WIP XXIV - Works In Progress

WIP XXIV - WORKS IN PROGRESS- IMPROVISATION AND PERFORMANCE

Friday, March 10 at 7:00pm

In Person at 33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA in the Workroom Theater

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The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought presents WIP (works-in-progress), a performance series that showcases developing movement-based works on Sunday afternoons. WIP values sharing research and experimentation, rather than presenting finished works, and welcomes applications from emerging and established artists.

The curatorial team choosing WIP choreographers is composed of fellow dance artists located in the Pioneer Valley. We are looking to create performances showcasing a diverse range of established and emerging artists, as well as those local to the valley and beyond.

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WIP XXIV May 10th 2024 Artists:

Hannah Ruth Brothers (VT)

Michelle Erard (VT)

Laila J. Franklin (Boston, MA and Washington, DC)

Madelyn Sher (MA)

Samara "Mère" Ternoir (MA)

Lailye Weidman (MA)

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ALSO CHECK OUT OUR WEEKEND OF IMPROVISATION AND PERFORMANCE
WORKSHOPS with K.J. HOLMES, JOYA POWELL and mayfield brooks, and a RIFF TALKS Performance event on Saturday May 11 at 7 PM

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Hannah Ruth Brothers (they/them) is an abundantly bodied, queer dance artist based on Abenaki land in Brattleboro, VT. They have danced with mountains, trees, and beaches, and in grocery stores, parks, and parking lots, as well as on many stages. Hannah Ruth graduated with high honors from Marlboro College, VT, with a BA in Dance. Their undergraduate work included an anthropological study of the words people use to talk about contact improvisation. Since 2016, they have managed their private massage practice, serving clients of all ages, identities, and abilities. They returned to Brattleboro from their hometown of Santa Barbara, CA in 2023.

Michelle Erard is a dance artist and educator trained in non-western dance forms and physical theater, the traditions of which underpin her artistic work and teaching. Michelle collages emergent movement, sound, and language into vignettes and explores layered memories and histories through juxtaposition. Themes of identity within location often arise. Her work has been presented at Smith College, University of New Mexico, Tricklock Company, and other US venues. Michelle has performed in works by Angie Hauser, Marilyn Sylla, Barbie Diewald, Rujeko Dumbutshena, Bill Walters, Tomaz Simatovic, Sonia Olla, Alejandro Granados, and with the companies Los Flamencos, Alma Flamenca, and Afriky Lolo. Michelle trained at the Conservatory of Flamenco Arts, received her BA from University of New Mexico, and her MFA from Smith College. She is a certified teacher of Action Theater and Open Source Forms and is currently on faculty at Keene State College and Rutgers.

Laila J. Franklin (b. 1997, she/her) is a dance maker, performer, teacher, archivist, and writer based in the territory of the Massachusett and Pawtucket peoples (Boston, Massachusetts), by way of unceded territory of the Nocotchotonk and Piscataway peoples (Washington, DC.)

Her work explores kinetic imagination through rigorous juxtaposition of virtuosic and intimate performances, investigating the complicated nature of being a moving body in the world. Her work extends from lineages of black and queer experimental dance makers, with a particular interest in postmodern improvisation practices and aesthetics, and dance theater.

Her performance credits include projects with Michael Figueroa’s Ruckus Dance, Miguel Gutierrez, Dr. Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, and Melinda Jean Myers. Laila’s choreography has been presented through Public Space One (IA), Loculus Collective Sideways Door Festival (MA), Movement Research at The Judson Church (NY), Bates Dance Festival Works In Progress Showing (ME), Lion’s Jaw Dance and Performance Festival’s The Thing (MA), the Boston Conservatory, and the University of Iowa. Laila is currently an artist in residence at the Boston Center for the Arts.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance from The Boston Conservatory and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Iowa.

Madelyn Sher is a multidisciplinary performing artist, dance maker, and educator from New York City. Her take on contemporary dance is influenced by her diverse background of formal training including modern, theater, butoh, Latin dance, house, ballet, and contact improvisation. She is a graduate of CUNY Lehman/Macaulay Honors College, where she studied dance, philosophy, and French. As a dancer, Maddy has worked with artists and companies such as Duane Lee Holland, Olive Prince, Bebe Miller, Angie Hauser, Gabrielle Revlock, Alexander Davis, Vangeline Theater, REDi Dance Company, evan ray suzuki, and others. As an actor, she was a recurring guest star on ABC’s The Baker and the Beauty. Maddy’s current research interests lie in the poetics of phenomenology, the rhythms of growth and decay, and the bond between thought and movement. She is currently a Teaching Fellow and MFA Dance candidate at Smith College.

Samara "Mère" Ternoir (she/her) is an Afro-Indigenous “Jane of All Trades”: dancer, choreographer, performer, self-published poet, restorative justice advocate and Circle Keeper, photographer, cinematographer, painter and lover. She enjoys pushing the bounds of multidisciplinary art with dance centering the majority of her practice. At Hampshire College, Ternoir is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts Degree in what she calls "Body Studies": dance, somatics, performance theory, and restorative justice. Mère’s movement practice has been heavily informed by the mentorship of Lailye Weidman, Jungeun Kim, Bebe Miller, Angie Hauser, KJ Holmes, Jasmine Hearn, Angie Pittman, and many more, as well as her mission to hold space for BIPOC healing rooted in ancestral Indigenous wisdom.

Lailye Weidman is a choreographer, educator, and a queer parent raising a feisty toddler in Western Massachusetts. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hampshire College, where she combines improvisation, somatics, and mindfulness with a focus on the politics of movement and embodied action. Through multiple projects over the past two decades, Lailye has been looking at the forces that move us and asking how bodies respond to those forces. Her work has been shown in venues on both coasts, the Midwest, and Europe. She has been an artist-in-residence at APE in Northampton, SPACE in Portland, Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Light Box in Detroit, the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature, and Dance (iLAND) in New York City, Pieter PASD and Hothouse/UCLA in Los Angeles, and the SEEDS Festival at Earthdance. She has also worked independently and collectively to produce dance and interdisciplinary events, residencies, and festivals in New England and beyond. She was Associate Editor for several issues of Contact Quarterly and remains invested in archiving and storytelling about and through dance practice.