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Emily Johnson/Catalyst, The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better – Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s). Performance view, featuring Jeffrey Gibson’s sculpture Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House, Socrates Sculpture Park, 2020. Photo by Scott Lynch.

Emily Johnson/Catalyst

Processions Toward, Being Future Being

work-in-progress

July 17-18, 6:00pm
Kennedy Park

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Emily Johnson/Catalyst’s newest work in development, Being Future Being delves into the power of creation to build a visual, aural and ancestral landscape of Indigenous power. Featuring a newly commissioned soundscore by Raven Chacon and a cast of more-than-human creatures, this work-in-progress connects audiences to land and imagines new ways to be together. By (re)building new visions of the forces that brought this world into being, Johnson brings forth new futures with the potential to reshape the way we relate to ourselves, and to the human and more-than-human cohabitants of our world.

BDF audiences will experience a work-in-progress of an outdoor section of this work that is still in development. Audiences will walk through areas of downtown Lewiston throughout this piece. Please do not bring blankets and chairs. Bring only what you are comfortable carrying. For accessibility questions, please contact bdfboxoffice@bates.edu

Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty and well-being. Emily is a Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim and United States Artists Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award. She is based in Lenapehoking / New York City. Emily is of the Yup’ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and care processions, they engage audienceship within and through space, time, and environment — interacting with a place’s architecture, peoples, history and role in building futures. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral part of our connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present and future.

“Johnson, a magnetic performer, is adept at mobilizing people, onstage and off; you want to follow.” – The New York Times

Don’t miss these other events:

LIVESTREAM: Emily Johnson Artist Talk
Mon | July 12 | 7:30PM | Virtual
FREE

Being Future Being is commissioned by The Broad Stage, Santa Monica, and is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project supported by Bunnell Street Arts Center (AK); New York Live Arts (NY); Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts (OR) and NPN, with contributions from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional commissioning and development support is provided by Portland Ovations, the Live Feed creative residency program at New York Live Arts, Jacob’s Pillow’s Pillow Lab residency, Bates Dance Festival and Abrons Arts Center.
Being Future Being is made possible in part with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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