Dance, Music, & Song Camps
Nic Gareiss (he/they) has been named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and been hailed by The New York Times for his “dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance.” Gareiss grew up learning footwork from Ireland, England, Appalachia, and what some people call Canada surrounded by fiddlers, banjo-players, and balladeers at folk festivals in Central Michigan (past, present and future Anishinaabe land). This mix of instrumental music, song, and movement from rural places has become the heart of Nic’s creative work as a performer across the disciplines of traditional and contemporary music and dance. Drawing on clog, flatfoot, and step dance vocabulary, they queer the sensory: melding sight, sound, and touch; merging music, gesture, and ethnography. Gareiss received the 2020 Michigan Heritage Award, the region’s highest distinction bestowed on traditional artists. He has performed in seventeen countries including at London’s Barbican Centre, the Irish National Concert Hall, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Kennedy Center and collaborated with Jake Blount, Liz Carroll, Alexis Chartrand, The Chieftains, Jack Devereux, Colin Dunne, Alasdair Fraser, Bill Frisell, The Gloaming, Natalie Haas, Bruce Molsky, Cleek Schrey, Sandy Silva, and Phil Wiggins. Nic’s graduate thesis was the first piece of scholarship to center the experience of LGBTQ Irish step dancers. They hold a MA in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick and contributed a chapter to the 2017 book, Queer Dance: Meanings & Makings, edited by Clare Croft for Oxford University Press.
www.nicgareiss.com // @nicgareisslfi