Description
We are planning collaborative performance events at Phoenix Avenue in the parking lot outside Human Nature Dance Studio, Phoenix Art Gallery and the Hive. Our overarching theme is Climate Change and how we can live in harmony with our natural world.
We will have a central performance area with two or three stages and space for our audience to sit and stand. The collaborating artists are: Human Nature Dance Theatre, Phoenix Ave Art Gallery, Flagstaff Tango, Canyon Movement Company, Ahlers Dance, FCBDance, Tina Truglio Buti Dance, Daniel Cunningham, Amruta Narumanchi Classical Indian Dance, Hydrangea Sky Movement Arts. Collaborative performances with poet Ann Weiler Walka, writer Jean Rukkila, Rebecca Whitehurst from NAU Theatre, Films by Amanda Kapp, Live music with Interference Series and the Hive, Interactive Sculpture by Peter Shipman
4:00-7:00pm Live screen printing with Mountain T’s
6:30 to 8:30 on the outside stage, dance/ music/ poetry performances and live auction
Jayne Lee is Executive Director of Human Nature Dance Theatre, a collaborative, interdisciplinary performance collective, which she co-founded with Delisa Myles and Paul Moore in 1994. Jayne has been Executive Director of HNDT since January 2000. She has been instrumental in developing dance and performance in Northern Arizona and assisted in building a dance program at Coconino Community College, where she taught Dance, Tai Chi and Yoga for 18 years. She co-founded both Canyon Movement Company and Human Nature Dance Theatre and was on the board of the Arizona Dance Coalition a statewide organisation. She was an Arizona Commission on the Arts Roster Artist for 12 years. Jayne has taught movement arts for 40 years and has choreographed for companies worldwide.
Trained as a dancer at The Place in London and at The Juilliard School. Jayne danced and choreographed for London Contemporary Dance Theatre for 10 years and toured internationally. In 1990, Jayne moved to Flagstaff to become a Grand Canyon River Guide, she has served on the board of Grand Canyon River Guides and works on the Colorado river in the summers.
Jayne is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner with a private practice in Flagstaff offering classes and individual lessons, she is working towards becoming an assistant trainer in the Feldenkrais method and assists on the London training.
With HNDT and guest artists Jayne led an 18-day river trip on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon to make a dance film DanceDownRiver: A Prayer for the River, all Wild Places and Wild Things. It premiered at Cline Library Flagstaff in April 09 and has shown in London UK, Australia, Japan, Massachusetts, Portland OR, Prescott Tempe and Tucson AZ.
Jayne has choreographed frequently for Northern Arizona University’s Theatre Department. She received a Choreographic Award for “He Who Gets Slapped” from the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival with Director Bob Yowell. She took part in the Solo Performance Commissioning Project with choreographer Deborah Hay at Findhorn in Scotland and performed the resulting solo “News” in Flagstaff, Arcosanti, Jerome, Grand Canyon, Boulder CO and London UK.
Jayne successfully co-produced the Flagstaff Performance Art and Film Festival with Gina Darlington of Canyon Movement Company. She collaborated with Leonard Wood to create an evening length performance MIDDLE GROUND which premiered at the Breaking Ground Festival in Tempe. She was a collaborator in Ævium a time-based, female, intergenerational dance theatre ensemble with a 24-year history of working together. They performed Intimacy with Disappearance a meditation on ageing, gender, and our relationship to the natural environment. We received a research and development grant from ACA to further the project and a residency at Playa Summer Lake in Oregon.
Jayne’s latest passion is Argentine Tango, she has worked with several community members to create Flagstaff Tango, bringing guest teachers to Flagstaff and organising community events and classes at Human Nature Dance Studio. She spent a month in Buenos Aires this winter studying with various tango teachers to increase her knowledge and technique in this artwork.
During the Covid 19 pandemic Jayne produced The Uncertainty Project a land based performance series which was filmed in several alternative spaces and kept live performance alive when it was extremely difficult to do so. She collaborated with Amanda Kapp and made Hiraeth, filmed in isolation during the pandemic and shown at CCA, at Tempe Center for the Arts and the Boulder Sans Souci Festival. She manages Human Nature Dance Studio in downtown Flagstaff a space for movement based classes and community events.
Last year she produced 21 Dances to Jupiter in honour of Caroline Shoemaker, a multi generational and multi disciplinary project involving 21 dancers and 21 dances with video projection. shown at CCA in July 2022.
Jayne took part in the ArtBox Institute, a business training and professional development program for creatives & arts administrators. Jayne has been nominated for the Viola Award four times.
