WORKSession

WORKSession offers month-long residencies and public programs. Dance and interdisciplinary artists are invited to explore their creative process and engage with the general public through works in process, open rehearsals, and themed discussions.  Artists share a common vocabulary of dance, as they explore movement by combining it with visual art, film, video, sound, installation, and language. 

WORKSession began in 2021 with a cohort of artists: Karen Bernard, Rachel Thorne Germond, Jil Guyon, and Lisa Parra. Ongoing WORKSession residencies and events have been in partnership with Farm and Preservation Hall in Wellfleet, MA, with subsidized housing for artists. In 2023, WORKSession began its first month-long residency in New York City in partnership with Chashama. The residency involved occupying one of Chashama’s spaces where each artist focused on their creative process, opening the doors to the general public for dialogue sessions and scheduled performances. The next iteration of WORKSession will provide artists who have participated in NDA’s Black Artists Space to Create (BASC) and LiftOff residencies with continued support.

WORKSession is curated by the NDA Advisory Council representing the LGBTQIA2S + and BIPOC communities.

WORKSession 4.0: Fleeting Glimpse

In a one-day performance coming to Wellfleet, objects and bodies coalesce to send a palpable message: movement is life.

One Day Event: Tuesday, July 30, 5-6:60 pm, $20

Wellfleet, MA (July 2024) – Farm Projects and New Dance Alliance (NDA) are partnering for the fourth iteration of WorkSession – an annual performance event embracing experimental explorations of embodied human experience. This year’s event will feature a performance by NDA founder, Karen Bernard that takes place within a sound and video installation created by Scott Wixon and Jil Guyon. While the multimedia installation suggests the internal movement that stirs within each of us, Bernard humorously incorporates an array of objects – a laptop, black fur, a curtain, a chair – to make palpable how movement has the power to root us in the moment and unlock meaning and joy in our lives.

This is a ticketed event with an entry fee of $20. Please RSVP by emailing info@farmprojectspace.org. All the proceeds are retained by the artists.

About the Artists

Karen Bernard is an interdisciplinary movement-based artist. She began studying dance at age three with her father, Steven Bernard, a company member with 20th-century pioneer Charles Weidman. She grew up in a household which incorporated her father’s dance school, with students crossing through the family space, which deeply ingrained performance throughout her life. As an artist and the Founder and Executive Director of New Dance Alliance (NDA), she facilitates creative process workshops and is invited to international festivals. Bernard’s work has been presented in New York City at The Kitchen, Center for Performance Research/Fall Festival, Chashama, Dixon Place, Performance Space 122, and Movement Research at Judson Church, among others. Presentations in Canada include SAW Gallery, Studio 303, Festival of New Dance, and Buddies in Bad Times Theater. Residencies and related performances include Movement Research’s Artist-in-Residence (New York City), Bogliasco (Italy), Obras Foundation (Portugal), L’Annexe A (Quebec), Emily Harvey Foundation (Italy), Brooklyn Studio for Dance (New York City), and The Kitchen Dance and Process (New York City). This cross-pollination strengthens an ongoing social dialogue among national and international artists. That commitment is fully brought to life in NDA’s justly-renowned Performance Mix Festival and NDA Studio Program including Black Artists Space To Create, LiftOff, and Satellite. Karen Bernard Projects is a program of New Dance Alliance. The initial development of “Fleeting Glimpse” was in residence at L’Expressoir in Marnay Sur Seine, France.

Scott Wixon’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, Woodstock Artist Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY and the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, and in many galleries. His recent exhibition of Rabbit and Other Tails was exhibited at the Painting Center, NY. Scott has had artist residences at the Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice, Italy, Foundation Obras, Estremoz, Portugal twice and Cill Rialaig Project, Ballinskelligs, Ireland. Beside the latest one at L’Expressoir in Marnay Sur Seine, France. He has artworks in the Guggenheim Museum permanent collection, as well as in private and corporate collections. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from Yale University. He has worked and lived in Tribeca since 1975. He grew up on Cape Cod and returns there often. He has a love of nature and the sea, but also enjoys the energy of the city. He has traveled extensively and sampled the art and culture of the world. All of these influences and passions have informed and affected his work.

