Bodel Dance Arts Will Premiere FORECASTS AND FINDINGS

Forecasts and Findings an interdisciplinary dance created by choreographer Michael Bodel and collaborators will premiere on February 28. The evening-length work integrates movement, object theater, a live soundscape, and one-hundred pounds of grain.

The project centers grain-as a material, as a choreographic character, and as a metaphor for the knowledge and needs. The dance creates immersive and abstract worlds with complex choreography involving small and giant sacks of grain. It explores how throughout human history grain has been gathered, gleaned, and cataloged; or hoarded and lost. The evolving relationships of the performers and their actions with grain show how humans can either protect or neglect knowledge and sustenance; how we can care for or neglect one another.

The project was awarded a 2024 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and has been developed over three years with previous workshop showings at the Junction Dance Festival and Phantom Theatre.

The 3-show run is hosted by New England Youth Theatre and will be presented February 28 at 7 pm, March 1 at 4 pm and March 1 at 7 pm. Tickets are $15-$25 and available online>.

The project is conceived and directed by Michael Bodel with choreography and performance by Bodel and Jessica Trout-Haney. Intertwined with the dance and object theater is a sound score composed and performed by Finn Campman. The electronic score is played live and devised from samples of grain, weather sounds, natural instruments and excerpts of the BBC's "shipping news" radio forecast. Campman also guided the creation of object theater using the sacks of grain throughout the dance.

Following the premiere run at New England Youth Theatre the piece will be available for touring in Fall 2025.