Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie Arnoult
Hi Annie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I danced from the moment I could walk, and I have always loved making dances. Even as a young dancer, I had a deep appreciation for the composition and direction of the performances I was in. After graduating from Northwestern University, I joined an AmeriCorps program called “Integrated Arts, Integrating Education,” where we taught core curriculum subject material through the arts in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. A few of my fellow corps members and I went on to found a non-profit performing arts and education organization that carried on that work in the greater Chicago area. After returning to graduate school to get my MFA in dance at age 30, I joined the faculty of Northwestern University and started creating immersive dance theater – multimedia dance performances the audience walks through like a gallery or a haunted house. My passion for immersive dance theater and dance education eventually led me back to my native Houston, where I opened up a 9,000 square foot dance training center in the Heights (www.hunterdancecenter.com) and started a professional dance theater company (www.opendanceproject.org) that produces a full season of world premiere performances right here in Houston.
Picking up my family and moving to Houston was the hardest and best decision I have ever made. I am in love with this city. The dancers that I get to work with and the other amazing cultural institutions that we collaborate with inspire me to dig deep and be bold in my dancemaking. Our work has been touted as “…some of the most unique, audience intensive and truly theatrical productions dance lovers can experience in Texas and perhaps the nation,” in Arts and Culture Texas. Since our founding in 2015, we have produced 49 world premiere dance theater works, reached 79,000 audience members and students, taught and performed at 72 schools and community centers, pioneered audio description, American Sign Language Interpretation, and other accessibility services for dance in Houston, been named a “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine, and been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Performance Network, Texas Commission on the Arts, Houston Arts Alliance, NEFA/National Dance Project, Young Audiences of Houston, and Arts Connect Houston. All of this is a testament to the amazing team of creatives around me – and that team is a testament to the cultural capital of Houston, itself.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Getting to make a living doing what I love while raising my kids in my hometown surrounded by generations of family and friends is a true gift. I am so grateful that we were daring enough to make the move back in 2014, but making that decision was a big struggle. When I moved here to Houston from Chicago, I was a single mom with a four year old and a six year old. Leaving my salaried position at Northwestern University to come to Houston to start a new business was a big risk. I sold my home in Chicago, moved with my kids into my parents’ house here in Houston, and sunk everything I had into building Hunter Dance Center and Open Dance Project. It took me three years to be able to pay myself enough for my kids and I to move back into a place of our own. Without the emotional and practical support of my family, none of what we have accomplished with Hunter Dance Center and Open Dance Project would have been possible.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My work as Executive Artistic Director of Open Dance Project is the most fulfilling work of my career. Open Dance Project (ODP), a Houston-based contemporary dance company I founded in 2015, has garnered significant attention for its innovative approach to immersive dance theater and its boundary breaking community engagement and education programming. ODP’s performances blur the lines between traditional theater and dance, breaking down barriers between artist and audience to make dance more accessible and meaningful for both.
Immersive theater is a theatrical style that centers the audience in a multi-sensory experience without traditional audience seating. Dance theater is a hybrid art form that combines dance and theater. ODP’s work blends these two concepts, creating an immersive and participatory experience that does away with the traditional fourth wall and audience seating. By positioning dancers within the audience space, the company challenges the conventional separation between performer and spectator and invites audiences to become active participants in the narrative.
Our productions are built in collaboration with artists from diverse disciplines, including visual artists, musicians, and media designers. Together, we build multi-sensory experiences with three dimensional (often moving) sets, projection, lighting, original music scores, sound design, and physical objects that work in tandem with the dancers’ movement to evoke emotional responses and transport audiences to different worlds.
When our ensemble is not building or performing a show, we are out in the community training teachers and students in Open Dance Project’s unique approach to collaborative dance theater performance. Open Dance Project is a true expression of my deepest aesthetic and personal values. I believe that art can make the world a kinder, smarter, more creative, and safer place for all people. At Open Dance Project, I am cultivating dance theater and dance theater artists dedicated to that mission.
What are your plans for the future?
This year for our 10th Anniversary, Open Dance Project is launching “The Immersive Access Initiative,” a commitment to breaking down barriers to our performance and education work for kids and adults with disabilities. ODP has been creating art with young people through its classroom dance theater workshops since its inception in 2015 . In this new initiative, ODP is working specifically to activate and engage people with disabilities by reimagining our performances and education programs through a universal design lens. Through disability centered professional development, community partnerships, and many hours of research and design, Open Dance Project is making a commitment to adaptation, access, and inclusion in all of our performance settings and to creating an adaptive pedagogy for students with physical and neurological differences in public and independent schools and educational centers throughout Houston.
Pricing:
- $30/30 Day Introductory Unlimited Membership for Dance and Aerial Classes at Hunter Dance Center
- $40 Premium, $35 Regular, $25 Student/Child Ticket to Open Dance Project’s upcoming performance of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at MATCH
- $175 One Hour ODP Classroom Workshop in Your School
Contact Info:
- Website: www.opendanceproject.org and www.hunterdancecenter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/opendanceproject/ and https://www.instagram.com/hunterdancecenter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/opendanceproject and https://www.facebook.com/hunterdancecenter
Image Credits
All photos by Lynn Lane.