Gallery Address: 355 Main Street, Wellfleet, MA 02667 {down the brick walkway}

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Monday, 11:00am-5:00pm and by appointment.

About Farm Projects

Farm Projects is a space for critical contemporary art discourse on Cape Cod. An artist-run project space and gallery, Farm is dedicated to building a collaborative, creative community in Wellfleet by presenting solo exhibitions and experimental programs that introduce emerging voices and support new directions in the work of mid-career artists. Home to the Farm Print Room, Farm is a resource for collectors of contemporary works on paper and print-based media in the region.

WORKSESSION 3.0

NDA (New Dance Alliance) in collaboration with FARM Projects presents WORKSESSION 3.0, an event that supports experimental dance and interdisciplinary performance.

WORKSESSION 3.0
Jil Guyon, Mistaya Hemingway, Jean-Christophe Yacono (Yako)
New York/Quebec
Performance, film, photographs, workshop
August 2, 2023
Wellfleet Preservation Hall 335 Main Street, Wellfleet, MA

Widow Workshop with Jil Guyon 10-11:30 am
Register @ www.wellfleetpreservationhall.org/art
$25

Film Screening and Performance of Jil Guyon, Mistaya Hemingway, Jean-Christophe Yacono (Yako) 5-6:00 pm
$20
Register @ eventbrite.com/e/farm-projects-presents-work-session-30-performance-film-photographs-registration-672631507947

Widow Procession to Farm Projects 6:00 pm
One night exhibition, work of Jean-Christophe Yacono (Yako) & artists reception
335 Main Street {down the brick walkway}, Wellfleet, MA

WORKSession In Four Walls

WorkSession, photo by Susie Nielson, courtesy of Farm

New Dance Alliance and Chashama present WORKSession In Four Walls with

Karen Bernard, Rachel Thorne Germond, Jil Guyon, and Lisa Parra

February 22–March 23, 2023 at 135 Bridge Park Drive

PERFORMANCE
March 9-11
March 16-18
(Thursdays and Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays 3pm)

RECEPTION
March 10
following performance
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

INSTALLATION/PROCESS
Wednesday, February 22-Wednesday, March 8 (1pm-4:30pm)

DISMANTLE/REFLECT
MONDAY, March 20 and Thursday, March 23 (1pm-4:30pm)

Jil Guyon, metaverse screenshot

In this latest edition of WorkSessions, a project of New Dance Alliance, longtime colleagues Karen Bernard, Rachel Thorne Germond, Jil Guyon, and Lisa Parra present a series of installations and performances in a salon-like setting. Presented by New Dance Alliance in association with Chashama, WORKSession In Four Walls will take place at 1 Brooklyn Bridge Park, a waterfront gallery at 360 Furman Street (between Piers 5 and 6) in Brooklyn Heights.

Lisa Parra, Title, Rosi photo by Lisa Parra

WORKSession In Four Walls explores the possibilities created by artists sharing and comingling their individual processes in a salon-like community. All four artists are multidisciplinary and experiment with the intersection of the image with the body. Sharing a common vocabulary of dance, they explore different modalities within movement by combining it with visual art, film, video, sound, installation, and language to various effects. For this project, each artist takes a different wall to display their visual media with scheduled performances during the exhibition period, allowing new juxtapositions and unexpected connections to arise.

Karen Bernard, photo by Elyse Mert, courtesy of Fall Movement Festival

From Wednesday, February 22 to Wednesday, March 8 (1 pm–4:30 pm), the public is invited to view and interact with the artists as they develop and install works. Performances will take place March 9–11 and 16–18 (Thursdays and Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays 3 pm). There will be a reception following the performances on Friday, March 10. On Monday, March 20 and Thursday, March 23 (1pm–4:30pm), audiences are invited to witness the dismantling of the installations.

