The Divided Line
This piece is a collaboration with violinist and composer Lauren Conroy, and film designer Jeff Bryant. This was part of the Center for Innovation in the Arts at Juilliard, led by Ed Billous. The work premiered at the Willson Theater as part of the Future Stages program.
Lucid
Lucid was created at the University of South Carolina during a guest residency at the school. The piece utilizes shadow and light, based off themes from Plato’s Allegory of "the Cave.
Photo: Screen Capture from video by Adam Bernstein
Community dance forum
CDF is a project designed to connect Barnard College dancers to their community. This was achieved through the help of Barnard alum Heather Godfrey, and her organization Dance Project of Washington Heights. Through a series of workshops rooted in improvisation, storytelling, and restorative discipline, we created bonds based on understanding and respect.
REcipes for Quarantine
Recipes for Quarantine is part online dance, part community engagement project. Barnard College dancers partnered with the Harlem Community Fridge to source recipes for food, how-to’s for solitude and remembrance, and ideas for getting through the pandemic. The resulting online performance was attended by virtual audiences, and the collected recipes were shared online @art_2_eat, and in the form of cookbooks that were shared at the Fridge.
The New Orleans Project
The New Orleans Project was conceived as a multi-pronged community arts engagement project by Maxwell DePaula and Caroline Fermin, then students at The Juilliard School. A team of dancers, musicians, and actors fundraised and prepared a transdisciplinary show that they brought to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2007. The team not only performed and invited local artists to join in, but also ran youth arts classes through the Dryades YMCA, and volunteered with Hands On New Orleans clearing rubble and helping to rebuild homes. The team won recognition from Juilliard President Joseph Polisi as well as an endowment to continue the project for the next decade.
My Heart Burst Through my chest like a sparrow
What does freedom feel like? My Heart Burst was developed using the personal stories and memories from dancers at Stockton University. The piece studied the sensations and feelings the dancers experience while negotiating the rigid boundaries of classical dance training.
Photo: Jim Coleman
Heart, Sad face, thumbs up
This solo performance while I was an adjunct lecturer at Mount Holyoke, utilized audience members’ phones as a way of including them in the decision-making process of the performance. As the audience voted for what should come next, the performer attempted to respond in real time. The piece comments on society’s love affair with instantaneous feedback, social surveillance, and “likes".”
Banner Image by Rachel Lynn Photography