Graham100 Programming

The CTAC School of Ballet Video Crew: Historic dance in film
Finley Van Patten, Operations Coordinator: School of Ballet

Join the CTAC School of Ballet Video Crew for a presentation of student screendance works inspired by some of Martha Graham's original choreographies. Learn the process dance creators go through to bring their choreography into the medium of video and how early choreographers who worked with film shaped the field of screendance today.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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Days: Friday, June 19, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Instructor: Patrick Wise
Skill Level: All

Materials: Some materials provided, see note below.

Join us for a free, drop-in figure drawing session set amid the striking photography of Barbara Morgan. Artists of all levels are welcome to draw from live models while surrounded by her dynamic, inspiring work. Bring your own materials and enjoy a relaxed, creative space to practice, experiment, and refine your skills.

CTAC will have drawing horses, newsprint, and charcoal available. Please feel free to bring other preferred materials.

This is a free, drop in event. Registration is appreciated but not required.

Days: Thursday, 5:00 - 7:00pm, June 25
Instructor: Dave Harrell
Skill Level: This class is perfect for anyone who is eager to learn how to perfectly capture dance and theater performances and the art of dramatic dance portraiture. If you are feeling overwhelmed with all of the camera settings, lighting equipment, or just want to learn how to capture stunning performance photographs then this class is for you!
Supply List: Camera. Lenses (Multiple focal ranges). Flash trigger if you have one.

The instruction guides you in the technical and artistic aspects of dance photography with simple and easy to understand concepts that lead to consistent results using your own camera and lenses. We will touch on the basics of strobe lighting and learn how to seek out light during a performance in order to produce jaw-dropping images. You take part in setup to demonstrate where lights are placed and how to find the best settings for your camera and lights.

Dave Harrell is a commercial, editorial, and portrait photographer who focuses in storytelling. He has over a decade of professional photography experience, working under the name The Crooked Porch Photography. His passion is dance and theater photography and portraiture, and he works closely with CTAC's School of Ballet.

Choreography: The Creative Process
Robin Petterson, Choreographer

Robin Pettersen will be discussing the process of creating concert dance for the stage. She will share video segments of her pieces performed to a variety of composers. Robin will describe teaching Composition to university students and her participation in the Mentoring Workshops for the Crooked Tree School of Ballet.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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IN MOTION: Making Art Dance - Select Local Arts Panel
Connie Landis, Lesley Pritchard, Jennifer Shorter; Moderator: Jennifer Cantley

This artist panel brings together featured artists from IN MOTION: Making Art Dance for a lively conversation about translating movement into visual form. Panelists will share insights into their creative processes. The discussion will offer audiences a deeper understanding of how contemporary artists approach expressing energy, and movement, and invites attendees to engage more closely with the ideas and techniques behind the work on view.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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Dialogue and Movement
Benjamin Cheney, Founder and Artistic Director of Croft Residency

In his Coffee @ 10 talk Ben will share through dialogue and movement about the emotional and visceral weight of embodied expression. He will speak about his experience exploring the Graham technique. How it can be a tool for opening the expression of emotional pathways through embodiment. How the technique provides a structure that highlights and empowers vulnerability and passion. He will open dialogue on the power of witness, and what it means to be seen. We will seed the connection between witness, vulnerability, and developmental movement patterns/pathways.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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Days: Friday, July 24, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Instructor: Patrick Wise
Skill Level: All

Materials: Some materials provided, see note below.

Join us for a free, drop-in figure drawing session set amid the striking photography of Barbara Morgan. Artists of all levels are welcome to draw from live models while surrounded by her dynamic, inspiring work. Bring your own materials and enjoy a relaxed, creative space to practice, experiment, and refine your skills.

CTAC will have drawing horses, newsprint, and charcoal available. Please feel free to bring other preferred materials.

This is a free, drop in event. Registration is appreciated but not required.

