�ֲ��ý Dance Festival – News

�ֲ��ý Dance Festival earns $40K NEA grant

Mary Pols — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:49:59 +0000

The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival has been recommended by the National Endowment for the Arts to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $40,000.

The grant will support the 2023 edition of the, which this year takes place on the �ֲ��ý campus July 7–29.

The 2022 �ֲ��ý Dance Festival hosted a performance along Lake Andrews by Fist & Heel Performance Group, a Brooklyn-based dance company that investigates the intersections of cultural anthropology and movement practices and believes in the potential of the body as a valid means for knowing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“We are very grateful for the continued support from the National Endowment for the Arts,” said �ֲ��ý Dance Festival Director Shoshona Currier. “This funding helps us bring talented, diverse, world-class artists to Lewiston to share their technique, choreography, and experiences in order to inspire our community here in Maine as well as the next generation of dancers and dance makers from around the country.”

The festival is one of 19 Maine arts organizations that learned about grants from the NEA this month. This grant is one of totaling nearly $28.8 million as part of NEA’s first round of fiscal year 2023 grants.

“We are very grateful for the continued support from the National Endowment for the Arts,” said �ֲ��ý Dance Festival Director Shoshona Currier, seen introducing a dance performance during the 2022 festival. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson. “Projects such as the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy.”

This year marks the 41st season for the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival, which draws dance students from all over the world, and from the �ֲ��ý student body itself.

An upper-level �ֲ��ý course, “�ֲ��ý Dance Festival,” provides students an opportunity to participate in the festival’s Professional Training Program and receive invaluable technical training across multiple dance disciplines and theoretical practices from .

, a multimodal artist who maintains an active international teaching practice at festivals and training institutions, conducts a Dance Festival workshop outside the Gray Athletic Building on July 21, 2022, that investigated techniques for collaborative making and co-authorship of choreographies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

In 2022, about a half-dozen �ֲ��ý students earned academic credit for participating in the festival. And typically, �ֲ��ý also offers a paid Purposeful Work internship at the annual festival.

Currier, who joined the festival as director in 2017, has worked to broaden the festival’s reach pre-pandemic by staging performances in the streets of Portland, and during the pandemic, made adaptations that featured dancers in open spaces in the local community, including downtown Lewiston parks and the banks of the Androscoggin River.

During the 2021 festival, Purposeful Work intern Jamari Amrham ’22 of Fontana, Calif., escorts a dancer swathed in quilts through traffic on Pine Street in Lewiston during a tech rehearsal for a site-specific work by choreographer Emily Johnson and her company, Catalyst, that evokes themes of Indigenous power and place. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“We’ve got some great performances and works in progress showings planned for this summer as well, and are committed to keeping the festival as accessible as possible, ” Currier said. “The festival serves approximately 5,000 people each year, and I cannot wait to share more details about our 2023 summer season with everyone soon!”

A dancer with Fist & Heel Performance Group performs at the Keigwin Amphitheater along Lake Andrews during the 2022 �ֲ��ý Dance Festival. Fist & Heel is a Brooklyn-based dance company that investigates the intersections of cultural anthropology and movement practices and believes in the potential of the body as a valid means for knowing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Look who’s 40! �ֲ��ý Dance Festival’s full return arrives in style

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 14:27:30 +0000

The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival is turning 40 this summer, and in fitting fashion, plans for the anniversary celebration will pull together the many elements that have made this renowned festival endure for four decades: world class dancers, enthusiastic students, and a celebration of dedicated individuals who have made the festival a uniquely �ֲ��ý event.

There will be legendary artists, from Reggie Wilson and his Fist & Heel Performance Group to David Dorfman Dance. “It’s a confluence of astounding talent,” says BDF Director Shoshona Currier.

For more information

Visiting or vacationing in Maine this summer? Take in a , or one of the events of the , July 29–31.

After being canceled in 2020, the festival returned in 2021 — but on a smaller scale. This year will be a return to almost-normal: Hundreds of student dancers will be on campus, studying with accomplished teachers and living, eating, and working together in a flurry of creativity. “We feel so lucky to be welcoming so many students and artists for the first time since 2019,” Currier says.

Reggie Wilson’s Fist & Heel Performance Group will perform at two campus venues during this year’s �ֲ��ý Dance Festival, at and in . “Reggie Wilson’s work explores connections between secular and spiritual cultures of the African diaspora in the Americas, according to . (Photograph Christopher Duggan)

Capping the festival’s 40th anniversary season is a three-day celebration, July 29–31, featuring on the Olin Arts Center terrace honoring Carol Dilley, who retires from the �ֲ��ý dance faculty this year.

Dilley, who joined �ֲ��ý in 2003, led the expansion of dance within the curriculum, culminating in dance being made a major in 2011. Along the way, Dilley integrated the festival into the �ֲ��ý dance curriculum in meaningful ways. “Carol works closely with the festival to chart a course for those students that enhances the learning they receive during the academic year,” Currier says. This year, about a half-dozen �ֲ��ý students will earn academic credit for assisting with the dance festival.

