A note from Megan:
As the calendar year opens up in front of us, and as we continue to face many challenges, I'm wishing you continued strength and stamina. I'm grateful for you, for your interest in my work, and for your continued support.
Art making persists. Beauty persists. The energy, resiliency and the desire of dance artists to create and stay in community with one another persists.
Though I'm optimistic that more hopeful times are ahead, I know that we are still a long way from being safely back in the studio and performance spaces that we know. My pared down teaching work has been online these past many months, and I have sustained creative connection with the ever-inspiring MWDP dancers as much as possible. The work time spent with them on Zoom this past spring/summer and subsequently outdoors in parks in Brooklyn and Queens, at the Katonah Museum of Art (our one virtual commission in 2020) and at Arts on Site in NYC (our one live performance, with small audience and Covid-19 restrictions in place) has been fertile and satisfying in unexpected ways.
I performed early in the pandemic weeks in a virtual fundraiser for Artist Relief Tree, and this fall in an installment of John King's Sonic Gathering (with Gus Solomons Jr , Claire Westby and Brandon Collwes). The brilliant Esmé Boyce made a solo for me, and filmed it in my backyard. I'm currently making one for her. The marvel that is composer Eve Beglarian filmed me dancing in autumn fields and woods in Vermont for what will be an iteration of "Swift Bird" , a solo with her live music( played by Amy Garapic, Margaret Lancaster and Tristan Kasten-Krause) that should have been at the center of our show that was canceled in March, 2020. I'm in the process of editing that film now.
Films! It is with great humility that I have crossed over into the now necessary dance film making realm, and I am pleased to share with you the first two that MWDP has completed. You can click on the photos/links below to view.
The first one, unabashedly titled "Pivot", was commissioned by the Katonah Art Museum in Katonah, NY, for their fall 2020 gala. I was originally hired to create something for their in-person gala last spring, which became a virtual event in October. We created two videos, one that was responding to artwork at the museum, and this one, a dance created for the gravel courtyard near a sculpture by Ronald Bladen. The dancer/collaborators are Minga Prather, Réka Echerer and Michael Wang. The music, 'Osculati Fourniture' is by Eve Beglarian with Andy Kozar. The cinematography and editing are by Rocky Progano.
https://vimeo.com/495812410
The second, " Passive Lawn", is a study of some of the at-home material we generated via Zoom and played with in real life in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn and Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens in the summer and fall 2020. The dancer/collaborators are Chelsea Hecht, Réka Echerer, Mary Lyn Graves, Michael Wang, Robert Mark Burke, Derek Crescenti and John Eirich. I did the filming and editing . I am grateful to have secured the rights to the fabulous music by Chicago band Mucca Pazza. The dance artists not seen in the film, who also contributed time and energy in creating this material, are Esmé Boyce, Courtney Lopes, Amelia Pagliaro, Dylan Crossman and Joshua Tuason.
https://vimeo.com/495331206
stay safe,
Megan
