The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art is a dynamic leader in bringing people together through the use of art to create educational and enriching experiences.
Each year, the museum appoints a student to be Choreographer in Residence, a learning opportunity and choreographic study accessible to School of Theatre + Dance students.
Danielle Frost was chosen to fulfill the position at the Harn for the Fall 2018 semester and has continued her involvement in the museum this spring as she assists in coordinating the Harn Museum of Dance event being held March 23.
“Interning at the Harn has really inspired my choreographic choices and pushed me to think more deeply about how people view artistic work.” Frost said.
Frost is a fourth-year student graduating in Spring 2020 and pursuing a BFA in dance, BA in digital arts and sciences, and minor in theatre. In addition to her already demanding schedule of being a dual degree arts student, Frost puts in about four hours a week for her internship with the Harn Museum.
Her time could be spent on anything from open rehearsals to browsing the museum for visual artwork to inspire her choreographic process.
Frost’s interests was sparked as a young undergraduate student involved in performing at Harn Museum dance events.
As Frost continued to chase after the choreographer in residence title, she was required to complete a digital application and send a resume to Gallery Interpretation and Public Programs Manager Elizabeth King for approval. King then contacted Professor of Dance and Director of the UF Center for World Arts Joan D. Frosch.
“I think of her as innovator and maker of great promise,” Frosch said about Frost. “She was selected to be the Center for World Arts/Harn choreographer-in-residence for what I call her disciplined and disarming inventiveness.”
Throughout her time interning at the Harn Museum, Frost had the pleasure of working on numerous choreographic projects inspired by the work she was seeing in the exhibitions. One of Frost’s accomplishments was a piece titled Sculpted, which was inspired by Alexander Archipenko and Auguste Rodin’s impressionsionistic sculptures of the female body. Frost’s work explored everything ranging from the intricacies to societal beliefs and falsehoods of the female body.
“As a choreographer, Dani tools the detail of the human body as it lives in the social body,” Frosch said. “She works small and reflects big in—what I consider to be—resonant and honest choreographic work.”
In working closely with Frosch and King, Frost said she has been presented with great opportunities to build her own repertory while also developing skills of organization and planning art-influenced events that pull different art forms and communities together.
“Working at the Harn has ignited my interests in combining art forms,” Frost said, “and has encouraged me to continue my professional artistic career within the creative setting of an art museum.”