About Chashama
Since 1995, Chashama has partnered with property owners to transform unused real estate for 30,000 artists and more than 150 small businesses, hosted 4,000 public art events, provided 1,500 classes in underserved communities, and reached an audience of nearly a million. www.chashama.org

Tickets for performances are available on a sliding scale from $5 to $25 and can be purchased at Eventbrite.

Rachel Thorne Germond holds painting, Video Still

Press

WORKSESSION 2.0

Performing photo credit: Walter Wlodarczyk, courtesy of The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Performing photo image description: Christopher holds a broken pink remote control car. He wears a pink hoodie highly decorated with stickers and pet toys. / Photo credit: Lisa Parra. Image description: A black and white image of a woman sitting on a chair with her hands between her legs in an empty studio. Her face is partially blurred. Her hair is black and short. She is wearing a long white dress.

Dance Performance, Film Screening & Discussion
Wellfleet Preservation Hall 335 Main Street, Wellfleet, MA
July 20th, 2022, 5-6:30

FARM Projects in collaboration with New Dance Alliance present WORKSESSION 2.0, a Dance Performance, Film Screening and Discussion with the artists at Wellfleet Preservation Hall on Wednesday, July 20th, from 5-6:30pm.

This event supports experimental dance and interdisciplinary performance. It includes a film screening of Garden in the Shape of Dreams, by visually impaired immigrant choreographer and educator Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez. The film will be followed with a dance performance by Lisa Parra, a creator of body image, identity and the effects that ritual, culture and language have on movement. A discussion with both Parra and Nunez will complete the program.

Exploring the parallels between memory, erasure, and immigration as embodying identities, Lisa and Christopher use digital and analog technologies as a reference point to create post-colonial portraits. These portraits are influenced by cultural surroundings and orientation generating works that use archival materials to re-imag- ine and trace physical, social and political histories.

Worksession 2.0 is the second project between Karen Bernard of New Dance Alliance and Farm Projects with the motivation to share more abstract performance projects with the Outer Cape. Last year, artists Karen Bernard, Rachel Thorne Germond and Jil Guyon held performances for one evening at farm projects.

Exploring the parallels between memory, erasure, and immigration as embodying identities, Lisa and Christopher use digital and analog technologies as a reference point to create post-colonial portraits. These portraits are influenced by cultural surroundings and orientation generating works that use archival materials to re-imag- ine and trace physical, social and political histories.

Worksession 2.0 is the second project between Karen Bernard of New Dance Alliance and Farm Projects with the motivation to share more abstract performance projects with the Outer Cape. Last year, artists Karen Bernard, Rachel Thorne Germond and Jil Guyon held performances for one evening at farm projects.

www.wellfleetpreservationhall.org

WORKSESSION 1.0

Performance & Video
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 at 7:30pm
FarmProjects, 355 Main St, Wellfleet, MA

Presenting Works By:

Karen Bernard

In Flash Forward, creator and performer, interrogates feminist culture unearthing connections between art and everyday life.  Sampling gestures, video and popular music, she delves into an emotionally fraught terrain of how the female body is looked at, from both the vantage point of the viewer and the one being viewed.

Rachel Thorne Germond

Rachel Thorne Germond most recent photographs, paintings, and drawings is accompanied by performed monologue and audience interaction. Using notebooks, video images, small canvases some framed on the walls and spread throughout the space, Germond will immerse viewers visually and viscerally.

Jil Guyon

Jil Guyon’s cinematic short performance-videos explore the contours of grief and transcendence through ritualized gesture. In each creation a lone protagonist is driven by unconscious forces into an unexpected environment. Her defining black dress, heels, and unfurling belt form a visual leitmotiv that sets the stylistic and emotional tone throughout the series of works. Archetypal subtexts—the movie star; the femme fatale; the survivor; the lonely wanderer—arise and dissolve, creating a symbolic arena for the investigation of female agency in the wake of loss.

Karen, Rachel and Jil have been meeting through NDA’s Work Session once a month and are excited to share this work that is coming out of those sessions.

farmprojectspace.com / 617.650.9800