MISIÓN
Nuestra misión
Ubicado en el sur de Vermont, el Field Center es un centro educativo para prácticas artísticas que sirve como recurso para que los artistas en activo en todas las etapas de su carrera se concentren en su trabajo, desarrollen sus prácticas de enseñanza y actuación y construyan relaciones de colaboración más sólidas entre sí. Al trabajar juntos, ayudamos a crear y curar estructuras, soluciones y eventos que inspiran prácticas equitativas, ambiental y socialmente sostenibles, cuestionan sistemas, impulsan la creatividad y fomentan la exploración valiente.
Trabajamos para cultivar la ecología de las artes en los Estados Unidos mientras cerramos brechas entre diferentes edades, identidades humanas y fronteras entre personas y prácticas en las comunidades locales, nacionales e internacionales. Trabajamos para crear un lugar que aprecie la diferencia y sea riguroso, improvisador, intuitivo, sano y original.
¿Qué hacemos exactamente?
Nuestro objetivo principal es proporcionar alternativas a los modelos académicos para la educación escénica, la danza y las artes interdisciplinarias. Nos esforzamos por cultivar programas abiertos y accesibles que reduzcan la competencia dentro de las artes y existan como un contrapunto a los programas basados en aplicaciones.
La programación en el Field Center es durante todo el año y generalmente se divide entre eventos de fin de semana y talleres/intensivos más largos en los que viven y trabajan juntos grupos pequeños de 7 a 14 días, generalmente dirigidos por 1-2 profesores de una variedad de disciplinas. Durante los meses de verano organizamos una variedad de festivales y eventos culturales.
También organizamos varias residencias basadas en invitaciones para artistas durante todo el año, atrayendo a personas de una variedad de disciplinas.
Además, trabajamos para organizar 'cumbres' o simposios de personas dentro de los campos de las artes escénicas para reunir y discutir aspectos de su trabajo y prácticas como una forma de fomentar la comunidad.
PERSONAL
Is a visual artist, dance-improvisor and dance-arts curator primarily interested in ideas of wilderness, multiplicity, emergent structure and futurity. He has been focused exclusively on programming and curating dance since 2014 with a focus on experimental performance and somatic dance practices.
He was the co-founder, director and lead curator for Lion’s Jaw Festival, a boston-based annual performance and dance festival, housed at both Green Street Studios and MIT, that ran from 2016-2020.
Jared is a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts-unceded territory of the Nonantum and Massachusett. He is a father and a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.
Is a painter, interdisciplinary artist and teacher. On staff intermittently since the Field Center began, Anya has been instrumental in initiating and developing many of the house systems and structures still in use today. Anya helped develop and currently manages our Long Term Work Exchange Program.
Anya also painted the mural that sits above the dining room and conceptualized and developed the Field Center logo.
Is a professional dancer and movement artist, a Certified Rolfer and practicing manual therapist, a graduated student and contramestra of Capoeira, and a Certified Teacher of the Axis Syllabus.
She carries over 25 years of research and practice in therapeutic, martial, and performing arts, music, yoga, western somatics, contact improvisation, experiential anatomy, functional biomechanics, and more. She is also a mother of two.
Currently based in both Vermont and the San Francisco Bay Area, Nuria teaches and performs internationally and works locally with clients and students.
Is a dancer and chef, currently invested in Contact Improvisation and Collective Improvisation. She is committed to improvisation as a physical practice of asking questions, paying attention, patience and peace. She is curious about the disruption of normative culture through dancing and gathering. She values the interplay of rigor, rest, discipline and play. She teaches and shares her practices nationally and internationally, along with coordinating and producing the CI events at the Field Center.
She is currently the head chef and Kitchen Manager at The Field Center. Her food is inspired by a plethora of cooks, books, recipes, artists, experiences and memories. For more on Lily’s cooking and dance practices, visit her website here.
