BLOOM Residency & Platform-Raising Program

The Dance Complex is excited to share news of its BLOOM initiative debuting as a pilot program this 2022/23 season!

BLOOM is offered as a means of offering space, attention, and administrative resources towards developing new dance/performance work, building better relationships within the dance field , and fostering sustainability for dance makers and dance communities at The Dance Complex and in the region.

The two main branches under the BLOOM canopy hold an artist residency program and a dance genre platform-raising program, each serving multiple artists in tailored and meaningful ways.

Both branches of BLOOM will include interactions with the public- including performances, workshops, information sessions.

BLOOM Residency Organizations: In its pilot year, four dance companies have been chosen recipients of the BLOOM Residency based on their collective varied genres, approaches to art-making, length of existence, and size. The four companies engaged in this BLOOM Residency are Boston Dance Theater, beheard.world, Jean Appolon Expressions, and The Click. In subsequent years there will be an open and publicized application process for interested dance companies to apply.

Specific workshops, consultants and areas of support for the residencies will be developed to uniquely serve these organizations from a menu of areas that will include artistic products and processes, as well as administrative and financial organization and planning. Each company will receive hours of studio space weekly, and each will receive a 2 performance run in performance spaces associated with The Dance Complex.

BLOOM Dance Genre Platform Raising: The genres/communities of dance receiving the offer of platform-raising attention of BLOOM have been named as Street Dance, traditional African and African diasporic dance and Disabilities Dance.

Acknowledging that each community has unique concerns and celebrations members of these communities are gathering, listening, learning, and brainstorming together, along with Dance Complex staff to organically develop an arc of action-focused results over the 2022/23 season. Over the course of the next 9 months, a strategic plan of action and sustainability will be developed and articulated by and with each unique community/genre. Plans for future action to support these areas of dance will be shared with the greater dance community. The Dance Complex envisions its role as creating space for conversations and action, keeping the genres of dance at the center. We are offering administrative support, and resources for convening the conversations and actions as suggested by the communities involved.

Kara Fili, Special Projects Manager at The Dance Complex, can be reached at [email protected] with questions about or interests in helping to shape either branch of the BLOOM initiative, for this pilot year and into the future.

Meet our 2022-23 BLOOM Residency Artists

To learn more about each company, click on their image to visit their website!

Boston Dance Theater

Under the co-artistic direction of Jessie Jeanne Stinnett and award winning, Dutch-Israeli, choreographer Itzik Galili, Boston Dance Theater (BDT) is Boston’s first contemporary dance repertory company with international ties at the leadership level. With a commitment to presenting works of socio-political relevance, BDT matches the talents of Boston-based dancers with those of acclaimed global choreographers, broadening the scope of contemporary dance practice and performance in our city. BDT is a registered 501(c)3 tax-exempt charity as of 2019.

beheard.world

Beheard.world is a racially diverse collective of performing artists, filmmakers, and educators. We create documentary films, live performances and workshops to engage a wide variety of communities in conversations that elevate people to advance social justice.

Jean Appolon Expressions

Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) is a contemporary dance company deeply rooted in Haitian-folkloric culture that celebrates, nurtures, and empowers a global community. We accomplish this through professional performances, teaching, and fostering healing and the joy of movement in people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to contribute to a socially just world. Based in Boston and led by Artistic Director Jean Appolon, JAE’s professional company conducts performances, community classes and educational workshops, with the goal of using dance and dialogue to promote healthy communities and speak to topics of social justice.

The Haitian contemporary dance company combines Modern technique and Haitian folkloric dance, bringing a new artistic vernacular to its audiences. The company has performed both at major venues such as Jacob’s Pillow, Boston’s Paramount Center, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the ICA, The Silver Spring Civic Building, and in city parks and community spaces in free performances accessible to the public. JAE has been fortunate to share the stage with celebrities such as Danny Glover, Henry Louis Gates and Edwidge Danticat, and to collaborate with community partners around the greater Boston area.

The Click

Founded in 2021, The Click is an experiment in organization, connection, and collaboration among a group of like-minded creative spirits living, making, teaching, studying, and/or existing in the Greater Boston area. We are a group of dancers whose primary medium of physical expression is through contemporary forms, but we are also a group of individuals who dabble and play in many modes and genres of creativity. Whether we spend our time sliding along the marley of a dance studio, praying in the pew of a church, researching within the walls of a science lab, or spinning around the metal of a dance pole, we are each deeply invested in answering the universally complex question that might play across your mind as well: who am I and what am I doing here?

The Click contributes to the consistent presence of creativity in Boston and beyond by: educating pre-professional youth dancers, professional adult dancers, and the dance-curious of any age; performing original creations several times a year at a variety of venues, both traditional and non-traditional, across Massachusetts, New England, and beyond; and investing in the curiosity of those new to dance in Boston or new to dance in general by maintaining an open, inclusive, and accessible community of individuals eager and enthusiastic to share resources, feedback, tips and tricks, or even just a simple hello.