Austin Price, Editor in Chief
DENVER, CO, Apr. 25, 2025 - New Paradigm Dance Theater (NPDT) recently convened for their adjudication. In anticipation of NPDT’s Youth Company performing at Regional Dance America (RDA)’s MidStates Festival, the company came together to present five choreographic works. Led by NPDT’s Co-Artistic Directors, Julia Wilkinson Manley and Chris Harris, the company shared their work from the season, in an informal rehearsal for the festival. The adjudication was hosted in the studios of Colorado Movement Lab (CML).
As an innovator in the dance scene of Denver, New Paradigm Dance Theater is the first pre-professional, student based company in Colorado to join Regional Dance America, an important historical institution created in 1956 to foster the development of artful dance performance and education across the country. The five choreographic works presented by the company were witnessed by Charlie Martin, a former professional dancer of Kansas City Ballet and RDA’s official adjudicator for the 2025 season. The adjudication gave Martin a first look into the work and artistry of NPDT, and served as a sampling for their upcoming performances at RDA’s Midstates Festival.
After extensive examination, deliberation and discussion, Martin has announced that Network Down, choreographed by Morgan Sicklick, In Between, choreographed by Kerry Healy, and EpEk (Energy potential ∋ Energy kinetic), choreographed by Chris Harris, will take the stage at RDA’s Midstates Festival. NPDT’s Youth Company will travel to Kansas City to perform for the many other pre-professional, student based companies in the midwest. This opportunity gives young artists a safe place to create, experiment, and perform, without the discouraging barriers of competition based productions. Following the strengths of both their dancers and directors, the company will bring authentic artistry and intellectual choreography to the Festival, without reservation.
About the Selected Works:
New Paradigm Dance Theater’s Youth Company has had the opportunity to work with a menagerie of talented choreographers from different dance backgrounds and different world experiences. With a diversity in leadership and variations in the creative process, NPDT’s Youth Company embraced the varying abundance of artistry, and explored the endless possibilities of movement in an uninhibited approach.
Morgan Sicklick is a Choreographer for Regional Dance America (RDA)’s MidStates Festival. Her piece, Network Down, is a rumination on the life of trees. Inspired by the physical connection of trees, Sicklick shows the underground network that sustains life, and the differing consequences environmental changes and damage can have on this network. To indicate the various roles different trees play in connection to one another, Sicklick presented the positive variables in interwoven connection of roots, as well as the devastating negative effects. The movement is intricate, with a constant flow of fluid actions, representing the never ending, ever enduring pulse of a tree, and how its life is fostered by the lives of other trees. The refined tree roots are shown through grace and flow of the lower body, and the branches are constructed in the accented arms. Despite this constant heartbeat of the network, the rhythm has moments of cacophony, chaos, disorganization, and fear, symbolizing the responses to disease and death that trees have. The overarching theme of the piece is that when one tree is affected, all of them are affected, whether it be good or bad. This overwhelming response is one that often shuts the network down, and is hard to repair.
Kerry Healy is an Emerging Choreographer for Regional Dance America (RDA)’s MidStates Festival. Her piece, In Between, is an expression of nature, and the limitless textures and qualities stemming from natural resources. Healy has been creating, cultivating, and refining this piece since the summer of 2024. While this process has been long, Healy believes its longevity has added to the depth of the movement. In Between is an examination of the idea of fog, specifically the moment when water vapor is slightly suspended in the air, but still incredibly and dangerously close to the ground. The crucial moment between air and water, levitation and saturation is explored through textures in movement and is entertained through use of musicality.
Chris Harris is Co-Artistic Director of New Paradigm Dance Theater, and a Choreographer for Regional Dance America (RDA)’s MidStates Festival. Her piece, EpEk (Energy potential ∋ Energy kinetic) is an elegant representation of scientific discoveries and elements of movement. The idea behind this name is discovering how much potential energy we have, and how that potential energy can be transformed into kinetic energy, making a distinction between before and during. This piece was initially debuted in 2005, by Harris’ professional company, Louder Than Words Dance Theatre. In 2011, Harris restaged it, bringing it to another generation of audiences. Now, in 2025, EpEk (Energy potential ∋ Energy kinetic) is restaged for the third time, and is performed by NPDT’s Youth Company. This piece is one that pushes dancers to their limits, both physically and mentally. The choreography requires dancers to throw themselves into movement, and trust both themselves and each other, to take risks and test their limits. Reckless abandon is found in running, jumping, leaping, and bounding throughout the piece. John Adams’ score is a chaotic, bombastic celebration of art, and Harris’ choreography matches that enthusiasm. In a cacophony of movement, the dancers and the audience are thrust into the magical mayhem of holistic hullabaloo.