Shilpika Bordoloi is a filmmaker, performer, educator and curator. She is the founder and works as the Artistic Director of Brahmaputra Cultural Foundation (BCF), a space of—and for—community participation, leadership, artistic journeys/performances, exchanges and education through arts and culture. She is a visiting faculty to the National School of Drama and National Institute of Design and at State University of Film and Television, Haryana. Shilpika has been awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for Contemporary/Experimental Dance in India amongst others. Currently she is exploring the broad umbrella of Body Wisdom where healing modalities, stage work, screen work and community work intersect in a multi-dimensional way. www.shilpikabordoloi.com

Kat Castro Kat (she/they) is a 1st generation Filipina-American interdisciplinary artist, embodied healer, director, and producer born and raised in New Jersey, currently based out of NJ/NYC. More importantly, she’s Human. Grounded in the theme of kapwa (shared-self) and rooted in ancestral healing, she focuses on creating belonging spaces to honour vulnerability and self-exploration through her work.

Maintaining her inner-child fire, Kat curiously experiments through different mediums such as movement, film, photo, design, and more. Raised in an immigrant household, she always rebelled towards the arts at a young age. From playing piano, to showing off dance moves to her grandparents, to documenting memories with her mom’s point-and-shoot cameras, she always found ways to express herself in whatever way she could. In the midst of pursuing and finishing her degree in Kinesiology at the University of Toronto, she found ways to break out of the expected mold and spent any time she could, immersing herself in Toronto’s art and dance communities. This opened doors for her to where she continues to build and expand with local and global artists, brands, and non-profit organizations, aiming to put an emphasis on sharing stories through a socio-cultural lens. undertones.world

@undertones.world

Jade Charon is an interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, filmmaker, and international dance educator, hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin living in Brooklyn. Charon received an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in Dance and Theater from Columbia College Chicago. Charon was awarded the 2020 Hicks Choreographer Fellowship from the School of Jacob's Pillow where she received mentorship from Dianne McIntyre and Risa Steinberg. In 2018, Charon was selected as the Chuck Davis Emerging Choreographer Fellow from BAM(Brooklyn Academy of Music) . She is an Assistant Professor of Dance and Technology at Medgar Evers College. As a filmmaker, her films have been accepted in festivals and conferences such as Montreal Independent Film Festival, Mke Film Festival, Toronto International Women’s Film Festival, American Dance Festival Movie By Movers, and The Outland Dance Project Dance Film Festival. She was awarded the jury select Cream City Award from Mke film festival and the semi-finalist for Best Experimental Film for Montreal Independent Film Festival.

Charon aims to use her art as a ministry to uplift her community and was selected to give a Ted Talk on using dance as a ministry for TedxUCLA. In 2013, Charon was selected to pioneer and design a dance program for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee through a national research study with The Wallace Foundation. This experience sprouted Charon into starting her own non-profit company, By Jade Charon Company. By Jade Charon has birthed films, arts curriculums, community outreach initiatives, and arts festivals, fusing art, education, mentorship, and social justice globally. Charon is also the founder 30:11 by Jade Charon LLC,  a leotard and activewear line, designed to support all body types with the hopes of eliminating body shaming. jadecharon.com

Andrea Cote is an interdisciplinary artist working in photography, video, printmaking, and performance. Her practice encompasses studio-based work, mixed-media installations, and public projects that involve community participation. 

Based In Hampton Bays, she has exhibited her work in North and South America at venues including Islip Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Abrons Arts Center, The Print Center, The Moore Gallery, and PanAmerican Art Projects. Her performances have been featured at The Watermill Center, The Neuberger Museum, The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Peekskill Project, Chashama, The Dumbo Arts Festival, and Photo Buenos Aires.  She is the recipient of several grants including NYSCA Creative Individuals Grants in 2014 and 2018, two SOS grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a fellowship at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. She received a NYSCA Artist Support Grant with the Patchogue Arts Council for a community project for 2023.

