Recent community art projects

Dreaming

Collaboration with Cityscape afterschool program, Barre, Vermont, 2005

In this performance project, we met with a class of middle schoolers for twelve weeks and created an original theater piece around the theme of dreams. In the early weeks, we facilitated material-generating exercises in movement, writing, acting and video, having students share the dreams they had at night in addition to the dreams they had for the future. We then created a structure for the material, building a show which we performed for the community. In addition, we helped students create a theater workshop for the audience during which they led exercises and served as leaders.

Letters to the President: How Do You Spell Democracy?

Collaboration with Amy Stuart, M.S.W., and Community College of Vermont in Montpelier. Winter 2004

This was a two part community project exploring the concept and practice of democracy as a response to what we saw as an apathetic voting population in the U.S. During the first phase, Amy and I researched quotations about democracy and sent them in alphabetical order as “letters” to the U.S. president and other elected officials; we also connected with a college student who created a website and posted the letters on it each week. During the second phase, we worked in conjunction with CCV to create and lead performance and dialogue-based workshops for students about democracy. Finally, the third phase consisted of organizing and facilitating a “Festival of Democracy,” a multi-disciplinary community event celebrating, exploring, and questioning theories and practices of democracy. The event included a story circle about courage, an exhibition by CCV photography students about patriotism, a staged reading of the play, “Us and Them,” by CCV Acting class, a discussion about employment rights facilitated by a local attorney and the screening of film about disability culture followed by a discussion.

Performing Our Stories, Creating Our Communities,

Barre, Vermont, fall 2003

For eight weeks, this community workshop focused on building community through sharing stories from everyday life via different art forms. We utilized writing, mask, movement, improvisation, and video and explored the concept of “audience-less” performance, the value of creating for pleasure and relationship building.