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= Co'Motion Dance Theater = Co’Motion Dance Theater is a professional modern dance company out of Ames, IA, founded in 1978 by dancer Valerie Williams. The company maintains a three performance season within the Ames area and has toured throughout the US for over 30 years.

About the Company
Co’Motion Dance Theater (CMDT) is a professional modern dance company based in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1978 in response to the limited availability of modern dance opportunities in the Midwest, the company’s primary objectives include bringing modern of high quality to Midwest communities and fulfilling a commitment to dance education and exposure by offering classes and workshops in modern dance with a strong focus on dance as a performing art, a form of communication, and self-expression.

Co'Motion Dance Theater hosts three three fully-produced concerts each year - one with a small cast, using only professional performers, one with a large cast including professionals and local amateur dancers, and one Women in Motion performance. CMDT has a strong commitment to using local amateur dancers. These dancers are not only inspired by working with professionals, but learn from them. The use of amateurs in a concert requires more time and coordination than professional dancers, but CMDT believes that by providing the people from Ames the opportunity to engage in a cooperative, expressive, stimulating, and engaging activity, CMDT is enriching lives and helping to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Co’Motion Dance Theater maintains strong collaboration with Iowa musicians and composers. Collaborations between the choreographer, composer, dancers, and musicians are valuable to the creative process and add to performances. All concerts produced by CMDT are affordably priced with reduced rate tickets offered to students and seniors, and special prices to ISU dance students. In a continued effort to encourage young people to try something they otherwise might not, children under age 15 are admitted free to all performances CMDT produces. Regular season concerts are recorded and made available to the entire community via Ames Public Access Television.

Valerie Williams
Valerie Williams earns her living in modern dance, musical theater, opera, Renaissance dance, and commercial dance. Dancing professionally since 1973, she has performed, choreographed, and taught in a wide variety of situations including professional and amateur dance and theater, opera, and even marching bands. Since 1975 she has toured professionally performing, choreographing, and teaching throughout North America and Europe with Co'Motion Dance Theater, Musica Antiqua, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co., and the Old Creamery Theater Company.

Valerie Williams has directed rehearsals for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. from 1986-95 on a free lance basis as well as directing rehearsal for the premiere and international tour of Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land. She produces an average of three concerts per year for Co'Motion Dance Theater, plus the successful Kids Co'Motion program.

Valerie's training includes a broad range of technical study, but her experiences include much more: scholarly reconstructions of Early Dance, advanced study in biomechanics and kinesiology, and running a successful dance company. Valerie has an excellent eye for movement and has coached all ages and experience levels.

Her current work explores what interactive technology can do for dancers. Working from the premise that technology should serve the performers, Valerie collaborates with engineers and composers such as Steve Holland and Ben Allaway to create opportunities for dancers to manipulate the stage environment. With her programming in Isadora®, dancers' movements change, initiate, and/or link the sound and projection on stage. For instance, using a camera to track the dancers, a particular piece of music will play when a dancer moves into a specific place on the stage; a wearable sensor will 'memorize' a particular chord connected to a movement; that same wearable sensor also allows the dancer to change the quality of the music being played.

Valerie believes in the education of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual intelligences and has found no other form as fitting as dance and creative movement to explore them. Besides constantly seeking to ensure people have a positive experience in dance, Valerie expresses a contagious joy in the art form. She is a frequently requested Artist in AIS/C programs in a nine state region and presents workshops, teacher in-service, seminars and residencies in Creative Movement, Composition, Movement and Curriculum, Biomechanics, Dance Technique.

Education
Valerie Williams Co’Motion Dance Theater maintains a commitment to dance education for all. CMDT’s two major education pillars include Kids Co’Motion and Women in Motion.

Kids Co'Motion (KCM) is an annual program designed to train children ages 8-18 in modern dance technique, composition theory, and practice and production. It is a three week program that culminates in a final, full-produced dance performance. Each day begins with an hour-long technique class taught by a professional dancer/teacher, then an hour spent on composition and improvisation. The day ends with a two hour rehearsal for the final performance. In Kids Co'motion, students learn about dance technique as well as gaining strength, flexibility, coordination, and control. The Kids Co'Motion performance workshop teaches more than dance to students: Kids Co'Motion builds choreographers, helps students gain confidence in their own ideas, and teaches them how to organize those ideas and structure them into dance. Students not only study with master choreographers and teachers, but compose dances by themselves and with other students, learning collaboration and how to respect the ideas of others. Women in Motion is a semester long dance intensive program for women. The dancers are involved in the composition process, creating dances used in the final concert dance performance. All dances are based on personal experience and knowledge. Women of varied ages, careers, and experience levels join forces for this unique process.