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The Idea Swap is NEFA's annual event that provides opportunities for New England-based nonprofit presenting organizations to network and share project ideas.
Post your project idea! Follow the instructions below. These projects will have the potential to tour New England through NEFA's Expeditions grant program.
Learn more about the 15th annual Idea Swap, and register today!
How to submit your Idea Swap project:
Complete and submit your proposal online.
- Project ideas must be submitted by Wednesday, October 12, 2016. If you are selected to present, you will be notified by Tuesday, October 18.
- Project ideas must include a link to a video or audio work sample of the artist. The work sample does not have to be of the proposed project. It will be reviewed by NEFA when considering project ideas for the selected five minute presentations. Work samples will NOT be posted on the Idea Swap Project Ideas page. If chosen to present, you must provide a downloadable file of the work sample. You will be given the chance to review your work sample for the Idea Swap.
- Project ideas with at least one interested presenter and creative presentations, which may include the featured artist, are given priority.
by 10.12.16
Browse Projects by Title: A-H
AROUNDTOWN
ARTIST: David Dorfman Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance
AroundTown, David Dorfman Dance's latest uplifting work, features their signature movement style, original live music, text and animated visuals to evoke redemption, joy, hope and our collective humanity. The company offers community outreach activities, and residency options for local dancers and dance departments to join the public performances. We are seeking additional presenting partners to join the Bates Dance Festival and Connecticut College.
SUBMITTED BY: Laura Faure | Bates Dance Festival | Lewiston, ME
AT HOME IN THE CLOUDS
ARTIST: DanceTheYard (DTY)
DISCIPLINE: Dance
DTY has selected a duet premiered at The Yard in 2016. At Home in the Clouds is a politically-charged collaborative work based on a non-fiction story written by Alison Weaver, Chief Editor of H.O.W Journal, with musical score by Vineyard composer, Phil Da Rosa. The piece explores themes of abortion, life, death, choice & love. The dancers shift perspectives between the characters in the text: mother, babies, doctor, allowing the audience to be immersed in the many layers of the complex topic.
SUBMITTED BY: Jesse Keller | The Yard | Chilmark, MA
BEE WEEKS/TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE
ARTIST: Piti Theatre Company
DISCIPLINE: Theater
Bee Weeks are a unique blend of pollinator-inspired arts, science, education and community-building originally launched in collaboration with Maine's Mahoosuc Arts Council in 2012. Using Piti Theatre's international touring performance for all ages To Bee or Not to Bee as a base, Bee Weeks use the arts to leverage community and school based activities that move towns toward sustainability and create new alliances between environmental stewards. To Bee or Not to Bee also tours as a stand-alone event.
SUBMITTED BY: Jonathan Mirin | Piti Theatre Company | Shelburne, MA
BILLOSOPHY: LIFE ~ CIRCUS ~ DEATH
ARTIST: Bill Forchion
DISCIPLINE: Theater
A one man show involving life and death and circus suitable for all ages. 55 minutes guaranteed to make you feel. Directed by Peter Gould and performed by Bill Forchion.
SUBMITTED BY: Bill Forchion | Dreamcatcher Entertainment | Brattleboro, VT
DEMOLISHING EVERYTHING WITH AMAZING SPEED
ARTIST: Dan Hurlin
DISCIPLINE: Puppetry
Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed is Dan Hurlin’s latest puppet theater work, based on four wordless and never before performed plays, originally written by Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero in 1917. Hallucinogenic, fast-paced, and shot through with dark humor, these astonishing plays celebrate the energy and possibility of technology, while revealing the chilling parallels between their time and ours.
SUBMITTED BY: John Andress | Institute of Contemporary Art | Boston, MA
DICKINSON AFTER 2000
ARTIST: Sonja Tengblad, Eric Neuville, Michelle Schumann
DISCIPLINE: Music, Spoken Word/Storytelling, Theater, Multidisciplinary
Through music written after 2000, these GRAMMY award-winning artists explore the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a modern lens. This 85-minute, non-stop program shatters the 4th wall and invites you right into Emily's living room, into a theatrical conversation through her enlightened and fanatically truth-seeking words via highly provocative yet accessible music, readings, and improvisations.