In this video by Ariel Abonizio ‘20, �ֲ��ý dance students talk about their experience with the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival.

The BDFête on July 29 for Dilley will immediately be followed by a , a work by Rennie Harris and Puremovement that Dance Magazine calls “seminal” and which itself is enjoying an anniversary, its 30th.

In addition to celebrations, this year’s festival includes a memorial of sorts for another festival stalwart. Arthur Fink, a gifted photographer who lovingly chronicled the festival from 2006 to 2017, died on April 21, 2021. will be featured at The Hartley Block, located on Lisbon Street in the center of the Lewiston’s downtown arts district.

The richness of the 2022 festival owes something to the rebound effect after being shuttered or half-shuttered for two years (last year’s programming made creative use of outdoor locations in Lewiston).

On, Rennie Harris and Puremovement will perform Rome & Jewels. Enjoying its 30th anniversary this year and critically acclaimed as an Elizabethan masterpiece, Rome & Jewels is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet set in the streets of Philadelphia. Courtesy �ֲ��ý Dance Festival)

One festival artist this year, Miguel Gutierrez, shifted gears in response to the challenges of remounting a show two years after it was originally scheduled to appear at the festival. He’ll be with Laila Franklin, “mostly inspired by Willie Colon, Stevie Nicks, and the all consuming sadness that envelops everything.” Gutierrez met Franklin at the festival in 2021, when she took part in the training program. The work will be performed on Aug. 3 and Aug. 4.

Another group whose BDF appearance was derailed by the pandemic is Reggie Wilson’s Fist & Heel Performance Group. The Brooklyn-based dance company will perform in two campus spaces, at and in .

“We’re so excited to be able to make good on these previous commitments,” Currier said. “And in the case of Reggie Wilson, to actually expand upon it, thanks to our partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance as well as significant relief grants. We’re thrilled to involve community members in this project, as well as our Young Dancers. I think that is going to be truly spectacular.”

I as another is a , created in collaboration with Laila Franklin. A tiny epic: What do people ever truly know of themselves, or of each other? (Photograph by Maria Baranova)

Resident dance artist Nora Chipaumire fuses the personal and political

Doug Hubley — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 14:43:06 +0000

“No apology, no surrender,” Nora Chipaumire tells a �ֲ��ý dance class. “However your day went today, it has now become brilliant.”

No apology, no surrender: Chipaumire returns to those words more than once in the late-afternoon session of an advanced technique course that she’s teaching as a guest artist. It’s not mere sloganizing. Instead, like the work that she makes and performs, Chipaumire’s teaching fuses the personal and political aspects of a life shaped by growing up in Zimbabwe.

Politically and economically, Chipaumire’s native country is still grappling with the legacy of colonization, as are so many others (even this one). “I’m very interested in this collusion of Europe and Africa,” she told an interviewer before the dance class.

“In my work, this collusion returns again and again, constantly trying to unpack this crucial historical moment, I think, for the entire world. What happened there has repercussions, I believe, for everyone.”

Nora Chipaumire conducts class on the Schaeffer Theatre stage. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

In fact, Chipaumire’s �ֲ��ý residency comes just weeks after the premiere, in October at New York City’s Kitchen, of based on her formative years in Zimbabwe.

And now it’s a Wednesday in November at Lewiston’s �ֲ��ý College, and Chipaumire is facing 25 or so students in the Plavin Dance Studio. They’ll work till around six o’clock, at which point Chipaumire and a handful of students will segue into a rehearsal for a piece she is setting on the students.

Chipaumire is the fourth and final resident artist this fall to create a piece students will perform in the (named, like the studio, for the founder of �ֲ��ý’ dance program).

The goal of having resident guest artists in the dance program is to complement faculty teaching with a variety of perspectives, ideas, and teaching styles. But even amongst that variety, Chipaumire stands apart.

Chipaumire observes dancers during a rehearsal. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Based in New York City, she started making dances in 1998. Her work is grounded in personal history and the culture of the Shona, Zimbabwe’s majority indigenous people. More generally she explores stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body, art, and aesthetics.

“She has challenged all of us, students and faculty, to probe Western constructs that affect our experiences of our bodies and motion,” says Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Julie Fox, who has hosted Chipaumire and the other resident artists in the Repertory Styles technique course.

Chipaumire began her yearlong affiliation with the college during last summer’s �ֲ��ý Dance Festival, where she presented “a portrait of myself as my father” — a piece that uses boxing as a means of exploring family, masculinity, and fatherhood. (Her own father left when she was an infant.)

An intriguing aspect of Chipaumire’s practice is its emphasis on the individual, says a student in the technique course, dance and psychology major Alexandria Onuoha ’20 of Malden, Mass. Even in ensemble passages, “she doesn’t want us looking at each other. She wants us to do the journey together, but it’s okay if someone is ahead or is in a different space than the group because you’re an individual at the same time.”

