Each January, I pause and reflect on the previous year's key professional moments, as a reminder of the traction my company and I have made. As always, 2019 was a very active year, full of challenging, yet exhilarating, projects and fresh beginnings.
Top 10 Professional Highlights of 2019
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| Synchronic. Film Still. Merli V. Guerra, 2008. |
A blast from the past, Synchronic was my very first film I created while a student at Mount Holyoke College. I still remember the rush of utter surprise when its title was announced as the winner of three different categories at the Five College Film Festival for "Best Dance-on-Camera," "Best of Mount Holyoke," and "Best of Festival." It feels fitting that exactly ten years later, I submitted Synchronic to another festival for the first time, feeling sentimental towards my first foray into screendance. I'm deeply honored that Festival Cinematica: Immagine in Movimento in Ancona, Italy, not only accepted it, but presented Synchronic as one of 14 award finalists in this international screendance festival.
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| Luminarium received funding from the Boston Cultural Council. Photo: Short photo co. |
2. GRANT RECIPIENT // BOSTON CULTURAL COUNCIL
Luminarium was honored and grateful to once again receive one of this year's coveted grants from the Boston Cultural Council (BCC). Having received this grant for our ninth consecutive year, we know how much government support means—not only to our own organization, but to the Greater Boston arts scene as a whole. As always, this grant from the BCC went towards our annual outreach programming, including: the Arts in Action Project (bringing professional performing arts experience directly to local youth); the Cultural Community Outreach Project (using dance and art to highlight cultural and historic landmarks); and the return of Luminarium's 24-Hour ChoreoFest (an overnight choreographic incubator, culminating in new works and new artistic connections).
3. MARY LYON AWARD // MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
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| Merli V. Guerra speaks at the 2019 Awards Ceremony, Mount Holyoke College. Photo: Joanna Chattman. |
3. MARY LYON AWARD // MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
Words cannot describe the surprise and jolt of reassurance I felt as I was gifted the Mary Lyon Award this spring by the Alumnae External Achievement Awards Committee. Given to young alumnae (15 years or less since graduation) who “demonstrate exceptional promise and sustained achievement in their life, profession, and community, and whose work embodies the humane values which Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others,” this token of appreciation for my work in the arts was a revitalizing force this year as I continue to straddle two arts communities in Boston, MA, and Princeton, NJ. Thank you, Mount Holyoke, for recognizing my efforts in my field!
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| Merli V. Guerra's 8.7 million minus 1. Photo courtesy of Rider University. |
4. RIDER DANCES COMMISSION // RIDER UNIVERSITY
In the spring, Rider University commissioned me to create a new work for its Dance & Sustainability Project, championing environmental issues through awareness, advocacy, and artistic expression. The ensuing work, 8.7 million minus 1, integrates classical Odissi Indian dance, contemporary, and shadow theatre to literally and metaphorically illuminate the effects of human waste and pollution on the planet’s ecosystems, while reminding us of our own contradictory habits. After its New Jersey debut, the piece was later restaged on Luminarium's professional company for performances at ArtBeat Festival (Somerville, MA) and Luminarium's 2019 feature production (Cambridge, MA).
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| Luminarium Dance Company performs in Global Water Dances 2019. Photo: Forever Young Photography of Howell. |
5. LAKE MERCER PERFORMANCE // GLOBAL WATER DANCES 2019
On the heels of presenting 8.7 million minus 1, which prompts viewers to reconsider their own habits of pollution and human consumption, I was invited to participate in an international one-day event drawing awareness to water contamination and the role we play in keeping our greatest resource clean. On June 15th, Luminarium's Satellite Company presented my new site-specific work as part of Global Water Dances' 2019 worldwide event. This migratory performance installation took place along the edges of Lake Mercer (West Windsor, NJ) throughout the afternoon, with viewers pausing to enjoy and young children dancing in response.
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| Merli V. Guerra. Photo: Somerby Jones. |
6. FEATURE ARTICLE // ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION OF MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
In July, I was excited to share this eloquent article by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College reflecting on my recent Mary Lyon Award and my decade of work in the arts field. Thank you to all who have participated in my work over the years—without you, none of this would be possible! Read the article.
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| Merli V. Guerra. Photo: John Evans. |
7. MFA IN DANCE // MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
This summer I leapt into a new program: the MFA in Dance at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, where I am additionally teaching undergraduates as a Part-Time Lecturer. It's been invigorating to return to the studio with an intimate cohort, delving into both theory and praxis. This program is intense—with summer, fall, winter, and spring semesters back-to-back for two years straight—but after a decade of professional work in the fields of dance and interdisciplinary art, I'm eager to make my credentials official. Here we go!
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| Women in Dance Leadership Conference 2019. |
8. WOMEN IN DANCE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE // PHILADELPHIA PA
In October, I presented my work and spoke on the screendance panel at the Women in Dance Leadership Conference in Philadelphia, PA, to an over-packed (and deeply appreciative) audience. I was thrilled to be selected as one of 16 filmmakers worldwide, and grateful to show not one, but two of my screendance films at this prestigious event, including The One I Keep (2013) and What seems so is transition (2009). Fellow presenters at this year's conference included Keynote Speaker Brenda Dixon Gottschild, choreographer Helen Pickett (regularly commissioned by Boston Ballet), and NYC legend Janis Brenner, all of whom commented on the "beauty" and "intriguingly layered memories" of my two films. Needless to say, I was starstruck by this incredibly accomplished audience!
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| l. to r. Victoria Kreutzer and Karina McKenna perform Merli V. Guerra's like mercury in the palm of my hand. Photo: Olivia Moon Photography. |
9. LUMINARIUM IN CONCERT // MULTICULTURAL ARTS CENTER
This year's feature production, Luminarium in Concert, was met with sold-out audiences and celebrated the first-ever integration of Luminarium's home-base Boston company with its more recent Princeton-based satellite company. Not only was I eager to present the restaging of my Rider University commission, 8.7 million minus 1, and to debut For you, to mentor me, my first screendance film in five years, but the production also debuted a duet I am proud to have crafted with my satellite performers Victoria Kreutzer and Karina McKenna. Titled like mercury in the palm of my hand, this duet began as an artistic abstraction of the “Janus molecule,” whose rare properties make it both medicinal and lethal. It has since grown to encompass the Panopticonic nature of the microscope, observ-ing versus being observ-ed, and the implications of exposure.
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| Imajitari International Film Festival. |
10. IMAJITARI INTERNATIONAL DANCE FILM FESTIVAL // JAKARTA, INDONESIA
Since late-2018, I've been working on my first new screendance in five years. For you, to mentor me made its world premiere at Luminarium in Concert in December 2019 and features performers Kristen Antonio, Jessica Lawson, Wendy Lawson, Violet Lawson-Ball, Elias Pacheco, and Kylie Pacheco, as well as a stirring cello score by composer Akshaya Avril Tucker. The film follows a mother-daughter relationship shifting over time, featuring a multigenerational cast ages 11 days to 60 years, as it highlights a growing young woman’s thirst for independence, and a mother’s desire to nurture, guide, and mentor. I am thrilled that just one week after its debut, For you, to mentor me was selected out of 600+ films from 77 countries to be presented at the Imajitari International Dance Film Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia!
Those are the highlights of 2019... Welcome, 2020!
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