This year, A.P.E. is piloting a space-share program called THE WORKROOM COOPERATIVE, where 12 artists/organizations share in the curation, activation, and care of The Workroom at 33 Hawley.
We are thrilled to announce the 2024 members of this program. These artists and arts organizations will be creating new work of their own and sharing the work of other artists through curated performances, workshops, festivals, and more. We look forward to the myriad ways art will be happening in the Workroom this year.
We are thrilled to announce the 2024 members of this program. These artists and arts organizations will be creating new work of their own and sharing the work of other artists through curated performances, workshops, festivals, and more. We look forward to the myriad ways art will be happening in the Workroom this year.
2024 WORKROOM COOPERATIVE MEMBERS
Individual Artists
Ashley Shey is a body linguist. She is a first generation Cameroonian American interdisciplinary performance artist and improvisational dancer born in Washington, DC who carries on her cultural traditions of dance and storytelling as a means of remembrance and self-knowledge. Through improvisational dance and experimental performance, she engages the potential for alchemical transformation in each moment through use of meditative movement. Currently in her personal practice, she is exploring practices of assemblage, as well as the mobilized body as a site of archival memory and knowledge.
At the moment, Shey is completing her undergraduate studies as a non-traditional (older) student at Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. Since returning to college, she has been studying non-traditional archival practices, African diasporic art, installation art, social practice, black queer & trans sexuality studies, survival living, performance art history and post-modern & contemporary dance. Prior to returning to college, Shey participated in workshops and intensives across many disciplines including Ferus Animi//Terra Nova with Tom & Tina Afiyan English, contact improvisation with Keith Hennessy & Ishmael Houston Jones, Intro to Pochinko Baby Clown technique with Donna Oblongata, Sufi Whirling with Khadijah Radin, Authentic Movement with Daphne Lowell, Zen Acrobatics & Movement Archery with Tom Weksler, and Butoh with Vangeline and Margherita Tisato. Shey has also had the pleasure to be a continuing member of Move Move Collaborative, an annual Baltimore based movement/dance intensive space that explores non-hierarchical decision making structures in performance building.
At the moment, Shey is completing her undergraduate studies as a non-traditional (older) student at Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. Since returning to college, she has been studying non-traditional archival practices, African diasporic art, installation art, social practice, black queer & trans sexuality studies, survival living, performance art history and post-modern & contemporary dance. Prior to returning to college, Shey participated in workshops and intensives across many disciplines including Ferus Animi//Terra Nova with Tom & Tina Afiyan English, contact improvisation with Keith Hennessy & Ishmael Houston Jones, Intro to Pochinko Baby Clown technique with Donna Oblongata, Sufi Whirling with Khadijah Radin, Authentic Movement with Daphne Lowell, Zen Acrobatics & Movement Archery with Tom Weksler, and Butoh with Vangeline and Margherita Tisato. Shey has also had the pleasure to be a continuing member of Move Move Collaborative, an annual Baltimore based movement/dance intensive space that explores non-hierarchical decision making structures in performance building.
video still from Other Refrains; documentation by Nikki Lee
Lailye Weidman is a choreographer, educator, and a queer parent raising a feisty toddler in Western Massachusetts. Through multiple projects over the past two decades, Lailye has been looking at the forces that move us and asking how bodies respond to those forces. Her solo work emphasizes the multiplicity of the solitary body, and her ensemble work meditates on the power and difficulty of collective action. Her work has been shown in venues on both coasts, the Midwest, and Europe. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hampshire College, where she combines improvisation, somatics, and mindfulness with a focus on the politics of movement and embodied action.
As a member of the Workroom Cooperative in 2024, Lailye will be developing, deepening, and expanding two performance projects and readying them for touring in late 2024 and 2025. Other Refrains is an evening-length solo work that combines dance, storytelling, and song to excavate modes of moving and being absorbed from family members and ancestors—drawing from their daily living, labor, and expressions of identity. Skin in the Game utilizes ensemble dancing as a way to unpack the past and present of the Covid-19 pandemic, harvesting strategies for embodied connection amid constantly shifting circumstances.
As a member of the Workroom Cooperative in 2024, Lailye will be developing, deepening, and expanding two performance projects and readying them for touring in late 2024 and 2025. Other Refrains is an evening-length solo work that combines dance, storytelling, and song to excavate modes of moving and being absorbed from family members and ancestors—drawing from their daily living, labor, and expressions of identity. Skin in the Game utilizes ensemble dancing as a way to unpack the past and present of the Covid-19 pandemic, harvesting strategies for embodied connection amid constantly shifting circumstances.
