Diego Piñón. Photo credit left: Rafael Perez Evans; right: courtesy of Diego Piñón.
Diego Piñón, Upcoming MFAIA-WA Guest Artist and Centrum Artist-in-Resident
We are pleased and privileged to welcome internationally renowned movement/dance artist Diego Piñón as our upcoming guest artist for the fall 2016 MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts residency at Fort Worden, Port Townsend (September 16-24, 2016). In collaboration with Centrum, we will be hosting Diego for a pre-residency stay (September 6-15). Centrum will sponsor Diego for an Artist Residency, which will give him the opportunity to explore the Fort Worden State Park and the surrounding bunkers in preparation for his workshops with Goddard students, Centrum participants and local community members. Save the dates and look for more information on events open to the public where you can engage with this dynamic and exciting artist.
Diego Piñón’s Body Ritual Movement is the distillation of his extensive research (since 1975) in body-based energy methodologies. BRM is primarily derived from Diego’s Mexican heritage with traditional energetic practices and Japanese Butoh under the guidance of Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Min Tanaka, Natsu Nakajima, among others. Diego’s extensive artistic research includes modern dance technique, contemporary movement and theater practices, and therapeutic body modalities. He performs and teaches throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Mexico using Body Ritual Movement as a means to transform personal and collective divisions through the dancing body; in order to cultivate a deeper connection to our shared humanity.
Link for Diego Piñón: Butoh Ritual Mexicano
Poster for Yvonne Rainer’s lecture at Rutgers
Alumni Work with Yvonne Rainer
Alumni Pat Catterson (MFAIA-VT ’09) and Mark O’Maley (MFAIA-VT ’13) collaborated with Judson Dance Theater founding member Yvonne Rainer this past April on a remounting of her 1966 piece, Trio A at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Ms. Catterson served as Ms. Rainer’s ‘Transmitter’ and Mr. O’Maley was the Lighting & Scenic Designer. Trio A was part of Rutgers’ 250th anniversary celebrations, which also included Ms. Rainer’s lecture “”Doing Nothing/Nothin’ Doin’: Revisiting a Minimalist Approach to Performance”.
Heather Bryce. Photos by Worthington Images (left) and Art Heffron Photography (right)
New teaching position
Congratulations to alumna Heather Bryce (MFAIA-VT ’14) who has accepted a teaching artist position with Lincoln Center Education. This will be in addition to her work with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Karin Bolender and her American Spotted Ass collaborator Aliass. Photo courtesy of Karin Bolender.
RAW Assmilk Soap, forthcoming from Broken Dimanche Press Parapoetics Series
In August, Broken Dimanche Press/Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology will publish alumna Karin Bolender’s (MFAIA-VT ’07) “RAW Assmilk Soap (parapoetics for a posthuman barnyard)” along with an exhibition of Assmilk Soap in Berlin.
Links for Karin’s Rural Alchemy Workshop and the Alumna portrait MFAIA podcast of Karin Bolender.
Summer Creation and Production
Current student Adara Meyers was invited to be an Artist in Resident at the inaugural Sedona Summer Colony (founded by The Verde Valley School and Sedona Arts Center) in Sedona, AZ. She spent a week at the Colony in June, writing and conversing with artists and cultural managers from across the country and globe. In September, Ms. Meyers’ theatre company, Sleeping Weazel, will present the world premiere of Charlotte Meehan’s play, “Cleanliness, Godliness and Madness: A User’s Guide”. Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts will host the play, which will be directed by Robbie McCauley: September 15–17 and 22–24, 2016.
Neel Murgai Plays with Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ravi Shankar Tribute. Photo courtesy of Neel Murgai
Ragas Live Festival and Film Music Composition
Ragas Live Festival happened with 24 hours of Indian classical music from noon July 23rd to noon July 24th at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn and broadcast live on WKCR 89.9 FM NYC and WKCR.org. Archived at NYCRadioLive. Sitar player and alumnus Neel Murgai (MFAIA-VT ’10) kicked off the festival with Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ravi Shankar Tribute, followed by his classical set with Sameer Gupta and interviewed artists on the radio all night long. The space was decorated with artwork made from old tabla heads by Seema Pandya, who is Neel’s wife.
Neel also composed and performed the music for A Decent Arrangement directed by Sarovar Banka, which is now available on the Internet. This film is about an Indian American slacker who decides to go to India to get an arranged marriage. Superstar actress Shabana Azmi stars as the cousin trying to set him up. See it here on VIMEO and on Netflix, ITunes and other digital media platforms.