SUBMITTED BY: Sonja Tengblad | Dickinson After 2000 | Boston, MA
EN MASSE
ARTIST: Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
DISCIPLINE: Music
In spring 2018, Ovations hosts uniquely engaging musician/composer/activist Daniel Bernard Roumain for his community-wide music project En Masse. Conceived to be performed with 5-500 musicians in spectacular abandon in large public spaces, En Masse can be tailored to the particulars of each community. DBR is an exceptional community connector who can also perform on concert and school matinee series within the context of impactful residencies.
SUBMITTED BY: Aimee Petrin | Portland Ovations | Portland, Maine
THE END OF MEN
ARTIST: Vanessa Anspaugh Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Pregnant lesbian, Vanessa Anspaugh, got into the studio with an all male cast, to explore how power lives in and between all participating bodies. The End of Men; An Ode to Ocean premiered June 8-11, 2016 with The Joyce Theater in New York. This highly spirited work of moving dance-theater, interweaves demanding physicality with spoken dialogue, sonic religiosity and sublime virtuosity. The work investigates masculine vulnerability, taking on men, maleness, and dynamics of cultural domination.
SUBMITTED BY: Vanessa Anspaugh | Vanessa Anspaugh Dance | Northampton, MA
THE END OF TV
ARTIST: Manual Cinema
DISCIPLINE: Theater
Performed using live actors on a set, actors in silhouette, cinematic shadow puppetry made with hundreds of paper puppets on vintage overhead projectors, hand-made miniatures, vivid and impactful 5.1 surround sound, and a live chamber orchestra performing an original score. All of these various media will be captured live by onstage cameras and projected to one screen, creating a dramaturgically resonant simultaneity, a ‘live TV production,’ and a piece of live theater with TV as its subject.
SUBMITTED BY: Chad Herzog | International Festival of Arts & Ideas | New Haven, CT
ENDGAME
ARTIST: Serious Play Theatre Ensemble
DISCIPLINE: Theater
The work is the result of a two year examination of Beckett’s play combining puppets with actors. Research on the man and playwright led to dramaturgy that carried into rehearsals, helping us grasp and own the dialogue and imagery. We joined with Sandglass Theater to explore the fusion of acting and puppetry, creating Hamm’s parents in a specific puppet style. Beckett's ability to mix vitality, imagination and humor transform him from a generally depicted dispenser of gloom to a relevant dramatic poet.
SUBMITTED BY: Sheryl Stoodley | Serious Play Theatre Ensemble | Northampton, MA
ENTANGLING
ARTIST: ANIKAYA
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Entangling is inspired by quantam entanglement, by which two atoms that are physically separated in space become, for all intents and purposes, one. As we travel we find ourselves entangled with people around the world. We feel the tugging of these invisible connections at all times. This work is a visual embodiment of that feeling and an expression of our underlying reality – we are all inextricably connected to each other. Created by Wendy Jehlen (US) and Lacina Coulibaly (Burkina Faso/US).
SUBMITTED BY: Wendy Jehlen | ANIKAYA Dance Theater | Somerville, MA
THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE
ARTIST: Working Group Theatre
DISCIPLINE: Dance, Theater, Multidisciplinary
Working Group Theatre’s The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore is an adaptation by Sean Lewis of Benjamin Hale’s debut novel. The dance theater piece tells the story of Bruno Littlemore, a preternaturally intelligent chimpanzee who develops the gifts of language, art and philosophy. The work is mediation on love, identity, oppression and colonialism, addressing the question of what is human and who decides. There are engagement opportunities that are STEAM based, involving the sciences and the arts.
SUBMITTED BY: Shannon Mayers | Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College | Keene, NH
A FAMILIAR SENSE OF SLIP
ARTIST: Passive Aggressive Novelty Company
DISCIPLINE: Dance
A Familiar Sense of Slip is an interdisciplinary dance “duet” performed by Andy Russ and his video doppelgänger. Counterpointing movement, music, and text, this moving meditation challenges the audience to discover their own perceptual proclivities, asking: “What is more compelling: the media or the immediate?"
