Black Beauty Dance is a virtual workshop series for Black college dancers created and led by Shakia Johnson, who is the Five College Joint Lecturer in African Diasporic Dance. Against the backdrop of the murders of George Floyd and other Black people at the hands of police, Shakia reached out to the piece's Black student cast members to ask how she could support them, and in … [Read more...]
Artist Voices
Highlighting the work and voices of individual artists.
Curators, Editors, and Presenters: Our Advice for Artists
Periodically, we pose questions about issues artists face in their work and lives. This month, we're posing a question to a group of curators, editors, and presenters that we first posed in 2017: If you could convince artists to change ONE thing about the way they approach you/your organization for opportunities, what would it be? Aynel David Guerra, Curator, Director of … [Read more...]
GennaRose Nethercott: Beasts and Boxes
GennaRose Nethercott (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '18) knew she had to pursue writing as a career when, during college, taking breaks from writing caused her "bouts of ennui." "I thought, if this is how it's going to be, then I've got to go all in. I'm going to do this for real." Since then, she's written everything from stories to poems to song lyrics to … [Read more...]
Three Stages: Hortense Gerardo
In this Three Stages post, Hortense Gerardo discusses her experience as Artist-in-Residence of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, writing and premiering the play The Medfield Anthology despite exceptional challenges. I saw the grounds of the former Medfield State Hospital (MSH) for the first time on Monday, March 4, 2019. It was dusk, and I was brought there by my … [Read more...]
Studio Views: Katherine Taylor
Katherine Taylor asks the subjects of her photographic project, Masks of Boston, "Who do you wear a mask for?" It's a way of emphasizing the community connection inherent in the masks - now ubiquitous due to COVID-19. Here, she discusses the trajectory of the project, her approach to the portraits, and her outdoor socially-distanced studio. As a photojournalist who … [Read more...]