LOGAN MARIE WATKINS

ARTIST BIO

As an artist, teacher, and creator I aim to facilitate a judgement free space and encourage safe training. I also strongly believe in including collaboration within my work and emphasizing dance as an art form. Throughout my seventeen years as a dancer, I have had the pleasure of being trained by many different people who have shaped my views and work within this profession drastically. 

I have been inspired to create an environment that focuses on exercise and not, “weight loss.” I am going to strive to form a diverse space that includes dancers from all backgrounds and encourages respect and inclusivity as well. Safe training is also a priority of mine. I plan to teach somatic awareness and mind/body connection in order to stray from the training techniques of the past that pushed dancers past their physical limitations. I was able to put some of this into effect when I taught with Dancing Little Stars in Tallahassee, Florida. This allowed me to see what exercises worked with students ages 2-10 and what I needed to do in order to maintain their focus and dedication. Working with children taught me how to communicate in a way that was creative yet effective. I treated them as though their learning capacity was higher than their age and created storylines that went along with different exercises to keep them inspired. I want their movement to feel magical to them and to open their mind to the possibilities of this art form. 

Something else that I highly value in my creative work is collaborating interdisciplinary. I have performed with the Flying High Circus and collaborated with the bike for five team with choreography. I also choreographed the piece, Desiderium with Juliana Tolosa for our Composition 3 final in which we utilized a poem that a good friend of mine, Phoebe O’Neill had published. Along with performing and serving as the rehearsal assistant for faculty works such as, "The Night Circus" by Dante Puleio in the spring of 2020, I was also a part of guest works such as "NOLA!" by A'Keitha Carey. 

Having a diverse dance vocabulary is equally as important to me as collaborating with others. Throughout my experience with dance I have received training in ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, pointe, character, modern, circus, west african, and afro-brazilian. I plan to find a way to cultivate all of these practices and emphasize that ballet is not the center dance form in which everything else branches off of. 

 I think dance and the arts can cause giant waves in the community and can oftentimes be a voice for the many who are underrepresented and not usually heard.