Cost: FREE! No tickets, or pre-registration required.

1:30-3:00 Afro-Haitian Community Dance Class with Live Drumming

3:00-3:30 Opening Circle

3:30-4:30 Ouvèti Professional Dance Performance

JAE is thrilled to be taking a site-specific production, Ouvèti, to the City of Randolph, at the Powers Farm Park. Jean, the company dancers and composer Val Jeanty have continued working, moving, and rehearsing in more creative and flexible spaces than ever over the past year and JAE cannot wait to share this unique process with our community. Val will also be accompanying the dancers live!

Appolon’s latest work in development portrays feelings of isolation, desperation, fear, and ultimately nostalgia, calm, hope, and connection that people experiencing trauma might cycle through. The movements communicate the powerful experiences of knowing personal trauma, seeing it in others, and yet feeling disconnected due to stigma and fear. Bringing together these emotions and experiences through dance, combined with the soundscape created by musician Val Jeanty, shines a light on injustices, disparities, and challenges that audiences may have experienced or are just becoming aware of. A short opening circle will be led by Appolon and company dancers to collectively welcome the community into the public space and set the “stage” for the site-specific performance.

This event is sponsored by the Turner Free Library and the Friends of the Turner Free Library, and supported in part by a grant from the Randolph Cultural Council, the Holbrook Cultural Council, and the Quincy Arts Council, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

JAE’s community workshops and opening circles were made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation.