Novel Formats #2: A Set Up
Sunday October 6th
JAM - Junction Arts & Media - 5 S. Main Street, WRJ, VT

Many of my projects are investigations in collaboration and improvisation. In this light, I have initiated the seven-part improvisation series, Novel Formats. Beginning with a dialogue and the desire to rethink the understanding of and experience with improvisation as a form of performance, Novel Formats allows for an open ended experiment and creates a forum for a multiplicity of artists to come together to exchange ideas and improvise together. Each will have a different cast of artists of dancers, musicians, visual artists, actors, and writers.

For the first installment of Novel Formats #1: A Dialogue, an ensemble of six artists performed in the white box space at Junction Arts & Media on Feb 3, 2024.
With
Rachel Bernsen, instigator/director/dancer
Ellen Ahern Smith, dancer
Tomeka Reid, cellist
Kyoko Kitamura, vocalist
Taylor Ho Bynum, cornetist, multi-instrumentalist
Lindsay Packer, visual artist

An audience member shared their experience:
It has been a very long time since I saw such excellence in collaborative, attentive improvisation. Not a moment dropped out. And a good intimate space for the audience who became part of the moment. ...my gratitude [to] all of your partners for this marvelous, luscious, creative experience. Being present with people who are paying such close attention, listening to each other, shifting the molecules in the space, slowing down the pace is revolutionary, needed.
-Hannah Dennison, choreographer and founding director of Cradle to Grave Arts, Inc.

Film of the live performance produced by JAM Technical Director & Senior Producer, Chico Eastridge
Videographers: Chico Eastridge and Kate Barber
Editor: Chico Eastridge
Audio engineer: Cedar O'Dowd

photo by Kate Barber at JAM of L to R Kyoko Kitamura, Rachel Bernsen, Ellen Ahern Smith