Katherine Ferrier and Cultivate

by karen Krolak


I am so fortunate to have some amazing people as friends. For example, in the summer of 2003, Nicole Harris and Amelia O'Dowd floored me with an incredibly thoughtful gift. They scrimped and saved to send me to a magnificent dance improvisation workshop in Bennington, Vermont. I am not sure that I ever thanked them enough now that I think back on it.

One of the first people that I met that week was Katherine Ferrier, who writes, teaches, quilts, and choreographs. I was delighted when we crossed paths again at Simone Forti's Logomotion workshop in Orvieto, Italy in 2008. She is such a gentle magnet who always attracts a fascinating collection of artists. For instance, even though she has only lived in New Hampshire for a year, she has already stitched together a mini-festival of dance. If you are in the area or within a few hours' drive, I highly recommend that you join her.



Dancers, educators, dance students and dance lovers of all ages are invited to
a day of learning, sharing and showcasing
Saturday, August 14, 2010
White Mountain School
Cultivate is a partnership of the Arts Alliance's Extending the Dance Map initiative,
funded in part by Dana Foundation and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Visit the Arts Alliance website for additional details, to preregister for the workshops and to reserve tickets for the evening performance. Evening tickets are $10 per person, $20 per family.

The day begins with a series of workshops (for everyone from young dance students to school-based teachers to professional dancers) and culminates with an evening performance of works by participating artists. After the performance audience members are encouraged to linger and mingle over conversation and food at Social 2055, a new restaurant on Bethlehem's Main Street.

Participating artists include:

• Tiffany Rhynard (Middlebury, VT), Guest Artist at Middlebury College
• Pamela Vail (Lancaster, PA), Assistant Professor at Franklin and Marshall College
• Lisa Gonzales (Chicago, IL), Assistant Professor at Columbia College, Chicago
• Katherine Ferrier (Littleton, NH), Independent artist/educator
• Suzy Grant (Chicago, IL), Dance graduate of Columbia College and independent artist/producer
• Sally Bomer (Peterborough, NH), Lecturer at Franklin Pierce College
• Emily Anderson (North Conway, NH), Bennington College Dance student and New Hampshire native
• Vicki Brown (Tuscon, AZ), Composer, performer, musician with Movement Salon, AZ
• Emily Beattie and Eric Gunther (Boston, MA)

Roaming on March 8

by Karen Krolak

This will be brief as it is almost time to set my clock forward and I have a 12 hour rehearsal for Coriolanus (lovely article in the Boston Globe about it on Friday) awaiting me in the morning. Sitting in the castle shaped Amory building on this surprisingly warm afternoon listening to all the references to Rome in the play today, I savored memories of wandering around the city exactly a year ago.

Echoes of the man playing his saxophone standing in a cardboard box on an ancient bridge at dusk (one of the sound clips that I wove into the soundscape for Pochemuchka, one of Monkeyhouse's First Night premieres) snuck into my mind several times.

I was on my way to Simone Forti's Logomotion workshop in Orvieto and spent two glorious days meandering about Rome alone without any agenda. Setting off each afternoon from the magnificent Maria-Rosa Guesthouse overflowing with suggestions from Sylvie, I found plenty of adventure and several secret nooks. (It also fueled the idea for my pedestrian project in Somerville.)

It was fantastic precursor to the incredible creative sparks generated by my time in Orvieto surrounded by an exhilarating group of women from all over the world. Simone seemed to know how to unleash the appetite for artistic boldness in each of us. Working in Italian, English, French, Croatian, Greek, Turkish, German, and what ever other languages seemed useful, we investigated unexpected intersections in our lives. The somewhat surreal, tromp d'oeuil landscape on the walls the former castle provided an exquisite backdrop for our daily improvisations.

As a group, we all agreed that we should try to develop ways to continue creating projects together after we returned to our homes. Many of us have kept in touch or visited each other since we dispersed after our ending performance in Rome. So this year, we decided to explore a structure where each of us would devise an 8-minute solo wherever we were and find a way to share it with each other. I am so excited to see what develops that I am still up typing.