Is a queer multimedia artist and performer, born and raised within Canarsie and Munsee Lenape lands. They have had the privilege of calling many lands their home, and they remain critically+somatically inquisitive about what it means to occupy stolen land. Cariño’s practice is tuned through improvisation with a focus on Contact Improvisation, chronic pleasure, connecting to the more-than-human world, and the dance of self-preservation.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Jared Williams is a visual artist, dance-improvisor and dance-arts curator primarily interested in ideas of wilderness, multiplicity, emergent structure and futurity. He has been focused exclusively on programming and curating dance since 2014 with a focus on experimental performance and somatic dance practices. He was the co-founder, director and lead curator for Lion’s Jaw Festival, a Boston-based annual performance and dance festival, housed at both Green Street Studios and MIT, that ran from 2016-2020 and is a board member of The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought in Northampton Massachusetts.
In 2021 he co-founded The Field Center in southern Vermont where he acts as lead curator and Executive Director.
Jared was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts -unceded territory of the Nonantum and Massachusett. He is a father and a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.
Kevin O’Connor is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a choreographer, performer, improviser, circus and installation artist. Born in London, Ontario, Kevin has been participating for over a decade in a small decolonial, participatory performance art collective that works in polluted watersheds in Ontario. He has worked with NAKA Dance in Oakland, Shakiri and Skywatchers in San Francisco, the feminist collective Oncogrrrls in Spain and collaborated with designer and Inuit hunter Paulette Metuq on a project in Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic. For over ten years, he has followed the teachings of the Axis Syllabus community and is a practitioner of biodynamic craniosacral therapy. He holds a master's degree in choreography and is currently completing a doctorate in performance studies at the University of California, Davis. Kevin's research examines the autonomy, performance capacities of the body and interventions and imaginations in relation to scientific studies, including the biocultural material called fascia.
Michael Bodel is an interdisciplinary dance artist, performer, scholar and arts administrator living in Westminster, Vermont. Currently working as Director of External Affairs at the Hopkins Art Center at Dartmouth College, where he manages marketing and communications. Through his work in communications, marketing and design, he has championed multiple organizations including The Putney School, HERE, St. Ann's Warehouse, Dance Studies Association and other small-but-punchy performing arts orgs. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University/American Dance Festival.
Nuria Latifa Bowart is a professional dancer and movement artist; a student, practitioner, and teacher of Capoeira with the rank of Mestra; a practicing manual therapist and Certified Rolfer®; a movement educator authorized as a Teacher and Certifier within the Axis Syllabus© international research community; and a mother of two. Nuria holds over 25 years of vocational research and practice across multiple therapeutic, martial, and artistic disciplines rooted in the expressive, relational, and healing capacities of the human body. She is deeply engaged with traditional forms of yoga, Western somatics, choreographic and improvisational movement arts, functional anatomy research, and more.
She is co-founder of the Field Center in southern Vermont, a residency and pedagogical center for contemporary heterodox arts practices where she currently lives, works, and manages the garden. Nuria teaches across the US and internationally.
Thomas F. DeFrantz directs SLIPPAGE: Performance|Culture|Technology; the group explores emerging technology in live performance applications. He believes in our shared capacity to do better and engage creative spirit for a collective good that is anti-racist, proto-feminist, and queer affirming.
He is currently Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University and has been on faculty at Duke, Hampshire College, Stanford, Yale, MIT, NYU and University of Nice. Creative projects include Queer Theory! An Academic Travesty commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts; fastDANCEpast, created for the Detroit Institute for the Arts; reVERSE-gesture-reVIEWcommissioned by the Nasher Museum in response to the work of Kara Walker, January, 2017.
His books include Routledge Companion to African American Theater and Performance (with Kathy Perkins, Sandra Richards, and Renee Alexander Craft, 2018), Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion (with Philipa Rothfield, 2016), Black Performance Theory: An Anthology of Critical Readings (with Anita Gonzalez, 2014), Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (2002), and Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture (2004).
He currently convenes the Black Performance Theory working group as well as the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 325 researchers committed to exploring Black dance practices in writing and has acted as a consultant for the Smithsonian Museum of African American Life and Culture.
Reconocimiento de tierras
El Field Center está ubicado en lo que ahora se conoce como Rockingham/Bellows Falls Vermont, cerca del pueblo de Bellows Falls/Kitchee Pontegu [Sokoki-Abenaki Band + territorios de Pannacock], también conocido como Wantastegok, el lugar del río donde se pierden las cosas.
