NOVEL FORMATS
NOVEL FORMATS #1-7
A Dialogue
The Set Up
Loop
Pile Up
For A Time
You Are Here, Change x 3
Rider
This project is supported in part by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, JAM-Junction Arts & Media, NEFA’s New England Dance Fund and the generosity of individual donors.
Donate to support this project. Funds raised go toward artist fees and production costs.
In life, as in performance, we think our senses are instinctual and real but so much is learned, habitual. NOVEL FORMATS aims to interrupt these patterns through novelty, immediacy, risk, and real time human connection.
NOVEL FORMATS is a cycle of seven dances that explore the phenomenal nature of dance in conversation with forms outside itself. Each is unique: a distinct collaboration between dance, music, and visual art. 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, a communal practice and a way to be in relationship with oneself, with others, and the world.
To date, five dances in the NF cycle have been created and performed: #1: A Dialogue, #2: The Set Up, #3: Loop, #5: For A Time, #6: You Are Here, Change, Change, Change
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
Next Up:
NOVEL FORMATS ON-SITE
Performances, events, gallery exhibition, workshops
Jan 16 - Feb 14, 2026
AVA Gallery and Art Center · 11 Bank St. Lebanon, NH
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, audience member, choreographer and founding director of Cradle to Grave Arts, Inc.