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'Old North' Virtual Premiere

/ Inspired by the architecture, history, and community of Boston’s oldest church known for its role in the American Revolution, a group of artists and dancers inhabit a site that is both a national park and a parish. For one year they follow the site’s daily rhythms, and offer slight alterations of actions and practices traditionally embedded in the space. In the final months, they document their embodied research, inviting participation and play from their friends, peers, clergy, congregation, park staff, and tour groups. Although filmed in 2019, a foreshadowing emerges that touches on the personal and communal, the public and the private, the past and the present. Old North is an introspective portrait of a sacred and civic space, paired with music by Andrew Bird and held together like a poem.

Streaming every Sunday in February:

Sunday, February 6
Sunday, February 13
Sunday, February 20 – public celebration and reception at 7pm EST
Sunday, February 27

Created by Sue Murad and Jenna Pollack

Produced by Reciprocity Collaborative

70 minutes

Free

\\ Previous Work

U.S. State Department - Embassy to Colombia

\ - Arts Envoy in residence virtually summer-fall 2021 (rescheduled from 2020) at the University of Caldas in

collaboration with the Colombian-American Center of Manizales

- Dramaturgical Assistant for 'Hombre Flor' at Festival de Manizales

- Visiting Lecturer in Choreography

- Presentation 'A Working Dramaturgy of Engineering in Performance' at 2020 Festival Internacional de la

Imagen in partnership with University of Caldas and Encuentros Manizales

The Yard

\ Boston Schoenberg Residency: August 17 - 31, 2021

Read the Yard's profile and press release here

This project continues a long love for The Yard. In thinking about this moment of change for the organization, I was reminded that it will soon also celebrate a lineage of 50 years. I have become fascinated by the move from Tabor House Road to Middle Road, with the tales of Patricia's corralling vision, with the legacy of the vineyard community. I'm thinking about how engaging with broad notions of place and space in this project may be of utility to The Yard's future - how can we celebrate the campus as a collection of memories and people, as well as architecture? How do we engage the archives as a practice of the future? How do artists hold the layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory identities of the organization in residence?

The 2021 summer teams:

Dr. Benjamin Linder

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND THE YARD PROJECTS

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Dr. Linder’s teaching and research efforts are focused on sustainable design, international development, human centered design and creative design methods. These efforts are directed at developing techniques and approaches that further a more ecologically connected and socially informed design practice. As an experienced teacher and practitioner of product design, Linder regularly advises and delivers workshops for practitioners, educators and the Public. He is a co-organizer of the International Development Design Summit that brings people together from over 20 countries to build local, creative design capacity.

Ben holds his Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and a B.S. in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from University of Michigan.

At Olin College he teaches Design Nature, Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship, Introduction to Sustainability, and Sustainable Design, among others. He is also the Co-Principal Investigator for the Sketch Model Initiative at Olin.

Victoria Awkward

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS PROJECT

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Boston-based Victoria Lynn Awkward is a professional artist, educator and the Director of VLA DANCE.

She graduated with a degree in Visual and Performing Arts Education from Goucher College, where she danced for the Goucher Repertory Dance Ensemble and performed in works by artists including Sidra Bell, Christian Von Howard, Ronen Koresh, Helen Simoneau, Iyun Ashani Harrison, and Iquail Shaheed. As a professional artist, she has performed with Ashani Dances, Attn: Dance, The Davis Sisters, Heather Stewart, Jenna Pollack and Ruckus Dance.

Victoria was a 2019 - 2020 Boston Institute of Contemporary Art Dance Fellow. She has taught as a guest teacher at Salem State University, teaches regular professional-level courses for VLA DANCE and Midday Movement Series, and is currently the Head Dance Coach at Middlesex School in Concord. Most recently, Victoria was awarded the 2020 - 2021 Boston DanceMaker Residency with the Boston Center for the Arts and Boston Dance Alliance, the Art for Racial Justice Grant from Cambridge Arts, and is a part of the 2021 Mass MoCa Assets for Artists Program.

