Rhythmically Speaking Brings The Cohort 2024 to The Southern Theater, August 15-17

Rhythmically Speaking (RS) is bringing The Cohort 2024 to The Southern Theater August 15-17, 2024.

Featuring works inspired by the vibrancy of jazz and American social dance ideas, The Cohort 2024 is the sixth installment of our reimagined annual Summer production, and sixteenth overall. Following ten years of annually presenting dance works by 7-9 mostly-local artists and their varied casts of performers, in 2019 RS shifted to provide more in-depth support to fewer artists creating longer works, and a company of dancers to perform them. In 2022, they innovated further by adding a screen works wing, in collaboration with the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (Boulder, CO), which they produce every other year, with the next installment landing in 2025. This new vision of the RS Summer production - a celebrated annual staple of the local dance scene - continues support of new work by local choreographers while providing opportunities for artists based outside of Minnesota to show their work here.

The Cohort 2024 features works by an exciting line-up of artists including Eboné Amos, Jake Nehrbass, and Maurice Watson. Eboné comes to us from Clarksville, TN, where she is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies in the Theatre and Dance Department at Austin Peay State University. Her work has been performed nationally and internationally including the COCO Festival in Port au Prince, Trinidad and the Jacksonville Dance Theatre in Jacksonville, FL. The piece she will revisit for The Cohort 2024 - Welcome to Soulsville - celebrates the music, dances and soul stirrers of the 1950s and 60s. Jake is an RS company member and has become a well-known performance presence in the Twin Cities dance scene, working with companies including Black Label Movement, Contempo Physical Dance and Flying Foot Forum, among others. A gifted tapper and teacher, Jake will be creating a new jazz and tap-inspired piece called Sonic Leather. 

Maurice hails from Greensboro, NC, where he is an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance. He has performed with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Lula Washington Dance Theatre and Jazz Antiqua among others, and is a sought-after creator and teacher nationally and internationally. The piece he will be restaging for The Cohort 2024 - Chasing the (1) = One - explores individuality and artistic expression in one’s social community. RS Artistic and Executive Director Erinn Liebhard will also have work on the show, a new dance entitled Conversation Piece, which will explore historical dance instruction diagrams and audio recordings as allegories for how conversation can unfold and inspire. The goal for RS' Summer shows is to illustrate a wide, vibrant breadth of what impactful "jazz and American social dance-inspired" performance art can look and feel like, and this exciting show is no exception.

The cohort of artists involved in this show also includes RS company dancers Nieya Amezquita, Doug Hooker, Amy Jones, Sara Karimi, Kelli Miles, Javan Mngrezzo, Kathleen Pender and Betsy Schaefer-Roob.

Rhythmically Speaking’s mission is to spark vibrancy and connectedness through jazz and American social dance ideas. With shared roots of groove, interaction and improvisation, these approaches to movement encourage simultaneous expression of difference and similarity as a means of creating community. Since their founding in 2008, the organization has presented 106 original and remounted works and engaged 350+ artists and thousands of audience members and outreach program participants.