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Dance Theater for Collective Liberation

Summer 2021, Vermont-based Loom Ensemble gathered together local dancers and professional theatermakers to devise an outdoor dance-theater performance, to share with local community in the Upper River Valley, sponsored by Open Door Integrative Wellness of White River Junction.
   
Twenty Twenty: Wildfires choke the air, police steal breath, and disease invades the lungs. Can your lizard-brain tell the difference between the national threat of fascism and low-grade personal conflict? Mine can’t. Twenty Twenty-One: We are coming back together, to heal through song and laughter, and dance-into-being a more beautiful world. 

Twenty Twenty / Twenty Twenty-One moves the grief up and out, to mourn the intersecting crises of 2020 and collectively imagine the better world we want to steer toward (far from “back to normal”). This movement initiates from the lungs as the site of interconnectedness, the organ of grief, the target of covid infections, the choke of wildfires, and the cry of social (in)justice: “I can’t breathe.”   Lush visual design, and the nourishment of participatory ceremony and song returns us to our rightful selves, knitting together audience and performers as we live-into being the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Neva Cockrell, Director
Raphael Sacks, Producer
Kate Gamble, Ensemble Director
An-lin Dauber, Set Props and Costume Design
Text and story collaboratively devised by the Core Performers with Original Music by Jen Anaya

Meet the Artists:

Jen Anaya, “Ancient Future Ancestor” & Original Music

Jen Anaya (they/them) is a theater/music/art/ritual space maker, doula and energy healer from the desert of Yavapaiv Apache, Cocopah and O’odham land. They have performed in/created for rock bands, web series, art installations, plays, operas, films, solo shows, healing rituals and musicals all over NYC, Turtle Island and beyond. More at jenanaya.com

Neva Cockrell, Director

Neva Cockrell uses dance-theater as a tool for social change. She joined Pilobolus in 2016, and began as Dance Captain in 2017, touring Germany, Austria, Switzerland, China, Mexico, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai. As a co-founder of Loom, she has toured and taught in US, Europe, and UAE. Neva runs the Art Monastery, an artist collective and contemplative community in Vermont. She has been teaching embodiment practices for over a decade, including Physique 57 NYC and Dubai, and developing her own movement technique, Catalyst Training.

An-lin Dauber, Set Props & Costume Design

An-lin is a New York based set and costume designer. Notable designs include Seven Guitars (Yale Repertory Theatre), Paul Swan is Dead and Gone (The Civilians), A Christmas Carol: The Live Radio Play (Alliance Theatre), The Song of Summer (Mixed Blood Theatre), Macbeth (Theater Alaska). She is a company member of The Williams Project, a living wage theater company committed to radical hospitality. MFA Yale School of Drama. anlindauber.com

Micah Ellinger, “Uplifter”

Micah Ellinger was born and raised in the Boston area, began training at New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro, and continued at l’École Nationale de Cirque in Montreal. International performance credits include Boston Circus Guild, Cirque Éloize, Cirque du Soleil, and Circus Monti in 11 different countries. Lately he spends his time tending the garden, group singing, and yes still throwing people in the air from time to time.

Rosie McInnes, “News”

is a Massachusetts-based theater maker, playwright and activist. Rosie has recently devised work in collaboration with The Open Theater Project, Off the Grid Theater Co, and Central Square Theater in Boston. Her play Snowgirl was the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant and will be produced in Cambridge, MA this December. Rosie works for The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate organization working to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.

Christine Moonbeam, “Uplifter”

Christine is the founder of Christine Moonbeam Acro, co-founder of Colorado Acro Fest, Coach at Pitch Catch Circus: School of Acrobatics. She has studied partner acrobatics since 2010, and taught her own pedagogy in US and Europe, Asia, and Mexico. She mentors up-and-coming apprentices and teaches dance, tumbling, partner acro and handstands.
Christine believes partner acrobatics is a powerful tool for self-discovery and community building and empowerment.

