Radical Hospitality: Centering Access & Belonging in the Arts & Humanities

In discussions about the arts and humanities, the phrase “it’s a grind” often highlights the immense physical and emotional labor dedicated professionals invest, frequently without enough rest or essential support (financial, communal, childcare, etc.). What if we could change that?

Join us on Thursday, October 10th, for a presentation and conversation on radical hospitality in the performing arts with , a versatile dance artist, writer, and arts advocate with a rich background in performance and education. Passionate about dance as a practice, she has collaborated with notable figures like American choreographer Deborah Hay. As an independent dramaturg and community organizer, she focuses on social justice in the arts, enhancing cultural conversations. This session will explore the dramaturgy of belonging and aesthetics of engagement.

Approximately 90 minutes. Registration is required.

“What is a dramaturg, or a dramaturg for dance? In Michèle’s hands, the role means attending to the project's cultural dimension. She set out to build a culture of care and consent that would travel with our project, reversing the typical extractive model of touring (arrive in a new place, absorb resources, fly away). This revolutionary redefinition equates dramaturgy with responsibility. It locates storytelling everywhere around a project, designing a sort of protective force-field of integrity that directs actions, exchanges, and even contracts and tech riders through the clear communication of shared values.”

- Sylvan Oswald, playwright,

professor and head of playwriting,

UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television

ABOUT MICHÈLE STEINWALD

Michèle Steinwald has an impressive assortment of curatorial, institutional, artistic and educational bona fides. (If you’d like, you can skip to the end of all this and find them listed handily below.) But the fact is, she’d much rather talk to you about Deborah Hay, about Rosas' Bartok or maybe Tedd Robinson. Maybe you’d like to hear about the punk and dance convergences that shaped her young career, or her thoughts on dance as practice rather than product? She could also tell you a story about this one time, when she was 19, a controversial shot of her in Jana Sterbak's meat dress got front page play on all Arts' sections of Canadian newspapers, the same day that they were covering Martha Graham's death.

A 1993 graduate of Les Ateliers de danse moderne de Montréal (now l'École de danse contemporaine de Montréal), Steinwald has had an eclectic career as a performer that includes tap dancing as a teenager on stage in front of Ottawa’s Parliament Hill for the nationally televised New Year’s Eve celebration in the late 80s, and in 1990 being suspended inside of Jana Sterbak’s Remote Control at the National Gallery of Canada and in 1991 modeling the meat dress in Vanitas: Flesh Dress for An Albino Anorectic for her solo exhibition, Jana Sterbak: States of Being. Steinwald was the inspiration for the central character in the Dutch comic strip WOK (1997-98) about a modern dancer and a dog. While living in Tokyo in 1998 and studying with choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, she was cast in and performed for Malice Mizer’s Illuminati music video. In 1999 at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, she performed a solo dance on the same bill as Tegan and Sara, and Veda Hille at Grrrlapalooza. Additionally, Steinwald had the great privilege to perform as part of two dance companies, Maureen Whiting Company in Seattle from 1998–2003, and Cie Ernesto (later named Déjà Donné) in Brussels from 1994–1995.

Since retiring as a dancer and choreographer, Steinwald has managed performing arts projects and professional development programs for On the Boards (Seattle), New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project (Boston), DanceUSA (DC), and the Deborah Hay Dance Company (Austin). She joined the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis) in October of 2006 as Assistant Curator for the Performing Arts and remained in that role until summer of 2013. She was on the boards of the National Performance Network (New Orleans) and Movement Research (NYC) from 2012-2018. She has served on grant and fellowship panels for the NEA, MANCC, Creative Capital, National Performance Network, McKnight Foundation, USA Fellows, Pew Foundation, Herb Alpert Award, MAP Fund and been an artist mentor for Creative Capital's retreat and Arts Midwest's ArtsLab. She holds an MA from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University and was published in Curating Live Arts (Berghahn Books – New York/Oxford). Committed to social justice in the arts, she has researched and facilitated movement-building sessions at conferences and professional gatherings such as Association of Performing Arts Professionals (2018 & 2019) in partnership with American Realness, Interrarium at Banff Centre (2018), National Performance Network (2017 & 2018), Arts Midwest (2011 & 2014), and DanceUSA (2012 & 2013 + 2014 host and showcase committees). Steinwald is currently working as an independent curator, community organizer, and occasional writer.

ACCESSIBILITY CONSIDERATIONS

Building Access: Mechanics’ Hall is located at 519 Congress Street, between Loquat Shop and the Art Mart.

To enter our building, patrons will need to navigate a single step. Guests using a wheelchair or those who require additional assistance can request a ramp by selecting "YES" for the “Do you need a wheelchair accessible seat?” option on the checkout form.

The event will be held in the third-floor ballroom. Access to the ballroom is available via an elevator or by climbing four flights of stairs. Single-occupant wheelchair accessible restrooms are available on the ballroom level. Additionally, non-accessible restrooms are available on the second floor.

Parking/Transportation: The Greater Portland Metro’s Congress & Casco Street Stop is directly in front of our building, served by routes 1, 7, 8, and 9B.

Parking is available at the Arts District Garage, which has entrances on Casco and Brown Street, with a rate of $5 per hour. Metered street parking is available on Congress, Casco, Cumberland, Free Street, and other nearby streets. Free hourly street parking is available between Parris and Alder Street.

For further assistance or to request additional accessibility accommodations, please contact us at [email protected].

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Photo by Johanna Austin

Image description: White queer female-identified middle-aged person wearing glasses and a faded black t-shirt sits in profile intently listening to a group discussion—people are off camera—with hands clasped under her chin and a flip chart by her side with the words “community agreements” handwritten in purple letters at the top of the page and several lines of blurry text in bright colored ink underneath.

This program is supported by the Délégation du Québec

Host or Publisher Mechanics' Hall (Maine)