Commissioned Residencies

Since its inception, Rebecca Stenn Company has held numerous residencies, workshops and master classes throughout the country.  With each program, the company tailors the content to compliment the population at hand.  To that end, the company has created residencies for at risk youth, senior citizens, community-members ranging from the very young to the elderly, high school students, and university dance and music departments.

Rebecca Stenn Company has held week-long to month-long residencies at Barnard College in New York (artist-in-residence for Fall 2000 semester and spring 2002 semester); The University of California at Santa Barbara and Irvine; Southern Methodist University in Texas; The University of Western Ontario in Canada; Stockton College in New Jersey; Southern Oregon University; Dickinson College in Pennsylvania; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; The Center for Contemporary Arts in St. Louis, The Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin and The New Orleans Ballet Association.

The company has created two full evening length works, Dream Child Moving and Finding Home, both over an intensive five week residency with 40 to 50 members of the community at hand. These performances have been met with great enthusiasm from the communities in which they were made, Sheboygan, Wisconsin and New Orleans, LA.    
  

Process

Integral to the company’s creative process is improvisation. The dialogue and movement vocabulary among the company members emerge from intense sessions of improvisation and creative interaction. To emphasize the endless creative possibilities between dancer and musician, Rebecca Stenn Company teaches a workshop entitled ‘Fundamentals of Collaboration’. The company is flexible in designing a residency that works best for the institution at hand. The group offers single master classes, week long sessions with classes all day, to month long stays.

The company also has an extremely successful student performance, which has been performed throughout the country to rave reviews from teachers and students alike. The student show can be presented to students ranging in age from 5 to 18 years old. Rebecca Stenn Company is on the roster of the Young Audience Programs for New Jersey as well as The Open Stages Program at Lincoln Center in New York City.

"Your candescent spirits arrived in our cold, sleepy town and set thirty hearts ablaze. Your passion for creative movement helped us to reach deep inside ourselves and release the playfulness we suppress in our everyday lives. Your quest for beauty in ordinary people and surroundings changed the way our eyes view the world in which we live. Your gentle encouragement touched our souls. Thank you for sharing your world with us. You truly changed me, and you gave Daniel (my son) an experience he will remember forever.”
Letter from a community cast member for Dream Child Moving, Sheboygan

® 2007 Rebecca Stenn Company \ Photography: Jeffrey Machtig
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