February 17–24, 2021
Being/With:Home is a performance experience that connects two solo audience members at a time, each in their own home (via Zoom). A guided interaction with a stranger, Being/With:Home is an embodied exploration of separation, connection, and the power of listening. Embracing the objects and memories that populate each particpant’s own space, the two audience members created something new, with someone unexpected.
Being/With:Home was created in connection with Being/With:Live, a dual-site performance installation that will premiere in Fall 2021. Being/ With builds poetic bridges across neighborhoods and across continents, making space for the intimacy and immediacy of collaborative exchange.
Audiences interested in exploring the themes of Being/With: Home in a group setting were invited to participate in one of the interactive workshops connecting twelve participants at a time, each in their own home. Facilitated by NCDC Artistic Director Nichole Canuso and Spiral Q Co-director Jennifer Turnbull, these workshops explored the themes present in the performance (absence/presence; communication over distance; the power of listening) through a series of storytelling activities and movement structures. Each workshop reflected the interests and experiences of the participants.
Over the span of the residency presented by JMKAC, Nichole Canuso Dance Company (NCDC) guided twenty duets and four workshops engaging with more than eighty participants from near and far, including Sheboygan, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Tijuana.
The four workshops were made available to a range of groups and community partners in hopes to have a variety of demographics represented. Two of the workshops were conducted with students in the dance program at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“Thank you all for agreeing to work with us. These priceless experiences only enhance our student’s abilities to be better movers, creators and dance artist advocates.” —Simone Ferro, Department of Dance, Chair University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Conversations between the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and NCDC started several years ago. coupled with her commitment to collaboration and community partnerships, Arts Center staff saw NCDC as a natural fit for the 2020 theme of Care. Then, the pandemic took away any chance of in-person performances. Nichole, on the verge of premiering Being/With, was forced to pause and recalibrate her work. Being/With:Home was born as JMKAC’s 2021 theme, Return to the Real, was formulating. Return to the Real posed this foundational question: As our lived experience is increasingly mediated by our screens, how can art remind us of the rich rewards of the real? Being/With:Home seamlessly fit and proved to be a welcomed approach to virtual engagement.
Our dialogue with Nichole continues as JMKAC plans post-Covid programming endeavors. We hope to bring Nichole Canuso to JMKAC, in person and in the not-so-distant future, to strengthen the connections made during the virtual residency and to present the original ideation of Being/With.
“Being/With calls to the forefront something deeply lacking in pandemic life: meeting new people. But even before COVID drew us into our physical and psychological bubbles, few if any social experiences are truly novel and transitory any more. I don’t know Allison’s last name. I don’t know where she lives. We aren’t friends on social media. But she’s seen a sliver of my life and I hers.” — Lauren Warnecke, Art Intercepts
