Today we’d like to introduce you to Maggie Lasher.
Maggie, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I have been dancing almost my entire life. I always knew I would do something with movement, but I wasn’t entirely sure what. At one point I simply wanted to create images to music, and that eventually led me to choreography. My path has been heavily academic, as I have received a B.A., and M.A, and an M.F.A. in dance, and I am currently a professor of dance at Houston Community College. After being a gypsy of sorts for many years while I traveled from school to school on my academic path, it was that M.F.A. from Sam Houston State that brought me to Texas, where I ended up staying and now call home.
Almost 20 years ago I was introduced to the fire arts, and that began another lifelong obsession as I entered the world of flow arts and fire performance. Having been brought up in the dance world, I was instantly interested in how the two worlds, concert dance and choreography, and flow/fire arts, could speak to one another and live together on the stage. In 2011 this curiosity led to the development of my dance and performance collective, first ChinaCat Dance then later renaming to Holding Space. Since beginning the collective, I have produced four full-length concerts with three of those involving large fire dance components, as well as close to twenty shorter fire performances. Holding Space has also performed shorter works with and without fire in a large number of festivals and dance concerts featuring multiple artists.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do, why, and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am focused on how dance, flow arts, circus arts, and theater can come together to create audience-friendly, unique performance experiences. My work tends towards the whimsical, and I love to create imaginary worlds in which each performance can live. I work with a highly dedicated company of dancers and flow artists who are also interested in the mission of how the different genres come together on-stage to create something new, something that is not entirely dance, circus, or theater, but it’s own unique style of performance. I am not into challenging audiences but would rather give them something to take them out of their everyday world for a little while, something that touches the imagination and takes them somewhere new. I hope people leave a Holding Space performance having had a good time and a positive experience with live performance, and that I have sparked a little bit of imagination and whimsy in each of them.
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
I’m not sure that the role of artists has changed much, as I see the arts world as always being concerned with bringing various human issues to light. Each era and artist shines a light on the issues concerning them in different ways, but I feel that artists reflecting and commentating on humanity has been pretty constant.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Holding Space performs at various times of the year in a variety of places. We are currently working on a new evening-length performance that will debut in late fall or early spring. At the moment we are in a bit of transition as we work to open our new home, The Interchange, which will be a performance space available to all Houston artists. Once that is open we will be able to offer an even fuller performance season. Currently, people can keep up with what we are doing at Holding Space Dance Collective on Facebook and through our website, holdingspacedance.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: holdingspacedance.com
- Email: holdingspacedance.com
- Instagram: magpie_circles
- Facebook: Holding Space Dance Collective
Image Credit:
Summer Serenity, Hung L. Truong, Set Memories, Sigi Cabello, Andor Pictures
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