Emily Johnson brings dance installation to the Redfern
Redfern Arts Center and Vermont Performance Lab Partner to Bring Native Alaskan Choreographer Emily Johnson to Keene
The Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College and Vermont Performance Lab (VPL) are joining forces to present Niicugni – the latest performance work by Bessie-award winning Native Alaskan choreographer Emily Johnson and Catalyst Dance. Niicugni, the second in a trilogy of performance works related to Johnson’s Yup’ik heritage, investigates community, place, memory, and identity and will be performed on Wednesday, February 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Theatre of the Redfern Arts Center. Tickets are $20 for adults; $13 for senior citizens, children, KSC alumni, faculty and staff; and $5 for KSC students. Call the Redfern Box Office at 603-358-2168 or visit www.keene.edu/racbp.
For this performance Johnson is inviting 40 community members from New Hampshire and Vermont to participate in Niicugni. The Redfern and VPL have been recruiting farmers and gardeners, librarians and archivists, sewers, knitters and beekeepers to participate in the performance of Niicugni at the Redfern Arts Center. People are invited to arrive early to view a lobby art exhibit and video showing community members making fish-skin lanterns and stay after the show for a discussion with Johnson and the other performers.
Two years ago Johnson began creating Niicugni at VPL in Guilford, Vt., where she developed movement and sound material, and worked with a group of local sewers to create 11 of the 50 hand-sewn salmon skin lanterns that light the work.
“We are thrilled to have this partnership with the Redfern Arts Center which has allowed us to bring the work of this insightful and imaginative artist back to our region,” said VPL Director Sara Coffey.
Redfern Director Shannon Mayers said, “This has been a great partnership with Emily Johnson and Vermont Performance Lab. It is very exciting to present a work that has been developed and now performed by members of our community – it speaks to the heart of the Redfern’s mission to provide opportunities for artists and community members to discover a work of art together.”
Niicugni is the Y’upik word for “listen” – a directive to pay attention. Through its layering of live music, dance and storytelling, Niicugni quietly compels the audience to take notice of place and history.
A recent New York Times preview of “Niicugni” stated “Ms. Johnson is the anchor of this installation of movement, stories and song. …her presence, at first, seems gentle. Ms. Johnson’s soft, clear voice makes her a seductive storyteller. Still, her words and, at times, disembodied delivery have bite.”
Johnson said of her work, “Niicugni is about how land, or place, like our bodies, is a repository of past, present, and future. It holds, at once, myth and truth, magic and evil, hope and death, laughter and monsters, as well as ancestral histories and cultural identities. In the moment of each performance, Niicugni wonders if we can recognize the importance of everyone in the room. Can we see ourselves as part of the whole? Can we absorb that everyone we see is here now and will be gone?”
Johnson’s performance works often function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment using sights, sounds, smells, as well as a place’s architecture, history, and role in community. Her performance works blur distinctions between performance and daily life to create work that reveals and respects multiple perspectives. This allows for multiple meanings with a goal of stimulating reflection and emotional empathy between performer and audience, and between audience members themselves.
This performance is made possible by the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project. Major support for NDP is also provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
About Emily Johnson
Emily Johnson is an artist and writer who makes body-based work. Originally from Alaska, she is now based in Minneapolis. Johnson received a 2012 Bessie (New York Dance and Performance) Award for Outstanding Production for her work, The Thank-you Bar at New York Live Arts. She is a 2012 Headlands and MacDowell Artist in Residence, a 2011 Native Arts and Cultures Fellow, a 2012, 2010 and 2009 MAP Fund Grant recipient, and a 2009 McKnight Fellow. Her current works, The Thank-you Bar and Niicugni are supported by National Dance Project and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography.
About Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College The Arts Center is named in honor of Dr. Leo F. Redfern, Keene State College President from 1969 to 1979 for his vision, commitment, and eloquence on behalf of the arts that made funding and construction of the facility a reality. In 1981, KSC inaugurated this new performing arts center, with the goal of providing unforgettable artistic encounters for the campus and community. Since then, the Redfern stage has hosted hundreds of amazing shows, from internationally renowned artists to emerging young talents to KSC’s own student performers. Over the years, the Redfern has expanded its outreach programs, curricular and community partnerships, becoming an indispensable resource for the Keene community and beyond.
