University Residencies

Residencies are an essential component to the Company's work, providing an opportunity for the company to collaborate with artists from around the world and to share, through the creation of new work, our aesthetic and vision. University residencies can span from one day to an entire semester. Residnecies that involve Alexandra setting a choreographic work must be five or more days.  Residency packages can be suited to fit the needs of the presenter and can include any of the following:

• Creation of an original work for your company or school

• Technique classes with Alexandra Beller

• Additional classes including Composition, Improvisation, Duet Making, Laban Movement Analysis, and Theatre Techniques for Dancers (including Viewpoints, Vocal Training, Directing and Dramaturgy)

• Discussions of various topics including Dance in NYC, Life in a large company, Being a Choreographer, Body image and self image in the dance world, Nutrition and Injury Prevention.

• Workshops at local schools

• If you are interested in booking Alexandra for a residency please email beller.alexandra@gmail.com

• Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a list of universities, institutions, and festivals that have hosted Alexandra for residencies.

Below are a few examples of the pieces derived from collaborative process with students at various Universities.

Dangling Fruits of Joy or How To Make Love, originally a quartet, has been stretched and condensed for different company situations into either a duet or a piece for as many as twelve. The piece has been set on Connecticut College and Dance New Amsterdam's NYSDI. Attacking mythologies surrounding gender, "Dangling Fruits of Joy or How to Make Love" asks "what makes a man a man and a woman a woman in the eyes of society." Challenging, provocative and philosophical, the work is also vigorous, dramatic, and ripe with humor. Called "smart and startling" by Elizabeth Zimmer and "hilariously perverted" by Deborah Jowitt, "Dangling Fruits of Joy or How to Make Love" continues to garner critical and popular acclaim.

Diet Coke Can Save Your Life, created through an NCCI grant at Montclair State University, is a repertory work for 5-15 women. The work has been re-created on Alexandra Beller/Dances, Rhode Island College, Long Island University and Oakland University and with the help of Dance Space Center’s Artist in Residency Program. Using gestures drawn from mass media, Ball gowns made entirely of diet coke cans, and a sound score of infomercials and driving music, DCCSYL an examination America’s cultural obsession with physical perfection, especially in women.

what comes after happy, has been set on The New School and at Dance New Amsterdam's NYSDI. cracks open our cultural obsession with happiness. More than almost any country, America is driven by the search for a state we consider "happy." As if happiness were a state of the Union rather than a state of being, we seem to be constantly mapping out the route towards a place, rather than experiencing the journey and taking in the states along the way. While other countries give deep value to the states of sadness, anger, passion and fear, we often whitewash our everyday lives to announce to the world and ourselves that we do not covet, that we are not filled with unrest, that we do not mourn. What comes after happy features 300 fortune cookies, an eclectic score and a ferocious physical vocabulary.

Universities, institutions, and festivals that have hosted Alexandra for residencies

• Kansas State University

• American College Dance Association

• University of Maryland

• University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee

• University of Central Oklahoma

• Fine Arts Center (Greenville)

• San Jose State University Wind Conductors Intensive

• Hobart and William Smith College

• The Ailey School

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Rhode Island College

• 92NY

• HB Studios

• Dance NYC Symposium Speaker University of Alabama

• Illinois State University

• Boston University

• Santa Clara University LIMS Conference

• Yale University

• Dance Complex

• SUNY Purchase College

• The College at SUNY Brockport

• Barnard College

• Long Island University

• Trinity/La Mama

• University of Rochester

• University of California at Santa Barbara

• Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

• St. Olaf College

• Ethical Culture School

• Theaterschool (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

• University of Iowa

• Oakland University

• University of Michigan

• University of Nebraska

• DNA Summer Dance Intensive

• Interlochen Academy

• Connecticut College

• Danceworks (Milwaukee, WI)

• University of South Florida

• University of Cleveland

• St. Anne's School

• Cyprus Dance Festival (Nicosia)

• Mt. Holyoke, U/MA(Amherst)

• Cleveland State University

• UC Longbeach

• Washington U (St. Louis)

• Skidmore Summer Dance Festival