ARENA DANCES is a modern dance company performing the work of Mathew Janczewski. The work is abstract in form, giving shape to emotions, exploring the depths and the limits of what drives us as humans to connect, to break away, to survive. Just as our emotions can veer wildly, ARENA incorporates a highly kinetic style of movement, a sweeping physicality that takes in a broad range of feelings and the posturings we may make to protect ourselves in the world. The work springs first from Mathew’s own experiences; then, through the movement and structure, ARENA seeks to find a form to give those experiences both truth and commonality.

ARENA works with a full-time company of four of the area’s brightest young talents Please help FLY us to the 15th annual OPEN LOOK Internatinal Dance Festival in St. Peterburg, Russia. ARENA first performed at this amazing festival in 2005 and has been invited back ever since. This year, in celebration of their 15th anniversary ARENA would be honored to particpate in this great exchange of culture. Modern dance is rather new in Russia, ARENA has the opportunity to share its creativity with others from around the world. The company will be teaching daily and performing as part of this festival. The money raised through the "Give to the Max" day will be put toward flying us there! Please help us achieve the goal to raise $10,000.

In addition to its concerts, ARENA DANCES hosts INstinct intensive workshops for dancers and conducts innovative dance residencies in Twin Cities area schools.

Mathew Janczewski's ARTIST STATEMENT

My responsibility as an artist is to ask questions and incite awakening, both in myself and my collaborators, through

the making of work, and in my audience, through their experience of performance. Innovation and experimentation have been central concerns in my work.

I seek to balance this need for personal discovery and growth with a responsibility I have to my audience. A central challenge in contemporary dance is the degree to which it has become rarefied and dislocated from the culture in which it exists. In fighting against this, I am deeply concerned with making my work relevant to the public that I am addressing.