Maida Withers Dance Construction Company  

Maida Withers
Current Projects
   A Choreographer's Life
   Thresholds Crossed
Touring and Performances
Past Works
   Aurora/2001
Site Works
Media/Technology
Int'l Improv Fest
Press/Reviews

Contact

Maida Withers

• choreographer / dancer / director
• master teacher / professor
• presenter / curator / board of directors
• producer / filmmaker
• awards / honors / grants

Choreographer, director, dancer: (see Past Works, Current Projects, Press/Reviews)
Maida, a powerful and commanding performer, is known for her daring in movement and innovation as a choreographer.  She has created a significant body of work for Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, over 75 dances of breadth and vision, involving a process of experimentation and collaboration.  Every three to five years, Maida initiates and produces a large-scale work resulting from on-site research and investigation.  Current projects involve international travel and collaboration with artists, scientists, anthropologists, and technologists. Maida has an on-going interest in the use of technology, multimedia and new media, mixing imagination and daring with a keen sense of formal structure and beauty.  Works  reflect her activism for art and other important social and political issue through thought-provoking non-linear narratives often laced with wit and humor. Site specific performances and dance improvisation have been significant aspects of Maida's creative work.  Improvisation is important in the development of the works as well as an art creating spontaneous choreography during performance. 

Maida's career began in the late 1960’s.  Inspired by the likes of Anna Halprin and John Cage, she soon took her own style, influenced by renowned artists Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Alwin Nikolais, and Mary Wigman, from Germany.  She was part of what has become known as the modern dance revolution that created post-modernism in dance in America. She is referred to as the "iconoclast of Washington dance," and continues to be a national leader in the application of new media and technologies with dance. Starting in 1987, the earth and natural phenomenon became primary sources, subject and processes for several art projects for stage and video, making Maida  an early leader in this artistic arena.  She worked with 100 international artists for ecology in Brazil for the first international United Nation's Earth Summit (Eco '92), performing her work, Rolling Thunder. She developed an artistic technique involving the video camera as a collaborator in a land-site process with artists at earth sites, with indigenous people, location history, mythology, and other cultural aspects, that resulted in video art works or video art projects as an installation for stage works. Tours by Maida and with the Company include France, Finland, Norway, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and others.

Master teacher / Professor:
Dance in the university setting has been an important aspect of Maida's life work.  That environment suits her intellectual curiosity and adventurous, independent spirit. In the Department of Theater and Dance at the George Washington University in downtown Washington, DC she teaches choreography, improvisation, performance art theory/practice (dance and technology), advanced modern dance technique, and serves on many committees in the Department and the University. She directed the MFA and MA graduate dance programs in choreography, performance and education for over 25 years.  Maida has traveled through the world teaching workshops in over 15 countries.  She has been on the faculties of Purdue and Howard universities, taught nationally as a founder/specialist with the NEA Artists-in-Schools Program, and teaches continuously, internationally, for various festivals and conferences.  Maida feels strongly that her art work informs the teaching and that teaching informs her art work as well. She received her BA at Brigham Young University in Dance and Theatre and her MA at the University of Utah.

Presenter / curator / board of directors: (see Touring and Performances, International Improv Festival)
Maida has played a significant role in Washington, DC as a curator, producer, and board member.  In 1995 Maida founded the DC International Dance Improvisation Plus+ Festival now in it's twelfth season.  She has co-produced  performances with District Curators, The Washington Performing Arts Society, various embassies, and others.  She founded the Dance Direction Festival, an annual two-week performance season in Marvin Center for local artists, and has presented or co-produced  concerts by international artists Phillip Glass (The Photographer), Kei Takei, Yamada Setsuko and H. Art Chaos (Japan), Kim JeYoung and Kim Hyun Je (Korea), Slaski Teatr Tanca (Poland), and residencies with American icons such as Erick Hawkins, Yvonne Rainer, Anna Halprin, Meredith Monk, Ann Carlson, others.  Withers served on the founding board of  directors of the now famous Washington Project for the Arts, working in that capacity with visual, dance, and media artists for eight years, Program Chair for 3 years. She served a 3-year term on the Kennedy Center Education Committee.  She continues to serve on various selection committees for artist grants.

Producer / filmmaker: (see Media / Technology, Aurora 2001, Site Works)
Maida's dance videos have been shown nationally and internationally at film festivals, as part of on-stage performances, and on cable and mainstream television. SandS Cycles, a land site video created at White Sands, New Mexico and Coral Dunes, Utah, toured with In Winds of Sand to China, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Paris, Venezuela. Orbit was selected for showing at the 1990 DC Rosebud Film Festival; 1991 Women in Film Festival, Kennedy Center; and exhibited in Frankfurt, Germany at 1992 IMZ Dance Screen.  State of the Art, a video art documentary, received national recognition for innovative local cable programming. Withers narrated Dance, Dance, Dance, in 1978, a ten-part series for NBC-TV, broadcast in five major US cities.  Utah * Tukuhnikivatz video and earth art slide installation was the final event for the 1997 Environmental Film Festival of Washington, DC. In February 2007, Maida and Belle Cluff, filmmaker, will create one minute daily "decadance" videos in Kenya and Tanzania to display on YouTube.

Awards / honors / grants:
In 2005, at the Kennedy Center, Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company received the Metro DCDance Award - Outstanding Overall Production in a Large Venue for Thresholds Crossed. Maida and the Company received the coveted Washington, DC Mayor's Arts Award for Artistic Achievement in the Discipline, at the Kennedy Center. In 2001 Maida received the prestigious Pola Nirenska Life-Time Artistic Achievement Award presented by The Washington Performing Arts Society and as part of the 2001 DC Metro Dance Awards.  She was selected by faculty peers for a Columbian Professorship, Distinguished Professor award, by The George Washington University. Grants have been received from the National Endowment for the Arts, Choreographers Fellowships; NEA Inter Arts; NEA Visual Arts in Performing Arts; DC and Virginia Commissions for the Arts; Dilthey Fellowship for Collaboration; The George Washington University Faculty Research Awards; Washington Area Studies Grant for Cultural Preservation and Archiving; Fulbright Travel Award to Taiwan; Kansai University Exchange to Japan; Washingtonian Magazine Award to Outstanding Women; and others.  Many of Withers international workshops and performances are supported by the United States Information Services, and US Embassies. The Company and Maida's choreography and international travels continue to be supported by The Trust for Mutual Understanding, Ford Foundation in Russia, DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, U.S. Embassies in Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and others, along with several American corporations located in Washington, DC.