Artpark Bridges Festival is a celebration of the connections and encounters that can only happen at Artpark. The festival —free & open to the public —will highlight the Artpark Bridges program and its ongoing collaboration with community groups and organizations including People, Inc., Empower WNY, Buffalo Parkinsons, and Artisans Edge, along with new work created by the artists and groups in residence at Artpark this summer. 

Performances will include:

4:00 - 5:00PM Robert Giannetti, Artpark Bridges, and Cynthia Pegado: “Sensing Resonance," Emerald Grove Stage
4:00 - 5:20PM: Artist Kateřina Šedá + Curator Claire Schneider, a conversation with the community, picnic table by Murmuration (facing the Niagara River)
4:00 - 5:20PM: Plasticiens Volants will discuss their creation process in conversation, picnic table by Mainstage Theater
4:00 - 5:20PM: Resident Poet Julianne Neely will present “DeepfakeTranslation Poems,” Artpark Gallery
5:15 - 6:20PM: David Glass of David Glass Ensemble in collaboration with Sketchbook Theatre and Artpark Bridges present: Between Love and Death: Tales from the Underworld, Emerald Grove Stage
6:30 - 8:00PM: Jon Lehrer Dance Company with Artpark Bridges present: The Invitation, Emerald Grove Stage

Jon Lehrer Dance Company will present a dynamic performance featuring classic works from their world-renowned repertory including “Murmur” (2012), “Troika” (2016), and “Solstice” (2018). It will also feature two works that premiered in 2022, “Stand” and “La Follia”. To conclude the performance, JLDC will be joined by local dancers from Cynthia Pegado’s Parkinson’s Dance Performance group to premiere an innovative and collaborative piece that will be created by Lehrer on the 8 company dancers and 4 Parkinson’s dancers at Artpark, exploring the limitless possibilities of group physicality.

 

The Invitation

Performed by the Artpark Bridges Community:
Stacey Adams, Andrea Bee, Therese Camarra, Sue Geschwender, Elaine Geschwender, Colleen O'Mara, Ingrid Reymers, Ed Smith, Joan Stefaniak, & Marilyn Tulipane

And Jon Lehrer Dance Company members:
Ricardo G. Barrett, Mahalia Brookes, Cristiana Cavallo, Kristen Hedberg, Michael Miller, Patrick Piras, Richard Sayama, &Leah Suskind

Jon Lehrer Dance Company originated in Buffalo in 2007, and has been based in New York City since 2019. Their annual residency and continued relationship with Artpark fills Lehrer and the company with joy, as they always look forward to coming back and reuniting with the community that started it all.

Kateřina Šedá, a social practice artist from the Czech Republic in residence at Artpark funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, working on a project that involves engaging people of Lewiston and the area about their experiences at Artpark curated by Claire Schneider’s C.S.1 Curatorial Projects. Kateřina Šedá designs experiences for communities that create and foster connections. Šedá begins with research that explores relationships between people, places, and issues within a community. Šedá then devises collaborative actions (such as games, activities, or competitions) that alter how individuals within the community perceive social constructs; these can range from synchronizing the routines of local people, asking neighbors to draw views from their front doors, or inventing a holiday for a small village to celebrate together. Join Kateřina in a conversation to help create a Lewiston project!

Poet and Literary Resident Robert Giannetti and Artpark Bridges Director Cynthia Pegado and Artpark Bridges workshop participants will present new work based on “Sensing Resonance,” a series of outdoor poetry workshops and performances open to the general public and members of our WNY community writing from perspectives of sight impairment, progressive neurological disease, or mental health wellness challenges, in collaboration with local human service agencies. 

David Glass, a UK-based theater artist and founder of the David Glass ensemble, in collaboration with New York City-based Sketchbook Theatre, will present work resulting from “Alchemy of the Extraordinary,” a devised theater and creative practice workshop for professional and community actors. Since 1979 David Glass has been performing and creating across the world, and then in 1990 he established the David Glass Ensemble as a pioneering physical, devised and applied theater company. Creative learning and engagement with artists and audiences around the world is central to the company's ethos, while vivid, celebratory storytelling sits at the heart of the company's values and process. This is the second residency of David Glass with Artpark and the first for Sketchbook Theater, whose mission is rooted in the spirit of artists coming together to make work that values uncompromising honesty, an enthusiastic commitment to prod and question, and a shared respect for the power of thought and the complicated beauty of the human heart.

David Glass of David Glass Ensemble in collaboration with Sketchbook Theatre and Artpark Bridges present: Between Love and Death: Tales from the Underworld.

Stacey Adams, Andrea Bee, Therese Camarra, Sue Geschwender, Elaine Geschwender, Robert Giannetti, Frances LaRocca, Colleen O'Mara, Cynthia Pegado, Janet Schiff DiFiore, Ed Smith, Joan Stefaniak, & Marilyn Tulipane

And Sketchbook Theatre members:
David Barlow, Krystel Lucas, Jacob Orr, Danielle Skraastad

Project Assistant:
Finn Boyle

Recorded Narration:
Star LaRocca
Ruby LaRocca

Julianne Neely, a poet from Artpark’s inaugural literary residency, will debut an audiovisual installation, “Deepfake Translation Poems,” inspired by Katie Holten’s Language of Trees and Tree Workshop, created this summer to be performed at Artpark.

Plasticiens Volants, a 47-year-old performance troupe based in Tolouse, France, presented three North American premieres at Artpark to date and is now in residence at Artpark during this week in partnership with the Seneca Art and Cultural Center of the Ganondagan, Artpark and Rochester Fringe Festival, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Join the group's creative team in a conversation about the legendary French company’s history, work and their creative process.

 

Light snacks and beverage will be available at the ArtBar.

Artpark & Company thanks the Artpark Bridges funders:

Charles D. and Mary A. Bauer Foundation & Pamela and Joseph L. Priest 

With additional support provided by the Grigg Lewis Foundation for program materials.  

Kateřina Šedá and Plasticiens Volants' residencies are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts