GINA HOCH-STALL |
About Gina
Gina would rather ask about you, get a little context about where you're coming from and how you came to be here looking at this website right now. Then this biography could unfold responsively in real time, rather than in a predetermined format that reeks of false bravado and fear of not-being-enough, packaged into a two-dimensional list of achievements that tells you nothing about Gina the person: earnest, forward-thinking, a bit bossy. Or her choreography: sweaty, direct, transparent. There's no space for you - are you an artist too? Feeling competitive or inadequate? A tired individual who just wants to find the running length of a production? Whoever you are, you are welcome here. And, in return, Gina asks that you welcome her here too. All of her. Even the bits that are under construction.
FORMAL: Described by Thinkingdance.net as ‘One of [Philadelphia]’s strongest dancers,’ Gina Hoch-Stall is a choreographic deviser and movement-based artist who served as the Artistic Director of RealLivePeople, a contemporary dance theater company, for nine years. Her work has been performed, often by her, up and down the East Coast, in Chicago and across Europe. RLP has received support from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, The Puffin Foundation, The Fels Foundation, The Ohio State University, as well as residencies through White Pines Productions and the Philadelphia Dance Academy. Gina earned her MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University on a Dean's Distinguished three-year fellowship. She has taught her pedagogically progressive contemporary technique, improvisation, contact improvisation, and Mary Overlie's Viewpoints Method at multiple universities and studio spaces across the United States and in Germany and is a lecturer at Loyola University at Chicago. In addition, Gina serves as a dramaturg for other choreographers, facilitates difficult conversations, organizes for a better field, and works with clients as an Embodiment Coach.
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INFORMAL: Gina Hoch-Stall tries hard most of the time, and not always in an endearing way. When improvising she often begins with a right arm gesture or dramatic weight shift. She can be fun, but tends towards serious. For someone who so enjoys planning ahead, her performances are remarkably full of real time decision making. Perhaps that is because she feels like a performance is a conversation between the performers, spectators, the space, tech crew, and all the baggage they each brought into the room. Conversations where one person replies in the same exact way, no matter who they’re conversing with, remind Gina of the strange vocal tics she developed when leaving the same voicemail on 50+ people’s machines for a fundraising campaign in 2003. She sounded like a robot. Gina doesn’t want to dance like a robot, much too easy, she’d rather be a person: gesturing with her right arm in an attempt to communicate responsively with everything at once. And failing.
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