Smoking Meat

Ashley Deran (she/her) is a Chicago-based dancemaker, teaching artist, and photographer who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance from Western Michigan University. In 2013, she founded Project Bound Dance and her work with co-director Emily Loar was selected as one of the "Top 10 Performances of 2019" by SeeChicagoDance. Most recently Ashley’s choreography has been presented by COMMON conservatory, Chicago’s Dance in the Parks, Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival and Death’s Door Dance Festival in Door County. She is also a producer and collaborator with #The1HourProject - a collaborative endeavor that gives Chicago artists 60 minutes to create a 60 second dance film in unique spaces and places. When not in the studio, Ashley is currently on staff at Rise Dance Center. Ashley can also often be found behind a camera photographing the Chicago dance community and beyond.  

Emily Loar (she/they) is a Chicago-based dance artist, writer, and current Co-Artistic Director of Project Bound Dance. Loar designs intricate, unflinching, and deeply personal group and solo performance work for live presentation and video collaboration. In the last decade her choreography has been commissioned and presented across the greater midwest region, and her performance collaborations include Peter Carpenter, Lydia Feuerhelm, Kasey Foster, Erin Kilmurray, Khecari, Alix Schillaci, Kinnari Vora/Ishti Collective, and Wender Collective. Loar holds a BFA from Columbia College Chicago, and is among the first cohort of teachers certified as an Essential Level Teacher of Spiral Body Techniques®, the dance and movement framework developed by choreographer Molly Shanahan. Beyond teaching, dancing and performing, Loar is an organizer and producer of #The1HourProject, a collaborative endeavor that invites dance and video artists to create a 60-second dance film in unique Chicago spaces, and Short Stack: Chicago’s Tiny Dance Film Festival.