The Greenway Conservancy is partnering with choreographer/director Peter DiMuro on a major new dance project that will develop, present, and document four site-specific works by local choreographers of diverse ages, races, ethnicities, and dance genres. DiMuro will guide the cohort through a year-long development process that includes workshops with guest artists, peer critical response, rehearsal space, mentorship, public work-in-progress performances, and documentation. The Conservancy has presented dance projects through partnerships and commissions in the past, but this will be the first major commissioned series of dance performances on The Greenway. This project is funded with the support of Amazon, the Greenway Business Improvement District, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
We are seeking two choreographers/companies to join Public Displays of Motion and Jean Appolon Expressions in a cohort of four companies, each presenting one original work. Each artist will select a portion of the 1.5-mile-long Greenway on which to base their work. Their 15-30 minute dance will respond to the context of the site, whether historical, social, anthropological, or environmental.
The development process will include pre-meetings to determine a non-hierarchical framework for learning and co-creation. The cohort will begin to develop shared movements, which will ultimately connect the four dances.
Performances will occur over 5 weekends during the fall of 2023. The series will feature 2 performances of one choreographer’s piece each week for 4 weeks and culminate in a festival day in which all 4 pieces are performed. Please see the schedule in the timeline below for more details.
Peter DiMuro will be Artistic Director and Lead Choreographer for this project. For 30+ years, DiMuro has woven a career as a dancer, actor, choreographer, director, teacher, and facilitator of creativity. He was Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange 2003-2008, a White House Millennial Artist, and a Mayor of Boston/ProArts Arts Award recipient. His work has received support from the NEA, National Performance Network, the Mass Artists’ Foundation, Mass Cultural Council, and MetLife Foundation. DiMuro was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Mayor of Boston's Artist-in-Residence program in 2015, the recipient of an Arts Fuse Award in 2016, and the 2018 inaugural choreographer-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. DiMuro is currently focused on physically embodying public art by creating dance in and for public spaces. His work creates platforms for the often invisible histories of our shared spaces, allowing the viewer to see and move through places differently. Public Displays of Motion is a dance company under the creative umbrella of DiMuro that develops and performs artistic works in dance and dance/theatre that translate the poetic and humane within everyday lives into performance; they will be one of the four companies involved in this project.
Jean Appolon is also a confirmed choreographer for this project, chosen during the funding stage. Appolon is the Co-founder and Director of Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE). He is a choreographer and master teacher based in Boston and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Appolon received his earliest training in Port-au-Prince with the Viviane Gauthier Dance Company and the Folkloric Ballet of Haiti. He continued his dance education at the Harvard and Radcliffe Dance Program in Boston, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Joffrey American Ballet School in NYC. Appolon’s Boston-based Haitian Contemporary dance company has performed at major venues in Boston and toured to Washington, DC and Port-au-Prince. Appolon and JAE have received grants from The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The National Performance Network, FOKAL, The Boston Foundation, and Mass Cultural Council. In 2013, Appolon was nominated for a Brother Thomas Fellowship (awarded by The Boston Foundation) and honored by The Art of Black Dance and Music.
We are seeking two additional choreographers/companies to complete our cohort. The cohort’s iterative, collaborative process will result in the creation of innovative dances that make visible the many histories of the site. Therefore, the success of the project will rely on the diverse perspectives that the artists bring to the cohort by virtue of their races, cultures, and life experiences, as well as their movement styles. Given the specific histories represented on The Greenway, we are particularly interested in working with choreographers/companies with a indigenous and/or AAPI background.
Click here for a pdf preview of the application.