August, 2022
Welcome to August! I hope you are finding rest and restorative fun this summer. I have been quiet since May, regrouping after a few intense seasons of dance. Exciting news:
I’m performing NOURISH downtown! I’d love to have you join me.
Tuesday, August 16, 6-7pm
6 Faneuil Hall Square Boston, MA 02109
NOURISH: A Public Dance to Heal Your Senses
I am thankful to be making the dance of my dreams, to just be myself, sharing openly with viewers, moving safely in public. I will perform a solo NOURISH restorative dance in Faneuil Hall in front of Juan Obando’s photographic installation, commissioned as part of Now + There’s Summer Sets Community Engagements. This dance Clarifies, Claims, and Connects through stillness, attention, and gentle movement.
YOU ARE INVITED to claim your place and focus on your mind and body while you discover exactly how you want to move. Drop in for a short look, or stay for the whole event. Be a bystander, or move with me on your own terms, in your own space.
NOURISH is open to all ages, levels of experience, and is adaptable to your abilities.
Wear secure shoes and comfortable clothing, bring water.
Summer Sets by Juan Obando compels us to reconfigure our shared space and turn alternative perspectives into objects that honor our collective legacy. Produced by Now + There for Dock Square in Faneuil Hall, this site-specific installation intentionally directs the public’s gaze toward a screen, projecting imagination, hope, and deeper care onto the built environment we claim and construct. Playful and provoking, Summer Sets offers a look at the future of cityscapes while historic statutes still stand, therefore simulating a new world at the present and past moment, inviting us to imagine and model alternative perspectives for monuments and public space.
IN OTHER NEWS…
Do you like my new website? Designed by Angelina Benitez, and funded by New England Foundation for the Arts New England Dance Fund Grant, the new site has updated calendar events, and new videos.
I am honored to receive a creative residency at Bearnstow Artistic Retreat in Mount Vernon, Maine. I will spend a week in a cabin among other dance artists, show new work in progress, and tap into nature for inspiration.
This summer, Olivia Moon and I are editing NOURISH film short, to submit to dance film festivals. The film encapsulates the introspective form and approach to dance, combined with a year’s worth of dance research. Monkeyhouse premiered it at the Malden Dance Mile, and we are looking forward to screening it more. If you came to a NOURISH session, you may catch a glimpse of yourself in the film! This project was made possible with a grant from New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice grant, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts & Culture Community Impact Grant Fund.
NOURISH movement events at LexFarm have resumed, and will continue on Wednesdays, 6pm by appointment through September. If you are interested in meeting me at Lexington Community Farm for a one on one dance NOURISH session, please let me know by clicking the ReACH out button at the top of the page. Moving with individuals and small groups helps me to refine ideas for a NOURISH installation project planned for 2024. NOURISH at LexFarm is supported by grants from the Lexington Cultural Council and Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
I’m presenting about NOURISH at the Dance Studies Association Conference, Dancing Resilience: Dance Studies and Activism in a Global Age in Vancouver this October! I will be on a panel, Jewish Choreographers-Practices as Research into Social Activism, with Celia Weiss Bambara and Kristen Smiarowski, moderated by Hannah Kosstrin.
As ever, I am sharing my gratitude to seal my message with sweetness and meaning, and to best remember this time. Today, I am thankful for rest, my health, mangoes, bathing, good jokes from friends, and your supportive connection.
What are you thankful for this summer?
Take good care,
Jess.