Chipaumire consults with Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Julie Fox. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

During one session, an undulation movement was frustrating some students, recalls Shae Gwydir ’20, a dance major from Port Jefferson, N.Y.

Chipaumire’s guidance typified her approach to her medium. “You have to be true to yourself and move how you ‘hear’ your body telling you to move,” says Gwydir, “not how you believe your body should move based on someone else’s directions and examples.”

The piece Chipaumire has developed with the �ֲ��ý students is based “on a figure called Nehanda, who, you could say, was a Zimbabwean Joan of Arc,” Chipaumire explained earlier in the day. Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana was a 19th-century spirit medium of the Shona people who helped inspire a popular revolt against British colonial occupation.

“Nehanda calls into the room questions about legality between settler regimes and native persons, questions about lynching, mob violence. And also other issues such as animistic belief systems in which a spirit returns again and again in different epochs.”

The piece Chipaumire has developed with the �ֲ��ý students is based “on a figure called Nehanda, who, you could say, was a Zimbabwean Joan of Arc.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

She says, “I try to go with the spirit of what is calling me, what is urgent for me, what do I need to understand better personally. And then that leads me into wormholes of research and discovery” — often involving intense consultation with Shona cultural leaders in Zimbabwe — “so that’s also what I am bringing to the students.”

Back in the Plavin Studio, Chipaumire is wearing a down vest over a loose, layered black outfit. From the initial warm-ups to high energy across-the-floor work that ends the session, the class has a definite arc, almost a narrative flow.

After the warmup, she and research assistant Shamar Watt lead the students through a series of moves that are cumulative in both complexity and intensity. Chipaumire watches the class closely as she leads, and issues guidance that’s sometimes sharp but not mean. In fact, her warmth is infectious. “Smiling is a good idea,” she says. “Think of your entire body as a smile.”

She always seems to be enjoying a secret joke. Sometimes she shares it. Describing a quality of corporeal suppleness and resilience, a tongue-in-cheek Chipaumire looks to the Star Trek and Star Wars glossaries. “A reed knows resistance is futile,” she says. “It is better to bend with the Force.”

Chipaumire and her research assistant Shamar Watt (right) move with dancers during class. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Given her wit, Chipaumire’s more earnest or spiritual moments, or those that touch traditions that an observer doesn’t understand, first come as a surprise. A recurring theme in the class session was the space around the students and how they should make it theirs.

“You are listening and inscribing your beingness into space,” she says. Reach up for the celestial space. Reach down for the ancestral space in the ground. “Get low, acknowledge the space that holds the ancestors.”

Chipaumire is clear that she is not representing Western dance traditions. “Don’t try the balletic gestures,” she says at one point. “Don’t give me the four o’clock tea fingers,” the extended pinky and ring finger.

At one point in the class, demonstrating into a posture of the spine and hips that she wants the students to use, she circulates among them and refers to the “swag-UH.” The swagger “is about defiance.”

Chipaumire models movements of strength and defiance in her dance. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

It’s about “what ails the black body in the world.” It’s about “the fullest presence without an apology. It allows one to walk on the street like this,” she says, striding with a fluid roll that says “I dare you” and a stare into the distance that says “See if I care.”

“We are talking,” she says at another point, “about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Maine native Shoshona Currier comes home from Chicago to helm �ֲ��ý Dance Festival

Doug Hubley — Thu, 25 May 2017 20:08:09 +0000

Photographed at her current workplace, the Chicago Cultural Center, Shoshona Currier succeeds Laura Faure as the director of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival. (Mark Hackman)

Shoshona Currier, director of performing arts for the city of Chicago, has been appointed as the next director of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival, an internationally renowned teaching and performance series held every summer at �ֲ��ý College.

A Maine native with more than 15 years of experience in arts curation, education, and administration, Currier succeeds Laura Faure, who retires Nov. 30 after 30 seasons with the festival.

“�ֲ��ý is thrilled to welcome Shoshona Currier as the new director of the ,” says Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ��ý. “Shoni’s credentials as a curator, presenter, and community-builder are outstanding. And her multimedia performing-arts expertise promises to keep the festival moving in new and exciting directions.”

As performing arts director with , Currier has developed the aesthetic vision for all civic theater and dance offerings, and has directly programmed city-run venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center and Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Her purview has encompassed curatorial and managerial direction, as well as the administration and development of a $1 million budget.

“I’m extremely pleased to be passing the festival baton to Shoni Currier this fall,” says Faure. “Shoni has a truly impressive track record of achievement in the performing arts.”

“Joining the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival is a really thrilling opportunity,” says Currier, who worked as a producer and artistic director in New York and elsewhere before taking the Chicago position in 2012.

“I’m excited about taking everything that I’ve learned and bringing it to such a prestigious and well-respected program, as well as returning to a state that I love so much.”

“I’m extremely pleased to be passing the festival baton to Shoni Currier this fall,” says Faure. “Shoni has a truly impressive track record of achievement in the performing arts. She brings a wealth of experience, passion, and commitment to this new role, and I’m confident she’ll lead the festival to even greater heights in the years to come.”