SUBMITTED BY: Andy Russ | Passive Aggressive Novelty Company | Providence, RI
FIRST LADIES OF JAZZ & POP
ARTIST: Celia Slattery
DISCIPLINE: Music
What women rock your world? Adele? Beyonce? Women are now the top-grossing recording artists, but it wasn’t always this way. Singer Celia Slattery takes you on an inspiring journey through the lives and music of the trailblazers, from early blues singers like Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday to jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald, to 60's songwriters and rockers, all the way to the present. The concert is available with a vocal masterclass focusing on technique and style for contemporary genres.
SUBMITTED BY: Celia Slattery | Celia Slattery Voice and Performance Studio | Somerville, MA
FRANKENSTEIN
ARTIST: Hampstead Stage Company
DISCIPLINE: Theater
Hampstead Stage Company’s original adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores Victor Frankenstein’s maddening journey of creation and failure, with just two actors playing multiple characters. This dark tale comes to life with a spark, revealing the truth behind Dr. Frankenstein’s creation and the irreversible horrors that unfold quickly after. This production of Frankenstein is “alive” and certain to leave you with chills, pondering the question: “Who really is the monster?” Grades 7+
SUBMITTED BY: Jay Pastucha | Hampstead Stage Company | Center Barnstead, NH
FROM VERMONT WESTERNS TO NANTUCKET NOIR: IMAGINING PLACE THROUGH JAY CRAVEN'S NEW ENGLAND INDIE FILMS
ARTIST: Jay Craven
DISCIPLINE: Film
Presented as an interactive dialogue about the role of place in narrative films, writer/director Jay Craven will screen one or more of his award-winning New England pictures. He will lead discussion of the work and engage audience members together and in small groups to brainstorm stories and characters rooted in their own place. In one or more sessions, we will explore how narrative film can express regional themes and connect to a community’s imagination of itself. Who knows where it might lead?
SUBMITTED BY: Jay Craven | Kingdom County Productions | Peacham, Vermont
EL GATO CON BOTAS (PUSS IN BOOTS)
ARTIST: OperaHub
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
In this family-friendly one-act fairy tale adventure, Gato is a scruffy pet cat who teaches his poor master to believe in the impossible. When he puts on boots and gets dressed for success, he leads us on an outrageous rags-to-riches adventure. Along the way we meet a beautiful and savvy princess, a nasty ogre, and a parade of magical shoes brought to life as animals. Featuring tuneful music and fantastical puppetry; sung in Spanish with English supertitles.
SUBMITTED BY: Christie Lee Gibson | OperaHub | Boston, MA
A GIFT OF MADNESS
ARTIST: Nancy Knowles
DISCIPLINE: Theater
A Gift of Madness, written and performed by Nancy Knowles, is a solo play with masks and song about two artists, two traumas, and one family’s legacy of laughter. After tragedy, if you dare hope, the rest is strategy. Knowles is a versatile artist who lights up the stage with her ease, presence, and humor. In this autobiographical play she showcases all of her art forms — from playwriting and acting to singing and maskmaking — to transform the utterly personal into the undeniably universal.
SUBMITTED BY: Nancy Knowles | Gyre Arts | Antrim, NH
GUMDROPS & THE FUNNY UNCLE
ARTIST: Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
Created as an alternative dance/theatre work about alternative families, Gumdrops first toured with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Each annual edition is tailored to host communities. The 2016 edition partners with The Theatre Offensive to bring an intergenerational cast of LGTBQ community members performing alongside PDM company, featuring celebrations of being in and on the outside of family circles through stories, dance…and a little drag.
SUBMITTED BY: Peter DiMuro | Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion | Boston, MA
THE HISTORY OF YOUR (MILL) TOWN
ARTIST: Piti Theatre Company
DISCIPLINE: Theater
In response to a request for a new play with music about the history of Colrain, MA, Piti Theatre created a dramatic framework and original songs that can be adapted to any New England mill town. The new script, DVD of the performance and town-specific songs become resources for local schools, historical societies and museums. This residency format is designed for a mixed ages cast drawn from the community and/or schools who perform with Piti’s two actors and musician.