Days: Thursday - noon - 1:00pm, July 30
Instructor: Benjamin Cheney - Performer, Founder and Artistic Director of the Croft Residency
Skill Level: Beginnger

Materials: Provided

Ben will lead a workshop that explores the qualities of curvature in the body. We will engage in postural explorations to notice how different postures feel in the body, both through action and witness. We will explore helical dynamics within our bodies. Leaning into the three dimensionality of a helix. How a pathway of this shape allows for the body to quickly exchange between vulnerability and protection. Often coexisting in both. We will discuss vulnerability and the power of the witness. In this workshop we will explore through movement, somatization, witness, writing, and dialogue.

Days: Thursday - noon - 1:00pm, July 30
Instructor: Catie Newell - Architect and Proferssor at the University of Michigan A. Alfred Tuabman College of Architecture and Urban Design
Skill Level: Beginnger

Materials: Provided

This workshop guides participants in designing, creating, or selecting meaningful touchstones—including objects, photographs, writings, recordings, or other personal materials—they want in their lives during their most difficult times.Together, we’ll reflect on death and dying with care and openness, making space for personal, cultural, and spiritual difference. Participants will also be invited to imagine and create personalized ceremonies for major life transitions, honoring diverse human needs and values while building respect for the art we make and the spaces we shape to support us. No prior design or art experience is needed.

Days: Friday, August 7, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Instructor: Patrick Wise
Skill Level: All

Materials: Some materials provided, see note below.

Join us for a free, drop-in figure drawing session set amid the striking photography of Barbara Morgan. Artists of all levels are welcome to draw from live models while surrounded by her dynamic, inspiring work. Bring your own materials and enjoy a relaxed, creative space to practice, experiment, and refine your skills.

CTAC will have drawing horses, newsprint, and charcoal available. Please feel free to bring other preferred materials.

This is a free, drop in event. Registration is appreciated but not required.

Small Sets, Big Stories: Stop-Motion and the Art of Personal Narrative
Tamara Finlay (GHAR artist)

In this artist talk, I’ll share my process as a stop-motion animator exploring memory, cultural identity, and neurodivergence through handcrafted puppets and miniature sets. I’ll show clips from my films and discuss how personal stories can be translated into animated performance using simple materials and expressive visual language. Followed by a short Q&A.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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Days: Thursday - 1:00pm - 5:00pm, August 13
Instructor: Tamara Finley, Good Hart Residency Artist
Skill Level: Beginnger

Ages: Teen & Adult (14+)

Materials: Provided

This hands-on workshop introduces participants to the basics of stop-motion animation using simple materials and accessible tools. Participants will work in approximately three small groups to create short animated sequences together, exploring character, movement, and collaborative storytelling.

Participants will work in small groups using shared animation stations.

After the workshop, the instructor will edit the groups’ animations into a short compilation video that will be shared with participants at a later date, follow the completion of the artist's residency.

The Elusive Practice of Framing Motion
Peter Sparling, Rudolf Arnheim Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Dance and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus of Dance at University of Michigan.

As a dancer/choreographer, video artist, painter and CTAC guest curator, I attempt to locate the intersection of my many roles as a still point of suspended animation, one that I can circle around and bring to a halt long enough to talk about. The vibrating juxtaposition of dance, music, and the visual arts featured in Dance Legends: Little Traverse Bay Celebrates Graham100 takes us on a wild ride while hovering between stillness and motion, the art gallery and the stage, the “pose” and the “move”. What does the gallery visitor or audience member bring to these acts of kinetic engagement in order to meet the artist halfway? Who’s zooming who? My informal talk proposes ways of looking at the legendary dance photography of Barabara Morgan, the contemporary visual art of In Motion in the adjoining gallery, and how they invariably awaken the same kinesthetic empathy that moves us while watching or performing dance.

This event is in-person and online via Zoom and Facebook. No registration required.

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Presented by the CTAC School of Ballet

This event is part of a global celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Martha Graham Dance Company, the country’s oldest dance company.

This performance features two of Graham's iconic works, Appalachian Spring Suite (1944), starring CTAC School of Ballet dancers and alums, and Lamentation (1930), starring Marie Millard as the dancer and Thomas Nickell on piano. This performance also includes Our Own American Document, an original work of Peter Sparling 's modeled after Graham's 1938 masterwork, American Document. Our Own American Document features the oral histories of local citizens.