THE CIRCLE: A Community Dance Project at NCSML
with Dr. Dagmar Spain
November 9 – 10, 2024
“The Circle” is an inter-generational and intercultural community-based dance project in which the Czech folk dance “Ceresnicky” (cherry) from Moravia serves as an inspiration. Dance in a circle is probably one of the oldest traditions in many cultures, celebrating special events and rituals, bringing communities together, and strengthening them. In this community project, everyone is encouraged to contribute their creativity and basic knowledge of circle dances to develop an original “circle” dance expressing democratic principles. Guiding questions are “What do I contribute to my community?” and “How does my community contribute to my well-being?” This 2-day event will accumulate into a final performance accompanied by live music. No dance proficiency is necessary, only the joy of dance and movements together with others.
About the Instructor
Dagmar Spain, born in the Czech Republic, is a dance educator and dance artist collaborating with other choreographers, visual artists, and writers at different institutions around the world to build harmonious and robust communities; currently at the University of New York in Prague, Czech Republic, where she designed the course The Power of Words, teaching the art of monologue writing; DanceWorks Berlin, Germany, a BFA dance program, where she teaches modern/ contemporary dance and designed the course “Applied Learning” for pre-professional professional dancers. Spain specializes in interactive and somatic dance movements and conducts experiential workshops for all populations to unleash the healing power of embodied expressions with a dialogic and inter-active approach. In the U.S., she taught as a dance artist and visiting professor at Brown, Penn State, and Montclair University. Spain received her BFA in dance at the College for Dance and Performing Arts, Frankfurt, Germany, and her MFA in dance and choreography at Tisch School of the Arts, N.Y.U., New York. She received her EdD in dance education with a holistic focus on dialogic research & pedagogy at Teachers College/Columbia University in May 2024. Dagmar lives in Berlin, Germany.
