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NAVIGATION

HeARTbeats: NMSA Dance Dept Chair Adam McKinney

“My mission as an artist is to bring people together in hopes of creating more pathways towards communication and understanding.

-Adam McKinney, Chair, NMSA Dance Department

New Mexico School for the Arts Dance Department chair Adam McKinney says that coming to work at NMSA has felt like a “serendipitous engagement.”  Not only is NMSA a platform from which he can jump-start projects and explore social justice and social action themes with students, but he has been able to both gain support from and mentor budding young artists.

A former member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and Milwaukee Ballet Company, Mr. McKinney has led dance work across the U.S. and in Canada, England, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Palestine, Serbia, Spain and South Africa. Mr. McKinney is the recipient of multiple fellowships, grants, and academic honors.

His plans for his own work and research, as well as the building of NMSA’s Dance Department (and the wider dance community and culture) will soon be forging ahead in the development of a new, innovative project.  Recently, he was awarded a National Artist Teachers Fellowship, a grant for which artist teachers can apply to reinvigorate their art making practice. Mr. McKinney’s project will focus on the development, planning, and research of a solo dance and technology performance piece, entitled “BORDER” — part of his wider “Borders Project”, a series of dance performances and events that explore social and physical borders that affect people, their interactions, as well as borders’ implications on social justice and activism. He will meet with community groups and artists during a two-week residency in El Paso, TX, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in July, as part of his research.

He says, “Some questions I ask are: “How can dance and technology translate and expand the conversations we have about international borders?  How do the spaces and walls built to separate people affect the spaces we encompass in our everyday lives? Who can pass, who can’t pass?  I’m looking at tangible borders, specifically the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. – but it’s also about the intangibility of borders, looking at race and class and sexual orientation in particular, and how can we expand conversations we have about identity and being forced to identify in a particular way.

He will also be performing solo and duet installments of improvisational dances at border sites, particularly on the El Paso side, while improvisational dance is performed simultaneously on the Cuidad Juarez side.

The grant also provides $1,500 to be used for student education. “In the department, we are developing a Dance in Community Settings course for next year…students will gain the skills needed to work in community-based settings outside the dance studio. We’re excited about launching this class for next year!”

To see NMSA students participating in the Borders Workshop, check out our video here!

Be sure to see the remarkable talent of NMSA’s Dance Department, as well as wonderful performances in theater and music: 

May 22, 2015
for ARTSPRING 

An array of inspiring performances and a visual arts exhibition by NMSA students!