Ethnography, the third space, public radio, fiddle camps, dance pedagogy, art that is covertly affected by ethnicity, dynamic embodiment, social theory in general.
Music
fiddle tunes, Doveman, Owen, Owen Pallett, Ribbons of Song, Sufjan, Genticorum, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Gillian Welch, Sigur Rós, Teddy Thompson, Ian Carr & Karen Tweed, Eliza Carthy, Solas, Mark Kozelek, Iron & Wine, Samamidon, Martin Hayes, Chris Wood & the English Acoustic Collective, Bruce Molsky, Bob Carlin, Tim Eriksen, Nic Jones, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Chris Thile, Death Cab for Cutie, Kate Rusby, Ida, Patty Larkin, The National, Bon Iver, Idaho, Theodore, Chris Thile, Death Cab for Cutie, Kate Rusby, Hellogoodbye, Patty Larkin, Ida, Stars, songs about airplanes, Tim O'Brien.
Movies
Imaginary Heroes, A Love Song for Bobby Long, Winter Passing, Crash, Babel, Milk, Transamerica, Running with Scissors, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Motorcycle Diaries, Notes on a Scandel, The Hours, Cold Mountain, Closer, any film considering the life of Bob Dylan, Quid Pro Quo.
Television
Books
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Fear of Small Numbers, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Heroes
Sandy Silva, Eileen Carson Schatz, Rodney Sutton, Sheila Graziano, Benoit Bourque, Frank Hall, Sam Williams, Bruce Bauman.
A native of the state of Michigan, Nic Gareiss' dancing incorporates footwork vocabulary from many step dance styles to rhythmically accompany traditional music. Nic has studied a broad variety of percussive movement forms, from Irish sean-nós dance, to American flat-footing, to Quebecois gigue. From this wide berth of traditional dance experience, Nic has gleaned figurations, motives and shoe sounds from percussive dance traditions worldwide. When performing with a live musician, Nic engages and reawakens a musical dialogue between feet and instrument. By utilizing imitation, ornaments and contrasting rhythmic patterns, Gareiss really is creating music on the floor.
Nic has performed in Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, England, Canada and the United States. He had danced at numerous folk festivals and concert venues including Virginia's Wolf Trap Farm Park, New York's Old Songs Festival, the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, the Shetland Folk Festival, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival and most recently at the Festival Interceltique in Lorient, France. He has performed as a featured soloist with Solas, Dervish, Gráda, Beoga, Téada, Liz Carroll, Tim O'Brien, Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, The Old Blind Dogs, Le Vent Du Nord, Martin Hayes, Rhythm in Shoes and the Chieftains and has also taught at Alasdair Fraser's Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle Camp in northern California. His dancing has been seen on CMT in Uncle Earl's music video, "Streak O' Lean, Steak O' Fat," and also on Ireland's RTÉ 2 in "Unsung," commissioned by the Irish Arts Council, which premiered during the Dublin Dance Festival, 2008. Gareiss also works with the David Munnelly band from Mayo, Ireland. With Munnelly, Nic integrates Irish dance traditions with American vernacular dance, exploring the reaction of Irish immigrants to the infectious spirit of jazz they encountered in the 1920s as they settled in the United States.
In 2007, Nic spent a year living in Ireland studying at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick. During that period he studied sean-nós and Cape Breton step dance with Mats Melin as well as Irish dancing and choreography with Orflaif Ni Bhriain, T.C.R.G, A.D.C.R.G. He also had the opportunity to take master classes and workshops from Irish dancer Colin Dunne, tap dancer Tarik Winston and sean-nós dancer Joe Néachtain. Nic is currently finishing his undergraduate work in music and anthropology at Central Michigan University.
"Nic Gareiss, was the show-stopper. Merging Irish step dancing with other forms of dance, this Michigan native may be the most inventive and expressive step dancer on the scene. The nimble Gareiss called forth visions of Fred Astaire."
"The loudest applause came for band member Nic Gareiss. The program credited his instrument as 'feet' because he danced and stomped and tapped around the stage for about a third of the show."
- Scotty Why, Review of Kennedy Center Millenium Stage Concert, 2006
"Nic Gareiss is one of the few artists in the world of traditional dance whose practice transcends the language we shackle our creative expression with. I have seen his enthusiasm, supreme technical ability and creative flair engaging movement and sound traditions from around the globe with respect and an incredible thirst for knowledge. Such knowledge is used to inform his own unique artistic practice which has the freshness, purity and vision of tradition born anew. The earthquake caused by Nic's feet will still shake the worlds of dance long after he has hung up his dancing shoes. We can only take joy in the fact that he has just put them on."
- Niall Keegan, Director, MA Irish Music Performance, University of Limerick, Ireland, 2008
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Who I'd like to meet: Anybody that at the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures. Fellow ethnochoreologists. Thomas Bartlett, Ben Scott-Brandt, Owen Pallett, John Sikorski, Ian Carr, Tim Eriksen, Judith Butler.
I narrowly missed the show at the Ark this Sunday- had to leave town right before. Blast! I'd love to make that house show you're organizing next week... not terribly likely, but we'll see!
Hey! How are you?! I loveeeee school! Its been amazing.. and yes I go to school with Scott! What have you been up to? Any plans on coming back to the UK soon?
i haven't played with evie lately but wait till you hear her record!!! i've heard one track that's on fire. say hi for me! i'm doing the many bands thing right now but ramping up for focusing on my own project which is coming along.
It's good! I got a pedicure yesterday and my foot guru told me my superglue fix was the right thing to do. and now the toes are cute again. How are your toes? and Wheatland??????
Thanks again for another fabulous performance -- and for your kindness -- at Riverfolk this weekend! You express the music so well throughout your body, and you dance with such an appearance of joy and lightness that it's impossible to watch you and not smile. I had a terrific time all day, and I hope I'll be able to see you perform again sometime in the future. Save travels, and best wishes!
