Marini-Rohdes Amanda

Extract from an interview by Elissa Di Costanzo
Standard Freeholder October 27th, 2010

Amanda Marini-Rohde, born in Cornwall and raised in Newington, is a local community producer for an art show called Arts Current, which promotes artists from the area. Marini-Rohde is also a private dance teacher who instructs within the Upper Canada District School Board. Marini-Rohde has always been interested in dance. It started in Grade seven with a local theatre company, where she was first exposed to contemporary dance. She said: “I fell in love with it.”

Attending the dance program at Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School for five years made this love grow all the way to a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a Bachelor of Education in Integrated Arts at York University.

Marini-Rohde is taking her love for dance to another level; she is spearheading a contemporary Cornwall-based, not-for-profit dance group called Atten-Dance. The object of the group is to do installation work around the city and the St. Lawrence Valley. Marini-Rohde, has a strong interest in creating movement in unconventional space, and will be using this inspiration as the force behind the group's first project.

In the interviewed Marini-Rohde said: “It was a hard, amazing, incredible experience. I knew I wanted to be dancing. That's where I flourished. Dance is an incredible way to communicate, I think Cornwall has a strong artistic base, but it's underexposed because there is no platform or place for people to meet and share ideas. It's great to take non-dancers and dancers to do pedestrian movement and just choreograph in obscure places: in an alley way, bus stop, library stairs... people don't necessarily expect it. Dancing is a physical way to get people together in an unexpected place. This is something Cornwall could definitely use it, for sure. The year round program will hopefully make the Cornwall arts community more cohesive. Community theatre is so important to me and other people. It creates a sense of belonging. It makes you proud of where you're from and what people could do when they come together. I hope to encourage more than just physical activity; people could always use more of these situations. People like to dream and I don't think they get enough opportunities to dream. Daydreaming is important when the world is going so fast. We’re just living in a faster time! Atten-Dance is important for Cornwall because there is room for a new activity such as this one. There are a lot of exceptional people who want to move and there are definitely people who want to dance. I just want to be able to make some situations happen that haven’t happened before. You just have to create those opportunities. There are enough people in Cornwall who want to be a part of the artistic process. It could really create open minds. I think that’s really important and, it be beneficial for local tourism. We have the potential to be amazing if we had a small theatre or working studio. This would be great for the city because it pulls in people from the outskirts and creates opportunities that don't necessarily happen for artists. But if you create a place for something to happen, it will happen.”