SUBMITTED BY: Jonathan Mirin | Piti Theatre Company | Shelburne, MA
HOUSE WARMING
ARTIST: Jesse Hawley/James Stanley
DISCIPLINE: Theater
Staged as a housewarming party – with you as our guests - House Warming uses small talk, show and tell, parlor tricks and song to explore themes of identity, isolation, and the psychic entropy that takes hold when we close our doors to the outside world. Employing the domestic parlor theatrics of Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with the surreal noir aesthetics of Daniel Clowes’ Eightball comics, we invite you to an intimate evening of pleasant conversation and deconstructed realities.
SUBMITTED BY: James Stanley | Jesse Hawley/James Stanley | Marion, MA
HOW THE BODY WORKS
ARTIST: Marvelous Marvin
DISCIPLINE: Theater
How the Body Works brings to life the wonders and fun of physiology. Included is a six-foot tall house that unfolds to 25 feet wide. Behind each panel is a surprise: human-cell micro-photographs, a giant brain, a chorus of skeletons, a ten-foot tall circulatory system, and an eight-foot blinking nerve cell. Discover the digestive tract! Hear the heart pump! Watch the blood flow! Performed for K-8th graders.
SUBMITTED BY: Marvin Novogrodski | Marvelous Marvin | East Providence, RI
HUT
ARTIST: Ensemble
DISCIPLINE: Dance, Multidisciplinary
SCDT’s director Jennifer Polins collaborates with local sound artist Jake Meginsky to curate a new performance series that combines local and international artists of different genres in a performance event. This month HUT V features Jason Robinson (Music), Wendy Woodson (Performance) and Barbie Diewald (Dance).
SUBMITTED BY: Jennifer Polins| The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought | Northampton, MA
Browse Projects by Title: I-P
IN SPITE OF WISHING AND WANTING
ARTIST: Ultima Vez
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
In 1999, In Spite of Wishing and Wanting caused a huge stir. For the first time, Wim Vandekeybus created a performance not about the chemistry between men and women, but a primal desire in a world of men alone – fierce, wild, naive and playful. Spellbinding footage and dance sequences, supported by David Byrne’s sensual soundtrack, flow into monologues about fear, a desire for security and the magic of sleep. In 2016 a completely new cast takes on the challenge of this world hit.
SUBMITTED BY: Peter Van Heerden | Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University | Fairfield, CT
INTERACTION
ARTIST: Thread Ensemble
DISCIPLINE: Music
Boston-based Thread Ensemble curates an interactive performance of music created on-the-spot, engaging audience members to incorporate their creativity and personal experiences. Audiences will get to taste the creative process and discover the connecting strands [threads] between improvised music and daily life. Thread Ensemble is Andria Nicodemou (vibraphone/percussion), Rachel Panitch and Abigale Reisman (violins).
SUBMITTED BY: Rachel Panitch | Thread Ensemble | Jamaica Plain, MA
INVISIBLE: IMPRINTS OF RACISM
ARTIST: Anna Myer and Dancers/beheard.world
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
Invisible: Imprints of Racism is a mixed genre performance that utilizes modern and hip hop dancers who combine with three poets to plumb the emotional issues of race in urban America. Under the directorial leadership of choreographer Anna Myer and playwright Jay Paris, the performance explores the difficult parameters of what divides us but also what is available beyond anger and victimization to what we share in common. The piece is followed by a facilitated discussion.
SUBMITTED BY: Anna Myer | Anna Myer and Dancers/beheard.world | Cambridge, MA
JAZZ UP CLOSE
ARTIST: Noah Baerman Trio
DISCIPLINE: Music
Jazz Up Close is part concert, part interactive dialogue. The core belief is that audiences can absorb the soul and beauty of jazz even better when given a point of entry. The music is not watered down, but songs intersperse with discussions of process and questions from the audience. This can be in lieu of a more traditional concert or an “add-on,” and the Trio often serves as a “house band” for renowned guest artists who perform their original music and discuss their own unique processes.
SUBMITTED BY: Noah Baerman | Resonant Motion, Inc. | Middletown, CT
JESSICA LANG DANCE
ARTIST: Jessica Lang Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Bessie award-winner Jessica Lang is one of the day’s most important choreographers. She is also one of the hardest working: she’s created more than 90 works on companies worldwide since 1999. Her work is lush, lyrical, and highly visual. In addition to technique MCs and creative workshops for non-dancers, her company can lead large-scale community residencies setting work on local dance students who then perform in the evening program.
