Choreographer Diana Movius Is Nov. 21 Breakfast Speaker
By • October 28, 2024 0 326
On Thursday, Nov. 21, The Georgetowner’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast Series will present a talk by Diana Movius, recently appointed choreographer-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Admission to the event, at the President Woodrow Wilson House, 2340 S St. NW, is $40, payable in advance at georgetowner.com or via Eventbrite.
Artistic director of Moveius Contemporary Ballet, Movius founded and runs Dance Loft on 14, a center for dance and theater rehearsal, performance and training in D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood. She began her 18-month National Portrait Gallery residency, in which she creates works that are performed in the museum’s Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, with a program in July of dances inspired by biologists Rachel Carson, author of “Silent Spring,” and E. O. Wilson, author of “The Ants.” The Portrait Gallery’s first choreographer-in-residence, from 2016 to 2023, was Dana Tai Soon Burgess.
Movius trained with Patricia McBride and Melissa Hale Coyle in her home city of Charlotte, North Carolina, spending summers at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Charlotte Ballet and Ballet Chicago. Also an expert on environmental issues, she did fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon while earning an M.A. in environmental anthropology from Stanford University, where she completed her B.A., then worked at Washington think tanks on climate change policy.
At the Nov. 21 breakfast, Movius will share how she translates the art on view at the Portrait Gallery — and the lives that inspired it — into contemporary ballet, as well as her view of the connections between science and the arts.
Doors open at the President Woodrow Wilson House at 8:30 a.m. for a buffet breakfast; the program will follow from 9 to 10 a.m. To purchase tickets, click HERE.
Since 2014, The Georgetowner’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast Series has presented 60 insider talks by leaders of area museums; opera, theater and dance companies; music ensembles; performing arts venues; and other cultural organizations.