“I look forward to working with Shoni to hand over leadership through a thoughtful, collaborative process that will insure a successful transition and bright future for the festival.”

Currier is taking charge of one of the so-called Big Three of American dance festivals, along with Jacob’s Pillow and the American Dance Festival. Last summer, the six-week �ֲ��ý festival welcomed 270 students and 93 faculty, performers, and visiting artists, and presented nine mainstage performances that included such dance luminaries as Michelle Dorrance and Doug Varone. The festival presents its 35th season in 2017.

Currier’s tenure in Chicago started out with a large-scale strategic planning process, as she oversaw a fundamental reorganization of multiple dance, theater, and music programs. In reimagining the municipal performing arts division, she enlisted a new creative team and established best practices and processes for the division.

Currier has developed critically acclaimed civic performance series including SpinOff, focusing on contemporary dance by Midwestern artists, and the boundary-pushing OnEdge program. She has strived to bring large-scale public performance works to under-resourced parts of Chicago, aiming to ensure “that arts are relevant and accessible to many communities,” she says.

Riley Watts is one of the artists featured July 28-29 in gala performances marking the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival’s 35th anniversary season. (Susan Beard)

Among other accomplishments, she curated 10 ARTventure tours for the 2015 Americans for the Arts Convention, held in Chicago for the first time. Itineraries included a graffiti tour and a dance tour featuring the Joffrey Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance.

Outside of DCASE, Currier has served as a producing consultant for STAGE Lab, a program for STEM-inspired theater projects in the Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago. As a member of the Chicago Dance Makers Forum, a grantmaking consortium, Currier has worked closely with local dance artists.

She was born in Fort Kent, Maine, and grew up in the southern Maine town of Windham. Before taking the Chicago directorship, she held creative and administrative positions at Dance New Amsterdam, Performance Space 122, and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, all in New York City; and the Fusebox Festival, in Austin, Texas.

She was a member of the inaugural class at Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, and also studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at the New School, where she earned a bachelor of science degree.

Another highlight of the festival’s 35th season is “Mill Town”: Choreographed by Stephan Koplowitz, this immersive performance event features 50 dancers with live music, video and installations in and around the �ֲ��ý Mill Complex.

Laura Faure was a dancer, teacher, and arts administrator — in addition to farming for 10 years — when she began her tenure as �ֲ��ý Dance Festival director in 1987, following Elizabeth Zimmer, Andrea Stark, and co-directors Frank Wicks and Marcy Plavin. Plavin, who originated the �ֲ��ý College dance program, founded the festival.

“One of the parts of my job that I love the most is my close relationship with artists, my ability to help artists do their work,” Faure said in a 2012 interview. “I feel like I am very much a curator and creator in some way and that the festival is my choreography.”

Under Faure’s leadership, the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival has evolved into a leading center for contemporary dance nationally and internationally. Her support, both material and moral, has enabled some of the nation’s most-respected choreographers to create groundbreaking work at the festival.

Taking place July 7–Aug. 5, the festival’s 35th season is something special.

In turn, many of those same artists have returned during the academic year to perform and work with �ֲ��ý students. Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and David Dorfman are a few of the choreographers and company leaders who have returned repeatedly to the festival over the decades to teach, perform, and develop new work.

Taking place July 7–Aug. 5, the s something special, Faure points out. “It has been designed to celebrate the vibrancy of contemporary dance, to pay tribute to some of the exceptional artists who have contributed to the BDF legacy, and to highlight the importance of building community through the arts.”

This summer’s festival will showcase new and signature works by David Dorfman, Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, Larry Keigwin, Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig, among many others. Faure’s final �ֲ��ý Dance Festival as director will conclude on a high and historic note with “Mill Town,” a site-specific performance designed by Stephan Koplowitz and taking place at the historic �ֲ��ý Mill Complex.

Laura Faure, �ֲ��ý Dance Festival director, to step down after 2017 festival

Doug Hubley — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 16:30:10 +0000

Twenty-nine years, hundreds of performances, and countless classes after she arrived, the director of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival has announced plans to retire.

Laura Faure, the fourth director in the history of the festival, will step down after the 2017 season — the festival’s 35th and her 30th.

“Thirty years seems like a really good stretch,” says the 66-year-old Faure. “It just feels organically like the right time.”

Faure will turn over to her successor one of the nation’s leading dance festivals. During three decades at the helm, she has dramatically expanded the numbers of students, faculty-performers, and spectators attending the six-week festival. She has made the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival an international presence.

Laura Faure, director of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival, poses with Finn on the �ֲ��ý campus in July 2012. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

She is at the center of a wide and robust network of dance artists, presenters, and funders. Her support, both material and moral, has enabled some of the nation’s most-respected choreographers to create groundbreaking work. In turn, many of those same artists have returned during the academic year to work with �ֲ��ý students.

“We are indebted to Laura for her leadership of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival over the past 30 years,” says �ֲ��ý President Clayton Spencer.

