Events

Once-in-a-Century Exhibitions
Mar
6
to Jun 28

Once-in-a-Century Exhibitions

I have been honored to be the Designer and Creative Director for two once-in-a-century exhibitions including Shakespeare’s First Folio.

This past year, the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries mounted two exhibitions to mark the quatercentenary (1623-2023) of Shakespeare’s First Folio, a copy of which is held in the Libraries’ Special Collections. Organized in collaboration with Pittsburgh’s Frick Art Museum, these exhibits are offered in two venues. One exhibit, Inventing Shakespeare: Text, Technology, and the Four Folios, is on display in Carnegie Mellon University’s Hunt Library; and the other, From Stage to Page: 400 Years of Shakespeare in Print, is mounted in the Frick’s Jacobean Gallery.

Both exhibits are free and open to the public.

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CALL HER BY HER NAME
Apr
20
1:00 PM13:00

CALL HER BY HER NAME

COMING SOON

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COMING SOON +

Call Her By Her Name: Lenape Sippu

This performance will take place in and around the neighborhood surrounding 52nd Street SEPTA station and Painted Bride in West Philadelphia. Dancers, line drummers, musicians, storytellers, and performance artists will process to Painted Bride where we will be met with music, a dance party, free chair massages, and performances. Featuring the words of Lenape historian and scholar Karelle Hall. Audiences will listen to the words centering climate justice, reciprocity, and radical care. Following the performances we will lead a litter pick up around the neighborhood.

Featuring Esther Baker, Emma White Thunder, Tchin, Storyline Drumline, Heidi Wiren Bartlett, Barber, Chloe Marie, Boubacar Djiga, YaFave Trashman, and Temple University dancers.

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2024 LMDA Digital Conference Presenter
Feb
1
to Feb 3

2024 LMDA Digital Conference Presenter

Meeting Grief at the Crossroads: Ritual Dramaturgy

Jen Shook and I will present our thoughts on grief as it relates to dramaturgy at the 2024 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) digital conference.

If a crossroads is a liminal space, a space of encounter, exchange, and change–a place between and a place of convergence–then grief is a crossroads. No wonder such a place often hosts the altars, the memorials, a place both sacred and so everyday, a place both of pause and of passing through … what then is the dramaturgy of grief at the crossroads? This performance presentation offers a ritual for the crossroads of grief, a meeting place where we learn how to connect through grief rather than letting it divide us from the world and each other.

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Violins of Hope Exhibition
Oct
7
to Nov 21

Violins of Hope Exhibition

Violins of hope

I am grateful to have served as the Creative Director and Designer for the Pittsburgh Violins of Hope exhibition.

Violins of Hope is a cultural heritage organization and project that seeks to preserve instruments played by Jews before and during the Holocaust. Comprising some 90 instruments, the collection records stories of resistance, perseverance, and tragedy. Each violin is an artifact and emblem of hope and remembrance.

In partnership with Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Libraries’ Distinctive Collections team curated and designed an exhibition in CMU’s Posner Center that featured 21 violins and accompanying imagery, video, and text. The exhibition was the largest installation in the Posner Center’s history and transformed the Center’s interior into an immersive and publicly accessible gallery.

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2023 LMDA International Dramaturgy Conference: Dramaturgical Landscapes
Jun
22
to Jun 25

2023 LMDA International Dramaturgy Conference: Dramaturgical Landscapes

Our workshop in the conference is titled Source & Flow: Dancing with Water & Land. We will present two devised collaborative performances filmed in and inspired by specific landscapes; capturing their history of human and more-than-human interactions, and how those interactions shape and are shaped by the land. These performance rituals are introductions to land and water, inviting audiences to see their landscapes anew, to experience deep time, and to let ancient rock portals see them too. Source & Flow is an invitation for site responsive, co-located, and on-the-spot group performance in Banff.

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Palm Festival in Palmarin, Senegal
Jun
10
5:00 PM17:00

Palm Festival in Palmarin, Senegal

As a part of ‘’La Ville En Mouv’ment’’ les Arts dans la Rue I also performed in Palmarin, Senegal at the Palm Festival organized by Bigué Ndiaye in collaboration with Fatou Cissé. This performance will build on the Propelled Animals previous performance in Ouakam. It will feature site-responsive performances and installations created in collaboration with Senegal-based artists. The performance will be a procession through the village of Palmarin.

