NOVEL FORMATS ON-SITE

NOVEL FORMATS ON-SITE
Performances, events, gallery exhibition, workshops
January 16 - February 14, 2026
AVA Gallery and Art Center · 11 Bank St. Lebanon, NH 03766

This presentation of NOVEL FORMATS ON-SITE includes the premieres of two new dances in the cycle and expands beyond the ephemeral to include material visual art in the shared space of the gallery including my new video My Material Nature (excerpt seen above).

Each of the five artists featured in the exhibit are NOVEL FORMATS' collaborators. Each move fluidly between disciplines, their work rooted in experimentation with form and the mutuality of solo and collective practice. Collectively these artists are practicing performers, designers, theater artists, sculptures, scholars, filmmakers, and musicians.

Two dances will be performed in the gallery:
NOVEL FORMATS #5: For A Time is a dance where bodies, sounds, objects, and space cohabitate, constantly shifting, emerging and dissolving. Rachel Bernsen and vocalist and electronics artist Jean Carla Rodea perform, in collaboration with theater designer Noah Mease

NOVEL FORMATS #6: You Are Here, Change Change Change is a solo dance and a living installation, an ever shifting landscape inhabited by a singular body, Rachel Bernsen, and layers of textile sculptural forms created by visual artist / scenographer Megan Craig, shifting between the intimate and the monumental.

There will also be workshops in collective creativity, open to all levels. See info below.

Opening Reception Jan 16, 5-7pm
Open Workshops Jan 18 & 31, 11:30am-1pm / 2-4pm
Performances Jan 23, 24, 7pm: #5: For A Time
Performances Feb 6, 7, 7pm:  #6: You Are Here, Change Change Change
Closing day: Feb 13
MORE INFO AND TICKETS

Workshops:
Spontaneous Sound Orchestra
(adults & youth 7+) taught by Taylor Ho Bynum
SIGN UP
Spontaneous Dance Group
(ages 18+) taught by Rachel
SIGN UP

Installations in the gallery:
Works by Megan Craig, Chico Eastridge, Noah Mease, Jean Carla Rodea, JAM - Junction Arts & Media, and Rachel Bernsen
Open to the public
Tues - Sat, 11am-5pm
Free

NOVEL FORMATS is a cycle of seven performance works that explore the phenomenal nature of dance in conversation with forms outside itself. Each dance is unique, and each work in Novel Formats is a distinct collaboration between dance, music, and visual art. For each, artists come together from a range of practices and, in different permutations, engage collectively in performance making. In doing so, they investigate the social and political dimensions of improvisation. The works demonstrate that improvisation can be a shared experience that transcends discipline: it is a communal practice, a way to be in relationship with oneself, with others, and the world.

NF collaborators so far: dance artists Ellen Smith Ahern and Julian Barnett, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, cinematographer Chico Eastridge, vocalist Kyoko Kitamura, visual artists Lindsay Packer, Megan Craig, Noah Mease, electric guitarist Evan Patrick, cellist Tomeka Reid, vocalist/electronics artist Jean Carla Rodea, violist/electronics artist Mac Waters

Seen above: Excerpt from video entitled My Material Nature, 2026
Created, performed, edited by Rachel Bernsen

Homepage image by Ben DeFlorio