“The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival has long stood for quality and innovation in dance education and dance-making. But the festival is also a force for good on many other levels. It has enriched and strengthened the college’s academic dance program, served as a powerful cultural engine for our region, and functioned as a wonderful ambassador for �ֲ��ý in the larger world.”

Laura Faure, front row at right, poses in Alumni Gym in July 2011 with members of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival’s Young Dancers Workshop faculty. (�ֲ��ý Dance Festival)

National Endowment for the Arts peer review panels, says NEA Director of Dance Douglas Sonntag, “have consistently cited the value of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival to the overall health of the American dance field.

“The festival has been a longtime grantee of the NEA precisely because of the excellence it brings to the training of young dancers, the nurturing atmosphere it provides choreographers, and the performance opportunities it provides to a broad aesthetic range of dance companies.”

The late Marcy Plavin, creator of �ֲ��ý’ academic dance program, launched the summer festival at the suggestion of the college’s then-president, Hedley Reynolds. The inaugural season in 1983 attracted 70 students and seven faculty-performers, and presented four performances by visiting artists.

Professor of Dance Carol Dilley, left, and �ֲ��ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure observe the last minutes of a three-week modern dance class taught in 2015 by Omar Carrum in the Gray Athletic Building. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

That was a promising start. And by summer 2016, Faure was overseeing a teaching and performance operation involving 270 students; 93 faculty, performers, and visiting artists; and nine mainstage performances.

But the evolution of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival under Faure is about much more than numbers. And if you were to distill it to one word, that would be “community.”

One of Faure’s greatest accomplishments has been to build on a characteristic embodied by Plavin: a dedication to egalitarianism, collaboration, and mutual support, rather than competition.

“The performing arts world can feel competitive,” says Marlee Weinberg ’10, who attended three festivals as a student and three more as a counselor. “But at the �ֲ��ý festival I never felt a competitive energy. It was all about the experience, all about learning, and expressing and facilitating creativity.”

�ֲ��ý Dance Festival students perform in a July 26 showcase in Alumni Gymnasium. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

“Laura has been extremely committed to that ethos,” says Suzanne Carbonneau ’76, a dance historian and critic, professor of performance at George Mason University, and longtime scholar-in-residence at the �ֲ��ý festival. “That is something that she has never tried to change, and in fact has continued to deepen throughout her tenure.”

That ethos, Carbonneau adds, “is absolutely unique” among the so-called Big Three of American dance festivals — Jacobs Pillow and the American Dance Festival, in addition to �ֲ��ý.

“She balances creating a festival as a presenter, as an educator, and as a supporter of artists,” says Associate Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia, who directs �ֲ��ý’ academic-year dance program and has taken part in virtually every festival since 2005. “Those three things could be in tension, and she finds a way to bring them together.”

One of South Africa’s best-known choreographers and dancers, Vincent Mantsoe poses with �ֲ��ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure during one of her visits to Africa. Mantsoe has taken part several times in the festival’s International Visiting Artists Program. (�ֲ��ý Dance Festival)

In short, Faure is a curator of community. Faure seeks out faculty and artists who are not only exceptional creators, performers, and teachers but, equally important, are also generous and caring, Boggia says.

“There’s always a dialogue going on,” Faure says. “I’ve always said that the festival has been a collective effort with really good ideas coming from here, there, and everywhere.”

And this exchange of ideas and experience continues outside class hours. The festival has a longtime custom of bringing students, visiting artists, and faculty together for every meal. And there’s a cherished tradition of front-porch conversations that go deep into the evening at the houses on Frye Street where performers and faculty stay.

“That’s where some of the most transformative learning happens,” Boggia says.

What strengths has Faure brought to the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival? “She has incredible force of will,” Carbonneau says, coupled with great persuasiveness, resourcefulness, and ingenuity.

Moreover, “where other presenters look for the newest, shiniest, flavor-of-the-month art to burnish their reputations, Laura has committed to a long-term faith in a core group of artists,” she adds. “She has provided a kind of career-long support that seems all but impossible to find in the current cultural climate.”

Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and David Dorfman are a few of the choreographers and company leaders who have returned repeatedly to the festival over the decades to teach, perform, and develop new work.

Choregrapher David Dorfman directs a rehearsal at Lewiston’s New Beginnings as part of a 2014 project featuring Dorfman’s company and dancers from Turkey and Armenia. Dorfman is a familar presence at the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

“They know that they have a home at �ֲ��ý and that they will be supported over time,” Faure says. “They have a place to come and make work, and to teach, and to be with their peers.”

Festival support for artists includes programs for emerging choreographers and international visiting artists, as well as occasional commissions or co-commissions, such as Sean Dorsey’s “The Missing Generation,” which made its East Coast debut at the festival in 2015.

All told, the festival’s performance series has fostered the development and presentation of hundreds of new works, such as Rennie Harris’s “Rome & Jewels,” that have gone on to national and international acclaim.

