Dear Wonderful Patron of the Arts,                

Happy November and Giving Tuesday! It’s hard to believe another season is now coming to a close. Despite a third year of creative problem-solving in response to Covid, Luminarium’s 2022 Season was again abundant with both in-person events and online screenings across the Northeast and making guest appearances abroad.

Our community engagement events and public programming were prolific this year. Luminarium’s previously postponed 2021 Arts in Action Project took place in February at Dedham’s Mother Brook Arts & Community Center. Inspired by the methodology of Kim’s Contradictions + Casual Self Loathing, participants dipped their toes into movement-based storytelling through a combination of writing exercises and exploring physicality. This workshop was made possible by Dedham Cultural Council, an agency of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In July, Merli took our community engagement practices abroad, creating a new public QR code installation highlighting villagers in Messejana, Portugal, along with a new screendance, Ao pó voltaremos, honoring the town’s 16th-century monastery ruins. Ao pó voltaremos has since been screened in nine countries globally and most recently won “Best Female Director” and “Best Cinematography” awards at Nawada International Film Festival (India). In August, we debuted Kim’s What’s on the Line…, a participatory public art piece that calls attention to the shame women carry. Populated by words typically used towards and about women, the work presents the idea that our vernacular and social norms provide permission to make outward snap judgements, which undermine security and make an entire gender of people feel “less than.” Visitors viewed it at Complex @ Canal Atrium Gallery for the months of August and September in Cambridge, MA.

Our two largest productions of the season were a huge hit! In October, we launched Kim’s Common Circus, a three-ring exploration of the mundane, in which common tasks and notions are shown through a lens of performance and spectacle. Boston performers Angie Benitez, Caitlin Canty, Katrina Conte, and Eliza Malecki joined Luminarium’s Jessica Chang, Melenie Diarbekirian, and Amy Mastrangelo onstage, with brilliant work from Frank Criscione (scenic design), Anne Dresbach (lighting), Wanda Strukus (dramaturgy), Christos Zevos (composer), and contributors Cassandre Charles, Katie McGrail, Meghan Riling, and Cassie Wang. Viewers joined our large cast and creative team as we took the stage with a showing at the Boston Center for the Arts. This project was made possible due to the Boston Dancemakers Residency, a joint venture of the Boston Dance Alliance and Boston Center for the Arts, and NEFA’s New England Dance Fund. In November, Merli's PLACE Project (formerly titled the “Cultural Community Outreach Project”) traveled to the stars as it celebrated Seymour Planetarium's 85th anniversary (the oldest planetarium in the country) at Springfield Science Museum in Springfield, MA. Constellation Stories: Stories of the Night Sky comprised contemporary performances by Luminarium guest artists; original music composition by Madeleine Shapiro (cellist/improvisations, NYC) and Andreas Bergsland (electronics, Norway); traditional Taíno solos by Chali'naru Dones and Vinny “Tata’niki” Iraheta; and a new work by Henoch Spinola; all honoring the night sky. Free with museum admission and intriguing for all ages, hundreds of visitors wandered the museum as performances popped up in different locations throughout the afternoon. This program was supported in part by a grant from the Springfield Cultural Council, an agency of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Our 12th season also featured performances, speaking engagements, and film screenings both nationally and internationally, including performances at Morven Museum & Gardens (Princeton, NJ) and Acadia Dance Festival (Acadia, ME), and presentations at the Dance Studies Association 2022 Conference (Vancouver, Canada), the 2022 Northeast & Mid-Atlantic Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit (Schenectady, NY), and the 2022 Women in Dance Leadership Conference (Chicago, IL).

Luminarium’s upcoming 2023 Season will be our 13th year in Boston and our 6th in Princeton, and we already have many exciting projects in the works. Thanks to a grant by Reopen Creative Boston/Boston Cultural Council, Contradictions + Casual Self Loathing will return with a showing in Boston. Both Luminarium and PLACE Project received Live Arts Boston grants this year from The Boston Foundation, allowing us to further expand both Common Circus and Constellation Stories into feature productions. Additionally, we will be launching an accessible streaming run of Common Circus by the end of 2022, with audio description and captions. Stay tuned for announcements on all three projects!

Now through December 31 is our Year End Appeal. The company’s prolific community programs, educational workshops, and original productions rely on contributions at this time of giving. If you like what you’ve seen and believe in our work, we ask that you consider donating to our annual programs. It is now that we count on you, our Luminarium community, to help us continue to build and we thank you for this annual support. 

DONATE now through December 31 to Luminarium’s Year End Appeal!

As always, donations are fully tax-deductible and can be made by mail, over the phone at 617.477.4494, or online in the red box to the right. In addition to the regular benefits of donating to Luminarium Dance Company, a nonprofit organization, we are excited to share brand new prizes (below) currently available to donors only, through the end of the year. 

Please consider giving a charitable gift to Luminarium this holiday season. You keep us going and we are incredibly grateful.

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Wishing you happy holidays and a joyous new year, and we look forward to seeing you at future performances and events in 2023!

Endless thanks,

Merli V. Guerra & Kimberleigh A. Holman
Co-Founders / Artistic Directors, Luminarium Dance Company