LEANING TOWARD THE SKY is a site-specific dance installation that was commisioned at the U.S. Botaic Garden. Audeiences curiously explored the lush and abundant living collection of the USBG Conservatory as never before with Orange Grove Dance's transformative site-specific choreography and design. Performed among the Celebrating New American Gardens exhibit and elsewhere in the Conservatory, Orange Grove Dance illuminated and further revealed the richness and wonder of life cycles in plants, people, and mythology through dynamic dancing, an original sound score, and vivid projection design. It was an evening of discovery that exists at a special place within yourself; that place where, if you stand still for a moment and listen, you can hear the heartbeat of the universe aligning with your own.

Concept, Direction & Choreography: Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves
Performers: Terra Bergamy, London Brison, Amber Chabus, Abby Farina, Joe Gipson, Adrien Gusky, Atlas Hill, Carolyn Hoener, Jonathan Hsu, Angad Kalsi, Colette Krogol, Sadie Leigh, Sydney Lemelin, Juliana Ponguta, Matt Reeves
Composer: Dylan Glatthorn

Projection Design: Matt Reeves
Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo

FREQUENCY casts its performers into a vast friction-filled digital landscape that evokes images and relationships from a past grievously misremembered. A duet between Artistic Directors Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves, FREQUENCY is a throwback to the company’s genesis as a duet company and reflects the significance of time spent trying to tune two lives together.

Premiered in Tampa, Florida (2019)

THE BARRIER PROJECT by Orange Grove Dance is a part of the Mapping Racism Project.

After months of field work and conversations with residents of the historic neighborhood of North Brentwood, Maryland, THE BARRIER PROJECT became a multi-location site-specific dance and design performance that traversed audiences through the town in May of 2019.

Directed and conceived by: Orange Grove Dance
Choreography: Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves in collaboration with performers

Performers: Colette Krogol, Chris Law, Shanice Mason, Juliana Ponguta, Matt Reeves, and Nicole Sneed
Projection & Sound Design: Matt Reeves
Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo

Voices of the North Brentwood Community:
Mr. Arthur J. Dock
Stuart Eisenberg
Una Palmer
Mayor Petrella Robinson
Denise Thomas

Alongside voices from a 1994 interview with North Brentwood residents graciously shared by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission

Thanks to Chris Law and Ama Law for their vital role within the creation of this work. Through important conversations and a dedication to this project you helped bring this work to life.

Special Thanks
Joe’s Movement Emporium, Brooke Kidd, Neena Narayanan, Andre Mazelin, Mayor Petrella Robinson, Stuart Eisenberg, PGAAMCC, Jake Rollow, Ryan Craun, The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and Gustavo

Collaboration
A partnership between Hyattsville Community Development Corporation and Joe’s Movement Emporium.

Community Collaborators:
Cities of Hyattsville & North Brentwood
Prince George’s African-American Musuem & Cultural Center
Pyramid Atlantic
Ally Theatre Company
Orange Grove Dance

Support for Mapping Racism comes from:

MID-ATLANTIC ARTS FOUNDATION: Cross-Sector Arts Grant
City of Hyattsville
Prince George’s Arts & Humanities Council
Prince George’s County Council Member, Deni Taveras
Long & Foster Real Estate Broker, Ann Barrett

Orange Grove Dance, was commissioned by the Alexandria Council for the Arts to transform its' Waterfront Park with its trademark virtuosic athleticism and evocative sound design.

Their work, REDEFLECT is a site-specific dance that curiously agitates and activates the space in and around the MIRROR MIRROR installation by Softlab NYC; revealing how space, sculpture, and people respond to one another. Inspired by the reflective nature of how light and sound influences the installation and the public design of the Waterfront Park, REDEFLECT pivots performers and audiences alike into a surreal landscape of mirages.

Choreography by Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves
Original composition and sound design by Dylan Glatthorn.
Created and Performed in collaboration with London Brison and Shanice Mason.
Costumes designed by Jeannette Christensen.

Orange Grove Dance, under the direction of Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves, transforms the stage with its trademark virtuosic athleticism and evocative multimedia design. Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. uses sophisticated sensor technology and digital-media interaction to explore the nature of recurring dreams that tear through our homes, awakening us from sleep.

“These dreams are the bridge to the stories that we have been told since we were young and the places we’ve still never touched.”

Based on mythopoetic research into personal dreams and stories of one family’s migration from Cuba in 1980, Orange Grove Dance opens up new dialogues on timely themes such as migration, exodus, and transformation.

An excerpt of this work won the Audience Choice Award at the 34th Annual Choreographers’ Showcase in 2017 and was described by Dance Metro DC as a “magically spun… visual tale of suspension, tension, and community within a multilayered moving painting.”

Original score and sound design: Dylan Glatthorn and Jeff Dorfman.
Projection Design: Mark Costello
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold

Remnants premiered in March of 2018 as part of the Inaugural DIRECT CURRENT Season at The Kennedy Center. DIRECT CURRENT, the Kennedy Center’s two-week celebration of contemporary culture, focuses on new works, and interdisciplinary creations in which artistic worlds collide. This season showcases some of the most provocative, original, and pioneering voices in the arts today. DIRECT CURRENT takes place at the Kennedy Center and beyond, extending throughout the District of Columbia through collaborations with a number of alternative venues, to expand the growing audience for contemporary culture in the nation’s capital.

ABOUT THE DANCE:

The OPEN BOX Project is a brand-new evening-length collaboration between Rogue Collective and Orange Grove Dance featuring compelling music and dancing. Performed in the vast tunnels of Dupont Underground, the architecture serves as rich inspiration for this interactive evening, which explores how space, material, light, and sound affect the experiences and actions of their inhabitants. Influenced by American minimalism and popular music the string players of Rogue Collective blend their sounds and creations with the dynamic, virtuosic, and visually athletic choreography of Orange Grove Dance.

