Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Mathew Janczewski - Season 7, Episode 91

Originally from Illinois, dancer, choreographer, director, and
creative Mathew Janczewski (he/him) has been residing in
Minneapolis, MN since 1989. He was a company member, most notably
with Shapiro & Smith Dance from 2007-2014 and JAZZDANCE! By
Danny Buraczeski from 1992-97. As a dancer, Mathew has performed
as a guest with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Bebe
Miller, and Jacek Luminski of Bytom, Poland. Over the years, he
has performed the works of Beth Corning, Sean Curran, HIJACK,
Marge Maddux, Shawn McConneloug, Jane Shockley, Robin Stiehm,
Morgan Thorson, Doug Varone, and Cathy Young.  

Shortly after receiving his degree in dance from the University
of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and performing internationally,
Mathew founded his own non-profit dance company, ARENA DANCES, in
1995. His practices are profoundly inspired by music,
architecture, self-expression, and an ongoing collaboration with
dancer's opposition of distal extremes while pushing the edges of
space within the body's potential. ARENA serves as the vehicle
for his body of work and provides young, aging and underserved
segments of the Twin Cities community with opportunities to
experience the transformative power of dance.


Mathew’s choreographic and creative work has garnered praise in
the Twin Cities and beyond. He has set numerous commissioned
works for universities,colleges  and companies such as
Minnesota Dance Theatre, Cleveland Repertory Co., aTrek Dance,
and Zenon Dance Company. He has been named as the Bates Dance
Festival's choreographer (2001), received the Sage Award for
Outstanding Performance (2005), and was awarded the distinguished
McKnight Fellowship for Choreographers (2005). In 2008, Dance
Magazine named him as one of their “25 to Watch.”


Mathew founded The Arena in 2021—a community movement center
offering affordable movement classes for all ages,
pre-professional and professional workshops & intensives, and
community gatherings, all in support of the moving arts in a
bustling urban location. Janczewski is a specialized teaching
artist at The Arena in addition to ARENA DANCES' DanceON program
for K-12 Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools. 


Janczewski's most recent project, THERMAL: Meditations on Climate
Change, was researched and created in collaboration with the
dancers at the Tofte Lake Arts Center (Ely, MN) to then be
performed in residency for a month at the American Swedish
Institute (Minneapolis, MN). Mathew has also recently been
invited as a guest choreographer and teaching artist in various
collegiate settings, including University of Minnesota - Duluth
and Carleton College. Currently, Mathew is working on a new
project that includes twelve dancers and an original musical
score, Erased Steps, which uses dance (steps, improvisation,
shape, and gesture) as a way to articulate his curiosities about
past and present, industrial revolution, and the struggle of
homelessness—actively allowing the vibration and energies that
surface within the process of creating the studio to reverberate
within the performance.