West Stockbridge — Despite myriad fluctuations in today’s modern world, contemporary dance remains at center stage for BODYSONNET, a collective composed of dancemakers with local(ish) roots. The nonprofit—under the tutelage of co-directors Moscelyne ParkeHarrison and Mio Ishikawa—has produced a dozen works (in locales spanning the Berkshires to New York City, the Hudson Valley to Arkansas) since their launch in 2020. BODYSONNET returns to the region on August 10 and 11, for their debut at The Foundry, via “Blue Hour”—a mixed bill of new works created and performed by four women artists exploring themes of intimacy, aloneness, and evolution as both individual and collective (see clip here).
“We crafted this show around a sophisticated idea that we feel goes along with the Berkshires and blue hour—being the last moments of light in the sky before it goes truly dark—is also a moment that’s really specifically summer,” ParkeHarrison told The Edge from her home base in San Francisco where the blue hour does not exist in the same fashion as on the east coast.
“With dance we’re able to make such minute but also substantial changes right up until the minute, and I think all of those alterations are due to feeling it’s right in your body—which is super smart and can adapt very quickly,” ParkHarrison says of a realization she’s reached via continued collaboration with mediums other than dance and bearing witness to their respective timelines.
As to another interesting facet of the work? “We don’t actually really know what [‘Blue Hour’] looks like at this point,” ParkeHarrison said, adding, “we haven’t sensed how all of these individual expressions really gel together and what kind of emotional arc we’re going to be taking people on.” Among the various “pieces of the puzzle” that exist but have not yet formed a cohesive whole are the very performers, each hailing from a distinct geographic locale—Mio Ishikawa (a native of Tokyo, Japan who currently works as a freelance dancer and collaborator in New York City); Moscelyne ParkeHarrison (a choreographer, dance artist, and freelance dancer from The Berkshires); Sayer Mansfield (a movement artist, performer, choreographer, and teacher currently based in the Berkshires); and Sydney McManus (a freelance multidisciplinary artist residing in Montreal, Quebec whose practice involves dance, performance, and design). Together, they weave emotional depth, internal conflict, and shared cultural phenomena into their work; prior to this past Saturday, August 6, the group as a whole had yet to share physical space.
In this iteration, BODYSONNET is leaning into mixing the power of locale (Mansfield and ParkeHarrison hail from the Berkshires and have a deep relationship to the surrounding landscape) tempered by Ishikawa and McManus’ response to place—specifically coming here and being asked to create something. “[Each of them] is going to be inherently impacted by geography, the cultural climate of the Berkshires but also their own experiences from the cities and countries that they come from…which not only affects [how Sayer and I create but also] how we relate to what we assume the audience in the Berkshires wants.”
ParkeHarrison likens the four vignettes that are “Blue Hour” to an odyssey of sorts—in a nod to the eponymous epic by Homer, thought to have been penned in the early seventh century B.C.E.—one composed of “disparate trials and tribulations…individual moments of challenge, of joy, of conflict, each of which reveals its own [complete] story within the context of the larger story.”
This summer marks the third time BODYSONNETT has been in residence in the Berkshires, something that energizes the artists. “It’s really exciting to notice that people are starting to remember who we are and supporting us in whatever way they can,” ParkeHarrison says, whether that be coming to the show (huge!), or making monetary or in-kind donations—ranging from food to studio space and housing—all of which are essential in bringing artists to a region that is not only expensive but also hard to get to.
“We’re asking these artists to pause their lives and freelance careers in big cities and [not only] come to the Berkshires, but also to spend time—making the art, going to the farm, the grocery store, the studio… very different than what is possible for a lot of arts institutions that come and pass through the Berkshires, and rightfully so: it’s hard to stay here. It is our community ties that makes this [type of production] possible.”
NOTE: BODYSONNET has received support and recognition from New England Foundation for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Anthony Quinn Foundation, Adobe, Satellite Collective, and The Peace Studio. The collective was the inaugural company in residence at Berkshire Pulse and Walnut Hill School for the Arts; tickets are available here.
