BARRE, Vt. (WCAX) – A non-profit dance company is combining multiple forms of expression into one diversive performance. Photojournalist Kerri Nelson takes us to the Barre Opera House.
“It’s very much Maxfield Parrish, meets the circus on the back roads of Vermont. The rock band “The Cure” shows up and everybody gets to dance because they want to be,” said Sonia Plumb, the artist and director of Sonia Plumb Dance Co., “It had to be the the feeling of Vermont, like where I grew up and, that, that nostalgia.”
Asher Taylor-Dawson plays ‘The Man on the Moon.
“We have an array of dancers who are creating sort of a landscape of sensory experience, while also kind of telling a story about what it’s like to be someone who is a little different. Trying to kind of make your way in the world,” said Taylor-Dawson, “The premise for it is, neurodiversity in the arts.”
“The movement, arts, dance, aerials, gymnastics; were a huge part of how I made it through my childhood and adolescence. To have this space in which it didn’t matter, that I didn’t know how to say things, that I could move my body and express emotion and thoughts by moving was so incredibly important to me,” said Taylor-Dawson.
“The need to twirl and whirl and and all of, all of that, like, that feels good, You know, where other people might just get seasick? It’s fun to be in my own world falling and making, hopefully making someone like.”
Maggie Fiske is “The ballerina”
“Being able to channel all the energy and the things we can’t put into words, into art and have people witness it. It’s very vulnerable, but very powerful and special. So many more of us than than anyone realizes are artists. We are movers. We are painters. And I think I show like this that saying, hey, you know, we can do this. We are here. Doing this is like it speaks to my heart in a, like a really important way,” said Fiske.
For more information about the performance: https://barreoperahouse.org/cured-presented-by-sonia-plumb-dance.html