Nikita Patel, “Gremlin”

Nikita (she/her) was born and raised in Pune, India. She is a dancer, actor, singer, producer with international performance experience in India, Dubai, New York & Vermont. She has worked closely with Loom Ensemble since 2015, including Bootstraps, Fading Brightness, Starry Little Stories, and What the Jellyfish Knows. She is passionate about breath and body awareness, teaching yoga and movement. When not moving, you can find her pottering about the kitchen making yoghurt and granola then eating it.
Diploma in Dance Studies, Trinity Laban (UK)

Raphael Sacks, “Gremlin” & Producer

Raphael (he/they) is a voice and theater artist from NYC, and co-director of Loom Ensemble. Outside Loom, Raphael currently works with Constellation Chor (Lincoln Center, NY Philharmonic, Judson Church); and Sandglass Theater (as a performer and Music Director of “Babylon: Journeys of Refugees”) Other performance credits include English National Opera London, Art Monastery Italia, and in NYC at Lincoln Center with Urban Research Theatre, BAM with Meredith Monk, and La MaMa with Loom. RaphaelSacks.com

Hanna Satterlee, “Chelsea”

Hanna Satterlee creates performance experiences and conceptual artworks for stage, site and film. Hanna holds degrees and certifications in dance therapy, psychology, performance, choreography, vinyasa/yin/restorative yoga, non-profit management and arts integration. Hanna shares these passions as an intergenerational educator, interdisciplinary performer & collaborator, experimental curator and event producer. Hanna is the founder of the Vermont Dance Alliance and is as passionate for the form of dance as she is in connecting people to it. hannasatterlee.com

Shawn Shafner, “Zach”

Shawn Shafner (he/they) is an artist, educator and facilitator. Creator of The People’s Own Organic Power Project (thePOOPproject.org), he has catalyzed conversation about sustainable sanitation from NYC’s largest wastewater treatment plant to the United Nations. Performance credits include Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, Dubai, London, Iceland and more. Shawn teaches movement with Tamar Rogoff, sings with Marisa Michelson’s Constellation Chor, and develops mindful, arts-integrated curriculum for learners of all ages. shawnshafner.com

More than 50 performances across Italy, Belgium, Berlin, Stockholm, Dubai, Colorado, Ohio, Vermont and New York City.

How we navigate the most mundane moments of our relationships plays out as a microcosm for every corrosive system of oppression we’ve internalized from the overculture. Partnership is fraught with the triggers of gender and power, and our fervent hopes to build a better life.

“Prime” plays out at the breakfast table every morning: coffee and tea, intimacy and fear, longing to connect and triggered when vulnerability arises. Over time, frustration and disconnection builds, until right at the breaking point, the story follows their relationship into a dream state, where the mundane interactions of the breakfast table resonate with mythological references to the goddess of night. Finally, back in the bleary post-dream dawn-time, a new day is born. Healing together is possible, and we tenderly step forward into more authentic and caring ways of being. 

“Loom Ensemble is the duo who can do it all–act, sing and above all dance!”–Khaleej Times, Dubai

 
After more than 50 performances across 3 continents, we’ve learned one of the show’s biggest strengths is its intergenerational appeal. To generalize: baby boomers experientially relate to the difficult realities of long term partnership, while the show meets millennials where they’re at, in the search for new relationship models. When the performance shifts into facilitated group discussion, directly addressing the vulnerability of relationship becomes a means for intergenerational healing and connection, as we come together in community, unfolding new ways of being, slowly over time.

In “Prime,” integration and healing come are born from the non-linear, feminine forces of dream, intuition and embodiment. Through the visceral intimacy of live performance, “Prime” nourishes the collective healing that comes by rebalancing the masculine and femenine principles within each of us. The devastation of our planet and culture calls for us to know this meeting place better, in a healthier balance of feminine and masculine, intuition and action, and the meeting point of night and day: the pivotal moment of dawn.

“A brilliant balance of rigor, subtlety and authenticity… ideas and images from Prime lingered long after the show was over.” -Holly Handman, Professor of Dance, Oberlin College

 
The show is dance-theater in the truest sense, using character, story, and dialogue to ground abstract dance in emotional specificity; and using full body contemporary choreography to deepen the emotional resonance of the narrative storytelling. Loom Ensemble Artistic Directors Neva and Raphael have traveled the world as professional collaborators and romantic partners for more than a decade.  This duo performance is an exploration of long term partnership, how two contrasting personalities can find ways to meet each other, on their own terms, over time. 

