tUnE-YaRdS
April 2-4, 2021
Proposing student: Francis Shiner ’23

tUnE-YaRdS is an American, Oakland, California-based music project of musician Merrill Garbus, with long-time collaborator, bassist Nate Brenner. Garbus’s music draws from an eclectic variety of sources and utilizes elements such as loop pedals, ukulele, vocals, and lo-fi percussion. Garbus described their sound as “a patchwork of sound snippets, of history in a present tense. It is a composer’s commitment to the preservation of stories, however small and unassuming.” Merrill Garbus is a musician, producer and composer who slams, wails, strums and shakes with her band, tUnE-YaRdS and will speak to students about composition, music making during the pandemic, decolonizing Western music, and much more. 

Details on residency activities coming soon.

Tuesday, February 18–Sunday, February 23, 2020
Sara Shelton Mann Rothrock Residency
Proposed by Sam Kann ’20

Sponsored by the Rothrock Family Residency Fund, Middlebury Dance Program, and Middlebury Department of Music.
More information at go/mann.

Being in the Body – 3 Day Workshop
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; February 18, 19, and 20 – 4:30-6:30 PM
(FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; MUST ATTEND ALL THREE SESSIONS)
Mahaney Arts Center, Dance Theatre
What is holding the being? What is holding the body? What is your set point? What is your zero point? Participants in this 3 day workshop will engage in communication through touch, sensing, energy exploration, physical puzzles and what can be imagined. The process is directed, specific and open for your uniqueness. Come bask in the weight body, sensing body and spirit in space. Open to all. Registration at go/mann and participation in all sessions required. 

Solo Neutral Follow: A Study in Choice – Performance Lab
Friday, February 21, 2020 – 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Saturday, February 22, 2020 – 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Performance: Saturday, February 22 – 7:30 PM
Mahaney Arts Center, Dance Theatre
(MIDDLEBURY STUDENTS ONLY; MUST ATTEND 3 DAY WORKSHOP, BOTH LAB SESSIONS & SATURDAY PERFORMANCE)
Are you in your body? Someone else’s? Or in the “in between?” Sara Shelton Mann will lead students in an intensive, 2 day performance lab, culminating in a presentation the evening of Saturday, February 22. Solo Neutral Follow is a basic study in creating radical space. It is a training of focus and concentration and multidirectional attention. You will sweat. You will find freedom. Registration at go/mann and participation in all sessions required. 

The Edge of Balance – Master Class
Sunday, February 23, 2020 – 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Mahaney Arts Center, Dance Theatre
(FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC)
San Francisco-based choreographer, performer and teacher Sara Shelton Mann leads a two hour class open to all levels. The study of bones, muscles and weighted nuts and bolts teach us the delicacy and strength of weight and space. We slow down action until it becomes silence in and of itself. The breath moves the heart, and we move with it. No registration required.

PERFORMANCE
Saturday, February 22, 2020 – 7:30 PM
Sara Shelton Mann, “Raine/Vortex” + “Middlebury Performance Lab”
Mahaney Arts Center, Dance Theatre
As part of the her Middlebury College Rothrock Residency, San Francisco-based choreographer Sara Shelton Mann presents two works in one evening: the culmination of an intensive performance process with Middlebury College students followed by “Raine/Vortex,” an evolving collaboration between Sara Shelton Mann and Jesse Zaritt. Sponsored by the Rothrock Family Residency Fund, Middlebury Dance Program, and the Middlebury Department of Music. Free.