Saturday, May 30, 7:30 pm
Sunday, May 31, 3:00 pm
The Loov
72 Joy Street, Somerville, MA
When the Music starts, I'll know
Both a live performance and an oral history collection, When the Music Starts, I'll Know offers reflections of what it means to be a dancer, told through the voices of 13 lifelong artists whose work and artistic commitment we've long admired.
When we began this project, we wanted to know about the paths dancers forge to sustain a lifelong practice. How do artists who are community builders also nurture their creative work? What does it mean to rely on your body as your mode of expression? How is identity tied to artistic practice over the course of a lifetime?
These interviews, at times funny, poignant, and thoughtful, are full of the sustaining power of a creative calling. It was a real pleasure to simply spend time in conversation. We found ourselves drawn to the stories and anecdotes that underscored how dance is intrinsically woven into identity and belonging. Between the lines, we heard echoes of quiet moments of sacrifice, and the gift of finding sanctuary. There is a geography of dance in each person’s life and a sense that movement and music are essential in their experiences.
Join us May 30-31 for an evening of traditional dance and music to celebrate these stories, featuring dancers Aubrey Atwater Donnelly, Cait Bracken, Maureen Doyle, and Alanna Callendrello. Audio collages exploring themes of sanctuary and identity, with live piano underscoring by Neil Pearlman (music director), frame the evening; and fiddle player Laura Feddersen lifts the dancing with her eminently gritty, rhythmic, flowing playing.
We couldn't have made this show without the brilliant creative team Caitlin Canty (dramaturg, production manager), Elmer Martinez (lighting design), and Derek Lamoreaux (sound design). Created and produced by Jackie O'Riley & Rebecca McGowan.
We look forward to seeing you in May!
Rebecca & Jackie
Artists
dance, banjo, voice
From Warren, Rhode Island, award-winning multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, writer, public radio commentator, and dancer, Aubrey Atwater presents unique programs of folk music, dance, and spoken word. Aubrey has performed throughout the United States and beyond for decades, singing and playing the mountain dulcimer, banjo, guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and Irish whistle and thrilling audiences with her highly percussive freestyle clogging. With scholarship, humor, and passion, Aubrey also conveys historical, cultural, and personal stories about folk music and dance in her articulate narration. In addition to public work, Aubrey is a longtime therapeutic musician at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence where she has the privilege of interacting with families from all over the world. And since 2015, she has been a guest host for the public radio show and podcast, Ozark Highlands Radio, where she presents deeply curated pieces on folk music and dance. Part of the acclaimed duo Atwater-Donnelly, Aubrey and her husband Elwood Donnelly have fourteen recordings and nine books to their credit. To learn more about Aubrey and her collaborators and projects, visit www.atwater-donnelly.com.
Cait Bracken
Dance
Cait Bracken, a native of County Offaly, has been immersed in dance for over 40 years. For the past two decades she has shared her passion as an instructor of set dancing at the Irish Cultural Center of New England. A retired registered nurse, Cait is also a proud mother of two daughters and a devoted grandmother.
Maureen Doyle
Dance
Maureen Doyle shares in a family tradition of Irish step dance as a duo performer with her brother Kevin Doyle, a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow—the highest honor accorded to a traditional folk artist in the United States. Maureen learned her jigs and reels from their County Roscommon-born mother, Margaret Taylor Doyle, and she danced at community or family events and competitions typical of the Irish American experience in the 1950s and 1960s. After a full business career and retirement, Maureen resumed dancing to partner with her brother in performance at the National Endowment for Arts Heritage Awards at the Library of Congress and the Irish Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 2014. She has remained active, since, as a performer with Roscommon Soles, an arts ensemble devoted to traditional dance, music, song, and story. Additionally, Maureen serves in a pastoral role for her faith community, Victory Assembly of God, leading regional outreach efforts and overseas mission teams. Doyle also frequently travels to visit family in Ireland, renewing her connections to Irish culture and the arts.
Alanna Callendrello
Dance
Alanna Callendrello has been Irish dancing, both step and set, for almost 30 years. She has taught set dancing in the Boston area for the two last years and battering workshops for the last five. Over the years she has been active in the ceili scene in New England and Ireland.
Music director, original scoring, keyboard
Multi-instrumentalist, producer, step dancer and host of the TradCafe podcast, Neil Pearlman is a vital and distinctive voice in contemporary folk music. Described as “a tremendous pianist” on BBC Radio Scotland and “a force to be reckoned with” by WGBH’s Brian O’Donovan, Neil is best known for his groundbreaking approach to the piano in Celtic music. Motivated by a deep musical curiosity and a love of collaboration, his playing is continually evolving and spontaneous without losing its roots in the traditional piano styles of Atlantic Canada, New England and Scotland. He has appeared internationally at major festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival, Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Celtic Colours in Cape Breton and the Orkney Folk Festival and has recorded or performed with luminaries of traditional folk music including Natalie MacMaster, Darol Anger, Seamus Egan and Alasdair Fraser. neilpearlman.com
fiddle
Laura grew up in a musical family in Bloomington, Indiana, where she spent many a night asleep in a bass case at dances and music parties. At the age of 5 she was compelled to take up the violin herself, eventually performing for the set and square dances in her hometown. She has since traveled far and wide with her unique take on Irish American traditional fiddling, performing and teaching at events such as the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Swannanoa Gathering, the O’Flaherty Retreat, and the Lotus World Music Festival. She now resides in Boston, where she has recorded and performed with the projects Ship in the Clouds, Wooden Nickels, and the Virtual Behan Sessions, as well as double fiddle projects Life is All Checkered and Brightly or Darkly with Nathan Gourley.