Show History

–Created in 2014, in residence at the Art Monastery Italia, by 12 American artists gathered in a 1,000 year-old ex-convent in the Parco Nazionale della Majella. in the mountains of Abruzzo.
–2 month European Tour across Italy, to multiple venues in Sweden and Belgium, with a culminating 2 week run Berlin, Germany (Kunsthaus KuLe)
–6 week run in Dubai, UAE (at thejamjar, Al Serkal)
–2 week run NYC (at The Wild Project)
–Additional performances in Colorado (Denver, Boulder) and Ohio (as guest artists in the Oberlin College Dance Department)

Prime was created in 2014, in residence at the Art Monastery Italia, in Caramanico Terme, Abruzzo. 12 American artists gathered in a 1,000 year-old ex-convent in the Italian Parco Nazionale della Majella, in the mountains of Abruzzo, Italy. Every day for 2 months we practiced group meditation for the 30 minutes before dawn, ending when the sun crested over the mountains. Every day we sang together and danced, trained our bodies, and shared three meals a day in a communal deep-dive thematic exploration of the dawn time. Prime, Italian for the “first hour” of day, is the result. Two performers and a creative team of 10 imbued each character with the full complexity of the whole creative ensembles. The show is layered over and over with the mythology the dawn, daily rebirth, the symbolism in the meeting of night and day, and the colors of sunrise. 

At the end of this devising process, Neva and Raphael the two performers set off, driving from Rome to Stockholm and back over the course of several months of tour performances. Now, over 50 performances later, the creative process has never really ended. The craft of performance is a continual practice of refresh, refine, and rediscover. Without any text edits, without any choreographic redrafting, Prime’s most recent performances at Oberlin College 2019, have unmistakably deepened and matured since, say, Belgium 2014.

Performed by Neva Cockrell and Raphael Sacks
Directed by Emma Jaster
Music by Jen Kutler
Text by Rachael Richman
Choreography by Jessi Barber and Neva Cockrell
Costume Design by Kim Upstill
Lighting Design by Antonio Stella
Production Assistant Mira AlQ

Ensemble based dance-theater to weave new mythology for an age of emotional integrity.

With luscious vocal harmonies by Lincoln Center songstress Grace McLean, and choreography by Pilobolus Dance Captain Neva Cockrell, Fading Brightness is a magical realism deepdive into the self-empowerment that comes from shedding our default culture’s unwillingness to acknowledge — or maybe even dance along with — the presence of death in our everyday lives.

Either you’ve had the experience of being in a committed relationship and falling in love with someone else, or you’ve been in a relationship with someone who was falling in love with someone else, or you’ve fallen in love with someone who was in a committed relationship.
“But if this story is so old, why don’t we have better ways of dealing with it?”

There’s no one to blame — just three deeply relatable, well-intentioned adults, caught in a triggering situation — turning the impact of the show from the realm of romantic comedy into the cultural work of cultivating a more responsible way of being.

Fading Brightness destigmatizes breakdown, anxiety, and depression, by celebrating the kaleidoscopic array of resources and strategies for meeting heartbreak without shutting down.
Izzy sits on her cushion in a meditation retreat, swimming in the affair. Beth’s therapist encourages her “it’s normal to feel like a dragon.” It’s unclear why Aden chose to tell Beth while they were at her parent’s house. Maybe there’s just never a good time or a good place to give someone bad news.

Written and Directed by Neva Cockrell
Lead Producer: Raphael Sacks
Songs by: Grace McLean
Visual Design: An-lin Dauber

Community Engagement

-Post-show discussion unpacks gender dynamics, affirming vulnerability and self-empowerment
Additional facilitated community discussions could include:
-“Men’s work” circle on unlearning toxic masculinity.
-“Shedding internalized oppression” circle for queer and femme community.
-“Politics of love” on alternatives ownership/jealousy-driven relationship styles, and the single-family-household.
-Option to combine Fading Brightness performances with Loom Ensemble workshops and classes on devising, contemporary dance, embodied voice and physical storytelling.