Festival Director: Bigué Ndiaye
Senegal-based Performers: Baye Cheikh, Pape Cheikh, Khadi Ba, Mix Baba, Rokhaya Coulibaly, Bamba Diagne, Mbaye Faye (Prince)

Made Possible by: Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon University, and Headlong Dance Theater

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Performance Debut in Dakar, Senegal
Jun
8
5:00 PM17:00

Performance Debut in Dakar, Senegal

’La Ville En Mouv’ment’ les Arts dans la Rue

I performed in ‘’La Ville En Mouv’ment’’ les Arts dans la Rue with the Propelled Animals featuring new site-responsive performances and installations created in collaboration with Senegal-based artists. The performance will be a procession through Marché de Ouakam in Dakar. We are focused on recycling, upcycling, protest, cross-cultural social and artistic discourse, and environmental justice.

Festival Director: Fatou Cissé
Senegal-based Performers: Baye Cheikh, Pape Cheikh, Khadi Ba, Mix Baba, Rokhaya Coulibaly, Bamba Diagne, Mbaye Faye (Prince)

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ARTIST TALK at University of Texas at Austin
Feb
3
12:30 PM12:30

ARTIST TALK at University of Texas at Austin

Join Performance as Public Practice (PPP's) Fridays@2 speaker series for a conversation with the propelled animals!

The Performance as Public Practice Fridays@2 speaker series facilitates discussions about the creation and study of performance. PPP welcomes artists from within and beyond the Winship Drama Building, including current students, distinguished alumni and arts leaders from across the country, to share their research and methodology. Up next is a conversation with Propelled Animals - a group of artists, dancers, scholars, musicians and designers, including faculty member and Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Academic Affairs Raquel Monroe.

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Source and Flow: A Conversation between Joyce Tsai and Heidi Wiren Bartlett about the film "Downriver"
Nov
2
7:00 PM19:00

Source and Flow: A Conversation between Joyce Tsai and Heidi Wiren Bartlett about the film "Downriver"

My film, Downriver, is part of the Stanley's Homecoming exhibition and on view during the fall 2022 semester. I will be in conversation with Joyce Tsai, director of the Clyfford Still Museum of Art and former chief curator of the Stanley Museum of Art, about the film.

Join us in advance for a 3:00 p.m. reception & gallery talk at the UI Stanley Museum of Art.Reception for Downriver, a film commissioned by the Stanley Museum of Art in 2019 and on view in Gallery 8.

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CONFLUX
Sep
10
6:00 PM18:00

CONFLUX

CONFLUX was a performance event on the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. Transforming the Explorer riverboat into an immersive art experience, collaborators Celeste Neuhaus and Heidi Wiren Bartlett will lead the audience on a journey into the river and within themselves. Adorned with sparkling, diatom flags, illuminated by magic spells, and live video projections, these events will be visible on the boat and alongside the river. Participants will observe microscopic plankton species essential to all river life, and be guided into an embodied relationship with the diverse ecosystem of Southwestern Pennsylvania. As the riverboat embarks, dancers will move as personified plankton, and as the riverboat returns to shore, a River Siren will sing on behalf of the water and the land at the confluence of the three rivers.

This project is made possible through a partnership with the SHIFTWORKS and Riverlife.

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UPRIVER Exhibition
Aug
29
to Nov 4

UPRIVER Exhibition

Artist-in-Residence, Heidi Wiren Bartlett, conjures latent energies from rocks, bodies of water, and the natural environment to narrate stories about history, experiences, and mythologies that make our daily lives magical.

Upriver was a project including a series of sculptures culminating in a performance event on Bushkill Creek. Debuting on July 8, the work is an active collaboration with local artists, scholars, geologists, musicians, and engineers. In a procession down the Karl Stirner Arts Trail, stories will be told, action will transform, and each element will be constructed to reflect the potent history of the Lehigh Valley and mythologies of “The Place at the Forks.”

There will be sacred rocks, iron, steel, hex signs, and witches.

It should be known, in the end, what is left was already upriver.

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UPRIVER Public Performance
Jul
8
7:00 PM19:00

UPRIVER Public Performance

Performance event featuring Heidi Wiren Bartlett and collaborators.

Friday, July 8, at 7 p.m., starting at the pedestrian bridge by the Silk Complex

Watch the Upriver trailer.

Upriver is a project featuring sculptures and a performance event on Bushkill Creek. Debuting on July 8, the work is an active collaboration with local artists, scholars, geologists, musicians, and engineers. In a procession down the Karl Stirner Arts Trail, stories will be told and actions materialized into sculptural form, with each aspect of the performance intended to reflect the mythologies of “The Place at the Forks.”

The event starts in the Simon Silk Mill parking lot (1262 Simon Blvd.). The event is free and should last about one hour. Parking is available on Bushkill Drive at the corner of 13th Street in Silk’s upper-level parking lot. Overflow parking can be found in the back lot of Silk. Closed-toed sneakers, hiking shoes, or boots are suggested.

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