Award for Outstanding Journal Reviewer
MFAIA-WA Faculty Advisor Petra Kuppers’ work as a peer reviewer was recently acknowledged with a note from Liverpool University Press: “I am pleased to inform you that the editors of Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies have selected you for Liverpool University Press’ 2015 Awards for Outstanding Journal Reviewers. These awards celebrate the important contribution of all of our reviewers in ensuring a consistently high quality of published work and recognize the fact that you have provided an exceptional service to your discipline by contributing timely, rigorous, and thoughtful peer reviews.”
Photo courtesy of Gloria Lamson
Life Stream: The Shunpike Storefronts Program
Former MFAIA-WA Community Life Staff member Gloria Lamson recently completed an installation for Shunpike Storefronts Program. This second incarnation of “Life Stream” can be seen in downtown Seattle in one of the Amazon building street windows at Republican St. between Terry Ave. N and Boren Ave. N. until November 6, 2016. There will be a tour of this and other Storefront Projects on September 17th. Contact Shunpike for details.
August 5-7, 2016 Lamson will be engaging the public at Anacortes Arts Festival as part of the outdoor Working Artists Studio with a participatory, collaborative project entitled “Pipe Dream”. This installation combines the materials of ‘pipe cleaners’ with the flavor of a dream, where an as yet unknown form will emerge with the time and creativity of the many participants. Individual pipe creations will be combined to create a larger bent-line color weaving.
In March, Welcome to the Plastisphere, the collaborative sculpture with artists Karen Hackenberg, Margie McDonald and Lamson was reconfigured for a juried exhibit entitled Radical Change. This show at Northwind Arts Center was in conjunction with the Port Townsend Public Library Community Read for 2016 – This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein.
In the future Welcome to the Plastisphere will be expanded and reconfigured again to be installed at the State of Washington Dept. of Ecology in Olympia, WA.
Details and images for these projects and more can be seen at Gloria Lamson on Blogspot and Gloria’s website.
Image: Sketch, building, and launch of newly planted Koh (island), which will flourish by next year. Photos: Deanna Pindell.
Koh Seametry: Ecoart Restoration in Cambodia
A Cambodian Montessori School (founded by Mouy You) hosted alumna Deanna Pindell’s (MFAIA-WA ’11) Ecoart residency and restoration project in January 2016. Pindell designed a floating water treatment island in the form of a traditional Khmer ornamentation, the Chan Flower. Children and teachers in the rural school (Seametry Children’s Village) were all involved in building the demonstration island and learning about the ways that native plants cleanse waterways. The school’s founder, a Khmer friend of Pindell’s husband Richard, invited Deanna to teach the children how to repurpose the water bottles that inundate the Cambodian landscape. There is no water infrastructure in rural areas, and there’s no recycling or trash pickup either, so the island flotation came from native bamboo, used fishing nets, and a thousand water bottles. One day after the island was launched, fish were already finding refuge in its shade. A short documentary of the project is in the works.
Left image: JazzAntiqua Dance Ensemble. Photo: Joe Lambie. Right image: “Rhythmically Speaking Dance 2016”, Minneapolis, MN August 18-20. Photo: Bill Cameron
Pat Taylor’s JazzAntiqua Dance Ensemble Hits the Road in August
Current MFAIA-WA student and choreographer Pat Taylor’s Los Angeles based JazzAntiqua Dance Ensemble is heading to Minneapolis, MN and Oakland, CA for premiere performances of Taylor’s latest work “In a Heartbeat”. August 18-20, the company performs at “Rhythmically Speaking Dance 2016” an evening of jazz and rhythm driven dance featuring the work of seven choreographers presented at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis. August 26 and 27, JazzAntiqua heads to northern California for performances at Laney College in Oakland for the summer edition of the “Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now”: August 18-20 and 26-27, 2016
Instar Lodge opening in Germantown, NY
Current MFAIA-VT student Dawn Breeze will be opening a new creative space soon in Germantown, NY in what was known as the Odd Fellows building. It will be home to visiting artist residents, creative workshops and classes, writing groups, exhibits, screenings, readings, recitals, performances, lectures, dinners and more. Its opening is currently slated for August 20, 2016. The space will be named Instar Lodge, whose mission is to share a beautiful space rooted in a history of compassion that inspires creativity, courage and community through the arts.The building was originally built as an Odd Fellows Lodge in the 1800’s and was named the Halcyon Lodge. The Odd Fellows have a remarkable history, being the first fraternal organization to welcome women—who they called, The Rebekahs. The Odd Fellows were originally artists and makers excluded from prestigious guilds, who banded together to share their respective trades with the community, and to offer generosity to those in need. Their motto was Truth, Love and Friendship.
