Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie McCaughan and Rebecca R. Levy. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Founded in 2012 and located in Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Dance Theatre is a contemporary modern dance company dedicated to creating and promoting excellence in the field of professional dance on local, national, and international stages. JDT is committed to creative innovation and exchange through choreographic projects, concert dance performance, movement intervention outreach, and dance education.
Led by Artistic Director, Rebecca R. Levy, and Executive Director, Katie McCaughan, the company has produced 9 robust local seasons as well as touring and festivals internationally and throughout the country. JDT co-produces its annual repertory concert each Spring with the historic Florida Theatre in downtown Jacksonville.
JDT has commissioned new and existing works from choreographers Jonah Bokaer, James Boyd, Emily Cargill, Bryn Cohn, Lana Heylock, Jay Jackson, Bliss Kholmeyer, Lisa D. Long, James Morrow, Brian Palmer, Mikey Rioux, Talani Torres, JoAnna Ursal, and Pioneer Winter, among others. Jacksonville Dance Theatre performs repertory works choreographed by the company’s artistic director and resident choreographers and frequently commissions its performers and local artists to create new works on the company.
JDT sees the power of the human body as a canvas for art, education, storytelling, performance, entertainment, and wellness. With a diverse group of company members, JDT is constantly broadening its style to form new cohesive performances that reach a wide range of populations. JDT is committed to creating opportunities for all people regardless of race, gender, age, ability, sexual identity or orientation, cultural or socioeconomic background, and feels strongly that dance is a universal art form that is meant to engage and inspire all people. JDT runs weekly dance, fitness, and movement awareness classes at the Florida Ballet as well as a week-long summer dance intensive each July.
In 2015, JDT launched the first annual Jacksonville Dance Film Festival to bring dance for the camera to the First Coast. Curated by Tiffany S. Santeiro, the festival screens films from all over the globe and challenges and expands the way we see both dance and film. JDT is supported in part by funding from the City of Jacksonville and the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville Cultural Service Grant Program; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture; the Beaches Women’s Club; and ruckus. advertising + public relations.
JDT is 2021 Here to Be grant recipient from the lululemon corporation. Here to Be is lululemon’s social impact program that disrupts inequity in well-being through movement, mindfulness, and advocacy. Jacksonville Dance Theatre is Here to Be an agent of healing, change, and wellness equity in the City of Jacksonville. JDT was a recipient of the 2016 and 2018 Florida East Coast PNC Arts Alive grant program and was supported in 2016 and 2020 by grants from the Art Ventures Endowment Fund at the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.
Past support also includes performer grants from StageFund, corporate sponsorship from Harbinger, Kress Agency, and Community First Credit Union, and major gifts from Jeff and Nancy Chartrand in addition to a decade of support from private donors.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Running a small grassroots nonprofit modern dance company in Jacksonville, FL has not been easy. Jacksonville has very little history when it comes to the professional performing arts and especially dance. It’s taken 10 years just to establish ourselves and begin to pay staff.
We have been and still are a part of a conversation in this city about paying artists and professionalizing the arts in Jacksonville. It can be hard to reach new audiences and expand our impact but we believe in our mission and the people who make it possible.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the professional performing arts industries to their knees… JDT was no exception.
Having to be away from the studio and stage was one of the hardest things we’ve experienced as a company. The bravery, vulnerability, and hard work of the dancers and board cannot be understated.
Though we started working on new dances before the pandemic, the experiences of isolation, collective trauma, loneliness, and anxiety are ever more present and important to examine both individually and collectively. In the end, our love for dance is triumphed only by our desire to create a meaningful connection.
To live in a world where all human bodies are honored, where the personal agency is respected, where injustices are exposed, and healing can occur.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
“Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.” – Andre Maurois.
As an artist, I search for meaningful ways to engage with this art form that is my daily practice and life’s work. I am inspired by diverse voices and ideas in dance and culture that challenge and expand my creative process. I consider it my job to put myself in the way of innovative methods in choreography while also finding inspiration in the presence of JDT’s talented dance artists. I put myself in the way of the world so I can do my work of making dances that unpack the mysteries of self, other, culture, world, and universe.
My love for dance is triumphed only by my desire to create a meaningful connection. To live in a world where all human bodies are honored, where the personal agency is respected, where injustices are exposed, and healing can occur. Though we founded Jacksonville Dance Theatre with the desire to create professional dance opportunities and concert stage works, we have the gift of time and experience to see that though these things remain important, we have a platform to amplify and uplift the voices of our dancers, collaborators, students, children, families, our community and city.
JDT calls attention to the strength and power of a company of female bodies and the stories we hold and tell. We engage with the traditional expectations of dance performance while insisting that dance can be an affecting communicator of complex concepts, juxtaposing themes, abstract ideas, and compelling narratives.
At JDT, we see the power of the human body as a symbol, vessel, and home. JDT’s big and wild heart cares profoundly for our community and wants to reach out a wide-open palm to you through our mission of dance making, creative exchange, and dedication to the school and community-based dance education and embodiment work.
As we navigate our journeys of personal and collective healing, and our desire to make and share artful experiences that bring us closer to one another, I invite you to join us: Let’s Live in the Movement.
-Rebecca R. Levy, Artistic Director, Jacksonville Dance Theatre.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
It’s all about people. Relationships matter. Find people and communities that both lift you up and challenge your perspective. Pay yourself — but not more than you pay your staff or artists. Base your mission and work off of a set of values that guide your organization. Tell your story.
Contact Info:
- Email: katie@jacksonvilledancetheatre.org
- Website: https://jacksonvilledancetheatre.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdtheatre/
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/jdtheatre
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkhH89l9-Q_423yp2KRGEfg
Image Credits
Fran Ruchalski, Toni Smailagic, and Trb La Prade