Es el hogar de 50 acres de bosque que se eleva desde las orillas del río Williams y es utilizado por gatos monteses, coyotes, osos, alces, ranas, ciervos, conejos, zorros, pavos, puercoespín, halcones, águilas, comadrejas, búhos, castores. , zarigüeya, zorrillo y vastas comunidades de animales, plantas y árboles.
Reconocemos que estas fueron también las principales tierras tribales de los Abenaki [Abenqui] de habla algonquina, una de las cinco naciones de la 'Confederación Wabanaki' 'Gente del Amanecer' o 'Eastern'.
Estas personas vivieron, cazaron y cultivaron en y con esta tierra, a lo largo de lo que hoy se conoce como Vermont, durante casi dos mil años antes de que sus tierras fueran robadas y enfrentaran el genocidio a través de oleadas de colonialismo europeo tanto de los Estados Unidos como de Canadá. Esta tierra y los espacios dentro de ella fueron construidos a través y dentro de esa experiencia y por esas fuerzas.
Hoy esta área es el hogar de Elnu-Abenaki.
Sitio web tribal Elnu-Abenaki
Sitio web de la tribu Nulhegan Abenaki
¡Te animamos a conectarte con estas personas!
Todavía están muy vivos y activos en el área y lo invitamos a aprender más sobre ellos y sus vidas hoy.
También lo alentamos encarecidamente a buscar y conectarse con las comunidades indígenas que lo rodean como una práctica, independientemente de dónde viva, para aprender sobre ellas, escucharlas y apoyarlas. Involucrar, amplificar y priorizar las voces de los pueblos indígenas y de las Primeras Naciones de América del Norte es una parte esencial de las reparaciones en curso.
y obra de sanación que es necesaria en este país.
Aquí hay un mapa para ayudarlo a encontrar y reconocer a las tribus en su área.
This acknowledgement was co-written and approved by Rich Holschuh, Chairman for the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs
Trabajamos para recordar las verdaderas historias y realidades de los espacios y lugares en los que vivimos y trabajamos y para integrar estas verdades, sin importar cuán dolorosas sean, y para reconocer nuestra complicidad y nuestro poder para lograr un cambio positivo. Actualmente estamos en el proceso de construir un reconocimiento de terreno físico permanente en el centro de campo.
ORIGINS
In February of 2021, motivated in part by the pandemic and its impact on the arts ecology, long-time colleagues Nuria Bowart and Jared Williams purchased a vacant country Inn in Rockingham, Vermont [unceded abenaki territory].
Built in the mid-90's as the 'Madrigal Inn' the large timber frame building was later known as the Inn at Cranberry Farm and later as the Yagna Inn, before it was vacated - standing empty for several years.
Sitting on over 48 acres of forest and pasture, the property currently consists of a 10k square foot main building able to house up to 25 people, a smaller building built to house up to 3 staff members, as well as a small pond and substantial river frontage. Both professional artists, Jared and Nuria had both been separately imagining spaces where performance and dance artists could be supported in both their studio practices and their teaching, while living sustainably and cooperatively with the land. After several lengthy discussions, they decided to join forces to build something with one another.
Throughout the summer of 2021 an instrumental group of volunteers gathered here and helped us renovate the space and lay grounds for the future programming to come. We are eternally grateful to our dedicated summer 2021 staff of Sydney Lemelin, Anya Smolnikova, Lindell Dixon, Rachel Saudek, Simon Thomas-Train, Michael JMK, Justis Hatch, Lindsey Jennings, and Liesje Smith for all their love and labor at such a crucial time.
Jared and Nuria were joined by several people in the first 24 months of the project that were vital to the survival and development of the Field Center. These founding staff built the systems and structures still in use today and are as much a part of the foundation of this project as anyone. They are:
Sydney Lemelin [March - December of 2021]
Sydney joined as an ‘assistant’ in February of 2021 just after the property had been purchased. She worked on-site throughout the spring and summer of 2021 to clean and renovate the building and grounds and co-manage the summer volunteer programs. In the process she built our foundational registration structures/welcome packets/liability forms and played a huge role in the physical design of the space. Sydney also built the first website and helped steward our initial ‘Feasibility Study', developing marketing and budget tools for us that we still use today.