Youth Arts Program participants perform in the 2011 �ֲ��ý Dance Festival. (Arthur Fink/�ֲ��ý Dance Festival)

Some of the festival’s best-loved works have been major site-specific pieces that, pushing the creative possibilities to the edge, have introduced new ways of seeing familiar campus and local landmarks — such as a downtown Lewiston mill building (Varone’s 1992 “A Momentary Order”) and �ֲ��ý’ own Lake Andrews (2007’s “Paradise Pond” by PearsonWidrig Dance Theater).

For adult dancers, the festival has offered a three-week professional training program since its inception. Faure added a second three-week workshop program for teenage dancers in 1996.

In 1993, she established the Youth Arts Program, a community outreach initiative that provides performing and visual arts classes to young people aged 7–16.

“Giving local young people access to artists of the caliber that we bring to the festival is, to me, a no-brainer,” Faure says. “If artists are coming to Lewiston, let’s get Lewiston kids involved.”

Faure has also walked the walk when it comes to diversity and inclusiveness at the festival, through scholarships and through assertive recruiting and network-building efforts at, for example, performing arts high schools in major cities.

The festival is a founding member of the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium, a national program that promotes the exchange of arts and ideas between the U.S. and the African continent. That’s just one aspect of the festival’s international reach; Faure also travels extensively abroad, as well as in the U.S., to scout artists and recruit students.

Laura Faure, center, is shown with members of the dance festival’s International Visiting Artists Program in 2009 in �ֲ��ý’ Alumni Gym: from left, Nigerian artist Qudus Onikeku, Jose Jay B. Cruz of the Philippines, Faure, Opiyo Okach of Kenya and France, and Ivory Coast artist Michel Kouakou. (�ֲ��ý Dance Festival)

Ultimately for Faure, though, dance is the vehicle for a higher end. “Laura has built a community for the dance world,” says Weinberg. “And I think that this community that she built is almost like a microcosm of the way Laura wishes the world to be. She has set up this festival that brings people together in a noncompetitive, open, creative setting.”

Faure says, “There’s something unique and very fundamental about dance as an art form: Because it deals with the body, it’s a form that never lies, because the body doesn’t lie. There’s something profoundly truthful and human about making art through the body, with the body.”

Long term, she expects to remain involved in dance, and the arts more generally, as a freelance consultant and curator. But immediately after the 2017 festival winds up, her top priority is some time off.

Although students, audiences, and esteemed modern dance artists attend the festival for just six weeks each summer, the director’s role is full time. “I’ve had deadlines every week all year round,” Faure says. “I’m ready to have a shift.”

She adds, “I am incredibly lucky. I’ve been appreciated in an overwhelming way by generations of students and artists because of what we’ve created. That is extraordinary and so rare.”

Laura Faure, �ֲ��ý Dance Festival director, does a turn with Shamou, her husband and a festival musician, as the festival’s 2012 Musicians’ Concert draws to a close at the Franco Center in Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

National Endowment for the Arts awards $40,000 to �ֲ��ý Dance Festival

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 14:41:34 +0000

Acclaimed tap dancer Michelle Dorrance will be featured in the 2016 �ֲ��ý Dance Festival. The festival recently received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival announced on Dec. 9 that it has received an Art Works award of $40,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts, part of a total $27.6 million in the NEA’s first funding round of fiscal year 2016.

The grant will support a project titled Seeding the Field: Cultivating an Innovative Dance Community.

The NEA’s Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work; lifelong learning in the arts; and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields.

“The arts are part of our everyday lives – no matter who you are or where you live – they have the power to transform individuals, spark economic vibrancy in communities and transcend the boundaries across diverse sectors of society,” NEA Chairman Jane Chu said. “Supporting projects like the one from the offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”

“We are extremely gratified to be selected once again to receive the prestigious NEA Art Works award,” Festival Director Laura Faure said. “The NEA provides an important stamp of approval and critical core support for our ongoing work as a laboratory for contemporary dance.”

The award helps the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival to build upon 32 years of fostering innovation, collaboration and community.

In summer 2016 the festival will bring more than 70 leading dance artists — including Michelle Dorrance, Kate Weare Company, Doug Varone and Dancers — together with more than 320 dance students to learn, create, perform, connect and recharge in a collaborative, supportive environment aimed at fostering vital artistic exchange and encouraging appreciation for contemporary dance.

National Endowment for the Arts head Jane Chu sees funding at work at �ֲ��ý

Doug Hubley — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:22:58 +0000

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu visits the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art on Aug. 11, 2015. Also shown: museum Curator Bill Low, at rear; Julie Richard, executive director of the Maine Arts Commission; and at extreme right, Matt Auer, �ֲ��ý dean of the faculty. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

“She cheated! She worked ahead!” laughed Julie Richard, executive director of the Maine Arts Commission, as one of her companions in an art-and-writing exercise at the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art took the lead.

The culprit was Jane Chu, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, who was visiting the museum on Aug. 11 as part of a three-day tour of Maine arts presenters.

