Candace Ammerman

Solos

Candace has had the privilege of studying ballet and modern dance under leading artists in both disciplines: Alan Howard, a principal dancer with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo; Dimitri Romanoff, regisseur (reconstructing the classic ballets) for American Ballet Theater and Cliff Keuter & Elina Mooney, my mentors in modern dance, who directed companies in NY and on the West coast.

Mr. Keuter, who studied with the greats of modern dance and began his dance career with Paul Taylor Dance Company, has set works on major companies here in Canada as well as England, Israel, France, Australia, and around the U.S. Candace has performed in over fifty of Mr. Keuter’s works, some of which were created for her and almost that many works choreographed by Elina Mooney. Ms. Mooney has played a pivotal role in Candaces life both as teacher and choreographer, most recently in works made for Krustà, a vehicle for avant-garde collaborations in music and dance.

Other of her teachers/choreographers include Janet Van Swoll of San Jose State University in California, Constance Stine of Eastside Ballet in Arizona, Xenia Chlistowa of Arizona State University, Gregg Lizenberry of University of Hawaii and Bill Evans of University of New Mexico. They were all as important in giving her that greatest of gifts, believing in herself, as in preparing her to perform, choreograph, and teach. Through Janet Van Swoll, she had the honor of performing leading roles in works reconstructed from Labanotation, such as Doris Humphrey’s Day On Earth (the mother) and The Shakers (the eldress); Norman Walker’s Variations Day to Day (Sunday’s child); Lucas Hoving’s Icarus (the sun); and Helen Tamiris’ Woman Song.

Candace received several awards, including Outstanding Scholar/Artist in College of Humanities at SJSU, Best Graduate Choreographer, Best Dancer Olympiad of the Arts in Santa Clara, CA, and a cash award from California Dance Educator’s Association.

Eve Gentry’s protégée, Michele Larsson, created Core Dynamics Pilates Teacher Training Program centered in Santa Fe, New Mexico to continue the Gentry tradition (Gentry was one of Joseph Pilates’ protégées, hence an “elder” of the Pilates Method). Graduating this 400+ hour program, which covers all mat and equipment, enabled Candace to earn certification through the Pilates Method Alliance and work in a personalized, targeted way with everyone from professional dancers to aging adults.

As a ballet-trained modern dancer, Candace teaches both, and knows the value of well-rounded training. She has been performing and creating dances professionally for over twenty-five years, and taught at the university level for over thirty years. Candace has a Master of Arts degree in Theater Arts/Dance from San Jose State University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from Arizona State University. She taught ballet, modern, dance history and dance in world cultures at six community colleges and two universities. Candace also directed a company in San Jose, California for nine years, called Danceworks, and there she was also a founding member of Cliff Keuter’s New Dance San Jose.

After her husband and she relocated to Arizona, Candace danced for five years in Frances Smith Cohen’s Center Dance Ensemble at the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix and in Ann Ludwig’s Ludwig Dance Theater in Tempe, and was commissioned to choreograph for local companies as well as creating many works for Eastside Ballet and the colleges. Candace thinks of dance as poetry: it goes under the surface and lets us share the deeply personal and the inescapably human, both the sorrowful and the sublime, but only after work, work, and more work.