Cora Dance Artistic Director, Shannon Hummel, seeks a reliable, self-directed Company Assistant (CA) to provide support to Hummel as she develops her latest work and restages older works in preparation for Cora Dance's 20th Anniversary Season. CA will work 5-15 hours per week, depending on availability, and receive one (1) hour of free rehearsal space at the Cora Studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn for every hour of company assistance provided. (Rehearsal space is currently available for booking Monday, Tuesday, Thursdays 9-1:30pm and most weekday evenings after 7:30pm.) CA is also invited to participate in any classes at Cora while assisting. (All adult classes currently not listed on website. Contact Cora office for details.)

CA will assist with documenting rehearsals; managing the details of touring and performances; communicating with collaborators, scheduling rehearsals; interfacing with Cora administrative and production staff in a variety of capacities. Attendance at all rehearsals is not necessary. Schedule and work hours are flexible and based on the mutual availability of Hummel and the CA; however, CA must be regularly available on Fridays from 11-2pm for weekly rehearsal/wrap-up meetings. CA position is ideal for a young choreographer seeking rehearsal space as well as exposure to working with an established professional dance organization.

TO APPLY: Please send a resume, general availability, and brief letter of interest with COMPANY ASSISTANT in the subject line to shummel@coradance.org by September 15. Position begins in October.

ABOUT CORA DANCE:

Through its acclaimed professional company and its pay-what- you-can education initiative, Cora creates exceptional dance experiences while breaking down the barriers that restrict many people from having access to the art form, particularly those in low-income communities. Begun in 1997, incorporated as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) in 2001, SH/CD has long garnered high praise from critics, presenters and community leaders for dances that feature “uncommonly committed performers in choreography as vivid and true as a Eudora Welty story” (NY Times). For more than 20 years, Cora has made this inclusive choreographic approach the backbone of Hummel’s community engagement and teaching practices. Her common ground approach allows for an authentic and oft- noted connection between performers who "dance as if they own the choreography” (Village Voice), creating sophisticated yet accessible worlds that are performed as often on the finest stages in the country as in the backyards, parks, and community spaces in low-income rural and urban communities. In 2009, Cora opened a home studio for the professional and youth companies and newly formed pay-what-you-can school in the socio-economically polarized neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Cora is a place for ALL of Red Hook, offering great art and rare opportunities for community intersection. Everything is pay-what- you-can. No one is ever turned away.

SHANNON HUMMEL ARTISTIC STATEMENT: "As a dance storyteller, I have always focused on creating work that opens intimate, demanding physical conversations between dancers from broad and varied personal, socio-economic, racial, cultural, and dance backgrounds. I believe in creating work that roots people in their sense of place, of where they live, of belonging: of home. Doing so, I believe, provokes honest questions and, ultimately, inspires genuine empathy. The backbone of my works is deep exploration of universal human experiences,  of life's literal and emotional paradoxes. Loss, for example, often brings new promises. Satisfaction can cause suffering. Pain can inspire humor. We all understand such contradictions intuitively. My dances are vivid, lay bare the intimate underpinnings of what we think and feel. Theatrical, accessible, kinetic, and sophisticated, my work strives to marry the power of dance with the force of emotion. I make sure that my choreographic work can be experienced by all audiences: in school gymnasiums, church basements, and free public spaces, as well as on stages of prestigious venues and major universities across the country."