VDA 2025 Artist in Residence
Michael Bodel:
The Institute for Folding
A cardboard choreography of human knowledge, neglect and wonder.
Upcoming Devising Labs
This dance project is being developed in layers, and one of those is a series of free devising labs that are open to the public. Through these labs, participants join in the creative process, learn about creating dance with objects, and contribute to the performance. If you are a dance artist, theater-maker, puppeteer or designer willing to lend a few creative hours to explore, ideate, move through, delaminate and reconstruct the history of human knowledge—or if you just like cardboard—please join us!
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Friday, April 18 | 5-7 PM
Hop Garage Rm 131
Hopkins Center for the Arts
4 E Wheelock St,
Hanover, NH 03755Folding, flatness, corrugation. In this interdisciplinary movement workshop, we explore cardboard as a choreographic inspiration and performance partner.
Dance artist Michael Bodel'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. This workshop is free and open to all levels. Prior experience with contemporary dance or movement theater is helpful but not required. Please contact us with any accessibility questions.
This is a FREE event, but please REGISTER in advance.
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Saturday April 26 | 10 - 11:30 am
Chase Studio
THE FLYNN
153 Main Street,
Burlington, Vermont 05401FREE but please REGISTER in advance here. Limited to 20 participants!
Dance artist Michael Bodel'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.
This workshop is free and open to all levels. You must be at least 18 years old to participate. Prior experience with contemporary dance or movement theater is helpful but not required. Admittance is on a first-come-first-serve basis with a limited amount of slots available.
Please contact us with any accessibility questions or if you can no longer attend.
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Thursday, May 1 | 5:30-7:30 pm
Next Stage Arts
15 Kimball Hill
Putney, VT 05346
Folding, flatness, corrugation. In this free workshop / building session / devising lab, we will explore cardboard as a choreographic object and build elements that will be used in the institute for folding, a new interdisciplinary dance work by Michael Bodel.
We will cut, fold, manipulate and fabricate cardboard, (hopefully) landing on some interesting ideas and creating cardboard elements that will be used in the performance.
Dance artist Michael Bodel's work integrates objects and materials as central choreographic elements and inspiration. 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 join in the creative process, learn about creating dance with objects, and contribute to the performance.
This workshop is free and open to anyone over 14 years old. It would be of special interest to those interested in object-theater, puppetry, sculpture, set design, dance, and (of course) cardboard. -
More details coming soon!
The Work:
The Institute for Folding is an interdisciplinary dance work in layers, literally. Through movement, language, live sound, and 30 sheets of cardboard, the work unpeels our human relationship to knowledge—our drive for scientific understanding, the ebb and flow of our ignorance, and our current disregard for what has been discovered.
This is a dance for our precipitous moment when adult trust in knowledge (such knowledge) has faltered and we have lost the collective wonder (such wonder) that once filled the eyes of our children and early civilizations. And it lasts about an hour.
This work will be premiered in the summer of 2025. Please stay tuned for tour dates as they are scheduled. Would you like to host this work at your venue, or otherwise support the residency program?
Photo by Swoyer Photography
About Michael:
Michael makes interdisciplinary dance works. Many integrate objects, place and sensorial stuff. His process involves wide-ranging research and both serious and silly play. And collaborators vary from project to project. Michael’s past works have included dances choreographed to oral histories of immigration, a pageant set in an apple orchard, and a dance iteration of Foucault’s Corps Utopique. Prior to The Institute for Folding, he created a dance project centered on grain—how it is sown, gathered, cared, hoarded and lost.
He is honored to sit (and move) on the board of advisors of The Field Center in Rockingham, VT, and has served on the board of the Society of Dance History Scholars (now Dance Studies Association). He fancies writing about historical pageantry and embodied cognition, and works daily as the Director of External Affairs at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. Michael lives with his family in the fields of Putney, VT.
Tour Dates & Devising Labs
In addition to performances around the state, Michael will be hosting FREE Devising Labs that are open to community members. The Devising Labs are workshops in which participants have a chance to engage with Micheal’s creative process—constructing with and deconstructing cardboard as an inspiration for storytelling and movement.