Founders and Co-Artistic Directors of Dance Box Theater, Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp, have been collaborating on performing arts productions and arts-education since 2004 with increasing recognition regionally, nationally and internationally. As a duet performance ensemble, Schandelmeier & Clapp have developed and presented five evening-length performance works, with a sixth currently under development. This year, DBT has been awarded a dance commission from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for a new evening-length work to premiere on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage on October 21 & 22, 2010, with a tour scheduled throughout the Mid Atlantic region during the 2010-2011 season.

The Mission of Dance Box Theater, Inc. is to support the creation and development of dynamic, finely crafted and engaging public performances; and to empower communities through partnerships, workshops, residencies and arts-based education. The goals are to present performing arts that catalyze individual and community transformation; and to strive for the elimination of oppression in all its forms. Since its inception, DBT has engaged in ongoing dance theater production, arts-integration residencies, professional development for educators, and arts education for youth. The organization serves communities throughout the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond.

DBT is an ensemble company whose collaborative process is rooted in liberation pedagogy and cultural understanding. As citizens of the US sharing an interracial partnership with the benefit of legal marriage, Schandelmeier & Clapp often find themselves at the center of a contemporary dialogue about race, gender privilege, class ethnography, social dogma and political discourse. This subject is exemplified in their fifth evening length performance, The Loving Project: E-Race which premiered in October 2009 at Dance Place in Washington, DC. A response to US and global perceptions of interracial marriages, this performance work will be performed again in June 2010 for a two-week run at Joe's Movement Emporium and will be featured on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage on June 16, 2010 during the Dance/USA Conference.

Portals, DBT's third full-evening duet work, was performed at the invitation of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in March 2008 as part of the "Take 5 Series." Originally commissioned by The Creative Communities Fund of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region in 2006, Portals features an original score by Clapp and examines the transformative process of evolution and five major rites of passage. Portals premiered at Dance Place in June 2007.

Their second full-evening work, The Dragons Project: Power Play was presented in multiple venues including Dance Place in May 2006, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in January 2007, and excerpted for performances at numerous venues throughout the region. The Dragons Project: Power Play features an original music score by Clapp and text by playwright Christopher Greybill. In December 2004, Dance Place presented Rappaccini's Daughter, the duo's first full-evening work inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story and performed to Toby Twining's Chrysalid Requiem.

Through their process of in-depth research, creative exploration, ensemble development, community participation, movement discovery and peer feedback, Schandelmeier & Clapp are now developing their sixth evening-length performance work, Affectations which is commissioned by the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of the 2010 Local Dance Commissioning Project.

In addition to dance theater productions, DBT has been engaged in arts-integration residencies, professional development for educators, and arts education for youth. Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp are both facilitators for the Resources for Social Change Program (RSC) of Alternate ROOTS where they develop and implement learning exchanges and community partnerships in collaboration with other RSC facilitators and partners throughout the Southeast United States. Schandelmeier is a Master Teaching Artist and Trainer for the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, and teaches at schools and universities throughout the region. Clapp teaches theater, creative movement and leadership to youth throughout the DC area and is a Grants Manager for Dance Place. Schandelmeier & Clapp both serve on the Board of Directors for Alternate ROOTS and are adjudicators for Dance Place’s annual New Releases Choreographers Showcase. Each has received multiple awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Prince George’s Arts Council for their individual artistry.

The company incorporated in February 2008 as Dancenow Productions, receiving tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization as of February 2009. In December 2009, the company changed its legal name to Dance Box Theater, Inc. to more accurately reflect their mission and program activities.

Schandelmeier and Clapp are in residence at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, Maryland where they rehearse and teach classes. They live in the Mount Rainier Artists Lofts with 14-year-old Holly Rae.

Laura Schandelmeier
Co-Artistic Director

Laura Schandelmeier is a Dance Artist who works as a choreographer, performer, and Teaching Artist. She was the Artistic Director of Schandelmeier & Company in New York City from 1988-1994 and a solo performer in the DC area from 1995-2004 when she began collaborating with Stephen Clapp. Her work has been commissioned and produced by Dance Theater Workshop and Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church in NYC. In DC, her work has been produced by The Kennedy Center, Dance Place, The IN Series, and by Washington Performing Arts Society in Martha @ Dance Place, curated by Richard Move. Regionally, festivals such as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Dancenow/NYC and, Yes, Virginia Dance have presented her work. She has received several awards for her choreography including grants from the Harkness Foundations for Dance, support for international projects from the Suitcase Fund, and Individual Artist Awards from Maryland State Arts Council and Prince George's Arts Council. She was one of ten American choreographers selected to participate in American Dance Festival's 1989 Franco-American Bilateral Exchange Program and was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center in 2000 for the opening event of the Dancing in the Millennium conference. The Kennedy Center has presented two full evenings of her solo performance work.

