Crossing Boundaries: Dances of Transition

Crossing Boundaries: Dances of Transition is a contemporary dance showcase featuring work by Sylvana Christopher/Sylvidances, Stacey Yvonne Claytor/Clay Co, Kyoko Fujimoto, Keira Hart/Uprooted Dance, and Malcolm Shute/Human Landscape Dance. It takes place 8pm on Friday July 25, and 2pm and 7:30pm on Saturday July 26 in the Glen Echo Ballroom Backroom. Use this link to buy tickets: www.buytickets.at/crossdance.

The dances of Crossing Boundaries are united by a theme of transformation. Inspired by the Winnie the Pooh stories, “The Back Story,” by Christopher, explores the history of Eeyore. Dancers move through a lovers’ quarrel, caught between wrestling and embracing, forming a puddle on the floor.  In “Joho Kata,” by Fujimoto, Nozomi Nishitani is fragmented by information overload. She flips between vibratory gesticulations and shards of movement to slower undulations that symbolize recovery. “Curtains in the Wind,” by Shute, envisions an older couple as a pair of curtains on a window: tossed in different directions by the breeze, but always returning to each other. This showcase brings a wide variety of dances to the stage, each of which reflects on change.

Crossing Boundaries: Dances of Transition is an opportunity for dancers in the DMV to explore Glen Echo as a performance venue. The historic park draws 300,000 visitors each year for a variety of exhibits, classes, and performances. The artists of Crossing Boundaries seek to add contemporary dance to the host of established offerings. The Backroom is an annex of the Spanish Ballroom. From the parking lot, once you pass the carousel, the Spanish Ballroom will be on your right side.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see live dance performed at Glen Echo! Crossing Boundaries: Dances of Transition has evening performances on Friday July 25 (8pm)  and Saturday July 26 (7:30pm), and a matinee at 2pm on Saturday.  Seating is limited, so buy tickets early: www.buytickets.at/crossdance.

Biographies:

Sylvana Christopher is a DC native and artistic director of SylviDances and VigorousRoots.  She teaches dance to early learners, educators and parents at Dance Place and Sitar Arts Center. With Inspired Child, she teaches Rainbow Dance, Dancing with Babies and Dancing with Books at early learning centers including School for Friends. Christopher is curious about international & spiritual dance forms, improvisation in the day to day, and the application of dance in healing spaces. She is inspired by her Crossing Boundaries co-producers and excited to share three new works at the historically inclusive Glen Echo Park. 

Stacey Yvonne Claytor is the proud Founder and CEO of C4 Performing Arts School in Fairfax, VA and Artistic Director of Claytor Company, a professional dance company under the C4 umbrella.  Stacey is a passionate and dedicated performing artist, arts educator and arts advocate whose work has carried her from classrooms to great performance venues around the world.  Stacey studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater and Dance from James Madison University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from The George Washington University. Stacey is full of gratitude and thrilled to be returning to Japan for her 3rd year in a row to perform and share work in the Attune Festival.

Kyoko Fujimoto is a versatile choreographer whose dance journey began in Japan and later took her to Boston and New York City, where she performed in ballet and musical theater. After relocating to Hawaiʻi, she shifted her focus to choreography, working with a local ballet school before expanding her approach at the ICONS Choreographic Institute in Washington, DC. In 2018, CriticalDance reviewed her comedy food ballet, Flavorland, noting, “Fujimoto expertly captures the joyful experience of devouring a chocolate truffle.” Her ability to infuse humor into movement reflects her interest in making dance accessible beyond language barriers.

Besides her artistic work, Fujimoto holds a B.A. in Physics from Boston University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her interdisciplinary background enables her to fuse artistic and scientific ideas. Her work resonates with wide-ranging audiences including scientists and engineers who might not typically attend dance performances. Fujimoto is a recipient of the FY25 Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Keira Hart-Mendoza graduated summa cum laude with her MFA in Dance from Arizona State University. There she studied more intensively dance and technology expanding on her undergraduate degrees in both Dance and Media Arts and Design from James Madison University. She is the director of UpRooted Dance, and has been working as an interdisciplinary dance artist for 20 years. She threads her artistic interests in mixed media into performance based dance works that cross many different artistic disciplines. Collaboration with musicians, visual artists, videographers, interactive technology, and even environmental activists have helped bring these grand scale projects to life in unlikely settings, like botanical gardens, art galleries, swimming pools, shopping malls, storefront windows, and much more. Her work transcends the stage and allows more audience members to view her dance work, bringing dance directly to the people.  

Malcolm Shute, MFA, CMA, founded Human Landscape Dance (hldance.org) in 2006. Noted for “…ingenious choreography and staging...” by the Washington Post, Shute’s dances are characterized by intimate portraits of people using touch to communicate, bodies molding to create a collage of images.  Shute organizes dance concerts around the world, bringing together movement artists of various backgrounds to share their work with audiences. Shute has been a faculty member of the Towson University Dance Department since 2004. He has led workshops in partnering, contact improvisation, and Laban Movement Analysis in many nations. Shute also facilitates the weekly contact improvisation class and jam at Dance Place in Washington DC. Shute was awarded a 2025 Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant in Modern Dance by the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has been commissioned to set dances for companies and colleges in the US. Shute also contributed an article to the Christopher K Morgan Retrospective Collection in 2021.