In a special effort to raise awareness about the Braswell Arts Center Virtual Benefit Gala, we are proud to present this years featured artists.

Who are you? And a bit about your training and experience?

Klock and Lochner met while serving as dancers and Choreographic Fellows at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2017 they founded the dance company FLOCK through which they perform their own work internationally and co-create new choreography for film and stage. As a team they have choreographed for multiple dance companies, universities, and cultural institutions. In all of their work they strive to bring artists and audiences together in environments that are open, dynamic, and based on joy.

Tell us about the work you are presenting or dancing in?

We are presenting one of our favorite films, DUNES, which we created last year. We had a month long residency in Colorado Springs which culminated with taking movement we played with in the studio out to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We will never forget this epic landscape, waking up at 3 in the morning to catch the sunrise, and the sensation of freedom and abandon dancing in the sand. We also collaborated with one of our favorite composers Michael Wall whose beautiful work adds an extra drama to this work.

Alice Klock and Florian Lochner. Photo by Lindsay Thomas.

What inspires you?

We are inspired by so many things! The natural world is a huge inspiration for us both and we do our best to spend as much time in it as possible to absorb some of that energy to then transmit into our work. We are also very fascinated by new ideas, concepts, and philosophies and will often create new works from something we have stumbled across in a podcast, a book, or a conversation. We use our creations as a way to dive deeper into something we are intrigued by or wish to research. We are also infinitely inspired by each other. Somewhere in the midst of bouncing ideas off of each other we end up in a state of never ending creativity and enthusiasm.

Hardest part of your job?

The hardest part of our job these days is to continue to find financial support for the projects we wish to create. We want to be able to collaborate with many artists and to pay them well! As such, the struggle to find sustainable funding is constant.

Who has been the most influential person/people in your life? or Career? and why?

We have found this most influential person in each other. Meeting and deciding to create together has led us to commit to this journey of building something new in a way that is profoundly life changing for us both. We are each other’s mentors and mentees and as such are continually shaping and effecting each others worlds.

 

Alice Klock and Florian Lochner. Photo by Lindsay Thomas.

Something you like to do other than dance?

We both like to explore nature, we love to read, to travel to new places, cook, and connect with new people. Alice loves her cat!

Your wildest dreams for the dance world?

We would love a dance world in which creators and dancers have solid and consistent support to work at their best! This means better treatment of artists, better funding and pay for the world of dance, and accessible and kind dance training. For us also we wish for a dance world with more collaboration and cross pollination and with more global networking and sharing.

Something you would change in the REAL world?

We would like a world where we all use our energy to heal and uplift each other/ourselves with a focus on recapturing joy.

 

Please help us raise awareness about the Braswell Arts Center Virtual Benefit Gala, we need your support to reach our campaign goal for the new Braswell Arts Center at Aeschenplatz. Join us if you can!

 

Main photo: Alice Klock and Florian Lochner. Photo by Lindsay Thomas.