BRATTLEBORO — Choreographers Michael Bodel from Putney and Audrée Juteau from Montréal will have overlapping residencies at Vermont Performance Lab this August as part of VPL's SEED Program, a new initiative that supports regional dance makers with fees and residencies at VPL and Studio 303 in Montréal.
Bodel and Juteau are developing dance works that will be presented in a shared evening as part of VPL's In The Works series on Saturday, Aug. 13, at 7 p.m., in the Arts Barn at Hilltop Montessori School in Brattleboro.
Each year, VPL provides artists with residencies and support to research and develop new works in dance, theater, film, and music. This year, VPL expanded its reach to include the SEED Program as a way to directly support local artists creating new dance works.
VPL and Studio 303 selected Juteau and the WIVES collective from Montréal, and Aretha Aoki and Michael Bodel from New England for the pilot year of the program.
Michael Bodel's new multidisciplinary dance piece, “there are caves and attics,” is rooted in a 1966 radio essay by Michel Foucault that blends movement, scent, and lip-synching.
Emerging performer and choreographer Juteau will develop her latest work “Strange stranger” at VPL as part of the unique residency exchange with Studio 303.
In her recent works, “Poisson” and “Sam affecte,” Juteau performed with her dog to experiment with chance and presence in live performance. Now with “Strange stranger,” she draws inspiration from Lewis Carroll's tale “Alice in Wonderland,” and uses hypnosis techniques to explore various altered states.
The work-in-process showing of “Strange stranger” and “there are caves and attics” is free and reservations aren't required. There will be a conversation with the artists immediately following the In The Works showing.