In December, Dance Exchange hosted Amara Tabor-Smith, our first Green Choreographer-in-Residence. Amara and her collaborator Sherwood Chen spent a week with Dance Exchange artists exploring sustainable food practices and food justice. Amara’s residency, which took place in our studios, as well as at sites like Eco City Farms in Edmonston, MD, culminated in a Thursday night HOME event featuring a potluck dinner and reflections on food and family. Visit Dance Exchange’s Facebook page to view more pictures from the residency.
Jill Sigman, of New York City, is our second Green Choreographer-in-Residence and will be in residence from January 28-February 1, 2013. Sigman will explore principles of permaculture and engage in hands-on work with small living systems, and this research will inform the development of movement scores and improvisational systems for use in her work The Hut Project, a series of site-specific structures built from trash. Sigman will share her methods and research in her HOME event on Thursday, January 30th from 7:00-9:00pm, and teach FRIDAY CLASS on Friday, February 1st from 9:30-11:15am.
The 1200 Buildings Commission is a pilot public art project responding to the energy and sustainability performance of a commercial building within the City of Melbourne – the Green Spaces at 490 Spencer Street in West Melbourne. The Green Spaces building is an early entrant in the City’s 1200 Buildings scheme, which aims to facilitate the energy retrofit of 1200 buildings within the municipality, making a significant contribution towards meeting the City of Melbourne’s target of carbon neutrality by 2020.