Nick Rice came to us with a fully realized concept for his piece, Gernika, inspired by Pablo Picasso’s iconic painting and the history behind it. Collaborating with a designer, poet, and musician, he crafted a multidisciplinary work exploring themes of personal struggle and historical remembrance. ICF was thrilled to support Nick’s vision, providing resources to bring his concept to life with his chosen collaborators.

Through Connect and Cast, Nick selected his dancers and held bi-monthly rehearsals throughout the summer, accommodating performers’ schedules—including those traveling from out of town. His piece featured an original score composed specifically for this work, recorded poetry written by a local poet, and custom-designed costumes by a fiber artist. Brought to life by his dedicated cast, Gernika honored the resilience of those impacted by history, embodying the emotional depth and power of Picasso’s work through movement.

Ashley is a choreographer who came to us with a conceptual dance. She was very open to working with a costumer, a designer, and a musician. She collaborated well and was open to the ideas that were presented to her that worked well with her nature-inspired concept. As Ashley was out of state, she attended the Connect and Cast session via Zoom and chose her trio of dancers from there. After an initial Zoom meeting to discuss the concept of the work, the dancers were given improvisational assignments to complete throughout the summer. Their process culminated with three days of in-person rehearsal, while Ashely was provided housing accommodations as an out-of-state artist. Ashley also joined us for our week-long workshop, where she led several classes and performed in the piece set during the workshop. Ashley was excited to return to her hometown and was thrilled to see new opportunities for professional Des Moines artists..

Matt is an artist who was open to working with a musician, composer, and costume designer. Not having worked with dancers in the past, he was excited to take dance and put it into photo and film on the stage. At the initial rehearsal, we took time to discuss Matt’s vision for the piece and how it could be translated into dance. From there, Curran and dancers were able to create choreography and improvisational movement that embodied the way bubbles move through the wind, interact with each other, and eventually pop.

Matt brought his dancers into the studio environment to create a beautiful dance film and collaborated closely with his choreographer to create movement inspired by bubbles. ICF worked with Matt’s concept of using bubbles on stage, finding ways to make this interactive prop work. We, along side Matt, engineered the required tech to incorporate the bubbles and associated dance film into the performance in order to bring his vision fully to life.