Marking It: A NACHMO Exhibition
"Marking It" pairs the energy of the Kentucky NACHMO Festival (National Choreography Month) presented by Ambo Dance Theatre with a photography exhibition curated by Chenoa Works.
In dance, "marking" means running through choreography just enough to feel its rhythm and intention. The photographs in the exhibition will echo the same practice, hinting at movement through blur, distortion, and light, tracing gestures that are always slipping away.
Born from Chenoa's love of movement-based photography, this exhibition features the work of four Louisville/Kentucky artists: Chenoa Buster, Layla Gritton, Jeanne Freibert, and Susanne Firestone.
The show captures the intersection of movement and stillness, translating choreography into striking visual form. Please join us for an evening where still images and live performance share the stage!
Unlike NACHMO in years past where we took the whole month of January to generate movement based off the NACHMO prompts this year we are doing things a little different. This year we will just be using a few of the prompts and taking just the month of January (or, for the truly daring and ridiculous, just 24 hours) to create a comedic piece! This is meant to be a short, lighthearted commitment and an opportunity to create a fun and silly dance!!!
How to Participate!
Choreography Criteria
For those interested in choreographing a piece for this show there are a few criteria that you will ideally follow:
The piece needs to (try to) be humorous in some way as this is a comedy dance festival!
New to choreographing? Or are you simply wanting ideas for your comedic work? Ambo will be hosting 3 optional workshops at our studio in January to help with the creation of your pieces. The dates for those are:
Saturday, January 3, 2026 from 12pm-2pm
Saturday, January 10, 2026 from 12pm-2pm
Saturday, January 17, 2026 from 12pm-2pm
Your piece can be choreographed over the course of the month of January (aka National Choreography Month), or, if you're feeling wild, in the 24 hours leading up to the event itself!
No more than 6 dancers (or more if movement can be done safely in tight parameters)
1-4 minutes in length
You ideally will use a few NACHMO prompts to help spur the creation of your comedic piece! Previous NACHMO prompts can be found here.
How to Participate as a Choreographer
For those interested in choreographing a piece for this comedy dance festival you will need to get a group of dancers together (solo works are also welcome), come up with an idea, and fill out the Participation Commitment Form.
There are a limited number of spots available, and it will be first come first serve so get your form turned in asap!
Youth ages 12 and up are welcome to participate. However, adult supervision is required for any youth groups as it will not be provided by Ambo Dance Theatre. Adult supervision is required due to their being a bar at this venue.
The deadline for submitting the Participation Commitment Form is Friday, January 2nd, 2026!
How to Participate as a Dancer
For those interested in dancing in a piece for this comedy dance festival, the best way to guarantee the chance to dance is to drag your friends (who will only kick and scream a little bit) into the process to dance with you!
If your friends are being sour grapes, you may come to one of the three workshops that Ambo is hosting to see if any of the choreographers need any dancers, but we will not be filling spots in choreographers' pieces as we have in previous years. Coming to the workshops is not a guarantee of being able to participate as a dancer, but it is a great place to connect with fellow participants and build skills that will help you to get the most out of your experience and try something new!
Why on EARTH are you doing this ridiculous festival?!
NACHMO stands for National Choreography Month, which is January! After years of doing a more formal NACHMO festival, we realized that the formality was actually hindering many people from participating, so we decided to break things up into this short turnaround comedy dance festival to make things more accessible, while also providing a more formalized environment through the Kentucky Dance Festival!
The comedy dance festival portion of this event is a social and networking event, an opportunity to get out of your own choreographic box, to have fun, and socialize with other members of the art and dance community. The goal is to let go of our inhibitions in Dance, and simply come together through the joy of creativity with movement!
You do NOT need to have any prior choreographic experience, nor do you need to be a trained dancer. This event is entirely about bringing our community together in DANCE! All backgrounds and experience levels are welcome and encouraged to participate simply for the joy of dancing and creating!
At the end of the day, we hope to see as many people moving, dancing, creating, and coming together as possible because Dance belongs to everyone, it doesn't have to be stiff and serious to hold value for our community.