SUBMITTED BY: Aimée Petrin | Portland Ovations | Portland, Maine
JOY
ARTIST: ANIKAYA/Multicorps
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Joy is a collaboration between choreographers/dancers Wendy Jehlen (US ) and Marcel Gbeffa (Benin). Joy is a carefully constructed ritual, drawing on practices from Benin, India, Turkey, Latvia and others. The result is a pulsing, driving, mesmerizing hour-long journey. The performance is accompanied by workshops that introduce participants to the elements of the ritual, and prepare them to participate in the cleansing of the space that begins each performance of the ritual.
SUBMITTED BY: Wendy Jehlen | ANIKAYA Dance Theater | Somerville, MA
LUCIANA SOUZA TRIO IN CONCERT
ARTIST: Luciana Souza Trio with guitarist Romero Lubambo and percussionist Cyro Baptista
DISCIPLINE: Music
Renowned for her singular interpretations of the bossa nova repertoire and her intimate, effective vocals, Grammy Awardee Luciana Souza is one of jazz’s leading vocalists, transcending stylistic boundaries. In 2017-18 Luciana reassembles her acclaimed trio with Brazilian colleagues, guitarist Romero Lubambo and percussionist Cyro Baptista. With Bossa Nova classics alongside her original compositions, the trio explores a wealth of repertoire from intimate pieces to electric, virtuosic displays.
SUBMITTED BY: Isabel Fine | Wellesley College Concert Series | Wellesley, MA
THE MISSING GENERATION
ARTIST: Sean Dorsey Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance
The Missing Generation is an award-winning dance-theater production that gives voice to longtime survivors of the early AIDS epidemic. Sean Dorsey, the US' first acclaimed transgender contemporary dance choreographer, created the work by traveling the US to record oral history interviews with transgender and LGBT longtime survivors of the early epidemic. These survivors’ voices and stories are featured in a lush, multi-layered soundscore along with original music and Dorsey’s narration.
SUBMITTED BY: Steve MacQueen | Flynn Center for the Performing Arts | Burlington, VT
MYTH AND INFRASTRUCTURE
ARTIST: Miwa Matreyek
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
Miwa Matreyek is a solo artist based in Los Angeles who works in the interdisciplinary realm of live performance and media. Coming from a background in animation by way of collage, Miwa creates live, staged performances where her shadowed and statuesque silhouette interacts with her animations. The result is at once theatrical, dreamlike and illusionistic yet physical and tangible. Weaving surreal and poetic narratives of conflict between man and nature, her work makes invisible worlds visible.
SUBMITTED BY: Aimée Petrin | Portland Ovations | Portland, Maine
THE ODYSSEY
ARTIST: Sonia Plumb Dance Company
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Homer’s ancient 24-hour oratory takes vivid form in this one-hour modern dance, multi-media concert featuring an original “rock ilk” score. Underwater film scenes transport us to an otherworld where the struggles and temptations of Odysseus lie. Dancers breathe life into dozens of mythological characters and creatures. This innovative retelling sparks the memory and the imagination. We explore how ancient struggles align with contemporary struggles. Pre-concert panelists. Study guides available.
SUBMITTED BY: Michelle Serra | Sonia Plumb Dance Company | Hartford, CT
THE ONE-MAN CIRCUS IN-A-SUITCASE
ARTIST: Circus Minimus
DISCIPLINE: Theater
The One-Man Circus in-a-Suitcase gives everyone an opportunity to participate in an enthralling, whimsical celebration of the imagination. This show has been performed around the globe, for family theater audiences and school assemblies alike. From Kevin O’Keefe’s suitcase an entire circus emerges. Each performance becomes a dialogue, a light-hearted collaboration, between the characters and the audience.