Submit your ideas, thoughts and inquiries to Dawn as she prepares the upcoming schedule. Please visit her at Patreon.
Movies By Movers July, 2016
Congratulations to alumna Cara Hagan (MFAIA-WA ‘12) the new Artistic Director and Curator of the American Dance Festival’s Movies By Movers for successfully organizing the festival, held from July 6-9, 2016, in Durham, NC. Additionally, Cara’s work was screened this summer at the following film festivals: Triskelion Arts/Dance Films Association Dance Film Festival, Cascadia Dance and Cinema Festival, Reel to Reel Film Festival, Long Leaf Film Festival, Dance Barn Screendance Festival.
Ananda Bena-Weber Presents a TED Talk
Alumna Ananda Bena-Weber (MFAIA-VT ’15) is a New York based interdisciplinary performing artist and teacher. She uses the mediums of theatre, dance, and clown to create theatrical events rich in emotion and relevant social commentary. She recently presented a TED talk where New York City sets the scene for interview-based content, which brings to the fore the stories and feelings of real Americans. Ananda is currently working toward a PhD with an emphasis on the Linklater Voice Technique. She is an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College, and a teaching artist for the Dance Theater of Harlem.
Community is Sustainable. Photos courtesy of Misty Sol.
Community is Sustainable
This season, alumna Misty Sol (MFAIA-VT ’11) is taking a multi-platform approach to art and environmental justice in Chester, PA a small city near Philly that Misty affectionately refers to as “statistically the Blackest in Pennsylvania”. This summer, Misty is a resident artist with the Ruth Bennet Farm where she is farming with her children and other children from the community while creating a coloring book inspired by the work youth organizations are doing in Chester, which contribute to environmental justice. The Leeway Foundation is sponsoring this work. Misty is also creating art and food wellness experiences for area families with Widner University’s “Chester Boundaries and Bridges Program”. As a part of research funded in part by an Alumni Arts Award from Goddard College, Misty is using animation to teach lessons about environmental justice and wellness to local children through the organization Chester Arts Alive. In June, the local non-profit My Majestic Inc honored Misty for her commitment to sustainability and art in Chester.
Left: Performance by Theatre of the Oppressed Team Maré. Right: Multiplicadores Training CTO 2016. Photos courtesy of Tamara Lynne
Living Stages Theatre in Rio
Current MFAIA-WA student Tamara Lynne, Creative Director of Living Stages Theatre, recently travelled to Rio de Janeiro for a course at International Center for Theatre of the Oppressed, “A Profundação da Curinga”. The course focused on developing a deeper understanding of the archetypal role of the Theatre of the Oppressed “curinga” or “joker”, who facilitates or “difficultates” the interactive forum between actors and audience spect-actors in forum theatre. Based in part on the Tarot card of the Fool, the joker embodies elements of play, curiosity and questioning to provoke audiences to step onto the stage to challenge oppressive social structures and envision unknown possibilities. The course included presentations by CTO Rio’s community teams, a documentary about Augusto Boal’s exile years in Argentina, a performance about police harassment in the favela Maré, and a collectively taught community workshop exploring themes relating to gender, using sounds, images and movement.
Collages from Energies. Photos courtesy of Constance Moore.
Constance Moore at Concept 47, Oakland, CA
Alumna Constance Moore (MFAIA-WA ’15) exhibited new visual work, Energies, where images of African sculptures were ‘rescued’ from an out dated book of art criticism. This exhibition is presented at Concept 47 (July 1-August 31, 2016). Additionally, this month, Constance enters her fifth year teaching art to K1-5th Grade at Maya Lin Elementary School, also in Oakland. Each year Constance facilitates a school-wide inquiry: this year, the topic is “How do artists wrestle with difficult ideas?” The initiative will begin with student manifestos for making positive change in the world. Constance also starts her fifth year in teaching “Art and Creativity” at Holy Names University. The course is for non-art majors wishing to explore art as a tool for academic, professional and personal growth.
