Phases

Performed Sunday, August 30th at Slough Farm in edgartowN, MA

Credits

Conceptual design by Jesse Keller Jason

Choreographed and Performed by Mikah Baumrin, Jesse Keller Jason, Holly Jones, Claire Page, Aria Roach, Kalyan Sayre

Music:

"Qi:2 Garden" written by Evan Ziporyn, performed by Brooklyn Rider

"Timber (Hauschka Remix)" written by Michael Gorden, performed by Mantra Percussion

Video by Tim Persinko

About the performance

Phases takes the audience through a series of distant interactions between a pod of six performers. It allows the viewer to reflect on their own experiences surrounding isolation, friendships, daily regimens, and the pleasure in stepping outdoors. The performance asks viewers to observe the happenings from a distance, take a breath, and relish in the beauty of the partnership between the movers and the working landscape.

This performance stemmed from conversations between Slough Farm Executive Director, Stephen Backer, Slough Farm Program Director, Sophie Jones, and Jesse Keller Jason at the top of the pandemic, surrounding the ways a collaboration might take shape in this new context. Throughout the building process of Phases, the performers rehearsed on site and were inspired daily by the landscape, farm equipment, crops, and animals. The farm became a partner to all the dancers and  shaped the work in response to Slough’s unique environment. Both organizations are excited to join the island arts community in adding to the physical distance-conscious programming that began to emerge in the wake of the pandemic.

About Slough Farm

Slough Farm is a nonprofit educational farm and gathering place named for our location on Slough Cove of the Edgartown Great Pond. Our work is inspired by the beauty and wisdom of our environment; we are proud to teach regenerative farming and grazing practices on our working farm, and to support our fellow farmers and local agriculture and food equity organizations. We are committed to the integration of small-scale, sustainable farming and the arts through place-based educational programming for all ages and skill levels. Learn more at www.sloughfarm.org

Photos by Sally Cohn

about the dancers

Mikah Baumrin is a recent graduate of Bennington College where she studied Dance and Literature. She has been in the work of Dana Reitz and Elena Demyanenko and additionally studied with Hilary Clark and David Thompson. Mikah works with memory and its physical influence on the body through dance. She is inspired by multiple mediums, having grown up surrounded by music, visual art, and physical theatre. She is pleased to be a part of The Yard’s performance at Slough Farm. 

Holly Jones is the Director of Artist Services & Associate Producer at The Yard and Co-President of The Clive and Valerie Barnes Foundation. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Nonprofit Leadership at Penn, received an Executive Certificate in Arts and Culture Strategy through National Arts Strategies, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.F.A. in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College.  Recent performance projects include: Kimbra/Keigwin+Company (Park Ave Armory), DanceTheYard (MassMoCA, West End Theater/Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Triskelion, MVPAC), Skint/Caitlin Cook Dance (The Yard), Megan Doyle Dance/Community Dance Project (92Y), Musical Theatre Development Lab (92Y), Lori Leshner Dance Project, NYCDA Gala (Joyce Theater), and A Jazz Happening (Ted Shawn Theater, Jacob’s Pillow).  Her own choreographic work has been presented at the 92Y, The Yard, Built on Stilts Dance Festival, Nike/NFL Apparel Launch, numerous parades, and in her hometown for the Colorado Jazz Dance Company.  Ms. Jones is on guest faculty for The Yard, 92Y Harkness Dance Center/Musical Theater Dept, NYU Dance Education Masters Program, Rivertown Dance Academy, and RISE Vineyard Performing Arts.

From Ashland, Ohio, Jesse Keller Jason graduated from Ohio University with a BFA in Performance and Choreography. She started performing professionally with Stefanie Batten Bland (SBB) in Paris, France and remains connected with the troupe. With SBB, she has performed internationally at Festival Onze Bouge, Ris Orangis, Les Petites Scenes Ouvertes, and Cornell University’s Cultural Residency, along with nationally at The Baryshnikov Arts Center, Symphony Space, The Brooklyn Museum, Saratoga ArtsFest, Dogtown Dance Theater, Jacob’s Pillow’s Inside/Out, and Ringling International Arts Festival. She is a year-round island resident on Martha’s Vineyard where she serves as Director of Island Programs and Education and Co-Producer at The Yard, as well as Co-Artistic Director of DanceTheYard (DTY), The Yard’s resident dance collective. Since forming, DTY has presented work at The Yard, ACDA East Central, Ohio University, Triskelion Arts, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out, Mass MoCA, The Dance Complex, Soaking Wet Festival, Green Street Studio, and Cleveland Dance Festival. At The Yard she has played an instrumental role in developing and implementing MAKING IT, a creative dance-making curriculum and creativity initiative now active in the Martha’s Vineyard Public and Charter schools, in after school programs, libraries, senior centers, and elsewhere around the island. In 2014 she was named ‘Woman of the Year’ by Women Empowered for her work in dance education.

Claire Page (Choreographer, Performer) is a dancer, choreographer, and educator born and raised in New Jersey. Claire holds a certificate in musical theater from the Collaborative Arts Project for the 21st century (CAP21) and a BS in Liberal Arts from The New School. Claire has performed in numerous venues across NYC and on live television. She has presented original choreography and reached students in public and private schools throughout the NYC boroughs and across northern NJ. Most recently, Claire worked with interdisciplinary artist Andrea Geyer on her video installation  “truly spun never”. Claire continues to work with video, constructing sound, and choreography while staying deeply committed to fostering awareness and promoting expression through her work in dance education. Claire was a MAKING IT Community and Education Associate at The Yard from 2018-2020. 

Aria Roach is a Vermont-raised, NYC-based dance artist. She holds a BFA in Dance & Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University (summa cum laude). As an undergraduate she spent a semester at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and received a VCUarts Dean’s International Study Grant to travel to Vienna, Austria; she also appeared in works by Martha Curtis, Autumn Waddell, and Kara Robertson’s Amid, presented at ACDA’s National Festival at the Kennedy Center. Aria has since performed work by Eva Dean Dance, The Moving Architects, Merce Cunningham Trust, Nicoletta Serio, Zoe Walders, DanceTheYard, and Wild She Dances. Her creative work includes appearances in filmmaker James Fotopoulos’s La Belle et la Bête, Dandelot’s Tutu music video, Target’s All in Motion ad campaign, and video/photographic collaborations with Barbara Shore, gwen charles, and Sherrie Nickol. In addition to her freelance work, Aria is General Manager with Caleb Teicher & Company (CT&Co), and Teaching Artist with Dancewave and Mark Morris Dance Group; during her quarantined time on MV she is working as a landscaping gardener, and as a farmer at Ghost Island Farm. IG: @aria.roach Web: ariaroach.com. 

Kalyan Sayre was born and raised in Raleigh, NC. The basis of her training comes from her time at George Mason University, where she graduated in 2019. She began dancing at a magnet high school after a childhood of gymnastics. These classes fostered in her a passion for creation, collaboration, and exploration. She has continued to pursue investigations of this nature at programs such as Bates Dance Festival, Movement Invention Project, NYC Gaga workshop, Salt Dance Festival, Ate9 summer workshop, San Francisco Conservatory Summer Intensive, DASH Ensemble workshop, BODYTRAFFIC intensive, Dance Italia, ConnectLAB, and B12. Kalyan has performed in works by Lar Lubovitch, Soon Ho Park, Doug Varone, and David Grenke at theaters including The Joyce Theater and The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Newly based in New York, she has begun projects with Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup and Yu.S.Artistry.