Corrie Franz Cowart

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Corrie Franz Cowart

• Dancer and Choreographer

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Becoming a Professional Artist Corries Process

• In todays competitive dance world, becoming a
  professional dancer is incredibly difficult. In
  many ways, however, becoming a successful
  professional choreographer is even harder! More
  and more dancers are choosing college as a part
  of this process university dance programs
  prepare them not only for careers in performance,
  but also in composition (or choreography) and for
  possible later scholarship. This is a wonderful
  phenomenon for professional dancers, whose
  careers are, even when successful, often very
  short, often lasting only until a dancer is 30 or
  40.
• Corrie got her B.F.A. in Dance in 1995 from
  Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, which
  offers degrees in dance, design, performance,
  music, theater, film, and more.

Corrie and Tims most recent performance,
Co-Motion
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Corries Aesthetic Vision for Dance
I rarely articulate my aesthetic preferences.
They are like taste buds I know what I like and
my ideas just spring out of my mind and compel me
to create them!

• Eclectic come out of her artistic values and
  preferences, life experiences
• Compositionally sound
• Address content or theme through fluid, released,
  kinesthetic, momentum-based movement

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Corries Creative Process
A piece of her choreography strives to

• Contemporary movement
• Show commitment to innovate experimental art (so
  it can involve non-dancers, video footage, or
  non-traditional sound in lieu of classical music)
• Come out of personal vision
• Push boundaries of creative process

• Show willingness to embrace a multi-faceted
  performance experience
• Have an aesthetic philosophy that dance
  communicates
• Have a logic that makes sense in the whole work
• Be something that you, the choreographer, like!

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Exposure to Other Artists

• As an artist, Corrie understands that her work
  does not exist in a vacuum she wants and loves
  to collaborate and work with other community
  artists!
• Before starting Co-Art Dance, Corrie performed
  with other companies and choreographers, a
  tradition she has maintained
• A central part of Co-Art Dances mission today
  remains collaboration with other local artists,
  so Corrie and her husband Tim (Co-Director of
  Co-Art Dance) continue to work with other
  renowned musicians and choreographers

In this photo, Corrie (2nd from the left) is
dancing with LABCO Dance in Pennsylvania.
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Corries advice for other artists

• Keep creating!
• Use every opportunity made available to you to
  perform and/or present your work and to create
  name recognition for yourself ask for feedback
• Only create work that you love or are interested
  in, but dont feel that everything you create has
  to be a masterpiece its all part of the process
• Challenge yourself