i am a dancer
A Residency and Performance Project by Shana Simmons
A dance that investigates the act of claiming the identity of dancer.
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About the Project
i am a dancer begins with a simple declaration. "i am a dancer." One performer steps forward and claims the statement. Then another. Then another. As voices overlap and bodies compete for space, certainty begins to unravel. What first appears to be a straightforward affirmation becomes a more complex question: Who gets to claim the identity of dancer, and who gets to decide? Drawing inspiration from Martha Graham's Blood Memory, original music, multilingual recorded text, and interactive media, i am a dancer invites performers and audiences alike to consider the evolving definitions of artistry, expertise, belonging, and legitimacy within dance. i am a dancer is approximately 15-minutes. |
Why This Work Resonates with Students
The central question of i am a dancer is one that many dancers are already asking. Students enter the residency with deeply held assumptions about training, artistry, legitimacy, and belonging. The creative process invites them to examine those assumptions through performance, discussion, and embodied inquiry.
Participants engage with these questions while contributing to a work that is adaptable to a variety of educational environments and populations. Yes, the words of Martha Graham are inherently embedded into the vision of "what makes a dancer" and "who gets to claim that title?" Through collaboration, word exercises, and discussion with students, we question the history and trajectory of dance training and leave the audience with a question, rather than a statement.
Future iterations of i am a dancer seek to engage diverse populations including university dancers, professional artists, intergenerational performers, and disability communities, examining how different bodies and experiences complicate, challenge, and expand our understanding of dance identity.
The central question of i am a dancer is one that many dancers are already asking. Students enter the residency with deeply held assumptions about training, artistry, legitimacy, and belonging. The creative process invites them to examine those assumptions through performance, discussion, and embodied inquiry.
Participants engage with these questions while contributing to a work that is adaptable to a variety of educational environments and populations. Yes, the words of Martha Graham are inherently embedded into the vision of "what makes a dancer" and "who gets to claim that title?" Through collaboration, word exercises, and discussion with students, we question the history and trajectory of dance training and leave the audience with a question, rather than a statement.
Future iterations of i am a dancer seek to engage diverse populations including university dancers, professional artists, intergenerational performers, and disability communities, examining how different bodies and experiences complicate, challenge, and expand our understanding of dance identity.
Movement + Media
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Why bring i am a dancer to your space?
- A compelling artistic question
- Participants engage with a contemporary artistic question that has no single answer, yet encourages discussion, questioning, and critical thinking.
- Interdisciplinary collaboration
- The residency combines choreography, original music, language, and reactive media technologies.
- Flexible residency model
- The work is adaptable to a wide range of populations, educational settings, and performance contexts while remaining flexible to guest artist weeks, repertory projects, main-stage productions, and interdisciplinary initiatives.
Residency Opportunities
i am a dancer is designed as a flexible residency experience that can be adapted to the goals, schedule, and population of each institution. Through technique classes, repertory, discussion, creative exploration, and performance, participants engage with a contemporary work that investigates identity, belonging, and the evolving definition of what it means to call oneself a dancer.
Residency formats may range from short-term guest artist engagements to extended creative residencies and are customized in consultation with each host institution.
If a different format may be of interest, please reach out! These are recommended time frames only.
Residency formats may range from short-term guest artist engagements to extended creative residencies and are customized in consultation with each host institution.
If a different format may be of interest, please reach out! These are recommended time frames only.
The Immersion Residency
5 Day - 1 Week Residency
Designed for institutions seeking a concentrated artistic experience, this residency introduces students to the movement language, creative process, and central questions of i am a dancer while culminating in an informal showing or performance excerpt.
May include:
The Collaborative Residency
1 - 2 Week Residency
A deeper engagement with the work, allowing students to move beyond learning choreography and into the broader artistic themes that drive the project. Participants explore performance, collaboration, and the questions surrounding identity and legitimacy within dance while preparing a more developed presentation of the work.
May include:
The Community & Custom Residency
Flexible Duration
i am a dancer is intentionally adaptable and can be developed for a wide variety of communities, educational settings, and performance contexts. Custom residencies are designed in partnership with the host organization to meet specific artistic, educational, or community engagement goals.
Potential residency components:
5 Day - 1 Week Residency
Designed for institutions seeking a concentrated artistic experience, this residency introduces students to the movement language, creative process, and central questions of i am a dancer while culminating in an informal showing or performance excerpt.
May include:
- Contemporary technique and repertory classes that introduce students to the movement language and collaborative process of the work.
- Setting of selected excerpts (or full 15-minute piece) from i am a dancer
- Exploration of choreographic process and artistic decision-making
- Artist talks and classroom visits: Discussion of contemporary choreography, authorship, and artistic identity.
- Informal studio showing or main stage rework of original piece with variations
- Guest artist weeks
- Intensive experiences
- Department residencies
- Festival participation
The Collaborative Residency
1 - 2 Week Residency
A deeper engagement with the work, allowing students to move beyond learning choreography and into the broader artistic themes that drive the project. Participants explore performance, collaboration, and the questions surrounding identity and legitimacy within dance while preparing a more developed presentation of the work.
May include:
- Contemporary technique and repertory classes that introduce students to the movement language and collaborative process of the work.
