participating artists

betsy miller dance projects

the american / woman project

click on the artist's photo to watch a trailer of their work!

2025 COLLABORATIONS

CATHERINE MACMASTER
Michigan

JULIE CROTHERS
California

SARAH LASS
Wyoming

"I love female rage. I really believe in it as a kind of catalytic power, that when we have functional access to, can be really transformational. I think that comes from this kind of rub that I experienced between my socialization experience as a woman and contending with the ways in which that has been harmful... I think rage can be really clarifying. "

CAT KAMRATH MONSON
Wyoming

"Dance has given me so much strength..... Just explore it. See what happens.
You're really the only one that gets to determine what is and isn't successful."

JULIE MARIE MUSKAT
Minnesota

What are some words that you would use to describe yourself as a woman?
"I would say wrestling, … fighting… strong AND soft."
What are some words that you would use to describe yourself as an American?
"More shame than pride... I’m also an Israeli citizen, and I also feel an extreme amount of shame related to that. I want to say hope but it feels so thin right now. Right now, it also feels like I’m a second class citizen, non-human."

2023-2024 COLLABORATIONS

CHRISTINA ROBSON
Virginia

"I think my ideal practice pairs challenge with a real radical sense of humanity and empathy- the same kind of themes that show up in how I value a class environment. I want to work real fucking hard but I don’t want to be afraid to go there and I think the best processes have that balance that say: “Let’s try to do this really hard fucking thing, but know that you are radically supported in whatever that outcome may be.”

AJA PANDEY
Illinois

"Just making eye contact with somebody while you’re creating movement or dancing with somebody, or even an audience member- to be able to share the same feeling without having to use words, is something that has stuck with me from the moment I performed live the first time….it’s a rush that I can never let go of."

TONETA AKERS-TOLER
West Virginia

"I think what keeps me going is that I want to have a space for people who love the language of movement to come, and be together, and WORK."

JOY DAVIS
North Carolina

"It's actually one of my states of being, ever: to feel like I'm in the thrust of the creative process, and to get lost and obsessed."

AMANDA HAMP
New Mexico

"There are other problems… white feminism cannot be the center anymore. AND... misogyny is still operating."

BLISS KOHLMYER
Florida

"How I teach (my children) to question, and resist, and learn, and behave… that’s my role right now as woman/ mother. Especially because of where I live… I think it’s important not to run and away and leave. I think it’s important to stay.
And vote. And resist. And talk."

MEREDITH BRUCH
Ohio

"Maybe that's why I dance: because I will never get bored.
And it's this constant growth and constant learning. And I want to help others, and maybe provide tools that I didn't have. "

MARIN DAY
New York

"I automatically have to prove myself five times more in some spaces, or have to put on a certain armor, or present a certain way to be taken seriously.... As I've gotten older, I'm not afraid to make people uncomfortable or call people out on this."

LINDSEY JENNINGS
New York

What are some words that you would use to describe yourself as an artist?
"Overachiever, a little chaotic, a little DIY... I want 'multi-disciplinary', but I hate that word... hyper-independent, hard-working."

2022 COLLABORATIONS

MAYA GOREE
Arkansas

Why do you dance?
"When you can just be in the movement in the moment, and your body is singing, in a way, through the experience....I know you can experience flow in lots of different ways in life, but for me, that’s what gives me the feeling the most."

THERESA BAUTISTA
Kentucky

"...I don’t have to have a façade of one thing. So if I want to be strong and a feminist, I can be that. If I want to be nurturing and caring- that’s a strength too. If I want to be a bitch, I can. I love that I am maybe classified by my gender but it doesn’t necessarily mean I have to be this one type of person."

MAREE REMALIA
Wisconsin

"Sometimes I feel like a quiet rebel.
I think that I believe in ideas and behaviors and principles connected with feminism, but I don’t call myself a feminist."

ANI JAVIAN
New Jersey

"I feel like I understand the world through my body… I understand how I’m feeling because of listening to my body. I understand my relationship to other people because of how my body senses the space around me, or energy, or ... environment, or tone, or emotional temperature, because I’ve been listening to my body for so long…."

BETHANY PHILLIPP
Mississippi

What are some words that describe how you see yourself as an American?
"Frustrated. Frightened. Power-less. Silenced. So mad. Not a single bit of pride, and a lot of fear. And the feeling of being trapped."

KOURA WRIGHT
Nevada

What are five words that describe how you see yourself as an artist?
"Innovative. Emotional. Secretive. Loud.... The last word that came to mind was pink."

TIFFANY BIERLY
Washington

What makes for a good creative process for you?
"I like it to feel like play. You know, we're figuring something out together. We're problem-solving in real time, with other people.... I love the collaborative nature of building a thing I couldn't build by myself."

SARA CAPLAN
Washington

"Even from a young age, I felt like I didn't want to be seen as 'delicate.' I want to be seen as capable. I want to be seen as strong. I want to be seen being as able to do things that everyone else can do."

