phase 1 – coming together
SALON: A LIVELY COMING TOGETHER OF PEOPLE FROM VARIED SEGMENTS OF A COMMUNITY, GATHERED BY AN INSPIRED HOST UNDER ONE ROOF TO SHARE ART, IDEAS, AND CONVERSATION
Please join us in acclimating to the space and getting to know the other guests.
phase 2 – performance
PRIVY: SHARING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF (SOMETHING SECRET OR PRIVATE); A TOILET OR OUTHOUSE
What is catalyzed when we bring another into personal confidence? What do we choose to disclose, what do we keep for ourselves, and what is risked on either side? What role does identity play in shaping one’s level of risk? How is healing (for storyteller and witness) catalyzed by ritualizing personal story through performance?
phase 3 – conversation
BRIDGE: A STRUCTURE CARRYING A PATHWAY OR ROADWAY OVER A DEPRESSION OR OBSTACLE;
A TIME, PLACE, OR MEANS OF CONNECTION OR TRANSITION
Join us as we conclude with a short conversation.
PERFORMANCE INCLUDES SONGS BY
The Carter Family, and Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim
TEXT AND IMAGE CARDS DRAW ON THE FOLLOWING SOURCES
IMAGES
Photo documentation and video stills from Privy by Kelly Silliman.
Cast of Saartjke Baartman displayed in France before repatriation to South Africa in 2002.
Grace Jones photographed by Jean Paul Goode on the cover of Jungle Fever (1982).
Caricature of Saartjke Baartman from the 19th century, unknown origin
“Riding Death in my Sleep” (2002) and Sketch Book Drawing (2010) by Wangechi Mutu
TEXT
Original text by Deborah.
Abena Koomson in conversation with Deborah (sometime between 2014 and 2016).
Deborah’s recollections of questions posed to her by family friends since 2008.
Cynthia Oliver offering rehearsal feedback to Deborah at Bates Dance Festival (2010).
Wangechi Mutu, quoted in Friedhelm Hutt, “On the Exhibition” in My Direty Little Heaven: Wangechi Mutu: Artist of the Year 2010 (2010).
Isaiah 54:1, The Bible. New International Version.
Yi Fu Tuan in Space and Place (1977).
Jean Anouihl’s, Antigone, translated by Barbara Bray (1944).
Solange interviewed by Beyonce in Interview Magazine (2017).
For a wider sampling of resources that have influenced the project,
a Con(text)ual Playlist can also be found here.
THANK YOU!
Kelly and Ritz for holding my hand and my creative heart through this extended process with incredible generosity and humor; André for sharing heady musings and this residency experience with me; An Duplan, John Englebrecht, Kalmia Strong, Dellyssa Edinboro and the entire CAS family for your support through the virtual phase of this residency experience, and your patience in helping to bring Privy to this moment;
Students/co-researchers from my F20 course at Hampshire College, Desire Lines: Mapping Home in the Dancing Body: Blythe Wilde, C. Ross, Tiz Rome, Jillian Oliveira, Kate Godsil-Freeman, Benin Gardner, Eleanor Crawford, and Tessa Boose. I’m grateful for the reciprocity of teaching and learning, and the ways that exchange opened for us the possibilities of Zoom as generative space for meeting, making and improvising together.
Early Privy helpers: Jennifer Cormier, Rebecca Puretz and Rosanna Karabetsos; more recent Privy helpers: Jamila Jackson, Rikkia Pereira and Lauren Horn.
Kyle Lapidus and Tali Hinkus (LoVid), Matthew Tower, Safi Harriot, Rosanna Karabetsos, Kate Seethaler and Arien Wilkerson–collaborators in the 2016 Reaction Bubble Project with whom I first encountered and obsessed about proxemics as a framework for considering the space/distance between us and how that space/distance dictates how we move. Those ideas have reemerged for me in the context of global pandemic and is manifesting in this iteration of Privy.
Massachusetts Cultural Council for its support of the 2016 premiere of this project through its Artist Fellowship program; Bates Dance Festival and New England Foundation for the Arts for providing space, time and funding in the very early development of Privy.
Thank YOU for accepting my invitation and bearing witness on this occasion.
ABOUT THE TEAM OF COLLABORATORS
Deborah Goffe is a dance maker, performer, educator, and performance curator who cultivates environments and experiences through choreographic, design and social processes. Since its founding in 2002, Scapegoat Garden has functioned as a primary vehicle and creative community through which Deborah has employed these processes—forging relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home. She is driven by an enduring commitment to world making, support of vibrant local dance ecologies, and the role of curatorial practice in those processes. Together these commitments inform her work and teaching at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where she serves as Assistant Professor of Modern-Contemporary Dance.
Kelly Silliman currently directs and performs with the tinydance project, is the Program Director at the Northampton Center for the Arts, and collaborates with Deborah Goffe/Scapegoat Garden as co-director on Privy. She has also worked with Cat Wagner/Collaborations and Pioneer Valley Ballet. Kelly continues her dance scholarship with research into the intersection of sustainability and the arts, and was a Five College Associate from 2014-2016. In 2016 she published a paper titled “Shifting Climates: Applying Principles of Sustainability to Dance-Making Endeavors.”
Ritz Ubides serves as Production Supervisor at Trinity College’s Austin Arts Center. She has been a longstanding collaborator with Scapegoat Garden as the company’s Technical Director and member of its Board of Directors from 2004-2012. She has been a vital member of the Privy performance salon production team since 2016.
André M. Zachery is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist of Haitian and African American descent, and is a scholar, researcher and technologist with a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University and MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. As the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on merging of choreography, technology and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography and 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography.
