DanceBytes

Ruth Page Center
1016 N Dearborn

FREE

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DanceWorks Chicago’s DanceBytes blends a dynamic dance presentation with informative behind-the-scenes insights. Held at times in a studio and at times in a theater, DanceBytes is an opportunity to connect with dance and dancers through an intimate look into the artistic journey. The creation of new work as well as the dances themselves are vehicles for DWC dancers and audiences to investigate a wide range of dance techniques, movement styles, and artistic approaches.

DanceMoves Choreographer Traver Woodard will unveil and discuss his new work for DanceWorks Chicago.

Traver Woodard is a Chicago-based movement artist. Originally from Battle Creek, MI, he began receiving his academic training at Lane Community College/University of Oregon (dually-enrolled dance programs) while supplementing his practice with seasonal workshops with companies along the West Coast, focusing heavily on line-based technique. Early in his college career, Traver developed an interest in somatic studies after his transformative exposure to Continuum Movement under the tutelage of Bonnie Simoa. He has since independently pursued the teachings of such voices as Emilie Conrad and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (of Body-Mind Centering), cultivating a rich awareness of the internal body which he uses to inform the external realities of professional, technical dance. Through intense and precious labor, Traver has come to understand movement to be, in the words of Emilie Conrad, “both the message and the messenger,” and by listening to the body has come to understand his responsibility in the world as an artist, a human, a politician, and a protector of justice. Using dance as art, he aims to eradicate the boundaries dividing all of these as separate, and to invite others into the dialogue of our necessary and collective experience.