2020-2021 COLLABORATIONS

JENNIFER DECKERT
South Carolina

"I really treasure a woman’s connection to the earth.... It’s the kind of nurturing component of being a woman that very much connects me to the world and the people around me. I value the ability to carry my emotions freely. That’s something that men not have the same freedom with. I value the compassionate nature that often comes with being a woman and being able to see things from a variety of perspectives. "

ANN GLAVIANO
Louisiana

"I just don’t think I want kids, and it seems really odd. I’m close with my family, I like kids. I actually think it’s that I already do labor that is unvalued and un-compensated and invisible in a lot of ways because I’m a fucking artist, and I don’t need TWO of those."

KENDRA PORTIER
Maryland

"Right now I feel really appreciative of my body and this age. My skin is getting weird. It’s changing. Things are dripping… lower. Things are doing their own thing that they’ve never done, and I don’t feel sad about it at all. I just feel like a glacier, or a tree, or something…. something that’s been here for a long time kind of gently unfolding itself."

2019 COLLABORATIONS

JAMIE ARNOLD
Montana

How do you see yourself as an American?
"I just feel that the whole American value system and how it’s founded on religion and God- it doesn’t really speak to me nowadays- I’m more of a believer in the Universe. And some of those things- if you don’t believe in those- that particular thing- it makes you kinda feel like you don’t fit in, in a way. I’m not really a believer in Capitalism either- I don’t feel like the best 'American,' in a way."

LAQUIMAH VANDUNK
Georgia

"I kind of cringe a little bit when people are like “ I just wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t dance.” No… I would still be alive if I didn’t dance, BUT it is my most confident self, because it’s the one thing I’ve acknowledged that I can do right."

NATALIE DESCH
Utah

"I love that I’m an emotional person- I love that. I think that’s a huge strength, for me, because it just means that I’m listening to that part of me- I’m not holding it in or back. It is important- I listen to it- it might tie in a little bit to a great sense of instinct that I believe in- that I trust in myself, so that the emotional sensibility is maybe woven in there."

REBECCA STEINBERG
Tennessee

"I treasure powerful softness. I treasure compassionate leadership. I treasure emotional intelligence. I treasure creating space for others. I treasure creating the foundation for community. I treasure the strength in vulnerability. I treasure the strength in imagination. I treasure the strength in asking questions."

PAULA MCARTHUR
Iowa

What are some words you would use to describe yourself as an artist?
"Stubborn....Fluid…. in the creative process. I have a big sense of play when I get into the studio and start generating. I’m kind of a workhorse- that goes along with that stubborn personality.
Very physical- I’m always interested in going outside of my box."

MEREDITH LYONS
Colorado

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
"A dancer."
If you weren’t a dancer, what would you be?
"There’s a big part of me that enjoys service. So I would like to be involved in humanitarian efforts where I could apply my skills in verbal and nonverbal communication/ sign language and somatics."

2018 COLLABORATIONS

SHURA BARYSHNIKOV
Rhode Island

What are some words that describe you as an artist?
"Instinctual. Messy. Rigorous. Stubborn. Changeable. Easily influenced. Watery. Playful."
As a human?
"Hardworking, solitary, introverted, emotional, passionate, confused, deceptive, self-critical, sensual, sad."

RACHEL BOGGIA
Connecticut

... I kind of discovered that I have a beautiful body not very long ago, but for most of my life I thought it was a really unfortunate body, and too... everything – too big, too curvy, too strong, too inflexible, too brown, you know, name it.... I think there’s a lot of sadness inside of being a woman. But I feel like at this point in my life, none of that is existing as a storm in me anymore- they’re all kind of known quantities and they’re kind of sitting around the dinner table with me all the time, and mostly I know what they’re going to say and I don’t have to respond."

ALEXANDRA JAMES
Maine

"I immediately go into biology and physiology and having the experience of having been a mother. That is very informative to me. I genuinely feel like there is nothing more powerful than going through the birthing process, and having done that, I feel confident that I could bust down a lot of doors if I really needed to."

ALI KENNER BRODSKY
Massachusetts

"I feel compelled to make work. I have this need to be making-to be expressing. When I am in the studio creating I feel calm…it is where things make sense for me. I have always had a difficult time expressing myself with words. I use dance and creating dance to get out what’s inside."

KELLIE ANN LYNCH
Connecticut

"In dance, everything is 'YES.'
Everything is welcomed – your baggage, your greatest strengths, your mediocrity… everything is on the table."

LIDA WINFIELD
Vermont

"I think that we have wisdom and knowledge that is not linear and that is not exclusively in our brains, so I think there’s knowledge deep inside me and deep inside you and deep inside us that we can only access through our physicality."

JESSIE STINNETT
New Hampshire

"I actually love being underestimated, by men in particular. This has happened, and continues to happen, a lot, whether it be by male choreographers, directors, colleagues, businessmen, etc etc etc. I really enjoy the moment of surprise when I, a woman, accomplish whatever it was that he/they thought that he/they would be more capable of doing."

​betsy miller dance projects

the american / woman project​click on the artist's photo to watch a trailer of their work!

2025 COLLABORATIONS

2023-2024 COLLABORATIONS

JOY DAVISNorth Carolina

MARIN DAYNew York

LINDSEY JENNINGSNew York