Marina Zurita (she/her) is a theater director/maker born in São Paulo, Brazil, and based in New York City. Marina strives to tell stories that invite us to become foreigners in our own languages. Stories that allow us to rediscover ourselves in the things we have ceased to see or pay attention to. She is a former resident artist at the Lab at APE, where she developed Riven – a piece based on interviews with waste pickers in Brazil, created in collaboration with actors Laila Garroni and Josanna Vaz. Marina is excited to be a part of the APE Workroom cooperative, where she will work with actors Devlin Stark and Ana Moioli in the development of Fanny Unpacked, a clown piece about childhood and early memories of sexual awakenings.
Mary Beth Brooker makes and performs work for theater, video and installation, and writes plays and short fiction. Her local work includes spoken word and movement works at the APE/Workroom, New Play Readings Series, Smith College, and School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. This year at The Workroom, in collaboration with other artists, she’ll develop new material for theater that weaves the magic and illogic of old stories with the nuts and bolts of nowadays.
Maya LaLiberté and Andrea Olsen are partnering to create new work individually and collaboratively. This includes performances, workshops, and festivals in The Workroom at 33 Hawley, as well as hosting guests. The intent is to open to creative mystery in this year-long adventure locally in the unique and emerging environment of The Workroom, while continuing professional performances/teaching across the US and abroad. Maya will be touring in Faye Driscoll's newest work Weathering, and Andrea will be teaching/dancing with Caryn McHose in the 20th Anniversary of Body and Earth International workshops throughout 2024.
Wendy Woodson is a choreographer, director, writer, video artist and
founder of Wendy Woodson & Present Company Inc. She has created more than a 100 works for stage and video presented in the U.S., Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Dance and theater works have been performed in such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center, La MaMa Etc. NYC, La Mama Melbourne, the Smithsonian, Jacob's Pillow, Emerson Majestic Theater, Washington Project for the Arts, Wolf Trap and PS 122. Video works and installations have been exhibited at festivals in the US, Germany, Sarajevo, the DeCordova Museum and at the Victoria Museum of Immigration in Melbourne Australia. She has received numerous fellowships and grants in choreography, playwriting and video from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the D.C. Commission on Arts & Humanities, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, and the Fulbright Commission.
founder of Wendy Woodson & Present Company Inc. She has created more than a 100 works for stage and video presented in the U.S., Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Dance and theater works have been performed in such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center, La MaMa Etc. NYC, La Mama Melbourne, the Smithsonian, Jacob's Pillow, Emerson Majestic Theater, Washington Project for the Arts, Wolf Trap and PS 122. Video works and installations have been exhibited at festivals in the US, Germany, Sarajevo, the DeCordova Museum and at the Victoria Museum of Immigration in Melbourne Australia. She has received numerous fellowships and grants in choreography, playwriting and video from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the D.C. Commission on Arts & Humanities, Rockefeller Bellagio Center, and the Fulbright Commission.
Arts Organizations
The Architects is a five-member artist collective born out of collaborations between Katherine Ferrier, Lisa Gonzalez, Jennifer Kayle, Pamela Vail, and Kathy Couch dating back to the 1980s. Foundationally, The Architects practice ensemble improvisation, a form of spontaneous dance-making and performance. Each co-created work builds improvised movement and language, embodied sounds and songs (sometimes in collaboration with musicians), and often engages with spontaneous lighting and spatial/object configurations in the creation of a unique event. The collective is also committed to teaching this form through in-person and online workshops and intensives. Our research brings ideas from a wide-range of fields–philosophy, social practice, neuroscience, visual arts, contemplative practices, poetry, restorative justice–into the body as a means of unfolding and understanding ways of being and being together.
Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd. (A.P.E.) is an artist-led, artist-centered 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting contemporary artists working in all disciplines by stewarding the spaces in which they create, perform and exhibit their work. A.P.E is dedicated to fostering relationships, encounters, and exchanges that nourish the capacity for imagination.
Northampton Open Media (NOM) is a community media arts center whose mission is to serve as a forward-looking organization enabling expression of all kinds across mediums, providing resources and programming and educational opportunities to the community through all means technologically available.
Play Incubation Collective (PIC) is a local launchpad for new theatrical work that nourishes the community and fosters civic dialogue. PIC will be using the Workroom to present a free, monthly reading series of plays in progress, PIC PIPS, that is open to the public. PIC will also be running workshops for theater artists throughout the year.
The School For Contempory Dance and Thought (SCDT) provides innovative programming for all ages to activate imaginations and facilitate empowerment, transformation, and development through the movement arts. SCDT connects dance practices, performances, and classes with thoughtful public conversation, encouraging and invigorating community engagement.