SUBMITTED BY: Kevin O'Keefe | Circus Minimus | Brattleboro, VT
THE OPULENCE OF INTEGRITY
ARTIST: Christal Brown/Inspirit
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Opulence is Brown's first work utilizing an all male cast. This 55 minute work includes choreography, a mixed sound score, projection, and text by Muhammad Ali. The work is an exploration of the homogeneous inner struggle for identity for men of color in the US. Using the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali as an archetype, it takes an intimate look at the trappings that continually prohibit freedom. We are looking for additional presenting partners for this timely work.
SUBMITTED BY: Laura Faure | Bates Dance Festival | Lewiston, ME
PART
ARTIST: ali kenner brodsky
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Choreographer Ali Kenner Brodsky and musician MorganEve Swain collaborate to present PARt, a multifaceted performance piece of dance, music and art. PARt is reflecting on memories in and amongst movements, music and visual landscapes. Swain and Kenner Brodsky both create raw, emotional material, pulled from experience in loss and growth. Music and dance flow alongside each other as two working parts of a larger machine. Also contributing to PARt is visual artist Cyrus Highsmith.
SUBMITTED BY: Ali Kenner Brodsky | ali kenner brodsky & co. | Dartmouth, MA
PRADHANICA
ARTIST: Pradhanica
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Dizzying spins, fast-paced footwork, immersive emotions, and dynamic drumming come together in this accessible presentation of the Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Named for female “head” in Pradhanica, choreographer, percussionist, and solo dancer Jin Won demonstrates her mastery over rhythm, leading an ensemble of world drums and sitar. She collaborates with Indian music maestro Pandit Divyang Vakil to explore the sonic and narrative possibilities of rhythm in emotions and movement.
SUBMITTED BY: Heena Patel | MELA Agency | Edison, NJ
THE PROJECTOR SERIES 1.4
ARTIST: TNMOT AZTRO
DISCIPLINE: Dance
The piece is driven by the concept of sensory overload, in which our brains and bodies are stimulated through receiving information from multiple sources simultaneously. The projectors around the room transform the physical boundaries of the space: gallery walls become windows and mirrors are vortexes, looking outward at the world beyond, looking inward at the performance. The work explores ideas of viewer responsibility.
SUBMITTED BY: Arien Wilkerson | TNMOT AZTRO | Hartford, CT
Browse Projects by Title: Q-Z
QYRQ QYZ (40 GIRLS)ARTIST: Qyrq Qyz DISCIPLINE: Music, Multidisciplinary
Qyrq Qyz (40 Girls) is a live music/multimedia evening: a legendary Central Asian tale in which a girl gathers a group of 40 young female warriors to vanquish invaders, securing her clans’ freedom. Uzbek filmmaker and composer. Live Uzbek female epic reciters and instrumentalists and video projection. It is an ideal vehicle for educational residencies focusing on women’s musical traditions in the Muslim world/epic and oral poetry. Tour window: early March, then will go to BAM. 8-10 performers.
SUBMITTED BY: Margaret Lawrence | Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College | Hanover, NH
RADICALS IN MINIATURE: LAST PEOPLE I KNOW
ARTIST: Ain Gordon/Pick Up Performance Co(s) DISCIPINE: Theater, Multidisciplinary
Radicals in Miniature: Last People I Know is an interdisciplinary performance that conjures many of the overlooked players whose vitality helped shape urban creativity in the 70’s and 80’s but who lost their toehold on immortality or were forgotten. Together onstage, Ain Gordon and Josh Quillen talk, sing, laugh, play music, show pictures, interrogate & partner; pairing a gay and straight man of different generations to theatrically annotate our cultural record via alternative requiems.
SUBMITTED BY: Sara Coffey | Vermont Performance Lab | Guilford, VT
RAINING ALUMINUM
ARTIST: theatre KAPOW
DISCIPLINE: Theater
This brand new devised piece weaves together the parallel storylines of the 1917 explosion in Halifax Harbor (and the corresponding American relief efforts) and refugee stories from Operation Yellow Ribbon (the Canadian response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11). Raining Aluminum explores tremendous instances of gratitude and the resilience and fragility of human spirit. For this project, theatre KAPOW is collaborating with Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre and PEI fiddler, Cynthia MacLeod.
