ChrisMastersDance

ChrisMastersDance is a Brooklyn-based contemporary dance company built by a team of interdisciplinary collaborators and directed by Chris Masters. Founded in 2012, the organization's philosophy in dance making is that the work should function as a container, a set of nesting dolls that can be unpacked as much or as little as one wishes, allowing for greater accessibility and connectivity to diverse audiences. The primary objective is to create an empathetic avenue for dialogue between performer, witness, and community. The organization's body of work includes over 20 dance works, ranging from solos to ensembles, from shorter, site-adaptive projects to evening length site-specific performances.

The intent, as it is with all of my work, is to start from a precipice of an idea and let the process of generating movement and music material from specific tasks—from erasures of scholarly articles and poetry to score-based improvisation that is recorded and digitally choreographed into a learnable section of movement—dictate the style, aesthetic, and tonality. It is through this sort of process that we carve new avenues of empathy, allowing disparate and diverse audiences to find their own entry point into the work.
 
We are taking strides to create a sustainable creative practice and company that fosters new work while providing fair, ethical treatment to all—capitalizing on the current labor movement waves in the United States to shape the broader conversation about labor equity in the dance field. As we carve a new way forward in dance that pays collaborators fairly and ethically, despite largely self funding with entirely necessary large budgets, we hope to show that this can be done this independently—in which case the field may acknowledge that companies with money in their coffers have no excuse.

 
Currently, CMD is continuing its efforts to present innovative and engaging dance work both locally in New York, regionally in the rest of the US, and internationally in connection with various outreach initiatives. 

Photography by Robert Flynt