Dance Series 1

Toronto-born JENNIFER ARCHIBALD is the founder and Artistic Director of the Arch Dance Company and Program Director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives. Archibald has choreographed for the Ailey II, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet West, Grand Rapids Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, and BalletX among others. She has worked commercially for NIKE, MAC Cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger, as well as chart-listed artists. She will return to the Crypto Arena to choreograph the opening for KCON’s annual conference.

She was appointed as the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history. Jennifer has been commissioned by BalletMet, Grand Rapids Ballet, BalletX, the Washington Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and the Kennedy Centre’s Pathways to Performance program to deliver new works in 2025. Ms. Archibald was the acting Movement Director for Michael Kahn’s The Oresteia at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Her directorial debut WeAight was named the Official Selection of the 2022 Dance on Camera Festival.  She creates a “Documentary Ballet” format, in which she creates works rooted in historical history bringing communities together. Her documentary ballets are theatrical engagements that evolve beyond the stage and rely on historical education as an integral part of the creative process.  Her projects in this space include – Breakin’Bricks which honors the community of Black Wall Street produced by Tulsa Ballet; Sounds of the Sun which honors the life of dancer Florence Waren exploring her experience during the holocaust produced by the Pittsburgh Ballet and Seven, a biographical work about Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee commissioned by MADCO Dance Company.

Archibald’s works have been performed at venues including Aaron Davis Hall, Central Park’s Summerstage Mainstage, Jacob’s Pillow Inside|Out Stage, Lincoln Center, New York’s City Center, and The Kennedy Center. She was awarded a Choreographic Fellow for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab under the direction of Robert Battle and is a Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Choreographic Competition recipient. Her commissioned work “DIRT ” was presented at TED TALK by St. Louis-based MADCO Dance Company. Arch Dance Company’s Chasing Shadows, was remounted for Dallas Black Dance Theater’s 2018/19 season. Archibald was also the 2018-19 recipient of the City of New York Dance Initiative.

She is currently an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama and was appointed as a Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the Hip Hop dance curriculum at Columbia/Barnard College. Jennifer is also a guest artist at several universities including Boston Conservatory, Columbia College Chicago, Fordham/Ailey, Goucher College, Miami New World School of the Arts, Purchase College, Point Park, Princeton, South Carolina’s Governor’s School of the Arts, University of South Florida, Oklahoma University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a returning guest choreographer for the School at Jacob’s Pillow.  www.Jennniferarchibald.com

Amy Seiwert enjoyed a nineteen-year performing career dancing with Smuin, Los Angeles Chamber, and Sacramento Ballets. As a dancer with Smuin, she became involved with the “Protégé Program,” where Michael Smuin was her mentor. She retired as a dancer from Smuin in 2008. That same year, Celia Fushille named her Choreographer in Residence, a position she held for a decade. She is the recipient of numerous choreographic awards, including a “Goldie” award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2010, which described Seiwert as the Bay Area’s most original dance thinker, “taking what some consider a dead language and using it with a 21st-century lingo to tell us something about who we are.” 

In 2017 Seiwert’s first full-evening work, “Wandering,” set to Schubert’s Winterreise, was commissioned by the Joyce Theater in New York. The NEA and Kennedy Center have also supported Seiwert’s works. A former Artist in Residence at ODC Theater, she has also served on the Artist Faculty for Jacob’s Pillow’s Contemporary Ballet program. Her creations are in the repertory of Smuin, ODC/Dance, BalletX, Ballet Austin, and AXIS Dance, as well as Washington, Atlanta, Oakland, Kansas City, Colorado, Louisville, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, American Repertory, and Milwaukee Ballets.