Alexandra Beller/Dances is an ensemble of highly skilled dancer/actors walking the line between dance and theater. Rich with personal revelations, performances move, stimulate, impassion and incite audiences. Ripe with metaphor, abstracted narrative and controversial ideas, the dances traffic through dangerous territory, exploring homophobia, sexism, and emotional isolation. The company confronts distinctions of race, nationality, sexual orientation and political affiliation, hurling these issues to the forefront of the artistic conversation.

The creations are a truly unique hybrid form, where speaking and moving are essential forces in the creation of meaning. Dances often pay homage to great writers and fertile landscapes of words are often used to create a sense of place, time and relationship. Movement is a key to the startling, idiosyncratic and mysterious information that resides in the body. The process is highly collaborative and focuses on bringing as many artistic models to the table as possible in an attempt to create original imagery, sound and structure. Humor, irony, satire and pathos are interchangeable in the drive towards meaning. Education, performance, discussion and community involvement are all pathways taken towards audience and community partnerships.

The company has created over 30 works in the last five years. Working in a European tradition of extremely physical theatre, the work strives to give movement, text, music, and visual elements equal play in the formation of narrative and emotionality. Pieces range from 10 minutes to full evening works and many have been restaged for larger and smaller companies.

click for more information about Alexandra Beller and Alexandra Beller Dances

what comes after happy
what comes after happy cracks open our cultural obsession with happiness. More than almost any country, America is driven by the search for a state we consider "happy." As if happiness were a state of the Union rather than a state of being, we seem to be constantly mapping out the route towards a place, rather than experiencing the journey and taking in the states along the way. While other countries give deep value to the states of sadness, anger, passion and fear, we often whitewash our everyday lives to announce to the world and ourselves that we do not covet, that we are not filled with unrest, that we do not mourn. what comes after happy features 300 fortune cookies, an eclectic score and a ferocious physical vocabulary.
 

Residencies are an essential component to the Company's work, providing an opportunity for the company to collaborate with artists from around the world and to share, through the creation of new work, our aesthetic and vision.

Residency packages can be suited to fit the needs of the presenter and can include any of the following:

• Creation of an original work for your company or school
• Technique classes with Alexandra Beller
• Additional classes including Composition, Improvisation, Duet Making, Core Conditioning, and Meditation
• Discussions of various topics including Dance in NYC, Life in a large company, Being a Choreographer, Body image and self image in the dance world, Nutrition and Injury Prevention.
• Workshops at local schools