Photo is a self-portrait

Elizabeth Cahill

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND THE YARD PROJECTS

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ELIZABETH CAHILL (Sound Designer) is a Boston based sound designer, composer, and artist. Elizabeth has sound designed for The Lyric Stage, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, New Rep, Gloucester Stage, SpeakEasy Stage, The A.R.T. Institute, New England Conservatory, Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard University, Fresh Ink Theatre, Bridge Rep, Central Square Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, Brownbox Theatre Project, Baldwin Wallace University, Moonbox Productions, Emerson Stage, and more. A/V Supervisor for operas with New England Conservatory, Boston Early Music Festival, and Boston University. Elizabeth serves as the Sound Area Head and Resident Sound Designer for Emerson Stage at Emerson College.

Frederick Moss

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND THE YARD PROJECTS

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Frederick Moss is a graduate of Morehouse College where he earned both a BS in Biology and a BA in Music. While studying at Morehouse, he began his dance training in various styles and has worked with choreographers/creators such as Dianne McIntyre, T. Lang, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nick Cave and Ntozake Shange. Originally from New York City, Frederick relocated to Boston in 2016 and has since had the pleasure of performing with various organizations/artists such as Urbanity Dance, Connections Dance Theater, The Davis Sisters (Joy and Alexander Davis), Jenna Pollack, and Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion. In addition to exploring his passion for movement and performance, Frederick is a PhD candidate in chemistry at Harvard University, where he studies organic and mechanistic chemistry. Ultimately, he hopes to use dance as a vehicle for science education.

Photo credit: Olivia Moon

Linnea Thorne

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS PROJECT

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A Boston native, Linnea grew up training and participating in competitions, conventions, assisting classes, and expanding her dance education in every way she could. Linnea has been teaching in various studios/programs in the New England area since 2013. In the summer of 2014, Linnea graduated from the Dance Teachers Club of Boston’s “Teacher in Training” course. She graduated from Salem State University in Fall of 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a modern/contemporary concentration and a minor in Theatre.

Throughout her time at Salem State University, she was able to enroll in a variety of courses such as Dance Context and Cultures, Special Topics: Jazz, and a Multimedia course. She choreographed for the Salem Dance Ensemble and performed in Repertory Dance Theatre. In the Spring of 2019, Linnea was honored with the “Creativity Award” from the SSU Dance Department. In the summer of 2019, she attended Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, ME); her time there landed her an Internship for the following summer (unfortunately cancelled due to COVID19). Linnea also performed in the Salem Arts Festival and the Beverly Arts Festival. In the fall of 2019, she tested in the style of Jazz to become an official member of the Dance Teacher's Club of Boston.

Linnea is always looking for growth within any cultivating experience. She loves to be involved in a culture full of motivated and passionate people. An environment where every moving part is essential and to also have access to a great support system.

Whitney Schmanski

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND THE YARD PROJECTS

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Whitney Schmanski enjoys sharing her love of dance and movement in theaters, classrooms, films, and in nature. Whitney started her dance training in Utah and later studied at the San Francisco School of the Arts, the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and graduated with a BFA from The Juilliard School. Whitney has had the opportunity to perform works of Jirí Kylián, Didy Veldman, Kyle Abraham, Brian Brooks, Camille A. Brown, Peter Chu, Merce Cunningham, Kate Weare, Alexandra Damiani, Eliot Feld, and Bobbi Jene Smith among others. She has danced with Brian Brooks Moving Company, MOMIX, and DANAKA dance, alongside involvement with other interdisciplinary collaborations and her own choreographic endeavors. She is enthusiastic about exploring the profound connections between the mind and body through different movement methodologies and is a certified GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® method Instructor.