Anthony Shostak, the museum’s education curator, gave more than a dozen visitors in Chu’s party a demonstration of a unit in the Thousand Words Project. Offered to pupils in the local public schools, the project uses visual art to enhance learning across the curriculum.

The NEA’s Jane Chu admires a collage in the �ֲ��ý Museum of Art exhibition “Maine Collected.” (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

Chu and the others were assigned to make a nouns-only list of the plants and animals that appeared in a still life. (The local students who complete the exercise layer on additional parts of speech as an incremental approach to learning to write about art.)

“I’d gladly work with you guys for a couple of hours,” Shostak told the visitors and their �ֲ��ý hosts at the end of the brief exercise.

, Chu stopped at NEA-supported arts organizations in Portland, Brunswick, and Waterville as well as Lewiston.

In addition to Richard and an NEA aide, she was accompanied by staffers for U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin of Maine’s 1st District and 2nd District, respectively.

Pingree and the Maine Arts Commission invited Chu to the state.

The �ֲ��ý museum and the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival are longtime recipients of NEA support — 25 consecutive years’ worth for the latter, as Director Laura Faure pointed out to Chu. Faure showed two festival videos, while Shostak, museum Curator Bill Low and Director Dan Mills showed the visitors around the museum.

Also on hand were Michael Reidy, �ֲ��ý’ managing director of theater and dance, and Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

The visit included a discussion about �ֲ��ý’ artistic offerings and particularly their community focus. “We have been more intentional than ever about trying to lift up community engagement,” said Darby Ray, director of the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

For her part, Chu described recent NEA initiatives, including . Timed to mark the signing of the legislation that created the NEA 50 years ago, the stories will be published starting Sept. 29.

The project “shows that the arts are thriving,” Chu said. “It really shows the formidable presence of the arts in our lives.”

�ֲ��ý Dance Festival ends season with three popular programs

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 13:45:59 +0000

Bliss Kohlmyer and Kara Davis appear in the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival’s “Different Voices” concerts. (Andy Mogg)

The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival reprises three popular annual offerings as it nears the end of its 2015 season.

The annual Musicians’ Concert, a global mix of music by the remarkable composers and players who support the work of the dance festival, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 4, at the Franco Center, 46 Cedar St., Lewiston. Admission is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for students.

The Different Voices concerts, showcasing diverse styles and perspectives by visiting choreographers from around the world, take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Aug. 6 and 7, in Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St. Admission is $25 for adults, $18 for seniors and $12 for students.

Terrence Karn is one of the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival players taking part in the Aug. 4 Musicians’ Concert. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The Festival Finale presents student dancers of all ages performing contemporary works by festival performers and faculty. Also representing the festival’s Youth Arts Program, the finale takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, in Alumni Gymnasium, 130 Central Ave. Admission is $6, available only in cash sales at the door.

Preceding the finale at 1 p.m. Aug. 8 in Schaeffer Theatre is the annual Young Choreographers / New Works showcase, an informal adjudicated showing of more than 20 new works by talented festival students. Admission is free and audience members are invited to come and go throughout the event.

For information about tickets, please visit the festival website — — or call the �ֲ��ý box office at 207-786-6161.

The Musicians’ Concert offers a different perspective on creativity at the dance festival. Thoughtful, playful and profound music takes center stage as these extraordinary composers, known for their collaborations with dancers, perform a program of original and improvised works that blend musical styles from around the globe.

The evening features multi-instrumentalists Jesse Manno, Terrence Karn and Shamou, whose collective musical repertory spans Africa, Asia and the Middle East; composer-pianists Peter Jones, Mike Vargas and Carl Landa; electronic music wizard Albert Mathias; and violin prodigy Rob Flax.

Transnational fusion dance artist Donna Mejia performs in “Different Voices.” (Steve Blaerama)

Showcasing diverse styles and perspectives, Different Voices features visiting choreographers from across the U.S. and beyond. This eclectic evening includes surprising and innovative dance, music and media works by:

Bay Area duo Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias;
transnational fusion artist Donna Mejia;
New York City choreographer and tap artist David Parker;
Chicago’s acclaimed jazz choreographer Autumn Eckman;
the remarkable Finnish movement artist Ima Iduozee;
emerging artists Scotty Hardwig and Keanu Forest Brady;
and the stunning Bliss Kohlmyer and Kara Davis.

The Festival Finale is a celebration of the next wave of dance luminaries. Students perform a high-energy evening of new works created by faculty members Robert Moses, Rennie Harris, Autumn Eckman, and Claudia Lavista and Omar Carrum. This culmination of the festival’s three-week intensive training program also showcases an original production by talented local youth, ages 7-16, enrolled in the festival’s Youth Arts Program.

�ֲ��ý Dance Festival: Robert Moses’ Kin looks at liberation movements

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 13:48:05 +0000

Robert Moses’ Kin. (R.J. Muna)

Robert Moses’ Kin returns to the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival with performances of “NEVABAWARLDAPECE,” a work whose creators include roots musician Corey Harris ’91, at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 31 and Aug. 1, in Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St.