Left: Kansas City-based artist Peregrine Honig hosted ARCOS’ interactive installation ANNI (part of Domain) at her transgender fashion studio All is Fair. Photo: Eliot Gray Fisher. Right: Eliot accepting the Video/Projection Design Award for his work on Arcos Dance’s The Warriors: A Love Story, at the 2015-16 Austin Critics Table Awards, May, 2016. Photo by John Anderson
ARCOS experiments in transmedia performance
After a warmly received run of The Warriors: A Love Story at Central Standard Theater’s Kansas City International Theatre Festival (reviews here), alumnus Eliot Gray Fisher (MFAIA-WA ’15) and his company ARCOS continue to perform their new transmedia work Domain across multiple platforms. Audience members can catch up with the mysterious narrative at the project’s website, sign up to participate more fully via email and text message as it unfolds, or attend live events. With chapters presented earlier in the summer in Austin, Santa Fe, Kansas City, and Nebraska City, the production can next be seen in person in Billings, Montana, as part of In The Ever Now, a collaborative performance residency with graduating student Jayme Green (MFAIA-WA ’16) and incoming student Krista Leigh Pasini (MFAIA-WA ’19). Domain will culminate with performances at Texas State University in San Marcos, presented in an international symposium Engagement: Philosophy and Dance.
News from Home No. 1, a tribute to Chantal Akerman, photo by David Sokal, ©2016
News From Home, Tribute to Avant-Garde Filmmaker Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman, a Belgian Jew, was the daughter of Polish holocaust survivors: her films are influential among feminist filmmakers and in avant-garde cinema. Ms. Akerman committed suicide in October 2015 at the age of 65. Alumnus David Sokal (MFAIA-WA ’14), also Jewish and an artist, had never heard of her until the day of her death, when he watched one of her earliest films, News From Home, an autobiographical work consisting of long takes of New York City shot in 1976 with Ms. Akerman reading her letters to and from her mother, Natalia, with whom she was very close. Her last film, No Home Movie, a documentary focusing on conversations between her and her mother, was made shortly before her mother died and premiered in August 2015, just a few months before Chantal committed suicide. David found the scenes of New York City to be very nostalgic as one of his earliest oil paintings was a skyline of Manhattan where he was born. The three panels in the foreground of the installation created for this tribute are intended to look like a construction barricade, blocking off access to the street scene in the background. On the three panels are inkjet prints made of stills from the movie. The background street scene is one of these stills enlarged to 8’ x 10’ wide. In addition to expressing David’s admiration for Ms. Akerman’s artistic creativity and his sense of personal connection to her life and work, the installation, which will be shown in Seattle’s Gallery 110 from August 8 to 27, is about photography — still and motion picture — as it relates to memory, particularly in its more nostalgic forms.
First Exhibition of Watercolor Works and Audio Environment
Alumna Misha Penton (MFAIA-WA ‘13) presented a visual art exhibition Transparent Vulnerability: A Watercolor and Audio Environment, from June 17 through July 30, 2016, with the artist’s reception that was held on opening night at the Camiba art Gallery.
Misha is a painter, sound artist, contemporary classical singer, and writer. Misha’s visual works have been shown throughout the Southeast and her large-scale work “untitled 2” was included as a winner of Lawndale Art Center’s 2004 “The Big Show”. This is the first exhibition of Misha’s watercolor works. She was named one of Houston Press’ 100 Creatives of 2011, and was a 2012 finalist for Best Artistic Director by the Houston Press Theater Awards for her work as founder and artistic director of Divergence Vocal Theater. Her professional performance affiliations include Houston Grand Opera; The Foundation for Modern Music (Houston), The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Dallas Museum of Art; The University of Houston Center for Creative Work; Sam Houston State University School of Music; and The Rothko Chapel Houston.
Also part of the exhibit was: Transparent Vulnerability: A Performance was held on Saturday, July 16th, with: Misha Penton, voice and Brent Fariss, contrabass; music created by Penton / Fariss.
Drawing courtesy of Felicity Fenton.
