Prophecy, dance performance by Valerie Goliff

Female balancing on one leg with her torso almost parallel to the ground, one leg in the air at 45 degrees, one hand dangling straight down and the other over her head. Her head is facing her foot that is in the air.

Photo by Clinton James

Biography

Valerie Goliff's time at WWU has been spent diving deep into study of contemporary dance, ballet, choreography, and contemporary improvisation, the latter of which her solo focuses on. Her four years at Western have also been spent dancing and choreographing with the WWU Hip Hop Dance Team, the past two years as one of the captains. Valerie is graduating in June 2020 with her BFA in Dance and BS in Psychology. She has combined her social psychological research in stereotyping and bias with her dancing. She conducted empirical research and presented findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference in New Orleans in March 2020. Prior to Western, for the seven years through middle school and high school, Valerie trained in and performed contemporary, ballet, jazz, hip hop, and tap with Allegro Performing Arts Academy in Kent, WA.

Athletic, middle aged woman spinning a muscular person around from her hip. The person being spun holds onto her hips with feet flying high in the air.

Choreographer

Anya Cloud

I am a dance maker, teacher, performer, and activist currently based in San Diego, CA. I believe in dancing with the body that I have. I am interested in cultivating radical aliveness in the dancing body by working with multiplicity, wildness, sustainability, gentleness, queering, questioning, negotiating, and everything-ness.

I was born and raised between the rural landscapes of Alaska and Montana. I hold an MFA in Dance Theatre from the University of California San Diego and undergraduate degrees in Dance and Liberal Studies from the University of Montana.

My work as a dance maker reciprocally influences and sustains my work as an educator. I am a Lecturer in Dance Studies at California State University San Marcos. I also regularly teach classes and workshops for different communities, festival and institutions in Contact Improvisation, improvisation, somatics, and contemporary dance technique locally, nationally, and internationally. My ongoing somatic studies significantly influence all of my teaching and creative work. I am currently in the final year of the Feldenkrais® Method Training Program in San Diego with Elizabeth Beringer.

I am particularly compelled by exploring intellectual and physical modulation and by cross-disciplinary collaboration. My work has been presented by La Mama, Movement Research at the Judson Church, RED CAT, Pieter Performance Space, Highways Performance Space, and ArtPower! among others. Additionally my work has been presented through numerous festivals, universities and in non-traditional spaces. I have also had the pleasure of performing for and/or working with Sara Shelton Mann, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Nancy Stark Smith, Yolande Snaith, Jane Comfort, Karen Nelson, Eric Geiger, Karen Schaffman, Mary Reich, Brian Gerke, Leslie Seiters, and Kristianne Salcines among others. I am perpetually intrigued and inspired by questioning the relationship between process and performance. I am committed to the ongoing practice of improvisation and spontaneous composition on a weekly basis.

I believe in accountability and the power of visioning. I believe in the possibility for movement to engender humanity in the world. Dance – and the way it reveals known and unknown spaces – is deeply relevant and necessary for me.