Set the show on local professionals

In a 3 week rehearsal intensive, two Loom Artistic Directors can set the show on your theater’s local professionals, with a cast of 3 singer-actors and 4 dancer-actors.

and/or add an ensemble of community performers

With a weeklong residency, Loom can create an ensemble of 5-10 community theater performers to weave into the piece, joining the professional performances.

Quotes

“Visceral, thought-provoking and profound… Fading Brightness impacts on multiple levels”
-Iobel Andemicael — Sociologist / Anthropologist

“A masterful piece of theatre.”
-Marita Peters — Executive Director, Middle East Surge for Water

Touring Availability begins Fall 2020

Artist Fee: $5,000

Premiered in Dubai, May 2018

Meditation Izzy: Shereen Saif
Narrator: Raphael Sacks
Memory Izzy: Nikita Patel
Beth: Juliska Szik
Aden: Joshua Joshson
Ensemble: Asareh Ebrahimpour, Regina Hutchinson, Emech Zeinali, Iunia Pasca

Solo dance theater, inspired by the deep sea 

After 6 shows in Dubai, and US performances last season in NY, VT and MA, the tour continues!

“What The Jellyfish Knows” invokes the awe-striking beauty of our planets waters, with the scientific content of a nature documentary, virtuosic musical complexity, and plenty of silliness. 

It’s truly humbling to be dancing the story of the Ocean.
I offer this lovesong for our planets waters, with a heart full of wonderment for all her power, and a belly full of urgency to protect her ecosystems.

Inspired by the “Deep Sea” episode of David Attenborough’s BBC Planet Earth and its classic orchestral score by George Fenton. 

“What The Jellyfish Knows” audio teaser

No ticket sales–just show up!
8pm Thursday and Friday
28+29 March, 4+5 April
at Sima Performing Arts
Aleserkal Avenue warehouse 38

Leave it to UAE media to tell the story:

“New York’s Loom Ensemble is the duo who can do it all–act, sing and above all dance!”
–Khaleej Times

“Powerful and unique… Don’t miss it!”
–Gulf News

“Loom Ensemble has been a big part of the growth [of] contemporary art in the UAE as their residence… brings fresh ideas, inspires the local community and helps showcase the community’s talent.”
–Art Kentro

About the Show

Default Mind follows Charlie and Melaina as they struggle for their own wellbeing against the Body Shame Industrial Complex, and a culture of self-hate. This inner journey is played out through high-intensity ensemble dance and dynamic physical partnering. We get a hilarious view into each character’s emotional life as their subconscious gremlins shake them to the bones, reminding them what their parents always said and what their default culture thinks of them.

How do you operate in a world that is always judging you? Well, sometimes you hide in the closet. Sometimes you explode at work and have to take an “anger management” sabbatical from your job. Sometimes you just cry. No, seriously. Charlie and Melaina are navigating their childhood trauma, swimming through the sea of new “self-help” techniques, and trying to be honest — but not too honest — as they learn to love eachother, and learn to love themselves.

Erosion: A Fable premiered to sold out houses at La MaMa in New York City, who presented us as part of their 50^th anniversary season in February 2012.

The show knits contemporary music and abstract dance into a theatrically charged, yet family-friendly story. Vivid character acting and a surprising plot draw “non-dance audiences” and “non-music people” into new appreciation for “more adventurous” theatergoing. Erosion: A Fable takes a look at the familiar world of corporate desk jobs through a surprising aesthetic prism. Echoing dialogue sparked by Occupy Wall Street, Citizen’s United and the global energy crisis, Erosion: A Fable uses Loom’s signature palette of athletic dances, intricate vocal compositions and traditional storytelling techniques to stage this accessible, compelling story of corporate competition, environmental catastrophe and personal transformation.

Run time: 75 minutes, no intermission.

The physical vocabulary of the show draws from modern dance, contact improvisation, acrobatics and capoeira angola. The show’s original music is composed for voice, world instruments, original instruments and electronics, and incorporates vocal and musical styles from around the world.

See the trailer of the premier at La MaMa

Watch a video about our rehearsal process

Read the blog about the development of the show last winter

Learn more about the collaborative team of artists involved

Check out the Album featuring original music from the show