This work would not be possible without a network of collaborators and supporters. Many others have helped me find, define, and show myself.
Jump to: Choreographers, Music & Sound, Support
Choreographers
Christal Brown: "What We Ask of Flesh: Passing", floor
Christal is the Founder of INSPIRIT, Project: BECOMING, the creator of the Liquid Strength training module for dance, an Associate Professor of Dance at Middlebury College, and the CVO of Steps and Stages, LLC. Brown is a native of Kinston, North Carolina, where she remembers accompanying her mother to NAACP meetings and performing at Black Caucus rallies. This early exposure to social responsibility innately produced a strong desire in Brown to put her gifts to work for the good of the communities she inhabits. Brown earned her BFA in Dance and minor in Business from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her MFA in New Media Art and technology from Long Island University.
Nicole Dagesse: "Of Burials At Sea", slings
Nicole is a Site Dance artist and teacher with an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is artistic director of Murmurations Dance in Burlington, VT where she also teaches aerial dance and yoga. Her work is inspired by the palimpsest of place and is interdisciplinary and immersive.
Polly Motley: (untitled, ladders)
Polly Motley’s work is intermedia: movement, music, verbal and non-verbal extended voice, video and interactive relationships between them. Besides solo works, she collaborates primarily with video-maker Molly Davies to make performances and the environments in which they happen. Motley has collaborated with artists from many disciplines including dancers Steve Paxton, John Jasperse, Simone Forti, Cori Olinghouse, Diane Madden and Dana Reitz; composers Takehisa Kosugi, John King, Samuel Haar and Sean Clute and poets Anne Carson and Mathew Clouser. She danced in the Los Angeles performances of Night of 100 Solos, performing solos choreographed by Merce Cunningham for Merce Cunningham. Her work has been presented by the Baryshnikov Art Center, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, Movement Research, the ICA Boston, the Contemporary Arts Museum/Houston, DIVA/Paris, Tulane University, Bates College Museum of Art, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Colorado Dance Festival, and many others. She lives in Vermont and Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera.
NEVE: (untitled, wheelchair)
NEVE (they/he) is a Disabled multigender femme fop mixed-race IndigenousBlack Choreographer/Dancer, Composer/Singer, Writer/Actor, Painter/Model, Hoodoo Voodoo Magician and Performance Artist based in Unceded Coast Salish Territories. Levar Burton Lover. Great Great Grandchild of the Author of The Velveteen Rabbit. Selected participant in the Intiman Theatre Emerging Artist program 2018 and 2020, cast in THE RACE 2020. 2020/21 Pina Bausch Fellow for Dance and Choreography. Anarchist, Abolitionist, AntiCapitalist. Unitarian Universalist. Vodouisant. Cofounder of Access-Centered Movement, #newmoonmovienight, Mouthwater, and the Lover of Low Creatures Club. #myBlacktransdisabledlifematters
Noah Witke Mele: "Binary Star", crutches and cape
Noah Witke Mele is an artist/student/spy making work between Vermont and NYC, where they are working on a B.A. in Performance Studies at NYU. Their performance and written work has been presented at Judson Memorial Chruch, Phantom Theater, Balaclava.Q, Heliopause Mag, and beyond. Currently, Noah is thinking about bodies and their languages in the work of science fiction author Octavia Butler, developing a small zine, and dancing in small spaces. You can keep up with them on Instagram @noahwitkemele
Music & Sound
Artemis Seven (soundcloud / bandcamp), "Transcend and Include" for "Binary Star"
Michael Eringis, assistance on "Time Dilation"
Liana Nuse, cello composition for (untitled aerial fabric piece)
Sounds for "Of Burials at Sea", NEVE's untitled piece, and "Time Dilation" are sourced from Creative Commons sounds on freesound.org. (Full list of sound sources: TBA) "Time Dilation" also uses sounds from NASA's sounds collection.
The transitional track into "What We Ask of Flesh: Passing" is Jahzzar's "Become Death" (CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Support
Administration
Dawn States, project assistant, who kept me organized and hydrated through my 2019-20 residency, and whose constant cheerleading keeps me going!
Dawn States started dancing at age five and fell in love with ballet, at age eighteen Dawn experienced two severe spinal surgeries and stopped dancing. Through the tutelage of Axis Dance Company they returned to their passion of dance; Dawn is now invested in finding ways to make dance more accessible and graduated with their MFA in dance from Temple University. Website: www.sunshineandsteel.com
Vermont Dance Alliance, a non-profit organization working to expand the visibility and accessibility of dance throughout the state of Vermont, supporting this project with fiscal sponsorship
Creative
Lost Nation Theater hosted the first preview showing for feedback in summer 2019.
The New England Center for Circus Arts, my hosts for a 2019-20 creative residency, and Serenity Smith Forchion as my creative consultant during that time, helping with everything from choreographic feedback to rigging design to a covid-adjusted work-in-progress screening.
Funding
Patreon supporters, keeping things going month to month
The MAP Fund, a 2020 finalist grant
The New England Foundation for the Arts, with a 2018-19 New England Dance Fund grant for the first video documentation, recognition from the Rebecca Blunk Fund Award in 2019, and the New Work New England program, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA, and individual donors.
Vermont Arts Council, with a 2020 Creation Grant, as well as a 2019 Artist Development grant to support attending a rigging intensive
The National Endowment for the Arts, via their support for the NECCA company-in-residency program and the Vermont Arts Council