SUBMITTED BY: Peter Josephson | theatre KAPOW | Manchester, NH
RITE OF SPRING AND FOLDING
ARTIST: Shen Wei Dance Arts
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Folding combines traditional Buddhist Mahakala deity chants with ethereal melodies of john Tavener. In 2000, Guangdong Modern Dance company invited ShenWei to make Folding, his first work with the company since he left china in 1995. During this period he was strongly attached to the simple action of folding: of paper, fabric, flesh- anything.
SUBMITTED BY: Ranjanaa Devi | Asian Arts & Culture Program, UMass Amherst | Amherst, MA
ROOMFUL OF TEETH
ARTIST: Roomful of Teeth
DISCIPLINE: Music
Ovations is in conversation with the award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth to build a program that engages a local composer to create a new work for the ensemble and a local choir, specifically a Portland-based international youth ensemble. There is interest in building this into a regional project that connects choral groups, diverse communities and New England-based composers. Excellent community outreach opportunities.
SUBMITTED BY: Aimée Petrin | Portland Ovations | Portland, Maine
RUNNING IN STILLNESS ARTIST: Marsha Parrilla/Danza Orgánica DISCIPLINE: Dance, Spoken Word/Storytelling, Theater, Multidisciplinary
Running in Stillness is a dance theater suite based on the impact of mass incarceration on women and our community. Through a close collaboration with formerly incarcerated women and daughters of incarcerated parents, we are creating a project that sheds light on this often-ignored topic. Through this work, we investigate the impact that incarceration has in the bodies of incarcerated women, and how this phenomenon spills over through generations.
SUBMITTED BY: Marsha Parrilla | Danza Orgánica | Boston, MA
SERVED (THE TOOLKIT) ARTIST: Forklift Danceworks DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
Served is a campus-based residency to engage students/faculty/staff in a community-based art making process creating a powerful bridge between two communities. The project aims to broaden awareness to the valuable and critical contributions of campus workers. Using the performance as a foundation through this two-year residency, Forklift and Williams will create a toolkit to guide other campus communities and presenters to create artist-lead community engagement projects such as Served.
SUBMITTED BY: Randal Fippinger | '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College | Williamstown, MA
SNAKE AND LADDER
ARTIST: Navaras Dance Theater
DISCIPLINE: Multidisciplinary
Navarasa is a pioneering South Asian American Dance Theater. Snake and Ladder inspired by Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal, is created by Aparna Sindhoor, Anil Natyaveda and S M Raju with composer Isaac Thomas and designer Miranda Giurelo. DEATH comes to take the lives of a prince and an artist. Prince plays with DEATH. Snake and Ladder is an ancient Indian game marking the journey of soul through good-evil into enlightenment. The show addresses issues of war and PTSD, but also about art and hope.
SUBMITTED BY: Aparna Sindhoor | Navarasa Dance Theater | Somerville, MA
SPEAK
ARTIST: SPEAK Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance, Music
SPEAK brings together Indian Kathak dance and American tap dance in a collaboration that spotlights rhythm, storytelling, music and dance. SPEAK features Kathak artists Rachna Nivas and Rina Mehta, tap artists Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and music composition by Jayanta Banerjee and Allison Miller. It celebrates the legacies of these unique and contrasting forms of expression and forefronts the voices of prominent female artists, all active soloists in their own right.
SUBMITTED BY: Shannon Mayers | Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College | Keene, NH
STORIES FROM THE MAHABHARATA
ARTIST: ShadowLight Productions
DISCIPLINE: Puppetry
Wayang Kulit, Balinese shadow puppets with live Indonesian gongs and drums will relate the stories from epic Mahabharata. Larry Reed is the foremost puppeteer today for his ingenious shadow casting method which integrates traditional shadow theater techniques with contemporary cinematic effects. Accompanying him will be two musicians from Indonesia.
SUBMITTED BY: Ranjanaa Devi | Asian Arts & Culture Program, UMass Amherst | Amherst, MA
(TAILORED TO THE EVENT)
ARTIST: Jazz Samaritan Alliance
DISCIPLINE: Music
This collective, featuring respected New England jazz educators Jimmy Greene (Western Connecticut State University), Kris Allen (Williams College), and pianist Noah Baerman (Wesleyan University), was formed to create and present socially conscious original music. Their existing repertoire is augmented by event-specific works composed by the group’s members to address a social issue chosen in consort with the presenter, often collaborating with one or more relevant local charity.
