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November 3-4, 2023: Hedwig Dances premiere
fall series - "no ideas but in things"
Ruth Page Center for the Arts
Photo: Peter Hinsdale
Ahead of The Yard's 50th Anniversary this residency engaged the institution with historic research, site-specific activation, and conversations of its positionality in the contemporary dance ecosystem.
Could we encourage them to forefront the lessons of their archives as a practice of their future? How could we celebrate the campus as a collection of memories, people, and architecture, while simultaneously pushing their politics further? How do artists hold the layered, complex, and sometimes contradictory identities of an organization while in residence? And how do we want to be held?
This piece is an ongoing collaboration with mechanical engineer and sustainable designer Dr. Benjamin Linder. We are exploring the intersection of materiality and agency, working inside states of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction to consider what is in our control.
Working budget: bit.ly/JPPboxbudget
**This piece is yet unnamed, though this specific residency in 2021 culminated in public performances. I avoid naming conventions until the work is done as a practice of agency and self-determination. This allows my projects to center process over product, ensures that I stack funds to reach for thriving wages for my team no matter how many grant cycles it takes, and better insulates the creative process from the political pressure I conjure outside the studio with my other hats on.
Work in Process**
\ Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) Residency: 2020-2021 Season
Read Jenna's BCA profile here
Read The Boston Globe feature here
Check out the Sketch Model at Olin College project here