On a Saturday afternoon in late May, Carlos Menchaca and Angelina Ramirez moved around a dance studio at the University of Akron’s Guzzeta Hall.
The longtime friends performed a work-in-process showing of their latest collaboration, “The Spider, The Venom, and the Bitten” for a small audience. The piece takes an innovative approach to traditional flamenco dancing, infusing it with elements of ballet and modern dance.
Menchaca and Ramirez arrived in Akron three days before the performance from their respective homes of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. They had one week to rehearse together — completely unencumbered by work requirements and the distractions of day-to-day life. It was a rare opportunity for the two dancers to collaborate, as they usually teach, perform and choreograph independently.
“It’s quite a privilege,” Menchaca said after another rehearsal the day before they left Akron. “I do feel so fortunate that a project that we care so much about is given this chance. It takes real money and real time and real space to make it happen.”
The organization that made this week-long residency happen was the National Center for Choreography-Akron. For 10 years, the organization has supported the research and development of new work by more than 800 dancers from around the United States through dancing labs and residencies.
“The same way no one questions when a scientist goes into a lab, that’s what we believe is possible for a choreographer going into the studio,” said Christy Bolingbroke, executive/artistic director of NCCAkron. “They need that time, that space to play, to figure it out.”
The organization also awards an annual $50,000 choreography prize and runs the Creative Administration Research program, which helps dance artists tackle challenges and support their artistic vision through mentorship and alternative administrative practices.
NCCAkron will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a dance party on June 20 at The Bank at The East End.
Today, NCCAkron is one of only two national choreography centers in the U.S. The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography was founded in 2004 at Florida State University.
Local partnerships are key to NCCAkron’s mission
NCCAkron is part of a long tradition of dance at the University of Akron. Sitting in the organization’s office space, Bolingbroke noted that the corrugated concrete wall behind her used to be the exterior of Guzzetta Hall. In 2002, the university announced that Guzzetta Hall would be expanded to create a permanent home for Ohio Ballet, the dance company founded by Heinz Poll. Four years later, Poll died, and Ohio Ballet shuttered.
After that, the space at Guzzetta was used by Dance Cleveland and was supported through a partnership with the Knight Foundation. In 2012, the CEO of the foundation asked Pam Young, then Dance Cleveland’s executive director, if she had any big ideas for dance. As Bolingbroke recounted, Young pitched the idea of opening a national choreography center in Akron.
“They seeded a feasibility study to prove that, and three years after that, in 2015, they established a $5 million endowment with the three founding partners being the university, Dance Cleveland, and Knight,” Bolingbroke said. “And the caveat that NCCAkron would be a standalone nonprofit.”
Bolingbroke has served as the director of NCCAkron since it started. Although she didn’t grow up in Akron, she quickly found her place in the city.
“I learn so much from being in dialogue with the history [of Akron],” she said. “I like to quote [writer] David Giffels talking about Akron being a place of functional ingenuity. When I read that, I was like, ‘That’s dance making! That’s art making! Oh my god, we’re here!’”
Community collaboration plays an important role in NCCAkron’s work. For Menchaca and Ramirez’s residency, they rehearsed with a band that included three music students at the University of Akron. Choreographer Helanius J. Wilkins visited Akron several times from 2022 to 2024 as part of his goal to visit all 50 states. The visits were research for his ongoing piece, “The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-Body Belonging.” His visits to Akron ended with a performance at North Hill’s People’s Park.
During her 2022 residency, Stefanie Batten Bland reimagined her piece, “Embarqued: Stories of Soil,” which looks at the history of the slave trade through dance, as a gallery installation at the John Brown House.
“It was really amazing how they linked together the concept of individuals being taken from their homes in Africa and put on slave ships, and then coming and going through the process, and looking for family, and understanding who your roots are, and then progressing out and tying that into John Brown and his legacy of freedom,” said Leianne Neff Heppner, president and CEO of the Summit Historical Society.
Looking ahead, NCCAkron wants to broaden reach
With no current plans for another national center for choreography, Bolingbroke is interested in collaborating with partners from around the country to expand NCCAkron’s footprint. For the last two years, a third of the organization’s work has been focused outside of Akron, she said.
“Not everyone wants to work in a couple-thousand-seat theater, and there were fewer smaller theaters that were up to speed in terms of their tech for us to support technical residencies,” Bolingbroke said. “So we’ve been seeking out partners, dating around, if you will, and figuring out what kinds of venues would match what today’s artists, dance artists, are looking for.”
Even with a decade of NCCAkron leadership under her belt, Bolingbroke said that, in many ways, the organization still feels like it’s in its startup stage. Part of that has to do with the fact that a sizable chunk of NCCAkron’s existence coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when arts organizations faced unprecedented challenges. Being nimble and quick to adapt was mandatory. And it’s a lesson Bolingbroke has continued to heed.
“It is definitely a challenge,” Bolingbroke said of the work, “but I would say that we’ve practiced accepting that change is really the only one constant.”