The Dreaming Dirt: Call for Participants
Organized by alumna Felicity Fenton (MFAIA-VT ’07) and Stephanie Brachmann, The Dreaming Dirt is an open space for creativity, a multidisciplinary forum for works-in-process, open-mike style (for individuals 21-years old and over) at the Waypost in Portland, OR., beginning August 7th from 7-10. The sign up sheet will be posted at 6:00 PM on the day of each event. “You can perform anything, wild or mundane. You can read something you’ve written or something someone else has written. You can make a declaration about the state of the world. You can give a lecture on mud. You can sing an aria. You can play the spoons with your elbows. You can knit a tiny sweater. You can show up as the UPS driver delivering packages filled with dust. Come as your cousin. Come with your cousin. You can hum. You can hop. You can lounge. You can shimmy. You can warble. You can strum. You can lecture. You can dress-up. You can twirl. You can swallow. You can crawl. You can sit. You can read. You can announce. You can laugh. You can shuffle. You can improvise. You can heal. You can bang. You can rumble. You can refine. You can incorporate. You can write. You can cry. You can canter. You can bark. You can howl. You can dust. You can rise. You can follow. You can disappear. You can magic. You can free. You can gather. You can note. You can unplug. You can quiet. You can revolve. You can hold. You can hug. You can stretch. You can bury. You can question. You can mop. You can brush. You can dry. You can…”
This event will happen again on September 11, 2016 and once a month after that.
Contact Felicity by email <ff1@felicityfenton.com>.
Untitled, Photography, 18″ X 24″, by Cynthia Brooke, 2015
Work Published
Current MFAIA-WA student Cynthia Brooke was chosen to have her song “Dios Bendice” (“God Bless”) and her photographic image, Untitled, from 2015, published in the Tidepools Literary Magazine. This is a publication that has spanned 52 years. Receptions were held both at the Port Angeles Public Library on June 17th and at the Northwind Art Center on June 23rd. For more visit Bella Luna Images.
Centrum Emerging Artist Residency
Alumna Storme Webber (MFAIA-WA ’14) has been awarded the 2016 Centrum Emerging Artist Residency. Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency invites a cohort of six visual artists to be in residence at Centrum for the month of October. Each artist is provided with housing, studio space and a stipend, while they spend the month creating new work or refining existing work. The residency will be used as generative and experimental creative space, to write, research, rehearse and make new work.
Storme is also exhibiting work in a group show at the Henry Gallery, which began in August 2015 and continues to August 2016, and in a solo show at the Frye Museum April-July 2016. The group show at the Henry is titled “Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects”, and Storme’s work will explore butch/Two Spirit identity aiming to stand against erasure and affirm Ancestral and present day continuance of these ways. Storme’s project Noirish Lesbiana will feature as a solo show at the Frye Museum exploring ideas of queerness, the city and signage, utilizing various creative strategies. Both exhibits will include a live multimedia performance at each opening.
Left image: SLAC members — Helen O’Connor, Donald Watt, Keith Wolf Smarch, Sandra Storey and Lawrie Crawford. Right image: Train rolls past Donald Watt’s maquette “Blanket Toss”. Photos courtesy of Lawrie Crawford
Art House Carcross Opens
Art House Carcross is the public face of multi-partnered hybrid experiment in a strategically located space in the small town of Carcross (pop. 400) Yukon. The gallery features top Yukon artists juried into in four exhibitions over the next two summers. Practicing artists work the space engaging curious visitors in far reaching conversations. The place has the look and feel of a presentation gallery without a focus on sales and revenue. Technology enables people to contact the artists and their galleries after their bus, train, or car leaves the station. But the project is not just to display art: there is a mentorship component between alumna Lawrie Crawford’s (MFAIA-WA ’14) art collective members (SLAC) and emerging artists in the community. The project aspires to create a sense of community inclusivity through active community building in the arts. The partners include the Yukon Arts Centre, SLAC (Southern Lakes Artist Collective), Carcross/Tagish First Nation government and their Development Corporation. The project is supported with grants from the Yukon Government and has been selected as one of five Innovation Labs across Canada for building partnerships in the arts. Art House Carcross is currently averaging 200 visitors per day. The CBC reported Crawford as saying, “We get the people that are unsuspecting art gallery goers. For them to think that they’re just going to the washroom, and then to watch as they get snagged by different pieces of art. As an artist, it is privilege to witness their awe!” Runs from June 15, 2016 to Oct 4, 2017.
