Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Michael Engel - Season 5, Episode 69 (re-air)

Micheal Engel (5.12.1953 - 5.19.2022)
Growing up in Western North Dakota with 4 brothers and
2 
wiry parents, I enjoyed many movement moments such as
dodging, running, rolling, spinning, chasing, and jumping
while
using many props such as dirt clods, snow balls, footballs,
and
frisbees. After taking my first modern technique class in
college
in 1974, I realized that dance epitomizes the ‘recreation’
of
movement for movement’s sake, exactly what I had enjoyed
about childhood backyard and sideyard adventures.
I pursued an Education Major for a year at the U of Mn but
was soon taking more Dance Technique / Theory than
Education
classes so I changed my major to Dance Performance / Dance
Education. For the next 20 years, I worked as a
professional
dance artist, studying, teaching, and performing many dance
genres, from modern to theatrical, ballroom to world folk
dances.
What follows is a list of the dance companies I worked for
and their founders over these 20 years. Instructional Dance
Theater –Molly Lynn, Contemporary Concert Dancers – Geol
Weirs, New Dance Ensemble / Lab – Linda Shapiro and Leigh
Dillard , Maria Cheng and Dancers – Maria Cheng, and
Contact
Works – Patrick Scully. I also worked with several
independent
dancers to put on our own shows. And I co-founded a dance
company with my wife Wendy; Ansley / Engel Dance, A
Repertory Company of Solos and Duets. We did shows and
residencies in various States and locations around the
country.
During this time I was also an Artist in Residence in
dozens
of school districts throughout Minnesota and North Dakota
while
also choreographing solo and group work for various
dancers,
dance companies, and theaters. I choreographed 2
productions
at the Guthrie Theater, The Tempest and As You Like It.
In 1994, I joined the Minneapolis Public Schools as a
licensed specialist teaching Dance and Theater, K- 8 Grades.
I
was allowed to teach without a license for 3 years and by
1997,
doing evening and weekend classes, I had completed a
Master’s
Degree in Education with an Elementary Teaching license at
St.
Thomas. Later, when MN finally developed a teaching license
for
Dance, I went back to school at Mankato University to get a
dance license. From 1994 to 2014 I worked at 5 Mpls Public
Schools; Webster Open, Anne Sullivan Communications, Ramsey
and Folwell Performing Arts Magnets, and North Star
Elementary.

Besides teaching dance and theater classes I also
developed the skills and a curriculum to teach Video Literacy
to
Middle Schoolers. And I developed curriculums integrating
dance
and theater arts literacy with math, science, and language
arts
literacies. After leaving MPS, I was hired by Heart of Dance
and
trained by ‘Dancing Classrooms’ to teach 6 Ballroom dance
forms
to 5th graders. I worked for that amazing organization for
three
years in about a dozen schools in the Twin Cities area.
In these last few years as an aging dancer I have been
fortunate to be able to keep doing work, to being challenged
and
awed by this craft I began in 1974. I did a solo from the 80’s
at
the 2012 50th Anniversary of the Walker Center
Choreographer’s
Evening directed by Patrick Scully. And I have hugely
enjoyed
working with Gerry Girouard and other dancers on his pursuit
of
and gifts for creating new contact improvisational
structures.
Also, in those years before COVID, there has grown strong
interests in Group Improvisational gatherings. Some were
called
Dance Church, among other names, and were located in
various
dance spaces around town, including a church. Engaging with
these movement gatherings were a highlight of my dancing
life
before such indoor group dancing came to a halt. They were
often the only way I could experience a delicious sweet
sweat
danci