Our Story

 

          The co-artistic directors of Unidentified Dance are coincidentally from the same city, but did not meet until they were both apprentices at Futurpointe Dance in Rochester, NY. Margaret Moreno and Trevor Van Orden soon found they had similar philosophies and values when it came to dance as a vehicle for communication and self-discovery.

          Trevor, an adopted, Jewish, homosexual male, started his training in karate and followed his heart down the road to dance, experiencing such styles as classical indian dance, afro-caribbean, west frican and jazz-funk. Margaret, a pansexual, multiracial female heavily influenced by her native american heritage, with no specific spiritual identification, began her training in West African, Afro-modern and liturgical dance and later studied other forms including ballet, hip hop, break dancing, capoeira, afro-brazilian, latin social dance, release technique and Bharatanatyam. 

 Such a conglomeration of qualities and techniques, in combination with their sexuality, cultural and spiritual practices, left them feeling quite out of place in most dance communities. They did not fit the mold, however, most artists don't...

          Having realized this, Margaret and Trevor formed Unidentified Dance with a goal to help other radical, contemporary artists gain exposure by creating visually enticing, intellectually charged, mulit-disciplinary work to gain support from audiences. Based on the idea of an Unidentified Moving Object, or UMO, we want to welcome other "unidentified" artists and spread the message of equality through freedom of expression.  

If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of, please visit our "Call to Collaborate" tab, or view our "Collaborations" tab to see what we have done in the past. Unidentified Dance is currently in the process of filing as a nonprofit organization and look forward to serving the arts community as such.