Left: Naked at the Met poster. Right: Janice Perry educating youth about gender and censorship. Photo: Paul Vlagiouiu
Janice Perry is Naked at the Met in Frankfurt, Germany
Legendary performance artist and alumna Janice Perry (MFAIA-VT ’04) performed Naked at the Met at the Gallus Theater in Frankfurt, Germany on Friday, July 8th.
Naked at the Met is an epic tale of a fall from grace via gender, sexuality, an aging body, and a 30-foot cliff. Free-ranging from Pope to Pop, Perry perverts the course of social injustice and tackles the physical aftermath of a 30-foot free-fall with live performance, digital media, naked truth, and her notorious biting wit. Janice Perry’s work has been produced and exhibited in academic and cultural centers, screened at film festivals, and adapted for radio, television and print in the USA and Europe since 1981. Perry leads groups of emerging and established artists in creating new multi-media performative work. She’s received multiple fellowships for interdisciplinary performance from the Fulbright Commission/US Department of State, the Vermont Arts Council/NEA and others.
Janice also performed Not Just Another Pretty Face: a retrospective at the University of Wuerzburg, July 19. Perry brings us an avant-garde record of our own recent history and laughs us through her vibrant collection of social criticism and political satire– from Marilyn Monroe through a few Gulf Wars, High Fashion, Erotica, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mapplethorpe’s naked men and Arts Censorship.
“Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices” Book Launch and Panel Discussion
On Thursday, September 8th from 5:00 to 7:00 PM, the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School will host the book launch of Ecological and Social Healing, with a discussion with Editor Jeanine M. Canty and contributors Professor Ana Baptista, Professor Nina S. Roberts and MFAIA Program Director JuPong Lin. Dean Michelle De Pass will moderate the panel.
The panelists – women working across the boundaries of the ecological and social – will speak to their personal and professional experiences in new forms of teaching, leading, healing, and positive change. Following the premise of the book, they will take the audience through the transformative process of bridging the ecological and social in ways that challenge and empower women and society. For more information see the New School Event.
October Residency at Indivisible
Indivisible is a residence-based exhibition project initiated by alumna Christine Toth (MFAIA ’07) and located in her historic home in Portland, Oregon. JuPong Lin will be in residence in October; her work will involve community collaborations, including a series of neighborhood gatherings called “Sharing the Fruits of Arts Labor”—a meal made from neighborhood gardens, a story circle and skill share.
Rave Reviews for Macbeth3
Alumna Lisa Wolpe’s (MFAIA-VT ‘07) latest play, Macbeth3 is a one-hour plunge into the mysteries of murder, Satanic seduction, and gender-bent horror, starring Lisa Wolpe as Macbeth, Nick Salamone as Lady Macbeth and Satan, and Mary Hodges as avenging MacDuff, and more. Directed by Natsuko Ohama and Lisa Wolpe. Now playing at Here Arts, NYC, produced by the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, running from July 16 to August 14, 2016
“Fans of Lisa Wolpe will not be disappointed by Macbeth3, her three-person adaptation of Shakespeare’s bloody play …Darkly Terrifying… Wolpe confirms that she’s very simply one of the best interpreters of the Bard out there!” –Talkin’ Broadway
Links to Preview Video for Macbeth3; StageBuddy Interview; [Q]onStage review
and Macbeth3’s Indiegogo Fundraiser
Black Lives Matter at Toronto’s Pride Parade
Former MFAIA-VT Faculty Advisor Naila Keleta-Mae wrote an opinion piece on the Black Lives Matter action at Toronto’s Pride Parade published in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail —“Black Lives Matter is dramatic, unsettling and inconvenient. That’s the point”. Naila Keleta-Mae is a professor at the University of Waterloo where she researches race, gender, theatre and performance.
Image: Margaret DeLima, Reliquary for 45 Years in SubUrbia (detail,) 2016, Mixed Media
The Art of Paper
Alumna Margaret DeLima (MFAIA-VT ’07) is honored to have two new works in “The Art of Paper”, the 7th Annual International Juried Exhibition at A. D. Gallery, University of North Carolina, Pembroke: August 17 – September 16, 2016, with the reception on August 25 beginning at 5:00 PM.
