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 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)

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.

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