Creative & production team
Caitlin Canty
dramaturg, production manager
Caitlin Canty is a dancer, educator, and producer living in Somerville, MA. She is delighted to be working with Rebecca and Jackie as the dramaturg and production manager of "When the music starts, I'll know." Caitlin is also the director of Eventual Dance Company, and has presented work at venues across Massachusetts including Cambridge Community Television, The Dance Complex, The Foundry, The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, Center for the Arts at the Armory, and Jacob’s Pillow. Caitlin is the co-program lead, alongside Amelia Rose Estrada, for Rough Drafts - a choreographic professional development lab and teaching residency facilitated by MIDDAY Movement Series. She has had the pleasure of dancing for ZoeDance, Anna Therése Wittenberg, Daniel McCusker, Molly Rose-Williams, Human Movement Projects, Jenna Pollack and Projects, Ruckus Dance, Grant Jacoby and Dancers, and others. Caitlin teaches an open contemporary class every Thursday at The Hive in Somerville, and occasionally she teaches for MIDDAY Movement Series and at the West Concord Dance Academy in Concord, MA.
@caitlin_angel_canty
@eventualdanceco
Elmer martinez
lighting design
Elmer Martinez is a Puerto Rican-Dominican American interdisciplinary working theater artist, poet and dancer. Born in Lowell, MA he developed in the spoken word, theater and street dance communities before completing his BFA in Theater Studies focused on Lighting Design with a minor in Dance. Based in Boston, Elmer has traveled the world for 15 years as a guest artist, educator, events producer, lighting designer, poet, DJ and dancer. His work centers around aesthetically, authentically bridging social afro-diasporic art forms and theater cultures. His stage work centers around aesthetically, authentically bridging street art and theater cultures. He is the founder/producer of “Rebirth Jam” a weekend long Street and Social Afro-Diasporic Arts festival in Boston. Inspired by his vision to continue the work of the “Rebirth Jam” festival, Elmer founded and curates the “Rebirth Listening Bar” - his latest social project series based around immersive music therapy and public art inspired by the Japanese listening bar tradition. Alongside his other projects, Elmer is the co-founder and DJ in residence at The Amplify’d Series. Amplify’d serves self expression at the intersection of social dance and intergenerational open format club music. This afro-centric club arts series lives at the legendary Middle East Nightclub in Cambridge Ma.
@Elmerm_art - Lighting/ Poetry
@Rebirth_Jam - Social Arts Festival
@apmlifydseries - Monthly Dance Space
sound
created & produced by
Rebecca Mcgowan & Jackie o'riley
Jackie O'Riley and Rebecca McGowan are a duet specializing in old-style traditional Irish dance, recognized for their unique synchronicity and musicality. Originally drawn to the grace, musicality, and subtlety of older steps, they have been dancing and creating together for the past 16 years. With original choreography and interpretation of traditional steps, Rebecca & Jackie’s work magnifies the intricate movements and musical connections of traditional dance, bringing music and dance back together. Jackie & Rebecca have performed around the US at festivals including Catskills Irish Arts Week, CCE Musical Arts and Dance Week, and Mississippi CelticFest. Their visual album “From the Floor” (2019) was called “audacious, ground breaking, and brilliantly realized” (Irish Echo) and was shown at the Utah Dance Film Festival, St Patrick’s Film Festival London, Motion State Dance Film Series, Leitrim Dance Festival, and others. They were recognized as 2022 Mass Cultural Council Fellows in Choreography, and have received support from Next Steps for Boston Dance, Live Arts Boston, and NEFA, and recently had work selected for Dance Documentation in Isolation at the BCA; Dance Complex’s Fest of Us; and the Boston Celtic Music Festival.
Thank you
All of the interviewees: Maureen Doyle, Aubrey Atwater Donnelly,
Adrienne Hawkins, Lisa Chaplin McAllister, Ali Kenner Brodsky,
Becky Hill, Eileen Armstrong, Mary MacGillivray, Kieran Jordan, Tara
Lynch, Alanna Callendrello, Colleen O’Connor Thomas, Cait Bracken
Regina Delaney, Bernadette Fee, Anita Bennis, Maureen Cathcart, Liz Hanley, Samantha Jones, Kristen Kelly, Diana Lempel, Marissa Molinar, Ruth Birnberg, Next Steps for Boston Dance, Live Arts Boston, Joey Abarta
Magazine Design: Victoria Verrecchia
Caitlin Canty, Rafi Singer, Neil Pearlman, Laura Feddersen, Elmer Martinez, Derek Lamoreaux, The Loov, Justin McIntosh
Created in part with support from a Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation and a grant from Cambridge Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.