The ponderosa e.V. is a non-profit organization consisting of 18 people. Our main purpose is to create an International meeting space in the countryside outside of Berlin. We come from wide ranging backgrounds, but share a common experience of embracing the arts, living on a broken down farm and encouraging an event that inspires people’s creative sources and gives them a place to enact their own desires and visions. We depend on the form of improvisation to help create our structures and our solutions. We are a team of organizers, teachers, builders, performers, artists, cultural managers, producers and hosts. Our goal is to bring as much uniqueness, clear thought and spontaneous action to our yearly festival while remaining intact as a self-sufficient group and as a building community.
Directed by Kathleen Hermesdorf with Albert Mathias in San Francisco, ALTERNATIVA is an apparatus for deeply integrated dance and music via creation, improvisation, performance, education and curation. Hermesdorf and Mathias create and instigate performance work based in visceral, dynamic and experimental investigations into ineffable aspects of the human condition. They also share a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and roots in improvisation. The organization supports the project-to-project creative work and acts as an umbrella for Alternative Conservatory, facilitated by Hermesdorf and AM Audio/Media, established by Mathias. With support in San Francisco by ODC Theater in numerous residencies, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, CASH/Theatre Bay Area, CHIME/MJDC and the San Francisco Arts Commission, ALTERNATIVA has presented 8 home seasons since 1998, and toured nationally and internationally in affiliation with Movement Research/New York, Velocity Dance Center/Seattle, Bates Dance Festival/Maine, Ponderosa/Stolzenhagen, Germany, and Delfos & EPDM/Mazatlán, Mexico, among many others. ALTERNATIVA was in residence at KUNST-STOFF arts from 2010-13, and is a founding member of [ABC] Arts Building Consortium with THEOFFCENTER, dedicated to shared resources, intentional curation and creative connectivity.
New Movement Collaborative (NMC) is dedicated to the research, development and performance of post-modern and contemporary dance in the city of Boston through the creation of programming that is focused on critical response, peer-review, works in progress, mentoring programs and master classes in which risk-taking and rigor are paramount.
The mission of the Northampton Community Arts Trust is to protect and ensure the long-term vitality of Northampton through the acquisition and preservation of space for creative work — affordable and accessible — in the heart of the community.
Earthdance is an artist-run workshop, residency, and retreat center located in the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts. We provide a dynamic mix of dance, somatic, and interdisciplinary arts training, with a focus on sustainable living, social justice, and community. Earthdance has been spearheading innovative arts programming, and maintaining a beautiful facility for rental groups in the Pioneer Valley for nearly three decades. Our diverse, year-round programs include: dance workshops; yoga retreats; interdisciplinary, ecological and somatic art festivals & residencies; Contact Improvisation jams; a year-round Artist Residency Program; and local programs focusing on Sustainability and Social Justice. Our facilities include two large and sunny studios with maple floors, meeting space, meditation and massage rooms, 100 acres of woods, streams and trails.
Movement Research is one of the world's leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms. Valuing the individual artist, their creative process and their vital role within society, Movement Research is dedicated to the creation and implementation of free and low-cost programs that nurture and instigate discourse and experimentation. Movement Research strives to reflect the cultural, political and economic diversity of its moving community, including artists and audiences alike.
Vermont Performance Lab (VPL) is a new type of performance incubator located in rural southeastern Vermont. VPL was created in 2006 with a mission to support the development of new performance works and to connect creation and presentation of contemporary performance with residents of the communities we serve.
VPL’s innovative Lab Program provides a new resource in the performing arts field for regional and national artists to focus on the creative process in relation to community; opportunities for collaborative research with scholars, students, local experts and community members; access to state-of-the-art dance and recording studios, community spaces and non-traditional performance sites; and support and facilities for choreographer-composer collaboration.
VPL’s innovative Lab Program provides a new resource in the performing arts field for regional and national artists to focus on the creative process in relation to community; opportunities for collaborative research with scholars, students, local experts and community members; access to state-of-the-art dance and recording studios, community spaces and non-traditional performance sites; and support and facilities for choreographer-composer collaboration.
James Morrow creates powerful yet accessible mediums to communicate to multiple generations, multiple ethnicities, and to illuminate alternatives for an urban audience disenfranchised by the commodification of mainstream media and entertainment. He provides students with a supportive and challenging environment that is responsive to multiple learning styles, emphasizes learning through the arts, and integrates critical thinking throughout the curriculum. For more information, please contact lowthree@gmail.com
The Northampton Center for the Arts is a private, non-profit organization, established in 1984 as the result of a public/private partnership between the City of Northampton and the developers of the former D.A. Sullivan School complex in downtown Northampton. For almost 30 years, the Center’s ballroom and galleries served as affordable, accessible venues for performances, exhibitions, arts-education programming and community gatherings. The Center has been a unique and valuable resource, encouraging participation in a variety of expressive forms and producing quality events that bring people together in celebration of creativity.
SHOW Circus Studio is a circus training facility in Easthampton, MA that opened in 2009. The space is available for classes, workshops and professional training in the circus arts. As a recreational circus school, we teach adult and youth classes in aerial arts (trapeze, fabric & lyra), juggling, hand balancing, tumbling, mini trampoline, tight wire, rolla bolla, rolling globe, partner acrobatics and clowning.
Wire Monkey Dance creates highly physical dance installations utilizing steel scaffolding and other industrial materials. Their gravity defying, multimedia dance events feature bold, animalistic choreography, live music and video projections, and address timeless human themes. Under the artistic direction of Saliq Francis Savage and Jennifer Polins, Wire Monkey Dance has a six-year roster of performances, including site-specific installations on the UMASS/Amherst campus, in gallery spaces, proscenium theaters, international festivals and even in a sugar cane factory in Taiwan.