In 2021 she presented the multidisciplinary project “Social Fabric: In the Public Square,” a collaboration with Ann Robideaux and Chris Jones at Guild Hall in East Hampton.  “The Radiance Project,” supported by a residency at Southampton Arts Center, was a community-centered year-long project in 2018 for the East End of Long Island involving collective dance & printmaking with a final installation in the SAC Theater. In 2015 her temporary site-specific public project for Greenport, NY  “A Port of Views,” was installed in Mitchell Park. In the summer of 2013 she presented “Eyes on Main Street,” a large-scale multimedia community public project for downtown Riverhead. In 2012 a 13-year survey, “Body of Evidence,” was presented at Dowling College. More at andreacote.com

Justine Doswell is a dance artist and choreographer based in Dublin since 1997. She has worked with numerous notable Irish and international choreographers, directors and companies. Inspired by dynamic structure and living systems her choreographic practice is anchored in collaboration and her work has been supported by The Arts Council, Dublin City Council, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Dance Ireland, Dance Limerick, LD Dance Shawbrook, Dublin Dance Festival, Liz Roche Company and The Lir Academy, THEATREClub, Dance Resource Base, The Complex, axis and TipperaryDance/Grand Studio Brussels. Justine is a 2021 Arts Council Next Generation recipient and an Associate Artist with Irish Modern Dance Theatre.

Based in Dublin, Luca Truffarelli is an Italian lens based artist whose work crosses other disciplines. A graduate from St Kevin’s College, Luca has worked extensively in the Irish film, dance and theatre as a photographer/film maker, visual/set and sound designer and artistic collaborator.

Since 2018 Luca has received awards on several film projects with directors Ingrid Nachstern, Shaun Dunne and in 2020 with the film “Welcome to a bright white limbo” directed by Cara Holmes, an IFTA award for best Irish short. Luca’s most recent work includes collaboration with acclaimed choreographers and companies Oona Doherty/OD Works, Philip Connaughton Dance, Liz Roche Company, Junk Ensemble, Emma Martin/United Fall and Catherine Young Dance.

Reena Dutt is a city girl with a country soul who believes in creating with a conscience, on and off the stage and screen. (Upcoming Stage): ACCIDENTAL FEMINIST by Alaudin Ullah S/R @Columbia University, THE HOMBRES by Tony Meneses @Artists Repertory Theatre (OR), AMERICAN FAST @Constellations Screen and Stage (Bloomington, IN), YELLOW FACE @UC Riverside. New York: BRUISED by Vivienne Glance S/R @Playwrights Realm, DirectorFest @A.R.T. New York, New Dramatists West Coast: (NY), REFUGEE RHAPSODY by Yussef El Guindi S/R @Artists Repertory Theatre (OR), UC Riverside, Greenway Court Theatre, East West Players, Sacred Fools, Theatre Planners. Asst. Director: The Public (Candis Jones), Fountain Theatre (Jennifer Chang), The Geffen Playhouse (Jo Bonney). Fellowships: Drama League NY Directing Fellow, LCT Directors Lab, Directors Lab West. Dutt is also a film director and producer having screened films at Sundance, LAFF, Outfest, Frameline, Cucalorous, NBCUniversal, BET, PBS/Latino and HBO. She was also a fellow with Project Involve at Film Independent, SFFilm, and Trans Atlantic Partners with the Goethe Institut. More at  www.ReenaDutt.com.

Robin Gee holds an MFA in Contemporary Dance Choreography and Performance from Sarah Lawrence College and specializes in African, Caribbean, and Modern dance techniques. She is a Professor of Dance at UNC Greensboro where she teaches African and Modern dance and has developed the schools Screendance curriculum. Ms Gee performed with several dance companies in NY including Les Ballet Bagata directed by Yousouff Koumbassa, former principal dancer with Ballets Africains de Guinea, and Marie Basse Wiles’ Maimouna Keita Dance Company with whom she toured the US and Africa. Her choreographic works have appeared in the North Carolina Dance Festival, Dumbo Arts, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, as well as resident works mounted on various colleges and universities around the world. She is the recipient of the West African Research Association's Post Doctoral Fellowship in African Research and the Central Piedmont Artist's Hub Grant for her work on dance and music in West Africa. Most recently she is the recipient of the American Association of University Women's Post Doctoral Research Award for her work on The Mande Legacy, a dance documentation project for which spent six months in Guinea, the NC Choreographers Fellowship and the Fulbright Award for her Research in Burkina Faso and the Fulbright Specialist Grant for her work in Cabo Verde, West Africa.

