Dance
Annabelle has had 10+ years of ballet and modern training, and have also trained in styles such as jazz, Horton technique, tango, Balinese dance, improvisation, contact improvisation, pointe, and jazz. She also has experience in dance studies, movement description, and embodied and choreographic research. Below are recorded works, performance and studio.
THE BODIES OF THE FRUIT ARE CLEAR by Jude Singer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3TVcvTAU8&t=1s
Dancer, November 2021 (external link above).
Annabelle participated in August Singer’s (‘22) Reed College dance thesis about gender and technology. Includes original choreography by Singer, improvisation, and contact improvisation. (Featured Time-stamps: 00:28 Annabelle enters and remains stage right until solo at 06:00)
Music: Original Musical Composition by Reed student Cleo Berryman (‘23)
UNTITLED IMPROV by Annabelle Stern
Improvisor, August 2021.
Studio Improvisation
Music: “Try a Little Tenderness” by Pip Millett
SUN I WILL RISE by Annabelle Stern and Jaime Belden
Improvisor, May 2022.
Contact improvisation piece created for the 2022 Reed College Spring Dance Concert (Annabelle wears a black shirt and brown slacks).
Music: “Sun I Will Rise” by Dune Moss
Director and Choreographer, February 2023.
Reed College Senior Thesis production. Dancers: Li Beir, Ena Hashimoto, Anatalya Piatigorsky, and Emma Potter, with violinist Ivy Queen.
Music: “You Make Me Weak At the Knees” by Electrelane, “Requiem For John Hurt” by John Fahey, “These Chains” by Mid-Air Thief, “Concerto Grosso in A Minor” by David Oistrakh and Igor Oistrakh, and “A La Claire Fontaine” by Nightingale
STAGING THE SQUARE by Annabelle Stern
Below is the Director’s Note that Accompanied the Performance:
A Modern Western square dance begins with a square formation made of eight people, or four couples. The caller, a kind of master of ceremonies, announces that the dancers will now bow to their partner, and to their corner. From this point forward, no one in the room but the caller knows what is next to come. For the duration of the dance, a new world is created, as each person offers up their time, trust, and movement for the meticulously designed pattern to play itself out. Concerns of who looks the best doing it or who is the most skilled are unimportant, an unnecessary part of the equation. As long as you meet me where I meet you, we can keep going, and see where the rest of this dance takes us.
Of course, not all aspects of square dance ignite such a warm feeling. My experience with square dance has been through Portland’s own Rosetown Ramblers, one of the first LGBTQ+ friendly square dance clubs in the country. However, most of us who grew up in the US recall square dance as a mandatory gym class activity. By now I have spent loads of time learning about the vastly complicated and problematic history of this centuries-old dance, the erasure of black culture within its history, its perpetuation of the heterosexual American ideal, its past and present of exclusion and hierarchy. So how is it that square dance lives on today as a force that actively challenges the standards it appears to protect?
I propose an answer to this question, that, like many dance forms, the state of square dance depends on the people who surround it. With this in mind, the story begins to unravel into countless retellings of what square dance is and what it can be. How can I, a self-identified dancer, tell its story in my own way that represents and celebrates the individuals involved? This requires a reckoning with my own, personal dance history, which for most of my life has consisted of stage lights and choreography, neither of which exist in a typical square dance. What would it look like to weave together these two seemingly dissimilar worlds that encapsulate what I love about dance in such different ways? Throughout the creative process, certain elements of square dance such as partnership, binaries, teamwork, problem solving, and aesthetics were reckoned with in an attempt to create something utterly unique and recognizing of each of these four incredible dancers.
For me, this has been a project of joy, which also happens to be the primary ingredient in creating a successful square dance. So I ask you, as a viewing member of this collection of experiences and collaborations, to let yourself be a part of this joy. It is now as much yours as it is ours. You are here, and that is important.
IN YOUR ARMS by Annabelle Stern and Li Beier
Dancer and Choreographer, August 2024.
Commissioned Piece for Phoenix band, Viridian’s show in Portland, Oregon as a part of their 2024 tour. Performed at music venue “Turn Turn Turn”.
Music: “Gosh Darn” by Viridian