Performances @ Dupont Underground

Video shot and edited by Oliver Mertz

A film at the intersections of dance, dream, and mythology.

FILM SYNOPSIS
The film follows six Archetypes through a dream-like reality as they near the end of a cycle. Ares and Athena are fated into a timeless battle, siblings pitted against one another, their destinies inextricably forced to collide. Hermes carries the call to action for all thus setting the stage for a final struggle between order and chaos, light and darkness. In the balance hangs the prophetic Pandora, burdened with a key and plagued by nightmares symbolic of the impending storm. Wise Prometheus accompanies her as they journey off to find Atlas whom ultimately carries the portal to their final destination.

BUILDING MODERN MYTHS
Using Greek mythological archetypes and insights from the Monomyth Theory of Joseph Campbell as a base for inspiration, we are creating modern mythologies within an abstract narrative that live and breathe in the fabric of today’s human psyche. Joseph Campbell said "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” 'THE ARCHETYPES' is an exploration into the private dreams that make up our new public myths today.

A UNIQUE DANCE FILM
“Dance on film is always an affirmation of the moving storyteller we have inside our bodies. It reminds us to listen to the body. The body speaks deeply to who we are as people and often times it speaks with more honesty and clarity than the mouth. For this reason alone we need more dance on film. It is one of the few ways we can keep our ancestral truths relevant in a modern society.”

Matt Reeves- Orange Grove Dance
Co-Writer & Choreographer for THE ARCHETYPES

BEST DANCE FILM*** ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL
FLORIDA FILMMAKERS AWARD*** ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL

OFFICIAL SELECTION*
DAM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
UNDERGROUND FILM FEST
STOCKHOLM INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL
SKYLINE INDIE FILM FEST
ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL
TAMPA BAY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
FESTIVAL ANGAELICA
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

FILMMAKERS

DIRECTOR: WILLIAM J. STRIBLING
CHOREOGRAPHERS: COLETTE KROGOL & MATT REEVES
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX GALLITANO
COMPOSER: DYLAN GLATTHORN
EDITOR BY: RAYMOND FRASER & THOMAS NUDI
COSTUME DESIGNER: JESSICA RAY HARRISON
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: ALEX WHITTENBERG
LG LIGHTING DESIGNER: SHAUN SUCHAN
SOUND BY: HAYLEY WAGNER

​​PRODUCED BY: COLETTE KROGOL & MATT REEVES
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: JASON LUDMAN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: RJ LEWIS

This is a trailer of the first iteration of Un castell built for two, which is a new evening length dance work, paralleling the precarious balance of human tower building and the powerful connections it brings to it's participants.

This piece is profoundly inspired by our recent residency work in Llorenç Del Penedes, Spain, where we were able to witness the deeply moving construction of human towers during the fiesta major celebrations of the region. Tonight’s events use the embodied knowledge of contact improvisation and partnering work to explore new methods of weight sharing, relationship, and interdependence to make us ask the question of where the physical metaphors of tower building exist in our own community. This new work is a step in our process to find them.

“It's about weight. It's about the weight of our bodies. It's about holding each other and building. Where are our castells in our everyday relationships? What are we building? Who are we supporting?”

CHOREOGRAPHY
Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves
In collaboration with dancers.

GRACIAS ESPECIALES
CeRCCa Residency
Pau Cata
Marina Saura
Joaquim Sicart Bertran
Maria Vall Camell
Ignasi Perez Galan
Alba Vinyes Lasso

SPECIAL THANKS
Brooke Kidd, JME’s Founder and Executive Director, for making this performance possible and bringing us into the space.

Miriam Phillips, for guiding our process and approach to the dance research involved in the work.

Our incredible community at the University of Maryland; faculty, cohort, students, collaborators and friends.

1MRP: EXPERIENCE SPACE DIFFERENTLY

HOW CAN DANCE, DESIGN, AND FILM CHANGE THE WAY WE SEE SPACE?
Our human imprint and the memory of our movement linger in spaces well after we have migrated through them. The 1 Mile Radius Project explores these imprints and the unique spaces of a community through resident interviews, site-specific movement research, and interactive design.

HOW IT STARTED- 2017
The first iteration of this work took place in Mt. Rainier Maryland in the 1 mile radius surrounding Joe's Movement Emporium, which serves as a vital community and artistic hub to the area. This project was initially kicked off in spring of 2017 as part of a NextLOOK Artist Residency by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and Joe's Movement Emporium. Additional support was provided by Brentwood Arts Exchange, Maryland State Arts Council, and Maryland Parks & Recreation.

1MRP REBOOTED- 2018
The 1MRP was commissioned again for a second NextLOOK Artist Residency in 2018. A second year of walking the streets and working with artists and community members of the Mt. Rainier and North Brentwood communities lead to new discovers and a brand new dance, design, and film installation at Joe's Movement Emporium. This years projects featured QR Codes that were mapped and posted around the 1 mile radius to give audience and community members access to special dance film content in the spaces it was created. The website was also launched which will serve as an ongoing archive of the process and work of The 1 Mile Radius Project.

https://www.1mileradiusproject.com

CHOREOGRAPHY, DIRECTION, & DESIGN
Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves of Orange Grove Dance
*Choreography in collaboration with performers

1 MILE DESIGN TEAM
Kelly Colburn
Mark Costello
Jeffrey Dorfman
Jonathan Hsu

LIGHTING DESIGN
Peter Leibold (2017)
Lauren Gallup (2018)