From administration to event facilitation to hands-on labor, Sydney's energy, ideas and vitality were a huge part the beginnings of the project.
Anya Smolnikova [June 2021 - Present]
Involved with the project from idea to present, Anya took part in many of the early conceptual discussions and the Field Center logo was developed from her drawings and ideas.
She co-managed the 2021 volunteer sessions, painted the mural in our dining room, and developed the vast majority of the systems and structures we still use to orient and manage life in the ‘main building’ .
She also helped create many of fundamental systems we use to keep the spaces clean and organized. In the fall of 2022, Anya took on development of the Long Term Work Exchange Program, which she continues to direct today.
Rachel Anne Saudek [April 2021 - October 2021]
Rachel designed and implemented the development of the garden along with Nuria.
Living on-site for the bulk of 2021, they broke ground on the initial garden plot, helped coordinate the building of the raised beds and trellises, co-stewarded the crop-plans and food needs for the first year and implemented Nuria’s designs as a consultant and collaborator - helping to plant and cultivate many of the fruit trees, berry patches and garden structures that feed us to this day.
Graham ‘Teddy’ Olmstead [October 2021 - May 2022]
Joining us in October of our first year, ‘Teddy’ worked as a carpenter and maintenance person doing repairs and renovations throughout the main building and grounds. Among other things, Teddy renovated the entire basement, completing our lower studios and bringing the building to code. He built our Greenhouse and our campers lean-to and our outdoor shower among many other projects. His work can be felt throughout the property and we could not have done much of what we have without his labor.
Lilianna Kane [November 2021 - Present]
Lily began as a chef for our first ‘official’ program in November of 2021 and later joined us on-site as full time staff in the spring of 2022. Creating the ‘culture’ of the kitchen and working closely with Nuria to develop menus and meal-plans that synchronized with our crops and harvest times, she has been the driving force in creating relationships with local vendors and farmers.
She also developed, and still manages, the Work Trade Program and developed the schedules and systems we use to prep, cook, and organize our kitchen both during events and between.
INSTALACIONES
El Field Center alberga una variedad de instalaciones para apoyar la investigación, la enseñanza, cocomunidad y descanso.
ESTUDIOS
La 'Sala del Cielo'
El 'Sky Room' cuenta con techos de 40 pies de altura y está rodeado de ventanas.
El piso de madera lijado a mano mide 24' x 24'.
*Este estudio es totalmente accesible para sillas de ruedas.
La 'Sala del Barco'
La 'sala del barco' es un espacio más privado e incluye un piano.
El piso de madera lijado a mano mide 24' x 23'.
*Este estudio es totalmente accesible para sillas de ruedas.
LABORATORIO DE AUDIO/VIDEO
Nuestro laboratorio de A/V permite a los residentes y participantes del Field Center participar en la edición básica de video y sonido, así como en la grabación o experimentación de audio. Además de dos computadoras de escritorio Mac completamente cargadas con Adobe Suite y Ableton, también tenemos una variedad de mezcladores, teclados y cajas de ritmos e instrumentos analógicos tradicionales. También hay disponibles proyectores, trípodes y pantallas verdes. Es posible alquilar nuestro laboratorio A/V.
*Esta habitación actualmente no es totalmente accesible para sillas de ruedas. Comuníquese para obtener más detalles.
SALA DE MEDIOS MIXTOS
Nuestra sala de medios mixtos es un estudio flexible para proyectos y eventos que pueden ser más desordenados o basados en medios húmedos. Los suministros incluyen fregadero y refrigerador, máquinas de coser, suministros para serigrafía, así como una variedad de suministros para medios húmedos y secos. Esta sala alberga actualmente nuestras clases semanales de dibujo de figuras. *Esta habitación actualmente no es totalmente accesible para sillas de ruedas. Comuníquese para obtener más detalles.
THE CLUBHOUSE
The clubhouse functions as space to rest and converse. With an extensive and growing collection of dvds/vhs of all genres including experimental, documentary, conventional films as well as hdmi/input capabilities on the television, this can act as both a screening room for people sharing film-based work or giving artist-talks or simply a place for group movie-watching. The clubhouse also includes craft supplies, puzzles and games and an additional shower and bathroom for guests