourage people to look at our relationship to trees and the natural world with […]

Cleveland, Ohio In July 2008, John Toenjes and I presented an evening length interactive music/dance performance at the Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, including Leonardo’s Chimes and 2 new interactive works, “Songs of the Elastic Halloon,” and “Soundwave Surfing.”  All of these works use computers to turn space into an interactive sonic and visual landscape. Put simply, we make […]

In May and June 2008, I was on the faculty of the new Wash U study abroad program,MADE in France, in Paris and Burgundy.  Holly came along with me, and it was an invigorating time for us, learning and deepening our processes of interacting with objects and environments in movement.

April 19th, Holly and I as ZO /\/\otion /\rts gave a premier performance calledMoving Landscapes at our home in Innsbrook Missouri.  The event was comprised of a series of site specific installations of movement artwork sitated in natural landscapes.  The work included several dances in which we climb a tree, tracing the pathway of its […]

March 29 was invited by Edison Theatre to give a pre-show talk for the Susan Marshall performance of “Cloudless,” Susan’s most recent collaborative-process art work.  Keith Sawyer, Author of “Group Genius”, Jerry McAdam and I had a conversation about improvisation, and collaborative processes as an ideal means to creativity and problem solving, whether in art work, or business.

March 19th I gave a Lecture to the Washigton University community called “Mind in the Matter: Movement as a Mode of Intelligent Thought.”  In this presentation I spoke of  movement as a way of thinking, researching, learning and understanding.  In particular, I presented movement material from my research on Quadrupedal movement as a feedback for […]

March 2008, I was at American College Dance Conference in Kansas, where I led a discussion called “Speaking of Dance: the Language we Teach With” and also a Master Class of “Quadruped.” 

February 2008, John Toenjes and I performed Leonardo’s Chimes at theSPARK Festival in Minneapolis.

In the fall of 2007 I became coordinator of the new Somatic Studies Certificate Program in University College, Washington University’s continuing education school.  It comprises coursework that is primarily experiential, movement oriented in nature. The program launches with a new course I facilitated called Introduction to Somatic with 15 guest lecturers and teachers, covering topics related to […]