Photo: Aram Bogohosian/ArtLab
Boston Dance Theater
TDM147WC & LROD

New England FOUNDATION OF THE ARTS (NEFA), ArtLab, and Boston Dance Theater

ABOUT

LROD (Interim Head of Dance and Lecturer in TDM) (@lrod_work ) was awarded a New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) NEST 3 grant alongside the directors from 3arts, Space538. Together, this program would bridge the New England community and circulate research networks for touring “The Carol Kaye Project” by the Boston Dance Theater.

From October 10-13, 2023, Boston Dance Theater with LROD and students from TDM147WC, joined ArtLab in a weeklong residency, to celebrate the lineage and work of Carol Kaye a seminal session bassist and engage with Boston Dance Theater’s “The Carol Kaye Project.” Finding shared fluidity around adaptive and inclusive pedagogies mobilizing presence and agency.

The TDM147WC Dance & Technology: Womxn Choreographers & Intermedia embodied course (critical and practical) designed by LROD, looked at women’s role in contributions to the fields of performance, dance, and intermedia throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, all while working to implement embodied curriculums. LROD’s mission and vision as a lifelong choreographer, designer, and scholar is to re-imagine how dance and movement studies expanded methods, histories, and practices are layered together for more efficient embodied engagements and curriculums.

Jesse Jeanne Stinnett (Co-Director of Boston Dance Company and Visiting Lecturer in Dance, fall 2023) Made a direct impact with her composition course TDM 145S: Embodiment: Contemporary Dance Choreography & Boston Dance Theater (Fall 2023), bringing together a through line in the bridging of courses for artists who are working in the field and simultaneously teaching. This course embraces the embodied practical outcomes and is integrated into the final works-in-progress night.

Together Professor Stinnett, Professor LROD, ArtLab, company members, and students envisioned an opportunity for TDM movement and dance faculty, concentrators, and community members to embody the histories of women at the intersections of dance, performance, and technology.

The program from ArtLab noted "The Carol Kaye Project," Boston Dance Theater's newest program, celebrates the bass guitarist Carol Kaye. Since the early 1960s, Kaye recorded an estimated 10,000 sessions with everyone from The Beach Boys to Marvin Gaye. Yet, she remains relatively unknown.” ArtLab is a beautiful place on Harvard’s Allston campus to engage with meaningful artistic processes. Thank you to Lori Gross, Bree Edwards, Kat Nakaji, and Mack Mackenzie for being wonderful co-creatives.

On October 12 at ArtLab (@harvardartlab) with Boston Dance Theater (@bostondancetheater) and TDM147WC students (@harvardtdm) we opened our doors to the public for a work-in-progress performance. This work-in-progress public performance is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).

Link for Harvard Crimson Article: “Carol Kaye offers a chance to Remember and Rejoice”

PARTNERS

Barkow Leibinger
Photo: Iwan Bann
***Links are included to the history and proper citational lineages for ArtLab***

Few thoughts

During the Fall of 2023, LROD (Interim Head of Dance and Lecturer in TDM) (@lrod_work ) was awarded a New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) NEST GRANT to organize with 3arts, Space538, and ArtLab at Harvard in bridging the New England community together and open networks for mobilizing dance by supporting artists. My thoughts here for potential or possible program designs for dance artists do not reflect on the fantastic collaborators and NEFA grant who supported or were involved in this programming.

With the NEFA NEST 3 grant, the awardee receives up to $10,000 to support the artist directly on tour. At this moment, let’s take a beat and do some math, (the company) would potentially be able to receive up to $30,000, which is great. However, with a company comprising seven artists (lighting designer included), this would estimate a total payout of around $4,285 for each artist to reconcile the total breakdown of $30,000. Consider the hours of rehearsal, travel, and performances throughout the tour and three venues. Then consider that each venue only provides each artist less than $1,500 each. Given the company rehearses and performs over three or four days each week/weekend per venue, and by watching the amount of effort, artistry, and engagement given for educational and entertainment outcomes, something is not matching up. Note: I am not currently looking at any funding that a company would have through their 501c3 or foundation.

If we look inside the institution, a professor could apply for grants ranging up to $7,500 every semester or seek seed funding for programs where the future after funding runs out depends on the institutions to pick them up. We could all write more grants and continue to submit to project-based gatherings, but when does the livable part of being an artist arrive? Why do educational institutions choose not to continue to build upon what MANCC has already modeled? In an era where we are not inventing anything new, currently more like problem-solving, burrowing, and expanding upon antiquated designs, it is essential to cite the past, look at the present moment, respond by customizing to the community or ecology, and keep asking questions. This is the future of dance. Essentially, I thought it was just a choreographic mindset in leadership.

Thanks for following; we can do better for our New England community. While I enjoy my four years of engaging, observing, and sitting with the difficultly laborious challenges here—I refuse to align.

Abrazos,
LROD

VISITING DANCE INNOVATORS PROGRAM

ABOUT

The Visiting Dance Innovators Program (VDIP), co-presented by Theater, Dance & Media, and Harvard Dance Center, brings exemplary dance artists and scholars to campus for a multi-pronged engagement around the expansive innovations in Dance Studies, embodied research, and artistic methods of practice. VDIP builds bridges for university partnerships, creating cross-disciplinary connections and illuminating the relevance of dance studies.

The vision, mission, and funding support behind this seed project belong to the principal investigator and choreographic designer, Interim Head of Dance and lecturer in Theater, Dance and media, Professor LROD, who facilitated by design with the Harvard Dance Center, Theater (HDC), Dance & media (TDM), Graduate School of Design (GSD), Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Museum of Science and Culture, and Harvard’s Foundation for Intercultural & Race Relations to ensure artist needs and desires were heard first, before institutional ones. The funding support comes from the Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities to upstart Professor LROD’s faculty project during 2021 & 2022. Professionals came to Harvard with cross-disciplinary research processes engaging with students, faculty, and structural programming to support the choreographic nature of dance and movement studies.