Banderole: Dance Performance

August 26, 2020

5:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Join us for a meditative and sculptural dance performance set against the dramatic background of The Forecourt. Each night from August 26 – 31, dancer and choreographer Ian Spencer Bell will perform a short, approximately 10-15 minute long duet with longtime dance partner Joshua Tuason, Banderole, followed by a talkback with the artist. We welcome you to stay and explore the grounds (open until dusk).

Banderole is named for the scroll, flag, and sculptured band. A solo prelude whips and waves along the garden path, folds on a rise of rocks, and unfurls in a duet in the gray-graveled forecourt. Classical shapes merge with pedestrian gestures and create a kind of calligraphy. Bell started work on the piece in early March through a series of improvisations that explored breath, direction, and line. “Quickly,” Bell says, “the dancing became an act of brooding, easing, and quieting—a meditation.”

The New York Times describes Bell as a dancer of “gentle but defined precision” and his work as “not dance and not poetry but some third medium.” This fall he performed with his group at CounterPulse in San Francisco, Cal., Dance Complex in Cambridge, Mass., and at Boston Center for the Arts. He lives in New York City and in Western Mass, where he is a visiting artist at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

Post-performance talkback moderators are:

August 26, Ariana Massery, Producing Director, Jacob’s Pillow
August 27, Michelle Daly, Public Programs Director, The Mount
August 28, James Warwick, actor and director
August 29, Mark Wunderlich, poet
August 30, Angelo Nikolopoulos, poet
August 31, Bettina Montano, Founder and Director, Berkshire Pulse.

 

[caption id="attachment_17147" align="alignleft" width="240"] Photo credit: Kyle Froman[/caption]

Ian Spencer Bell is a dancer and poet. His first performances were danced outdoors and awarded a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has performed his solos at Boston Center for the Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Poetry Foundation, and Queens Museum. Ballet Review, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Movement Research, and Narrative have published his writing.

Bell was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Fauquier County, Virginia. He trained at North Carolina School of the Arts, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and School of American Ballet. He was educated at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University, where he received an MFA in poetry. For a decade throughout the United States, he led education and training programs for American Ballet Theatre. He is dance artist in residence at the Nightingale-Bamford School and visiting artist at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. He lives in the Berkshires and New York City.

Since 2010, Joshua Tuason has participated in the creation of 12 of Bell’s works He was a member of Stephen Petronio Company and performed in Merce Cunningham Trust’s Night of 100 Solos. Tuason, from San Francisco, began training at the San Francisco Ballet and later received a BFA from Marymount Manhattan Collage, NYC. He was a member of the Martha Graham Ensemble and has participated in various reconstructions of Merce Cunningham's work through the Cunningham Trust. A former member of Stephen Petronio Company, he currently freelances and has collaborated with various artists including Mark Morris, Ian Spencer Bell, Wendy Osserman, Pat Catterson, Xavier Cha, Sally Silvers and Pam Tanowitz.

Banderole is presented in partnership with Berkshire Pulse.

The Berkshire Pulse mission is to build and strengthen community life through diverse and accessible programming in performing, movement and creative arts. By promoting the participation in these educational and health sustaining activities, we enrich the lives of families and individuals of all ages throughout the region.

 

The Mount is a Massachusetts Cultural Council UP designated organization welcoming participants of all disabilities. Please contact us at 413-551-5100 or by email, info@edithwharton.org, to discuss accommodations needed to participate fully in this event. 

Free