Admission is $25 for adults, $18 for seniors and $12 for students. For information about ordering tickets, please visit the festival website — — or call the �ֲ��ý box office at 207-786-6161.

“NEVABAWARLDAPECE” (“never be a world of peace”) is a full-company work of urgent, pulsing energy that explores critical moments of change in America’s liberation movements, insurrections and revolts. In a world of seemingly endless chaos and confrontation, “NEVABAWARLDAPECE” feels like a plea for a return to core principles.

The work is a collaboration among artistic director Moses; award-winning writer and performer Carl Hancock Rux; Afro-Celtic folk-funk vocalist Laura Love; blues musician, composer and MacArthur Fellow Harris; and lighting and visual designer Elaine Buckholtz.

The company presents a Show & Tell lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, in Schaeffer. Dance writer Debra Cash offers a pre-performance Inside Dance lecture at 7 p.m. Aug. 1. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

Robert Moses’ Kin. (Toni Gauthier)

Also this week, the festival presents Moving in the Moment, an evening of improvisational dance and music by contact improviser Nancy Stark Smith and festival faculty and musicians, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 29, in Alumni Gym, 130 Central Ave. Admission is free.

Moses’ diverse 11-member company is known for its eclectic movement vocabulary, demanding choreography, ferocious dancing and provocative themes. Moses’ focus on the expressiveness of the human body and his desire to speak with the voices of his African American heritage have resulted in an internationally recognized collection of dances.

Robert Moses’ Kin has premiered more than 70 original works that range from neoclassical ballet to postmodern movement theatre. The company has earned a host of awards including four Bay Area Isadora Duncan Awards (Izzies), as well as grants from such institutions as the National Endowment for the Arts and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The company has appeared at venues throughout the U.S., including Jacob’s Pillow, the Colorado Dance Festival, Dance Center at Columbia College, University of Texas and New York’s City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. Learn more:

A powerful singer, skilled and inventive songwriter, Harris has carved out his own niche in the blues. Recipient of an honorary Doctor of Music degree from �ֲ��ý in 2007, he is an intrepid explorer of blues, jazz, reggae, and other genres. .

About the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival

Founded in 1982 at �ֲ��ý College, the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival brings together an international community of contemporary choreographers, performers, educators and students in a cooperative community to study, perform and create new work.

The festival serves as an annual destination for artists, students and audiences to engage in a full range of activities and performances that foster a creative exchange of ideas, encourage exploration of new ground and provide access to a wide spectrum of dance and movement disciplines.

At press time, support for the 2015 season has been provided by �ֲ��ý College, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, Maine Arts Commission, Maine Humanities Council, Leonard C. and Mildred F. Ferguson Foundation, Lewiston-Auburn Children’s Home, the firm of Norman, Hansen & DeTroy, Platz Associates, the Onion Foundation, the Sequoia Foundation, the Shapiro Family Foundation and generous individual donors.

Esteemed Mexican troupe in New England debut at �ֲ��ý Dance Festival

�ֲ��ý News — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 18:55:26 +0000

Delfos Danza Contemporanea. (Martin Gavica)

The leading Mexican dance troupe Delfos Danza Contemporanea makes its New England debut with the compelling evening-length work “When Disguises Are Hung Up” in 2015 �ֲ��ý Dance Festival performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 24 and 25, in �ֲ��ý College’s Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St.

Delfos co-directors Victor Manuel Ruiz and Claudia Lavista reveal their passion for collaboration and invention in a festival Show & Tell lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, in Schaeffer Theatre. Dance writer Debra Cash offers a pre-performance Inside Dance lecture at 7 p.m. on July 25. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

A work for seven dancers, “Disguises” integrates dance, video, computer animation and music by Mario Lavista, Meredith Monk, Schumann, Sergio Díaz, Bach and Vivaldi into a reflection on appearances, and the loss and rediscovery of the self. Both deeply conceptual and accessible, “Disguises” is one of the most esteemed works in Delfos’ repertory.

Choreographer-dancers Lavista and Ruiz founded Delfos in 1992 as a collective of artists whose creative vision is distinguished by the fluid physicality and poetic narratives within their diverse repertory. Delfos’ work has been presented throughout Latin America as well as Canada, the United States, Europe, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and Lebanon.

Delfos has won worldwide critical praise; several major awards including the Mexican National Dance Award; and the distinct honor of being the only Mexican company selected to tour extensively in the U.S. with the support of the National Dance Project. Learn more: .

The �ֲ��ý Dance Festival engagement of Delfos Danza Contemporanea is made possible through Southern Exposure: Performing Arts of Latin America, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.

About the �ֲ��ý Dance Festival

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�ֲ���ý Dance Festival ends season with three popular programs

�ֲ���ý Dance Festival: Robert Moses’ Kin looks at liberation movements

Esteemed Mexican troupe in New England debut at �ֲ���ý Dance Festival