Intimate Conversations with Dani Tirrell & guest Vania C. Bynum
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Vania Clemons Bynum is a former Computer Engineer who utilizes the ingenuity of making software to create dance. A graduate of Cornish College of the Arts, Vania has taught and choreographed throughout the Greater Seattle area for almost 20 years. She performed in the Paramount & Moore Theaters, Intiman Theatre, Benaroya Hall, the Meydenbauer, and the intimate space of local churches. Utilizing dance as her form of worship, Vania directed the Adult Liturgical Dance Ministry at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship for 11 years. She also performed in The Black Nativity, Hip-Hop Back to Its Roots!, Dance This!, 7 Women 7 Stools, the American Jazz Nutcracker and more.
Vania’s works have been sponsored by the city of Seattle, 4Culture, Central District Forum, Bossak Heilbron, Microsoft, and the Allied Arts Foundation. Artist Trust and Jack Straw are additional sponsors of her new work. Vania produced a Hurricane Katrina Benefit raising $13,000 for victims in 2005, “Excerpts from the Soul of a Woman” in 2006/2008, and CATS in 2009 for Broadway Bound Children’s Theatre. In addition, Vania choreographed works for Northwest Tap Connection, Bellevue Lyric Opera/Bellevue Youth Theater, Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center, Jerboa Dance, and Hal Jackson Talented Teens.
Vania was a featured dancer in Langston Hughes inaugural African American Master Choreographer series, choreographed by the late Kabby Mitchell. She also worked with distinguished artists such as Donald Byrd, Sonia Dawkins, Wade Madsen, Michele Miller & Deborah Wolf.
In 2018, Vania performed a work in progress, “Dancing Our Truth” for Showing Out: Contemporary Black Choreographers and she danced in “A Special Evening with Stephanie Mills and Friends 2019 concert”. In 2020, she will launch her dance workshop series, “A Cultural Exploration in Dance”, and produce the third installment of Excerpts from the Soul of a Woman.
