Name: Scapegoat Garden – Liturgy|Order|Bridge
Start: 2024-06-21T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Mechanics' Hall

Scapegoat Garden – Liturgy|Order|Bridge

SPACE is a nonprofit organization that supports contemporary arts projects, champions artists, and encourages an open exchange of ideas. Proudly staying curious in Portland, Maine.

SPACE

A participatory dance ritual directed by Deborah Goffe that calls upon Black church traditions and secular performance modalities

Mechanics' Hall

Founded and directed by Deborah Goffe, the movement company Scapegoat Garden presents Liturgy|Order|Bridge, a participatory dance ritual that calls upon Black church traditions and secular performance modalities in visual and aural landscape that pushes and pulls ideas of faith, nature, fashion, and experimentation.Presented by SPACE in collaboration with Mechanics' Hall, with support from Indigo Arts Alliance and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Our June performances of Creative Capital Awardee Deborah Goffe's Liturgy|Order|Bridge will feature the "Threshold Chorus" and a group of "Wisdom Keepers" made up of Portland area community members, artists, and culture bearers.The dance and movement company <a href="https://www.scapegoatgarden.org/" title="https://www.scapegoatgarden.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Scapegoat Garden</a>, founded and directed by Deborah Goffe, presents the latest iteration of Liturgy|Order|Bridge, a participatory dance ritual that fuses sacred traditions and secular performance modalities to make porous the border between "audience" and "performance." Calling on Black church traditions, a group of performers along with a chorus of local artists and change-makers, brings guests into a collective score of movement, clapping, and vocalization.Local performers for this iteration with the Scapegoat Garden company members will be announced here soon. If you are a regional performer interested in involvement or a community member of color interested in being an audience participant for a free open dress rehearsal on Juneteenth (6/19), please email <a href="mailto:hello@space538.org" title="mailto:hello@space538.org" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">hello@space538.org</a>. This Portland presentation follows a workshop performance at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford and a winter iteration at Wesleyan University, and anticipates a November 2024 presentation at Bowdoin College.PLEASE NOTE: There is no late seating for this performance. Runtime is approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.Liturgy provides an avenue by which all participants of the encounter can identify and establish shared responsibilities among and to one another, which can then ripple out beyond the performance itself.Liturgy|Order|Bridge asks:<ul><li>What might it mean to engage dance practice as faith practice, performance as communal ceremony, performance space as consecrated site, and audience engagement as a fellowship of shared witness, place, and inheritance?</li><li>How might we establish shared (though distinct) responsibilities for the dynamism and consequence of the encounter between performer, performance and audience?</li><li>What is the potential of an organized body of practitioners devoted to facilitating the threshold between performance and the rest of life?</li></ul>Choreographed and directed by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with the performers and early contributor Leslie Frye Maietta Performed by Deborah Goffe, Lauren Horn, Arien Wilkerson, and Abena Koomson-Davis Sound, fashions and set elements by Deborah Goffe Liturgical robe designed and constructed by Lee Forde Lighting design by Kathy Couch Creative production by Olana Flynn Music by Julius Eastman, Kelsey Lu, Althea &amp; Donna, Joyce Kilmer and Oscar Rasbach, Arca, Kevin “GRAK” Hernández Rosa, and Nino Rota.Deborah Goffe is a dance maker, performer, educator, and performance curator who cultivates environments and experiences through choreographic, design and social processes. She is driven by an enduring commitment to world making, support of vibrant local dance ecologies, and the role of curatorial practice in those processes. Since its founding in 2002, Scapegoat Garden has functioned as her primary vehicle for artistic and curatorial practice—a means to forge relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home.Deborah’s performance works have been performed in homes, gardens, galleries, as well as regional, national, and international festivals and venues, including: ICA Boston, <a href="http://www.bcaonline.org/" title="http://www.bcaonline.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Boston Center for the Arts</a>, Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University, <a href="https://thewadsworth.org/" title="https://thewadsworth.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wadsworth Atheneum</a>, <a href="https://www.realartways.org/event/reaction-bubble-dance-performance/" title="https://www.realartways.org/event/reaction-bubble-dance-performance/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Real Art Ways</a>, the <a href="http://www.artidea.org/" title="http://www.artidea.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven</a>, <a href="https://www.batesdancefestival.org/author/deborahg/" title="https://www.batesdancefestival.org/author/deborahg/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bates Dance Festival</a>, Provincetown Dance Festival, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, DUMBO Dance Festival, Artists of Tomorrow Theatre Festival, and the <a href="https://www.92y.org/Uptown/Dance-Performances-and-Events/Fridays-at-Noon" title="https://www.92y.org/Uptown/Dance-Performances-and-Events/Fridays-at-Noon" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">92nd Street Y</a>. Deborah’s choreographic work has also been performed internationally in Finland, Italy and Cape Verde. She is a 2022 <a href="https://creative-capital.org/projects/liturgyorderbridge/" title="https://creative-capital.org/projects/liturgyorderbridge/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Creative Capital Awardee</a> for her current project, Liturgy|Order|Bridge, and has received artist fellowships and grants from <a href="https://www.nefa.org/grants/grant-recipients/deborah-goffescapegoat-garden" title="https://www.nefa.org/grants/grant-recipients/deborah-goffescapegoat-garden" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">New England Foundation for the Arts</a>, <a href="http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/programs/fellows_funding.asp" title="http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/programs/fellows_funding.asp" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Massachusetts Cultural Council</a>, <a href="http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2207&amp;Q=524766&amp;PM=1" title="http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2207&amp;Q=524766&amp;PM=1" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Connecticut Office of the Arts</a>, the <a href="https://letsgoarts.org/" title="https://letsgoarts.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Greater Hartford Arts Council</a>, the Surdna Foundation, and was honored for Distinguished Achievement in Dance by the Connecticut Dance Alliance. Deborah is a recent member of the New England Foundation for the Arts Regional Dance Development Initiative (RDDI) <a href="https://www.nefa.org/NewEnglandNow" title="https://www.nefa.org/NewEnglandNow" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">New England Now</a> cohort, and a recent <a href="https://www.jacobspillow.org/events/pillow-lab-deborah-goffe/" title="https://www.jacobspillow.org/events/pillow-lab-deborah-goffe/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Pillow Lab Residency</a> artist at Jacob’s Pillow. She has participated as a New England Emerging Choreographer at the <a href="http://www.batesdancefestival.org/projects/emerging-choreographers/" title="http://www.batesdancefestival.org/projects/emerging-choreographers/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Bates Dance Festival</a> and as a yearlong Artist-in-Residence at <a href="http://billingsforgeworks.org/past-artists" title="http://billingsforgeworks.org/past-artists" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Billings Forge Community Works</a>.SPACE's presentation of Liturgy|Order|Bridge is made possible with support from a New England Foundation for the Arts NEST touring grant.The broader project of Liturgy|Order|Bridge has been developed with support from Creative Capital, and from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ New Work New England program (whose support is made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Rescue Plan, Seedlings Foundation, the Fund for the Arts at NEFA, and individual donors). Liturgy|Order|Bridge was also incubated during a Pillow Lab Residency at Jacob’s Pillow, and is co-commissioned by the Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross.

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Scapegoat Garden – Liturgy|Order|Bridge

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