APRIL 21-26, 2025
THE SOUTHERN THEATER
The CANDY BOX Dance Festival is a week-long dynamic sampling of featured performances, masterclasses, and in-progress showings, hosted by ARENA DANCES and presented April 21-26, 2025 at The Southern Theater. The CANDY BOX Dance Festival features both emerging and established choreographers, Happy Hour work-in-progress performances, and master class offerings.
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Artist Announcement
Doma Dance Theater
Flying Foot Forum
Cheng “Technica” Xiong
Selected Happy Hour Artists
Nieya Amezquita & Kaitlyn Hawkins
Nervous Theatre
Yukina Sato
Happy Hour Guests
Eva Mohn
Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance
Master Classes
4:00-5:15pm
Monday, April 21 – Alexandra Bodnarchuk of Doma Dance Theater
Tuesday, April 22 – Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance
Wednesday, April 23 – Joe Chvala of Flying Foot Forum
Thursday, April 24 – Cheng “Technica” Xiong
Friday, April 25 – Connor Berkompas of NERVOUS THEATRE
Meet the Panelists
Alexandra Bodnarchuk is a Carpatho-Rusyn American dance artist and cultural activist based in Minneapolis, MN. As the Artistic Director and choreographer for Doma Dance Theater, Bodnarchuk creates original works for the stage and screen that draw together her ethnic heritage with contemporary movement practices. Centering the body as a tangible site of culture, Bodnarchuk explores questions of self-expression, community, dispossession, and cross-cultural identity through solo pieces to ensemble works. Her choreography has been commissioned by The Russia Museum of Art, Threads Dance Project, and the Alternative Motion Project. She is a 2021 Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow and a 2022 & 2020 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow Finalist.
Mathew Janczewski, ARENA DANCES Artistic Director. ARENA serves as the vehicle for his body of work and provides young, aging and underserved segments of the Twin Cities community with opportunities to experience the transformative power of dance. His work has garnered praise in the Twin Cities and beyond. He has created commissioned works for repertory companies and many colleges/universities. He was the Bates Festival choreographer (2001), received the Sage Award for Outstanding Performance (2005) and won the McKnight Choreographers Fellowship (2005). In 2008, Dance Magazine named him as one of their “25 to Watch.”
Carlo Antonio Villanueva is a Filipino American dance artist and scholar specializing in choreographic process, studio practices, performance coaching, and improvisation. He is an assistant professor of dance at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and continues to tour performance projects with choreographer Faye Driscoll. Visit carloantoniovillanueva.com for more information and media.
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