SPRING DANCE CONCERT - 2026

Featuring repertoire work by guest collectives slowdanger and Project ChArma alongside new work by faculty Brendan Drake and thesis students Olivia Earley and Kelsey Kirker. These performances sift through our individual dance histories, immerse bodies in sound, and locate movement in community.

Concert Director - Anna Jayne Kimmel

Anna Jayne Kimmel - Concert Director (Assistant Professor of Dance and affiliate faculty for the Nashman Center for CivicEngagement and Public Service at George Washington University) is a performance studies scholar invested in the intersection of legal humanities, dance studies, and critical social theory. This framing informs her pursuit of community-engaged research in carceral studies, including collaboration with artists-in-confinement and engagement as a restorative justice facilitator for alternative accountability programs in the DMV area.

She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Stanford University and an A.B. from Princeton University. As a dancer, she has performed the works of Ohad Naharin, Trisha Brown, John Jasperse, Francesca Harper, Olivier Tarpaga, and Susan Marshall, amongst others. Her scholarship appears in Dance Research Journal, Performance Research, Lateral, The Drama Review (TDR), and The Brooklyn Rail, alongside various edited volumes. Her current book projects, Performing Law (co-edited with Peter Goodrich and Bernadette Meyler, Cambridge University Press) and Legal Moves: Choreographies of Race, Law, and Empire, are forthcoming. She serves as Associate Editor for Performance Research, board member for Performance Studies international, and in 2025 co-chair of the annual Dance Studies Association Conference.

Brendan Drake (all pronouns) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and currently, the Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at The Corcoran School of Arts and Design at George Washington University. Their work uses disparate movement forms, text, and sound manipulation to interrogate issues surrounding gender, vanity, and queer power dynamics. Brendan was a 2017-2018 Fresh Tracks Artist at New York Live Arts and has been awarded grants and residencies through the Brooklyn Arts Fund, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, CUNY Dance Initiative, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Monira Foundation, The Tank, and Chez Bushwick. Their recent work has been presented In New York at Kestrels, Danspace Project (Draftwork), Movement Research, The Brick, La MaMa, PAGEANT, Joes Pub, The Wild Project, and AUNTS, and at JrHigh (Los Angeles, CA), Fowler Museum (Los Angeles, CA) and The Dance Complex (Boston, MA). In addition to their work for the stage, Brendan choreographed the fall 2014 “Equality = Love'' campaign for Adidas Originals/Pharrell Williams. They were the movement coordinator for editorial shoots with Vogue, Porter, V, and Elle Magazines (photographers: Liz Collins, Ryan McGinley, Collier Schorr). In May 2023, they presented their graduate research on tracking queer sociality in contemporary dance and performance at the UCLA National Queer Graduate Conference, and in June 2025, will present their research at the Dance Studies Association National Conference at GWU. Brendan has guest taught at UCLA, Columbia University, the University of Massachusetts, Muhlenberg College, DeSales University, Ball State University, Skewl, Peridance, SCDT, Loculus, and the New York Film Academy. As a dancer and performer, They currently work with Nattie + Hollis, and Kayla Hamilton/Circle O. Brendan holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MFA in Choreographic Inquiry from UCLA.

slowdanger - Founded in 2013 by co-artistic directors anna thompson and taylor knight, slowdanger is a multidisciplinary performance entity creating works at the intersection of movement, sound, and technology. slowdanger brings audiences closer to their own bodies through performance, immersive experiences and open-level workshops, cultivating kinesthetic empathy through creating community in transformational embodied experiences. As a queer non-binary led organization, we deconstruct how gendered binaries inform how audiences engage with performance and performers. slowdanger is an organism that uses performance and collaboration to delve into circular life patterning such as effort, transformation, and death.

Project ChArma is a project-based dance theater company dedicated to using art as activism. Pronounced “Karma” because it guides our lives.

Born and raised in the DMV metropolitan area, Ama and Chris Law are co-founders and co-directors of Project ChArma who have been dancing together since high school. Combined, their expertise reflects the expanse of their training in a wide range of movement styles and foundations. Both Ama and Chris completed undergraduate and graduate studies from the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), both receiving MFAs in Dance and Choreography. Ama has decades-long training with Kankouran West African Dance Company (of which both of her parents were founding members) and completed a rigorous internship at Broadway Dance Center. Chris’ movement practice is based on principles of hip hop, roller skating, martial arts and modern dance technique. They both dedicate their careers to the creative possibilities of intersecting dance traditions to facilitate important conversations about social change. They have taught and choreographed at various institutions including the Kennedy Center, Dance Place, Howard University, UMCP, American University, Howard Community College and Bates Dance Festival.

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Host or Publisher The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at The George Washington University