The Dance COLEctive
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The Dance COLEctive (TDC) is a Chicago, Illinois based, modern dance company, created to preserve, advance and strengthen the art of contemporary dance in Chicago, Illinois and beyond. Over the past 11 years TDC has contributed to the support of more than 13 choreographers, 43 dancers and 50 collaborators, many of them Illinois artists. The success of the company is largely attributed to Artistic Director, Margi Cole and her company.
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[edit] Mission
The Dance COLEctive (TDC) continuously challenges assumptions about dance –- who dances, what they dance, where, how and when dance takes place, and why dance happens. TDC's current work examines stereotypes of beauty, creating an atmosphere of power, strength, vulnerability and intimacy that provides the opportunity to question what is insisted on in the everyday. TDC dancers embrace the energy they pass from one another, exhibiting the strength of an athlete, the grace of an artist and the finesse of a woman. Through imagery, TDC challenges popular culture revealing multiple perceptions and truths, thus opening the door to self-acceptance in realism.
[edit] Repertoire
TDC produces its own concerts, and participates in multi-artist festivals such as The Other Dance Festival, Dance Chicago, the Estrogen Fest, Stockyards Women’s Theatre Festival and the Next Dance Festival. Self-produced concerts have been presented at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Harold Washington Library Theater, Northwestern University, Ruth Page Center, and Links Hall.
TDC features site-specific work as a part of its annual repertoire. The company has performed site-specific pieces at the Illinois State Fair and in the City of Chicago’s Millennium Project and Looptopia. Other site-specific locations include: the John G. Blank Center for the Arts in Indiana, Chicago Symphony Center Day of Music, Mayor Daley’s April Neighborhood Assembly, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s 1306 Project, Columbia College Chicago graduation ceremonies, various building lobbies in Chicago, Gorham's Bluff, Alabama, and the Birmingham Museum of Art.
[edit] Residencies and Partnerships
The company conducts one or two residencies annually. These residencies include performances, workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations and panel discussions. They provide the company an opportunity to work with people from all walks of life - rural, urban, young, old, privileged, low-income, men and women. Residencies can culminate with informal showings new work developed during the residency which engage participants in feedback sessions for the work or evening length repertory concerts. Past residency hosts include Beloit College, Knox College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Huntsville Community Ballet, and a variety of studios and schools in Alabama and Tennessee.
TDC maintains a long term artistic partnership with the Alabama Ballet. TDC Artistic Director Margi Cole has taught for the company’s Summer Intensive and has created new works for the company since 1999. One such work, "Tell It By Heart," won the Panoply Award for Best Modern Choreography in 2000.
[edit] Margi Cole
The Dance Collective's success is highly attributed to its Artistic Director, Margi Cole. Currently a Lecturer and the Associate Chair at the Dance Center of Columbia College, Margi graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts, received a BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has taught for organizations including the Alabama Ballet, the American College Dance Festival, Ballet Tennessee, and many schools, colleges and universities throughout Illinois, the Midwest, and the Southeast. The Alabama Ballet, Springfield Ballet Company, the Birmingham Museum of Art, Girl’s Preparatory School of Tennessee and Columbia College have commissioned Margi’s works. She is active in the Illinois dance community, serving on grant panels, program committees and in public forums as an arts administrator, dancer and choreographer.
Margi has danced with numerous well-known choreographers and companies, including Ralph Lemon, Joe Goode Performance Group, Stephen Koplowitz, Ann Boyd, David Rousseve, Bill Young, Douglas Nielsen, Timothy O'Slynne, Paula Frasz, Colleen Halloran, Mad Shak Dance Company, Mordine & Company Dance Theatre, Renee Wadleigh and Ellie Klopp.
Awards and acknowledgments include making the list of "Teachers Rated Excellent by their Students" for four consecutive semesters while on faculty at the University of Illinois, receiving two Dance Center of Columbia College Choreographic Mentoring Scholarships, two Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships, a 2005 Chicago Dancemakers Forum grant, a 2006 American Marshall Memorial Fellowship, and winning a Panoply Festival Choreography Award for Contemporary Dance.