She also the founder and Director of the Greensboro Dance Film Festival, a boutique dance film festival screening films from around the world. Ms. Gee’s own dance films have currently screened in 27 film festivals worldwide. Her 2 latest films are in post-production

Joan Gratz is an Academy Award winning director of animated short films and commercials. Her films range in content through painterly expressions of poetry, improvised abstraction, and animated social documentary. The technique she pioneered is “Claypainting.” Working directly before the camera, she applies bits of clay, blends colors and etches fine lines to create a seamless flow of images.

In Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase, images of the human face are transformed to communicate the graphic style and emotional content of major 20th century art works. This animated history of art won the Oscar in 1992.

Joan developed animated painting when an architecture student at the University of Oregon, then shifted from paint to clay while working with Will Vinton Studios. During that time, her work included design and animation for the Academy Award Nominees Return to Oz, Rip Van Winkle, and The Creation.

She established her own studio, Gratzfilm, in 1987. In addition to films she is the author of Downward-facing Frog and My Tesla. Joan has served on major film festival juries in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Joan lives on a houseboat in Portland, Oregon.

More at joangratz.com.

Dancer and choreographer, graduated in the Nikolais method and furthered her studies under the guidance of choreographer Carolyn Carlson in Paris where she worked with the Carolyn Carlson company on the promo for her new film. With her own performances (VAL, BodyunTitled, DIH.respiro) she has been a guest of numerous prestigious international festivals (Tanzhaus Nrw Düsseldorf, June Events in Paris, Teatro Municipal Colón, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Expanse festival in Edmonton, Canada, CPR Center for performance and research in New York). Daša Grgič often collaborates with actors, musicians, directors, video artists. In 2014 she received the special recognition "Listina Meta Vidmar" from the Public Fund for Cultural Activities of the Republic of Slovenia for her dance activity. More at dasagrgic.wordpress.com.

Zoé and Mélanie met in modern-jazz dance class while they were still in elementary school. They both grew up in the same town, in the Paris suburbs; then their paths diverged after obtaining their baccalaureates. Zoé entered business school in Paris, which gave her the opportunity to travel to South Africa, London, and especially Peru, where she developed a taste for filmmaking by filming her friends surfing.

For Zoé, it was by going to study in New York that she entered the world of cinema, there she met many inspiring and unique artists who made her want to find her place artistically. Back in Paris, Zoé followed the teachings of different schools, Le Cour Florent, Studio Muller, and Method Acting Center where she was taught that the best way to be fulfilled was to create your own projects.

Mervi Junkkonen (born 1975) is a Finnish documentary filmmaker and film editor based in Uppsala, Sweden. She studied film at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Her debut film as a director was Barbeiros (2001), which won the First Appearance prize at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2002. She has directed several award winning documentary films and worked as an editor on numerous documentary and fiction films. Mervi has received the Jussi Prize (the Finnish "Oscar") for her editing of the feature films The Visitor (2009), They Have Escaped (2014) and Dogs Don't Wear Pants (2019), respectively. In recent years she has also begun working with video art and dance films.

John Jota Leaños is a Mestizo (Chicano, Chumash) media artist and animator focusing on critical convergences of history, memory, social space, and decolonization. Leaños’ animation, installation, opera, performance and public media fuse traditional practices and aesthetics with new technologies and contemporary reconfigurations. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, Cannes Short Corner, PBS.org, the Whitney Biennial, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and a variety of other art and public contexts. A Professor in the Department of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Leaños is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow and Creative Capital Foundation Grantee who has received the United States Artist Fellowship, National Association for Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) Master Artist Award, the San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Grant, the MAP Fund Award and the Creative Work Fund Award. He has been an artist-in-resident at the Center for Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, the Center for Arts in Society, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. He is a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts YBCA 100 Fellow.