SUBMITTED BY: Noah Baerman | Resonant Motion, Inc. | Middletown, CT
TEN BLOCKS ON THE CAMINO REAL
ARTIST: Abibigromma: The National Theatre Company of Ghana
DISCIPLINE: Theater
Written in 1947, 10 Blocks relates in songs, dialog and dance how the American hero Kilroy enters the pantheon of heroes by losing his innocence. This new production, directed by TWPtown’s David Kaplan, was performed outdoors at marketplaces in Accra, Ghana in April 2016, and continues to tour in Ghana. Performed in English, the production retains Williams’ text yet is specific to Ghanaian culture, and can be presented outdoors and in public spaces. Plans call for a fall 2017 New England tour.
SUBMITTED BY: Michael Kellerman | Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival | Provincetown, MA
TENSE VAGINA: AN ACTUAL DIAGNOSIS
ARTIST: Sara Juli
DISCIPLINE: Dance
Tense Vagina is about motherhood - its beauty, challenges, isolation, comedy, and influence on the human experience. This evening-length solo uses humor, movement, sounds, songs, text, and audience participation to reveal “all that is awesome and all that sucks” when it comes to being a mother. It focuses on the seldom-discussed and taboo aspects of motherhood, such as loss of bladder control, libido, tears, monotony, and dildos with set by Pamela Moulton and costumes by Carol Farrell.
SUBMITTED BY: Sara Juli | Falmouth, ME
VERTICAL INFLUENCES
ARTIST: Le Patin Libre
DISCIPLINE: Dance, Multidisciplinary, Ice Skating
The Yard presented LPL in their American debut (April 2015), launching a multi-year Yard commitment to the Quebecois ensemble of pioneering skaters. "This is something extraordinary: a new and exhilarating avenue of skate artistry, light years from competition judging and Disney dancing cartoons. Rather than double axels and triple toe loops, the philosophical center of the ensemble's research is the 'glide.' It provides the key to LPL's driving question: What is skating?" -David White, Yard Artistic Director
SUBMITTED BY: Chloe Jones | The Yard| Chilmark, MA
VIRAGO MAN DEM
ARTIST: Cynthia Oliver/COCo Dance
DISCIPLINE: Dance
VPL is seeking presenting partners to present Cynthia Oliver's newest evening-length dance theater worker Virago Man Dem. Known for incorporating textures of Caribbean performance with African and American aesthetic sensibilities, Oliver continues this thread and digs into the complexities of the representation of black masculinities through movement, spoken language and visual design in this new work. Virago Man Dem features scenic design by Afrofuturist graphic novelist John Jennings.
SUBMITTED BY: Sara Coffey | Vermont Performance Lab | Guilford, VT
YMUSIC
ARTIST: yMusic
DISCIPLINE: Music
Hailed by NPR as a group that has “helped to shape the future of classical music,” yMusic is an ensemble of six NYC musicians that seamlessly bridge (indie)pop and classical music. An unique configuration of string trio, flute, clarinet and trumpet inspires an ever expanding repertoire created by today’s most noted composers. They’ve collaborated or have projects in the works with Ben Folds, Dirty Projectors, Nico Muhly, Bill T. Jones, Chris Thile. Great technique MC and biz of music workshops.
SUBMITTED BY: Aimée Petrin | Portland Ovations | Portland, Maine
ZAFIR: MUSICAL WINDS FROM NORTH AFRICA TO ANDALUCÍA
ARTIST: Simon Shaheen
DISCIPLINE: Music
Simon Shaheen, one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation, brings to life the Arab music of Al-Andalus and blends it with the ubiquitous art of flamenco in Zafir (wind), a program of instrumental and vocal music and dance. The project explores the aim of both Arab classical music and flamenco - to achieve a heightened state of emotion, a feeling of ecstasy, known by the Arab musicians as tarab and by flamenco performers and enthusiasts as duende.
SUBMITTED BY: Isabel Fine | Wellesley College Concert Series | Wellesley, MA