In 1994, Schandelmeier founded The Field/DC (a satellite project of The Field in NYC that provides performance and workshop opportunities to artists.) She has participated in and/or coordinated Field programs since The Field's inception in NYC in 1986. Since then, The Field/DC has offered over 30 Fieldwork sessions, impacting hundreds of local artists and patrons.

Since moving to Washington, DC, Schandelmeier has conducted site visits for The National Endowment for the Arts, been a panelist for the Arlington County Cultural Affairs Division, Maryland State Arts Council, Dance Place’s New Releases Choreographer's showcase, and served as Chair to the Nirenska Committee (a fund created in honor of choreographer, Pola Nirenska, by her late husband, Jan Karski, to honor a local or Polish dance artist with a cash award of $5,000 annually). In 2001 Schandelmeier was awarded an Artist-in-Residence grant from P.G. Arts Council and continues to conduct residencies in local schools through Joe's Movement Emporium's Arts in Education program. She is a Master Teaching Artist and Trainer for the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts and teaches dance to children, senior adults, and professionals at studios and schools throughout the region.

While in New York, Schandelmeier was Associate Producer at Dance Theater Workshop. During her tenure she coordinated and served on several Fresh Tracks panels, co-coordinated the New York Dance and Performance Awards (a.k.a. The Bessies), worked with the Executive Director, David White and members of the Board of Directors to initiate the Family Matters series for young audiences, audited performances and reviewed proposals, as well as performing other administrative duties. She was co-curator for Rapp Arts Centers' May Dance Festival, in conjunction with the Bang on a Can Festival, in 1988 and 1989.

Schandelmeier began her dance training with Wigman-based instructor Erica Thimey at the age of four and studied ballet at the Washington School of Ballet. She attended high school at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC and graduated from North Carolina School of the Arts. She received a B.F.A. in dance and choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University, and studied choreography with Bessie Schönberg in New York City.

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Stephen Clapp
Co-Artistic Director

Stephen Clapp is a dance artist, choreographer, theater artist, composer, and writer and has performed nationally and internationally as a collaborating artist with Laura Schandelmeier and with CatScratch Theatre, ClancyWorks Dance Company, and The Other Theatre. Clapp has been nominated for four Metro DC Dance Awards: Outstanding New Work (Haunted, 2009) Excellence in Sound Design (2007 and 2006); Emerging Choreographer (2005); and Outstanding Individual Performance (2003). He has received Individual Artist awards from the Maryland State Arts Council for Dance Choreography (2009) and Solo Dance Performance (2006). Clapp has had works presented by Dance Place (DC), the Goose Route Dance Festival (WV), The Other Theatre (MA) and the DC Improvisation Festival.

Clapp has toured throughout the East Coast and has facilitated arts-based anti-racism workshops with partners from Alternate ROOTS (Atlanta, GA). With CatScratch Theatre, Clapp collaborated on projects including The Greenline Project (2006), a series of community workshops, offered free to residents of the Columbia Heights (DC) neighborhood in partnership with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Metro (2004) created in collaboration with Co-Directors Jeramy Zimmerman and Jessica Hirst; Redline: Revisited (2004) a re-staging of Redline (2000) performed on the DC Metro train's Red line; The Cazals Project (2003) created and performed in a medieval Chateau in Southern France; and Project Y (2004) at Dance Place. In addition, Clapp composed the music for the re-staging of Project Y at the Goose Route Dance Festival in WV.

Clapp earned a BFA in Performing Arts from Emerson College. In 1996, he became a founding member of the Boston based performance ensemble, The Other Theatre. With The Other Theatre, Clapp created and collaborated on two original evening-length performance works: An Atlas of Change (1998) and Timepiece (1997); he performed in The Other Theatre's production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1998) and co-created a collaborative work entitled Common Ground (1996). In New York City, Clapp performed in Richard Schechner's production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1999) and became a company member and performer with the Maranoa and T'boli (Philippines) dance performance group, Kinding Sindaw.

Since moving to the DC area, Clapp has been a faculty member and education/community programs coordinator for the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange School and has been on faculty of the Studio of Ballet Arts (Olney, MD), Dance Place (Washington, DC), Joe's Movement Emporium (Mount Rainier, MD) and has been a performer and teaching artist with the ClancyWorks Dance Company. He is a certified Arts Integration Specialist (MSAC, AEMS, YAM, TAI) and teaches dance, theater, creative movement and leadership to youth throughout the DC area. Clapp is a facilitator with the Alternate ROOTS Resources for Social Change program and is a Grants Manager with Dance Place.

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