Artists respond to pandemic in Berrie Center’s ‘Leaning Into the Unknown’ competition

by JAY LUSTIG
Leaning into the unknown

Members of The Moving Architects, in “Jubilee & Knell.”

In its “Leaning Into the Unknown” competition, The Angelica and Russ Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts at Ramapo College asked New Jersey-based artists to submit works created in response to the pandemic. A panel of justices has selected the winners, and their works will be shown via YouTube live streams, Sept. 19 and 26 at 8 p.m.

The Sept. 19 artists will be Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company of Fort Lee; poet Marina Carreira of Union; and performance artist Christy E. O’Connor of Middletown. Sept. 26 will feature Mignolo Dance of Metuchen; poet and spoken word artist Dimitri Reyes of Kearny; and The Moving Architects dance company of Montclair. After each broadcast, audiences members can join the artists and Berrie Center director Lisa Campbell in an interactive live chat.

The Moving Architects will perform choreographer Erin Carlisle Norton’s “Jubilee & Knell,” in which isolation and social distancing is evoked by bubbles inside of which the dancers sometimes perform. (see photo above)

Among the pieces that Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company will perform will be “Ripple Effect.” (see video below).

The YouTube stream will be here. Though it will be free, viewers will be encouraged to the Ramapo Foundation’s Contemporary Arts Fund or COVID-19 Student Emergency Fund at ramapo.edu/give.

For information, visit ramapo.edu/berriecenter.

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