Harrison Pearse Burke

BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND THE YARD PROJECTS

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Harrison Pearse Burke is a Boston-based Lighting Designer and Production Manager. Locally, Harrison is the Assistant Lighting Director of the Boston Ballet and the Dance Production Manager of the Celebrity Series of Boston. Boston credits include designs and collaborations with The Davis Sisters, Danza Organica, The Wondertwins, Reciprocity Collaborative, Fresh Ink Theater, Heather Stewart Dance, Subject:Matter, The Bang Group, Bonnie Duncan & The Gottabees and Betsy Miller Dance Projects. Harrison is also the Resident Lighting Designer and Production Manager for The Yard, on Martha's Vineyard, where he has designed for Rosie Herrera, Amirah Sackett, Lida Winfield, Ragamala Dance Company, Ruth Childs, Raphael Xavier, Caleb Teicher, and their own company, Dance The Yard. Harrison is a graduate of the Boston University School of Design & Production, BFA in Lighting Design, Magna Cum Laude.

Photo credit: Julie Rooney

Sue Murad

THE YARD PROJECT

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Iraqi-American artist Sue Murad responds to culture through an intuitive, sensory engagement with every day objects, often in the public or private places they inhabit. Past subjects have been curtains, magazines, plastic bags, copy paper, and oranges. She may alter, arrange, and choreograph a subject, or set up situations where change and chance happen without direct contact, such as a subject melting, falling, or sliding. These formal and philosophical explorations disregard notions of usefulness, common meaning, and prescribed narratives, and feed her interdisciplinary practice of performance, installation, sculpture, collage, and film.

Photo is a self-portrait.

Flora Hyoin Kim

THE YARD PROJECT

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Flora Hyoin Kim is a Korean-American choreographer, performer, and dance educator. Since earning her B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014, she has been working professionally in Boston. Most recently, Flora has been collaborating with Asian American artists in creating video projects that tell the stories of different aspects of Asian American lives including “Convergent Waves” by Lenora Lee Dance, “Finding Home with Chen Chen” presented by Pao Arts Center, and “Dear Mother” by Kathy Eow. As a choreographer, Flora’s most recent piece “In Solidarity” was presented at the Boston Contemporary Dance Festival in Summer 2020 and has presented her works at various venues including Harvard Kennedy School, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Onstage Dance Company Choreographer Residency Showcase, First Church in Cambridge, Korean Church of Boston, and Lotte Cinema World Tower in Seoul, South Korea. Flora has performed and worked with prestigious companies and choreographers including Prometheus Dance, Riley Watts, Korhan Basaran, Hollis Bartlett, Nattie Trogdon, Lenora Lee Dance, Lorraine Chapman, BeHeard.World, Jennifer Lin, Deborah Abel Dance Company, and Urbanity Dance. Flora joined Boston Conservatory at Berklee as an Assistant Professor of Dance in Spring 2021 and has taught various age groups at Boston Ballet School, Urbanity Dance, LINX Dance, Coastline Ballet Center, StyleMe Dance, Endicott College, Boston public schools and dance studios in greater Boston area. Flora’s vision as an artist and a dance educator is to bring inclusivity, empowerment, and joy to individuals and communities through the power of dance.

Photo by Ryan Smith

Emily Jerant-Hendrickson

THE YARD PROJECT

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Emily Jerant-Hendrickson is a Boston based teacher, collaborator, and performer.
Emily has danced professionally in works by various artists including Sidra Bell, Itzik Galili, little house dance company, David Parker and the Bang Group, Lorraine Chapman the Company, and Reciprocity Collaborative, among others. She has had
the pleasure of performing at venues and through organizations such as World
Music/CRASH Arts, APAP at City Center, The Ailey Citigroup Theater, The Martha Graham Theater, Soaking WET, Boston Center for the Arts, and Cape Dance Festival. In addition to performing, Emily has also created works that have been presented at Gibney Dance Center NYC, Manhattan Movement Arts, The Boston
Conservatory, The Canterbury Shaker Village, The Dance Complex, and Green Street Studios. She has also acted as a rehearsal director for little house dance company’s 2019 creation at Boston Center for the Arts, Jenna Pollack’s 2019 creation on Urbanity Dance, and CoGRAVITY Dance’s 2020 residency in Jefferson, New Hampshire. Emily holds a BFA in dance from the Boston Conservatory.

Photo credit: Heather Stewart