Vanessa Sanchez is a Chicana-Native dancer, choreographer and educator who focuses on community arts and traditional dance forms to emphasize voices and experiences of Latina, Chicana, and Indigenous womxn and youth. Based in SF, she is a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow. She works to ensure accessibility to arts training and performances while mentoring youth and young adults of color. Sanchez’s work is rooted in community engagement, creating choreography and accessible events to tell stories of collective resistance. Her production “Pachuquísmo’’ received the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Production. She received a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission grant with Brava Theater for upcoming work “Ghostly Labor.” Sanchez is currently a Dance Lecturer at UCSC and a resident artist at Brava Theater.

"We are two women making art. Two shifting beings that produce work with a consistent raw and intentional quality that comes from a fierce dedication and attention to our process. Through asking both broad and specific questions and engaging in vital conversations not only with each other but with members of our project at every stage, from ideation to completion and beyond, our work, proudly, can be described, and has been, as “very aware of itself”. We are not only investigators, but deep researchers, and we believe this gathering of information shines through as its own layer in our work. We strive to create art that results in further conversation, that can live beyond a screen, gallery wall, or space. Part of the art is how it exists and grows for years to come. Many people say, “a work is never really finished.” This has a celebratory meaning for us. To us, this “never finished” is the way in which the work changes on its own. In a way, we create work to be able to evolve even when our hands are finished touching it, through what the people and community chooses to do with it, hopefully, inspiring positive change. We create multi-thematic work with a “process is product” mentality. Our art is deeply influenced by the spaces in which we create and the collaborative spirit of those we work with. Always present is an undertone of feminine power and rhythmic movement that feeds the visceral nature of our work." More at zapmcconnell.com

Marlene Millar has created dance films, documentaries and experimental media productions for over 30 years. In 2019, her career was honoured at a retrospective exhibit at Threshold Artspace, Perth, UK, premiering her installation WITNESS that captures metaphoric histories with docu-fiction resonances. The process-driven continuum of the MIGRATION DANCE FILM PROJECT directed by Millar comes to life as she transposes Sandy Silva’s choreography to the screen, revealing the intricacies of issue-driven, performative stories. The films have garnered over 30 awards and prizes internationally. Since 2000, Marlene has co-created an acclaimed collection of dance media work with Philip Szporer through their company, MOUVEMENT PERPÉTUEL. A prolific educator and mentor, Millar has taught filmmaking across continents at institutes such as Centre Imagine (Burkina Faso), Malakta (Finland), Impulstanz (Vienna) and throughout the Canadian Arctic. More at marlenemillar.com

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Sandy Silva is an award-winning performer, choreographer, composer, producer, and internationally acclaimed pioneer of percussive dance. She draws from global percussive practices infusing themes with movement, vocal integration, theatre, and impeccable musicality. The result is a unique and powerful form of performance storytelling. After 30 years of performing and teaching around the world, Sandy started the MIGRATION DANCE FILM PROJECT with award-winning director Marlene Millar. Their dance-for-camera films have screened internationally and won numerous awards. Sandy has chosen artists from different artistic disciplines — dancers, singers and musicians — and brought communities together to move beyond traditional body percussion, expanding the depth of percussive dance vocabulary within an unconventional contemporary art form. More at sandysilvadance.com

Taso Papadakis is a commercial art photographer and filmmaker. He currently makes images for Los Angeles Opera and UCLA Opera. His photo work is often published in the LA Times. Taso’s motion film work is in the collection of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. His fine art photography has been featured as decor on TV sets, including the sets of the show “Sons of Anarchy".

He has also worked on photo documentaries including assignments in El Salvador, in order to directly benefit the remote communities there. Among the highlights in his documentary work , was an opportunity to be close to and photograph the Dalai Lama. He has a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Southern California and is a large-scale painter for the sake of movement and celebration.