Performances and Promotion
Alumna Anjali Austin’s (MFAIA-WA ’15) activities for the year include serving as a panelist for The Arthur Mitchell Project at Columbia University (New York City); adjudicating at the New England Regional American College Dance Association (ACDA) hosted by Springfield College (Springfield, MA); presenting her lecture, “Perspectives of an American Artist: The Auto-Ethnographic Chronicles of an African American Classical Ballet Dancer” at the 2016 Society of Dance History Scholars Special Topics Conference “Contemporary Ballet: Exchanges, Connections and Directions” hosted by the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University and the Department of Dance at Barnard College and Columbia University (New York City); and performing her solo performative work “Threads” at the Aspen Fringe Festival (Aspen, CO). Anjali was awarded a two-semester sabbatical for 2016-17, during which she will engage in a choreographic mentorship project with Alonzo King (internationally recognized choreographer and artistic director of Lines Contemporary Ballet), and received a promotion as Professor in Florida State University. Ms. Austin continues to lecture on the history and legacy of African American Classical ballet dancers, remain active in teaching and practicing Gyrotonic® and Gyrokinesis® methodologies, and was recently elected to serve as President elect of Corps de Ballet International.
Link: Alumna portrait MFAIA Podcast — Anjali Austin
Upcoming Launch of More Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women in Toronto at YYZ
The second edition of Caught in the Act (Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder, Editors) will be launched on September 24, 2016 at YYZ Artists’ Outlet. One of the chapters, written by bh Yael, titled “Devora Neumark: Some Challenges of Home and Presence” is focused on MFAIA-WA Faculty Advisor Devora Neumark’s performance artwork. Through the lens of Devora’s live art projects, Yael explores the act of witnessing, trauma and the public sphere, presence, and political action as dialogic performance practice.
Under Western Skies 2016 Conference
MFAIA Program Director JuPong Lin and Devora Neumark will be presenting at the Under Western Skies 2016 conference on September 27-30. The conference series on the environment takes place every two years at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This year’s conference theme is Water: Events, Trends, Analysis. JuPong will present “Living Mud Ball in the Sea,” a participatory, multi-media installation that raises awareness of the relationship between colonization and climate change in coastal Taiwan. Devora will present “Letters To The Water”, a live art performance intervention that involves gathering letters of appreciation to and for water to be written by conference attendees. The results of this collection process will be presented during a panel session.
Goddard Alumni & Students Graduate with the Certified Teacher Status
Graduating student Jayme C Green (MFAIA-WA ’16) and alumnus Paul Ray (MFAIA-WA ‘14) successfully completed the Society of American Fight Directors Teacher Certification Workshop at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. This Certification allows them to teach safe methods of Theatrical Stage Combat, as sanctioned by the SAFD.
Life Savings: Navigate the Financial Course
Alumna Pi Luna (MFAIA-WA ‘12) co-founded Engage Publications, a community education company that uses art and storytelling to bring math education to life. Engage’s first text, “Life Savings: Navigate the Financial Course”, empowers students to understand their finances and make more informed life decisions through math. Life Savings emphasizes critical thinking, spreadsheet proficiency, and note-taking skills, with educational artwork that invites participants to learn in a structured, supported way. Meaningful education empowers communities.
Left image: Ryan Conarro’s solo performance installation this hour forward at University Settlement Performance Project, New York, 2015. Photo by Adam C. Nadel. Right image: Arctic Magic Flute, an Alaska statewide touring adaptation of Mozart’s classic featuring opera performers in collaboration with storytellers, Alaska Native artists and dancers, and community members. Written and directed by Ryan Conarro and conceived with Joyce Parry-Moore and Alaska’s Opera To Go. 2007.
Theatre Communications Group Leadership Fellowship Interview
This summer marks a transition for alumnus Ryan Conarro (MFAIA-WA ’15) as his Theatre Communications Group Leadership U One-on-One Fellowship draws to a close at Ping Chong + Company in New York. The Theatre Communications Group published an interview with Ryan, reflecting on his journey of the past 18 months.
“I think often about the ideal of communion: a coming together, an intentional commingling of multiple identities. It’s like ‘community,’ but with a quality that feels to me a little more active and with a little more shared investment. The word also carries strains of spiritual practice, too—maybe its draw for me is, in part, left over from my Catholic upbringing. I’m drawn to theatre and performance that make communion possible.”
Barnacle City — The Movie Now Online
MFAIA-WA Faculty Advisor Laiwan successfully installed Barnacle City in downtown Vancouver, Canada, from June 13 to July 10, 2016, commissioned by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program. Viewers can find out more information about Barnacle City on her website. You can also view Barnacle City — The Movie on VIMEO along with documentation of the installation also on VIMEO.