Building Community Through the Arts | 2025 Symposium

Name: Building Community Through the Arts | 2025 Symposium
Start: 2025-04-05T12:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-04-06T16:30:00-04:00
Location: Lines Vermont Studio + Store

Schedule

Sat, 05 Apr, 2025 at 12:30 pm to Sun, 06 Apr, 2025 at 04:30 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Lines Vermont Studio + Store | Burlington, VT

At this disorienting time of national polarization, the arts have an important role to play in building community and social cohesion—across disciplines and demographics. Join us for four workshops that explore different ways the arts can help us find empathy, unity, and understanding.
COST $22/workshop
SCHEDULE:
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
12:30-1:45 PM - Choreography & Cardboard with VDA artist-in-residence Michael Bodel
Folding, flatness, corrugation. In this interdisciplinary movement workshop, we explore cardboard as a choreographic inspiration and performance partner.
About Michael Bodel:
Michael's work integrates objects and materials as central choreographic elements and inspiration. His new work, the institute for folding, unpeels layers of human knowledge through dance, text and a stack of 30 sheets of cardboard. This "devising lab" is part of a regional series of workshops where participants explore Bodel's approach to creating dance with objects and also contribute ideas and choreography to this new dance project.
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2-3:15 PM - Embodied Expressions with Paula Higa
Dance is a vital form of cultural expression that transcends boundaries. In this workshop, participants will explore the role of culture in dance, highlighting aspects that are often overlooked. We will create a supportive environment where everyone, regardless of their background, can engage in improvisational scores. Together, we will discover our identities as dancers and embark on a transformative physical and cultural journey.
About Paula Higa:
Paula Higa is a dance maker, filmmaker, and the artistic director of PH Dance. She has spent many years creating, teaching, and researching dance. Higa produces sophisticated and thought-provoking performances that blend dance with visual arts. Her work addresses social issues and amplifies underrepresented voices while exploring the relationship between the body, movement, and narrative. Higa has collaborated with renowned artists in the U.S., Europe, and Brazil, and her work has earned her several national and international accolades. She is an Associate Professor and Resident Choreographer in the Dance Program at the University of Vermont. Higa holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Chemical Engineering from Brazil.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6
1:15-2:30 PM - You, Me, Us with Julian Barnett
This workshop offers a playful and dynamic introduction to dance improvisation as a tool for deepening body awareness, fostering community, and igniting choreographic curiosity. Through movement exploration, we will focus on liberating physical expression, blending structured warm-ups with guided improvisational exercises that enhance attention, quality, and dynamic range. Drawing inspiration from contemporary techniques, contact improvisation, and ensemble-based performance, the class invites participants into a space of rigorous play—where freedom, imagination, and rebellion intersect in a collective celebration of dance. Open to all, regardless of experience, this workshop welcomes anyone eager to move, explore, and connect.
About Julian:
Julian Barnett is a choreographer, performer, educator, arts advocate, and dreamer. He collaborates across disciplines to create performances that examine social-political possibilities for transformation and empathy. Julian’s work has been presented globally, from the US to Europe, Asia, and beyond, with notable performances at venues including The Flynn Space (Burlington), Jacob’s Pillow (MA), Bates Dance Festival (ME), Danspace Project, Gibney, The Joyce Theater (NY), Tangent (Montreal), Performatica (Mexico), La Briqueterie (France), Kampnagel (Germany), and i-Dance Festival (Hong Kong), among others. Highlights include a New York Dance and Performance 'Bessie' Award nomination for performance, a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant, and recognition as a danceWEB Scholar at the Impulstanz Festival in Vienna. Julian has had the privilege of working with distinguished artists across the dance and theater world, including Steve Paxton, Jeanine Durning, Larry Keigwin, Wally Cardona, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Elkins, Laurel Jenkins, Paul Besaw, The Metropolitan Opera with Doug Varone, and Johannes Wieland’s tanztheater in Germany, to name a few. His creative and teaching endeavors extend internationally, with guest teaching roles at renowned institutions such as Gibney (NY), Dance Italia (Italy), b12 Festival for Contemporary Dance Berlin (Germany), Architanz (Japan), and at universities including Princeton, NYU Tisch, Juilliard, CalArts, and Middlebury. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor at The University of Vermont. Born in Tokyo, Japan, and raised in Northern California, where he grew up breakdancing, Julian’s academic background includes studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ArtEZ University of the Arts (Netherlands), and the University of the Arts (Philadelphia), where he earned his MFA.
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2:45-4 PM - Queer Performance Art with Isaac Euler
Join Isaac Euler to explore how we can use movement and the body to disrupt social norms, roles, and expectations, along with the impacts that can have. With a primary focus on Drag, and how it helps practitioners find and project confidence and comfort, this workshop also examines the art of Drag beneath the makeup and hair and shoes, etc. Class will include using costumes to find characters, clown work, some active somatic practice, a brief dive into the history and impact of drag, and a discussion of the effect of queer bodies in spaces.
About Isaac: Isaac Euler is an interdisciplinary dancer, circus artist, musician, clown, and co-founder of the Burlington circus collective WABAAM! They've been running away with the circus for over 10 years, first discovering their love at the New England Center for Circus Arts. A trained dancer in hip-hop, modern, and jazz, Isaac has taught classes at The Flynn and late Swan Dojo. Holding a degree in Dance & Physical Theater from Bennington College, Isaac enjoys finding all the funky corners and smooth transitions between disciplines.