Join Dancemaker Resident Jessi Stegall and her Boston Dancemakers Residency showcase collaborator Elizabeth Epsen, for a discussion on their work and process with Director of Dance and Interdisciplinary Arts, Andrea Blesso. Together the dancers will answer your questions and give you insight into Stegall’s upcoming Dancemakers Residency Showcase, The Theremin Vignettes, which premieres May 25 at the BCA Calderwood Pavillion.
2022-2023 Boston Dancemakers Resident
Originally from Dallas, Texas, Jessi Stegall is a dance-theatre artist, applied ethicist, and arts educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. Jessi currently approaches performance as an act of ode: expressing curiosity and homage toward worlds built by others. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Harvard ArtLab, National Parks Service, Windhover Performing Arts Center, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and was recently featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2022) alongside her close collaborator, Ilya Vidrin. Her choreographic work has been featured at the Dance Complex, Motion State Dance Film Festival, Cambridge Art Association, and Boston Arts Consortium for Health. As a dancer, Jessi has performed works by Jill Johnson, Ilya Vidrin, Ali Kenner Brodsky, LROD, and Jamila Glass. In addition to her work in dance, Jessi holds an M.S. in Bioethics from Harvard University, a B.S. in Expressive Art Therapy from Lesley University, and is an alumna of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Elizabeth Epsen (she/her) is originally from Tucson, AZ, and received her pre-professional training from The National Ballet School of Canada and the San Francisco Ballet School. In Boston, she has worked with choreographers Chavi Bansal, Adrienne Hawkins, Anna Myer, and Nicole Pierce, among others, and was a core collaborator of patchtax. Elizabeth works full-time at Harvard Dance Center managing and developing programming and communications.
About The Theremin Vignettes
Rehearsal Photos by Melissa Blackall
Rehearsal Photos by Melissa Blackall
Rehearsal Photos by Melissa Blackall
Rehearsal Photos by Melissa Blackall
Rehearsal Photos by Melissa Blackall
Directed and choreographed by Jessi Stegall, The Theremin Vignettes is an evening-length dance-theatre production set to and inspired by the music and life of thereminist Clara Rockmore. Despite being credited as the best theremin player to have ever lived, Clara Rockmore, a Lithuanian-Jewish woman and music virtuoso, remains under-recognized for her immense contribution to electronic music. The Theremin Vignettes is an ode to Clara and her beautifully bizarre music.
Set in the form of choreographic vignettes, the piece explores themes of grief, remembrance, and devotion through theatrical interpretations of real events from Rockmore’s life. Each vignette is set to one of Rockmore’s arrangements of classical scores for theremin. Audiences will walk away with gratitude for the bizarre and a new favorite music genre.