Larry Powell is a writer, actor, director and producer born and raised in South Central LA. As an actor he’s originated and premiered roles in some of the most exciting new plays in America including The Christians by Lucas Hnath, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, Father Comes Home From The Wars by Suzan Lori Parks opposite Sterling K. Brown, Brokeology by Nathan Louis Jackson, and While I Yet Live by Billy Porter (playing the lead role based on Billy Porter). He is a two-time Ovation Award nominee, three-time NAACP Theatre Award Nominee, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Award Nominee, two-time LA Drama Critics Circle Award Winner, as well as an Audelco and Audie award nominee. Stars as Lawrence in the movie The Browsing Effect (Now Streaming). Larry is also a published playwright and professional screenwriter. He most recently finished as screenwriter on an upcoming feature film which wrapped in NYC spring 2019. He has three plays that will receive world premieres over the next two years. He is a core playwright at the Lark Play Development Center. As a director he has worked with several contemporary playwrights on exciting new works directing fancy staged readings and workshops. As well as his own feature film project Mother’s Milk. He has been mentored by the likes of Michele Shay, Robert O’Hara, Elizabeth Van Dyke and Phylicia Rashad (Assistant Director; Center Theatre Group’s production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). Larry is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts MFA Acting program. Larry is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama and the Founder/Creative Director of The Powell Academy of the Performing Arts, an arts organization providing high-performance training and resources to historically marginalized artists on the rise in the mainstream entertainment industry.

Marta Renzi spent 40 years as a choreographer, and has expanded her resume to include directing films since about 2005. Since then she has self-produced over three dozen short videodances, which have been presented at over 300 festivals nationally and internationally. Her debut feature film Her Magnum Opus was released in 2017. Retrospectives of her film work have been screened at BAAD! in the Bronx, at Rivertown Films in Nyack; at Compartimiento Cinematografico in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; at University College Cork, Ireland and at the Rockland Center for the Arts.

She has made more than 75 dances for her Project Company, as well as creating work for groups across the U.S. and abroad, including the Wagon Train Project in Nebraska, Balletteatro in Portugal - and Ben & Jerry's dancing ice cream flavors.

Her site-specific pieces in locations such as the Guggenheim Museum, Union Station and the Staten Island Ferry, led naturally to her work in video and film. In 1981 You Little Wild Heart, to music by Bruce Springsteen, was Marta's first half-hour for PBS, followed by Mountainview, made in 1989 in collaboration with indie filmmaker John Sayles, featuring Jane Alexander. As part of a continuing commitment to making dance accessible to a wide audience, Renzi helped inaugurate the "Inside/Out" program of public performances at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and her Project Company frequently appeared for free outdoors in public spaces.

Ann Robideaux (she/her), is a choreographer, dance film-maker and educator.  Concentrating on site-specific dance, her works have taken over the audience seats of Dance New Amsterdam, the historic Frying Pan and Lilac WWII lightships, the fountain of Galapagos and the steps of the Eldridge Street Synagogue in NYC. Her latest projects have included the installation "Social Fabric, in the public square" at Guild Hall (East Hampton) along with many operas and musicals. Her dance films include NYC Dances: Sternberg Park, Ntl Public Radio online, several collaborations with donia salem harhoor and the Rave of Mestizas, Argentina.  Apart from original works, she has choreographed numerous straight plays and musicals and just completed her first dance film documentary.  She is also the Dance and Theater coordinator and choreographer-in-residence at Princeton Day School. More at www.AnnMakesDances.com. 

Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Caen, adept at stop motion, Cécile explores the possibilities offered by cut paper and develops a colorful, poetic and playful visual universe, mixing photographs, videos and graphic creations. At the end of 2018, she directed Thaumatrope, selected in video art at the Côté Court Festival in Pantin, and moved on to live action... She is represented by TWO.P / Partner in crime @Karus. Cécile collaborates on the creative projects led by the Collective as well in external view as in artistic direction. More at cecilerogue.com

Alexx Shilling is a Los Angeles-based dance artist who creates site-adaptable, live and filmic dancescapes that invigorate memory and investigate transformation under the moniker alexx makes dances and ann and alexx make dances (2004-2010). Shilling’s original choreography and experimental films have been presented by the Jüdisches Museum München (Germany), REDCAT, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the Hammer Museum, Highways, Pieter, PAM, homeLA, SOKA Performing Arts Center, Silverlake Independent JCC, Annenberg Beach House, Outlet Dance Festival (NJ), Oklahoma Dance Film Festival, and in New York by Dance New Amsterdam, Dance Film Association, Open House New York, Moviehouse, BAAD, Bushwick Starr, and Chashama. Her work has been supported by generous organizations including Yiddishkayt, Asylum Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, CHIME, UCLA, the Institute of Jewish Creativity, and the California Arts Council.

As a performer, she has collaborated with Victoria Marks since 2010 and Richard Rivera/PHYSUAL since 2002. Other choreographers she has had the privilege to dance for include Kevin Williamson, Laurel Jenkins, Nickels Sunshine, Christine Suarez, DaEun Jung, Hana van der Kolk, Ros Warby, Rebecca Bryant, Alison D’Amato, Ariane Anthony, Artichoke Dance, Alan Danielson, Niles Ford, Dwight Rhoden, Debra Fernandez, Kristen Smiarowski, Sarah Leddy and Rebecca Pappas. Ongoing interdisciplinary collaborators include: Latin Alternative Folk band Cuñao, Yiddishkayt, Taso Papadakis, Pablo Santiago, Sarah Leddy, Alberto Denis, Alethea Pace, Janusz Jaworski, Mimi Yin, Ann Robideaux, and Maria Garcia. Alexx holds an MFA in Choreography and Dance from UCLA’s World Arts & Cultures/Dance Department and a degree in Dance from Skidmore College. She is the Pilates Specialist at Loyola Marymount University and on faculty at Cal State Long Beach. Alexx co-founded the performance platforms Hi, Solo and Gold Series, and co-curates the experimental screen dance platform MOTION CAPTURE at Highways. In addition to Open Source Forms, she holds certifications in Pilates, Maureen Fleming Technique and Yoga.

Shilling’s interdisciplinary research follows three unique strands: site-located performances that question the potential for transformation, the intersection between the fleeting immediacy of live dance and the preservation of still and moving images on film, and works that steal from artistic heroes as a way of paying tribute while constructing new paradigms. More at alexxmakesdances.com

Award-winning and independent Iranian dance artist Tanin Torabi works in the realm of performance, choreography, and film. With a background in Sociology, she holds an MA in Contemporary Dance Performance from the University of Limerick. Torabi’s works have been honored numerously by renowned festivals and academies worldwide. She has received various awards including the Creative Vision Award, Jury Prize, Best Artist Film, and Best Experimental Film. Torabi has served as a jury member of festivals like the Cannes Dance Film Festival(FR), Dance Camera West (USA), Jacksonville Dance Film Festival (US), etc. Her works have been curated for exhibitions like E-FLUX, SOMA Gallery, Lazina Center of Contemporary Art, Light Moves, among others. She is a member of The School of Hard Knocks company directed by NYC-based choreographer Yoshiko Chuma, and the recipient of residencies offered by Cite Internationale des Arts (FR, 2023-2024), Montpellier Danse (FR, 2023), Dance Limerick(IRE, 2023), and Vayu Residency (IR, 2022) to undertake choreographic research on both her performance and film projects. More at tanintorabi.art

October 5th, 2023 at 7pm

Grounds For Sculpture

Hamilton, NJ

October 5th, 2023 at 7pm

Grounds For Sculpture

Hamilton, NJ

October 5th, 2023 at 7pm

Grounds For Sculpture

Hamilton, NJ

October 5th, 2023 at 7pm

Grounds For Sculpture

Hamilton, NJ

October 5th, 2023 at 7pm

Grounds For Sculpture

Hamilton, NJ