The images are presented as a slideshow–click play and enjoy!

Alyce Bochette is co-director of Dance Bochette. She spent 20 years touring internationally with dance companies including Mark Morris, May O’Donnell, and Rachel Lampert. For the May 21 event, Bochette will dance one solo piece, “Suspension,” choreographed by May O’Donnell in 1939, with music by Ray Green.

The Bochette Dancers include local dancers Mariquita Anderson, Jennifer Reed, Lynn Vosloo, Kelley Natella, and Gerri Reaves, and the performance features actors Katie Pankow and Jim Brock. Music for the reception and intermission will be performed by pianist Mary Seal.

With collaboration in staging and lighting design by Edison State College theater director, Stuart Brown, Alyce Bochette brings together original music and video by Rodney Woolsey and original poetry by Jim Brock, created specifically for the dance. The performance builds on the theme of salvaging, with modern dance that is accessible, lyrical, vibrant, and whimsical.

Bochette wants her audience to consider the dynamic of salvaging in their own lives, whether it is spiritual, familial, ecological, or nostalgic, in which we seek to reclaim, recover, remember, and even revise our own lives. The event brings together the audience as community. It also affords each of us a little space for personal reflection.

Images from the reception before the performance can be seen on the Fort Myers News Press website. To see images from the performance, click the play button on the slideshow below.

(Thanks to Robin Cornett for performance images.) Congratulations to Alyce, Stuart, Rodney, Jim, and our dancers on a fine performance!

For tickets, call 239.337.1933.

The songs being performed are:

1. Soda Pop (Jr. Modern)
2. Reaching In (solo)
3. Mazurka (Ballet)
4. Chicken Pox (Beginning Ballet)
5. All That Jazz (Jazz)
6. Inside Out (Sr. Modern)
7. Choo Choo (Tap)
8. Jumpin’ (Tap)

The Stage is across the street from Harborside inline with the boat ramp. The Stage will physically be on Edwards Drive. Performers, please plan on meeting at the stage at 3pm.

Theseare just a few of Robin’s images from the show. To see them all, visit her client website (or click the shopping cart link in the slideshow); the gallery access code is aloha. Proceeds from print sales will benefit the nonprofit Gulfcoast Dance.

Join us for a Tropical Holiday! Our annual Open House is this Saturday, December 12, at 3 pm in the First Baptist Church Activities Center. As always, this show is open to the public at no charge, and is a wonderful time of fun, friendship, and, of course, dancing! This year we are featuring our Aloha Dancers and would like to encourage you to come dressed for the tropics. Don’t forget to bring friends and family, and a plate of cookies to share!

Additionally, many of you may know that Ms. BoJeanne recently celebrated her birthday, and we would love to honor her and her service by a small token from each dancer. We are asking each dancer to bring a single stem flower to create one lovely mixed bouquet as a studio wide gift. While you’re picking this one up for Ms. BoJeanne, pick a small bouquet up for your own dancer to celebrate her accomplishments and hard work this fall!

We’ll see you all on December 12; after that, enjoy a well deserved holiday break! The studio will be closed until January 4, 2010. We’ll see you then! Keep an eye on our website, too, for calendar information, pictures from the show, and a website makeover for the new year! Happy holidays!

On December 12, 2009, at 3:00 p.m., Dance Bochette will be at the First Baptist Church Activities Center on Jackson Street in Downtown Fort Myers (map).

This special annual event is free to all. The performers range in age from 3 to adult. This year’s performance will feature a special suite of Hawaiian dances from our Aloha Dancers, as well as an appearance from a very special guest!

We ask each family to bring a plate of cookies to share during our time of holiday cheer after the show.

For more details, click the “read more” link.

Celebrate the Edison & Ford Winter Estates newest Museum exhibit, “Music, Movies & Dance with Edison & Ford,” and learn how to Contra dance in the main exhibit hall in the Estates Museum on September 20, 2009 from  2 PM – 4 PM.

Although Henry Ford is best known for his automobiles, Ford had other interests and avocations including a love of traditional American country dance. Ford believed that dancing taught social training, courtesy, good citizenship and rhythm. His love of dancing resulted in the building Lovett Hall in Michigan, a place for people to learn traditional American dance. For twenty years traditional dance was taught to the Ford family, friends, employees, and school children. Ford considered dancing to be a form of social training for boys and girls saying, “Courtesy makes friends and good manners keep them.”

Ford organized the Early American Dance Orchestra to accompany the dancers.  The public was able to enjoy Ford’s love of music when The Early American Dance Music radio program broadcasted in 1944 -1945 with a “Dance Master” calling steps.  In 1926 Ford published a book, Good Morning After a Sleep of Twenty-Five Years, Old Fashioned Dancing is Being Revived. The book is available at the Estates Museum Store.

Contra dance is for the young and old, beginner and expert, singles and partners.  All Contra dances are explained and “walked through” by a Caller before they are danced.  Polkas, square dance steps and other called dances are part of the Contra dance experience.  The program includes a live traditional music dance band and expert instructors.

The Estates Contra dance will be separated into two programs. At 2 PM the first of two 55 minute Contra dances will begin which includes a community participatory program and instruction. Before the second program begins, dancers from Dance Bochette will perform dances of the period including Quadrilles and a Varsouvienne.  Caller Gillian Carney teaches English Country Dancing at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Recreation Center and travels throughout Florida for Contra dance, Irish set dance and Scottish country dances.  The Assembly Line Band will be providing music for the dance.  Band member Gail Keel, keyboards/concertina, is a talented, passionate musician, who plays in several different bands, playing many different instruments, as well as multiple styles of music. Fiddler Jeff Moorhouse has played for dances throughout Michigan and southwest Florida.

The Estates exhibit, “Music, Movies & Dance with Edison and Ford” focuses on the interest and inventions of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford related to music, dance and the movies.  The exhibit includes a collection of phonographs, projectors and other artifacts connected to sound, music and the movies.  The exhibit also includes viewing of early Edison silent films.

Estates members are FREE; non members $12 adults, $6 children.  Cost includes dance instruction, refreshments and tour of the Lab and Museum. Support of the exhibit and program is provided by:  Dance Bochette, Bill Smith Appliances & Electronics, Carter-Pritchett Advertising, Inc., Gillian Carney and The Assembly Line Band.