Photo: Julia Barstow

 

The Quarry Project Update
February 26, 2020

It may be the dead of winter here in Vermont, but inside, I am thinking about the CHAIR scene of The Quarry Project whose finale is a mere six months away.

Falling in love with each other is what happens in every piece I have made, the kind of love that is about integrity, honesty, fierceness and commitment. And every time, I learn more about what it means to love and trust both myself and others.

Our work in the studio and in the quarry requires just that kind of openness and trust. When Amy and I were conceiving of the CHAIR scene, we designed a shape that gave each woman freedom of choice in response to the moment. To improvise in performance takes deep training and these women have years of studying the technique, bringing freshness, excitement and acute attention each time. Here is a clip of Alana and her chairs last summer. I am delighted by her intensity and skill, and how she works with the chairs that are not really chairs any more.

portraits by Emily Boedecker

 
 

shannon kelly

Shannon is a dancer, personal trainer, mother and artist. She is inspired by dance in many ways - as a source of personal healing, community resilience and pure enjoyment of having a body. Shannon is deeply inspired and influenced by Rosangela Silvestre and Vera Passos, teachers from Bahia, Brazil, who have served as her greatest guides.

 
 

Alana rancourt phinney

Alana re-located to Montpelier four years ago and joined Hannah on the test stage in a nearby pond. This began her involvement with The Quarry Project which has grown into a solemn tryst, crafting and living in her role in the CHAIRS scene, never taking it for granted. She earned her MFA from Smith College in Massachusetts, where she encountered the art of performance improvisation.She continues this practice in both dance and in moving through life.

willow wonder

Willow Wonder has been teaching, choreographing and performing a multitude of dance forms in Vermont since 2000. She was in Hannah’s Threads and Thresholds and Dear Pina and joined the ensemble of The Quarry Project in 2018. Willow is classically trained with a BFA in Modern Dance Performance from SUNY Purchase. Her lifelong commitment to the movement arts has fostered a deep reverence for the art of improvisation. The Montpelier Movement Collective, founded in 2011 grew from that reverence and is the ground for her practice.

We have had two of the six off-site rehearsals with the full ensemble, squeezing ourselves and this work into the Capital City Grange Hall. Due to a deep chest cold, I stayed home from the February rehearsal. I knew the ensemble was in capable hands with my choreographic partner, Amy and that she was completely supported by this strong group of skilled performers.

  • Next month we will share with you the trailer of the film from 2019. Meanwhile, we are busy showing it to prospective donors. Please consider making a generous donation here to support the dancers.

  • We are interviewing ticketing agents and expect to have a decision by March and tickets up for sale in April.

  • I am closing with a quote from someone who watched a rehearsal last summer:

The dancers rushing, their playfulness of going to the edges of rafts, making the platform move its position gave me a tremendous feeling of connection to both the dance and the water.

To the sound of melting,