- Expanded staging of i am a dancer with reactionary projection
- Creative exploration of the work's central themes, including cast-recorded voice mixed with the audio
- Interactive media and projection collaboration discussions
- Artist talks and classroom visits: Discussion of contemporary choreography, authorship, and artistic identity.
- Performance and post-show discussion
- Main-stage guest artist projects
- University dance programs
- Interdisciplinary collaborations
- Student performance initiatives
The Community & Custom Residency
Flexible Duration
i am a dancer is intentionally adaptable and can be developed for a wide variety of communities, educational settings, and performance contexts. Custom residencies are designed in partnership with the host organization to meet specific artistic, educational, or community engagement goals.
Potential residency components:
- Repertory and performance creation
- Technique and master classes
- Community engagement activities
- Interdisciplinary collaboration
- Creative process workshops
- Artist talks and discussions
- Site-responsive or alternative performance formats
- University dance programs
- Pre-professional training programs
- Community-based ensembles
- Intergenerational casts
- Mixed-experience performers
- Special project initiatives
A multidisciplinary dance work exploring identity, legitimacy, belonging, and the evolving definition of what it means to be a dancer.
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COLLABORATORS
Shana Simmons (Choreographer) is a choreographer, educator, and company director. Her works have been presented in New York City, Belgium, London, Chicago, Boston, and Pittsburgh. Simmons’ work is rooted in is rooted in the relationship between viewer and performer and how this exchange can further invest audience members into the impact a work might have. Simmons is on current faculty at Seton Hill University and an active educator within the Pittsburgh community. Her company, Shana Simmons Dance, hosts the Pittsburgh International Dance Film Festival annually.
For full bio, CLICK HERE
For full bio, CLICK HERE
Scott Andrew (Technical Media Design Team) (b. 1982, Waynesburg, PA) is a multimedia queer-oriented media designer, video, installation, animation and performance artist, educator, and curator. His works center around queer futurity, divas and gay icons, LGBTQ+ histories and mythologies, and tensions between the celebrity image and the physical body. Recent works have incorporated animation, generative AI, video mapping, and VFX for collaborations spanning dance, drag, theater, music and events. Andrew's works have been exhibited at MoMA’s PopRally Performance Series (NYC), Ballroom Marfa (Marfa, TX), The Hammer Museum (LA), The J. Paul Getty Museum (LA), Whitechapel (London, UK), MIX (NYC), and Anthology Film Archives (NYC). Media Design projects include an off-broadway run of ‘The Marthaodyssey’, featuring Jesse Factor at the Marjorie S. Dean Little Theater (NYC). ‘The Marthaodyssey’ was also featured at the 2026 American Dance Festival. Other projects have included ‘First Lady’ by The Pittsburgh International Classical Theatre company (Carnegie Stage), ‘Looking at You’ presented by CMU Opera (CMU Alumni Concert Hall), The Diva Saga (featuring Veronica Bleaus), and ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ (City Theater), and the documentary ‘Workhorse Queen’ by Angela Washko. Scott is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at the University of Pittsburgh. www.scottnandrew.com/
Ethan Jerrett (Technical Media Design Team) (b. 1979, Newton, NJ) is a Pittsburgh-based software engineer, systems integrator, and interactive designer specializing in the intersection of code, immersive spaces, and live performance. Jerrett focuses on designing sophisticated hardware-software integrations and responsive technologies that bring complex, multi-sensory installations to life. He has been a technical collaborator on several high-profile projects with artist Scott Andrew and the Institute for New Feeling (IfNf), with credits including serving as the Immersive Video Installation Systems Designer for Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers by Rainbow Serpent at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, as well as a technical developer for the VR experience Ditherer exhibited at Ballroom Marfa, the interactive performance seek exhibited at Recess NYC, and the online glossary The Redirectory — a project examining the internet as a narcissistic mirror of corporate SEO, surveillance, and digital identity management. Currently, Jerrett is developing custom, interactive video-mapping reactive software designed specifically for dance and live performance, allowing real-time physical movement to directly drive and mutate visual environments on stage. He has also built practical, privacy-minded tools like Parcane — a platforms for collaborative and digital storytelling, custom finance tracking software, applications for radiological and medical applications, and other web-based products for businesses and individuals, turning messy real-life information — notes, recordings, budgets, and stray ideas — into organized systems people can actually use
Andy Hasenpflug (Composer) (he/him) (PA) has had the great pleasure of working as a musician in the dance world since 1989. He is the dance music director at Slippery Rock University and the American Dance Festival. As a composer and dance musician, he has collaborated with countless choreographers and film makers over the years, including the incomparably brilliant Shana Simmons, Rosie Herrera, Helen Simoneau, Helanius J. Wilkins, White Fox Butoh, Dance Alloy, Kate Jewett, Gerri Houlihan, Ursula Payne, Jesse Factor, and The Seldoms. Andy has also been a professional drummer and percussionist since 1986, having played with the United States Air Force Band, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, COBRA ensemble Cincinnati, tons of weddings, bars, recording studios, houses of worship, and many more. He publishes music under the names Andy Hasenpflug and Rabbitplow.