Julie Crothers
(CA)
2023
Julie Crothers is a white, queer, disabled performer, choreographer, and community educator based in Berkeley, CA. As a maker, Julie utilizes contemporary dance, character, and comedy to tell stories, encourage self-reflection, and foster connection. In everything she creates, Julie strives to be honest, bold, and full of self-irony, and loves inviting audiences into the worlds she creates, where all are welcome. Her solo choreographic work has been presented on stages throughout the Bay Area and beyond, including CHOPSHOP Dance Festival and International Women in Dance Leadership Conference. Julie has danced with AXIS Dance Company, Tara Pilbrow Dance, WaxPoet(s), Kickbal, and Sharp & Fine. Julie is passionate about increasing the accessibility of dance for all and is currently on staff at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and a teaching artist for Oakland Ballet’s You Can Dance! residency program. In 2020, Julie was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to watch”. A Tennessee native, Julie studied Dance Performance and Choreography and Arts Administration at Elon University, graduating in 2014.
Holy Crap
Visiting Artist | April 11 – 24, 2023
Collaborators in Residence: Ben Juodvalkis [Musician], Nora Sharp [Dramaturg]
San Francisco-based choreographer Julie Crothers came to MANCC for the first time in April 2023, as a maker in her own right after being part of the 2014 MANCC residency with AXIS Dance Company, one of the world’s leading contemporary repertory companies. AXIS features dancers with and without physical disabilities.
During her residency this April at MANCC, Julie Crothers, in collaboration with dramaturg Nora Sharp and musician Ben Juodvalkis, developed Holy Crap, a rambunctious, cheeky, and only mildly irreverent one-woman show incorporating dance, theater, and comedy. Inspired by Julie’s personal experience of growing up in a conservative Christian church in Tennessee, Holy Crap is a story of coming out, of coming of age, and of coming together with all the parts that make her whole. This work follows the structure of a typical white southern megachurch service and introduces many characters: the preacher, God, JC with a wrench, and others – each a personification of the dancer’s queerness and each striving to control the telling of their own story about goodness, purpose, and meaning. Through embodied storytelling, an unsettled cast of church characters, and a handful of queer little pop numbers, Holy Crap sheds light on what it means to question, to reimagine, and to allow yourself to be constantly becoming.
While at MANCC, Crothers, together with Sharp and Juodvalkis, focused on further developing the various characters and music. While Crothers and Juodvalkis have previously collaborated, Crothers’ residency at MANCC marked the first time that they were in residence together. Crothers engaged three of FSU’s School of Dance undergraduate students: Megan Murphy, Heather Cruise and Zoe Brown, inviting them into the process to assist her in workshopping material.
Holy Crap premiered at ODC Theatre in San Francisco, June 23 – 25, 2023.
This residency was supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts.
