What is Notes in Motion?
Notes in Motion is a dance theatre company made up of Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre, producing original dance theatre performances and Outreach Dance Theatre, presenting in-school and community arts-in-education programs.

Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre
MISSION
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre engages audiences in original and dynamic dance theatre that raises questions, challenges social norms and values, and magnifies humanity through dance. Productions pivot around core themes and through an interplay between athletic and pedestrian motion, activate emotional expression, character, and narrative in a rich and abstract collage. Amanda Selwyn's collaborative choreographic process nurtures our own network of artists while actively engaging the community at large.

OVERVIEW
Founded in 2000, Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre has developed and presented over 25 productions at venues including Dance Theatre Workshop, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Danspace Project, The Ailey Citigroup Theater, John Jay College, and Dance New Amsterdam. Inside New York: “Amanda Selwyn is a master at illustrating the symbiosis of sound and movement, the romance of motion and emotion – she had me laughing, crying, cringing and gasping all in the short 55-minute production.” Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Pillow Pages: “Choreographically, Amanda's point of departure is not an image or a gesture, but a theatrical imperative felt in her insistence on expression.” Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre presents an annual performance Season in June, tours to festivals, presents periodic open rehearsals/workshops, and offers residencies to colleges and universities.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As an accomplished choreographer with a fresh and vibrant movement language, Selwyn is becoming a prominent voice within the New York dance community. She is in a dynamic place in her career having gathered a strong network of collaborating artists. Each year, the company gains more momentum as presenters and funders take greater interest in the work. Over the last three seasons, Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre has been invited to perform in a variety of festivals, in larger and more established theaters, and has received increasing support from public funders. As the company begins its twelfth year, there is growing excitement and confidence in the creative process. With each new work, Selwyn ups the ante. This audaciousness plays out in innovative scenic, video, costume, and musical elements, an insistence on harvesting a surfeit of raw material, and a relentlessness for trial and error that coaxes the movement to find its own voice in the creative process. She seeks out organic discoveries, raw and uninterrupted, to let movement flow from momentum and physical sensation. She uplifts, inspires, exhilarates, and creates a community of support. Provocative imagery, ideas, and emotions underscore the work. Selwyn presents this material in an immediate, mature, and inclusive way that engages our audiences from start to finish and beckons a response of thought, feeling, and soul.

Grants Awarded:
Harkness Foundation for Dance (2012)
New York State Council Arts - Arts-in-Education Funding (2011-2012)
Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation - Project Support (2010-2011 Season)
City Council Member Rosie Mendez - Discretionary Funding (2010-2011, 2011-2012)
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs - Cultural Development Fund Awards (2009-2010, 2010-2011)
City Council Member Bill DeBlasio - Discretionary Funding (2008)
The Bronx Council on the Arts Arts-in-Education Grants (2008-2009, 2009-2010)
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Manhattan Community Arts Fund (2007)
JP Morgan Chase - Individual, Team, and Matching Grants (2006-present)
NRG, Inc. Program Support (2009-2010)
Washington Post and Company (2010-present)
Bank of America (2010-present)

Honors:
Presented in Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Inside/Out Performance Series (2009, 2011)
Presented in Dance Teacher Summit NYC (2011)
Led Workshops in NYC Arts-in-Education Roundtable’s Face to Face Conferences (2007, 2008, 2011)
Presented in DUMBO Dance Festival (2009, 2010)
Presented in the Movement Research Open Performance Series at Dance Theater Workshop (2010)
Presented by Kumble Theatre for the Performing Arts, Long Island University Brooklyn Campus (2010)
Presented in COOL NY Dance Festival (2010)
Participated in the Choreographer’s Lab program at Jacob’s Pillow (2008)
Curated rental at Dance New Amsterdam (2008)
Presented in the NYU Women and Theater Conference (2003)

CREATIVE PROCESS
Selwyn’s creative process is distinctive from many other choreographers and makes each new project full of surprises. In rehearsal, she poses physical and dramatic paradigms for the dancers, and asks them to work out these challenges through movement. The dancers then, through improvisation and spontaneous choreographic studies, unearth raw material. Movements are passed through the company to discover new variations, individual interpretation, and nuance. The eventual choreographic vocabulary erupts from the discourse of exchange between dancers. The movement speaks a language of the community. As the work develops, it takes on its own life, telling Selwyn who it is, what it wishes to say, and where to go next.

PERFORMANCE HISTORY
White Night II: A Movable Performance Soiree (February 25, 2012) Space on White
Five Minutes (January 9 & 10, 2012) APAP at Peridance
Five Minutes (December 8 & 10, 2011) WestFest Dance Festival
Five Minutes (July 30, 2011) 2011 Dance Teacher Summit NYC
Inside/Out Performance Series (July 8, 2011) Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
Five Minutes (June 23-25, 2011) Dance Theater Workshop
Earth Celebrations (May 21, 2011) Rockefeller Park on the Hudson
White Night: A Movable Performance Soiree (February 26, 2011) Space on White
Yoga for the Arts (January 8, 2011) Laughing Lotus Yoga Center
DUMBO Dance Festival 2010 - excerpt from Passage (September 25-6, 2010) John Ryan Theater and Brooklyn Bridge Park
Passage (June 10-13, 2010) Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts
Earth Celebrations (May 22, 2010) Pier 40 on the Hudson River
Open Performance Series at Movement Research (April 14, 2010) Dance Theater Workshop
Transition (February 27, 2010) Speyer Hall at University Settlement
COOL NY Dance Festival - Drops and Bubbles excerpt (January 29, 31, February 7 2010) John Ryan Theater
APAP Conference - Drops and Bubbles excerpt (January 10, 2010) Dance New Amsterdam
DUMBO Dance Festval - excerpt from Hearsay (September 27, 2009) John Ryan Theater
Inside/Out Performance Series - excerpts from Undercurrent and Hearsay (August 26, 2009) Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
Undercurrent (June 11-14, 2009) Ailey Citigroup Theater
Precipitate (February 7, 2009) Speyer Hall at University Settlement
Hearsay (June 5-8, 2008) Dance New Amsterdam
Remnants (February 23, 2008) University Settlement
Interiors (June 14-17, 2007) Danspace Project
blueprints (February 24, 2007) University Settlement
Disturbance (June 15-17, 2006) The Ailey Citigroup Theater
Pre-Gala (April 29, 2006) Wien Hall Columbia University
Extract (March 18, 2006)The Philip Coltoff Center at Greenwich Village
Tilt (June 16 - 18, 2005) Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College
First Edition (February 5, 2005) Evolving Art Theater at Dance Space Center
Unframed (June 24-26, 2004) Bessie Schonberg Theater at Dance Theater Workshop
Works in Progress 2004 (February 28, 2004) Evolving Arts Theatre at Dance Space Center
SHIFT (June 4-8, 2003) University Settlement
Works-in-Progress 2003 (February 15, 2003) Evolving Arts Theatre at Dance Space Center
Threshold (July 10-14, 2002) The Culture Project's 45 Bleecker Theatre
Works-in-Progress (April 20, 2002) Evolving Arts Theatre at Dance Space Center
Siren (July 12-14, 2001) University Settlement