Dear Friends,
A few years ago, I asked my “deathbed self” what she would like to see me live before I die…and thus began a stepping away from the familiar and into a wider unknown, into the dissolution that is also a spacious invitation for emergence.
KINSHIP: Bodies of Belonging is one of the responses to this question. As I enter my second year of dance-making and more, I offer the following as sites of encounter and exploration — join me!
COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
Our first gathering opened my second year of Kinship at Blue Deer Center. Peruse the event site (two pages) for a taste of the experience. The stories gathered from our time together are providing material for the poetry, music, and dance that are being woven into a late summer interactive performance (2026). Our next gathering is on Sunday, February 8th, and will build on the first; more details to follow.
EMPTYING INTO FULLNESS
What happens when you allow the seasonality of the light as it deepens into darkness, as it turns one year towards the next, to transform your relationship with what is possible? -- in body, in attention, in rest, in vitality, in vision, in friendship...in intimacy with the smallest things that steadily nourish a life?
Learn more, and join me here!
GENEROSITY & GRATITUDE
My heart spills over in wonderment as I receive the generosity of participation, encouragement, and resourcing support from so many of you. Foundational have been those of you who — without having seen any of what I was working on — offered (and continue to give) financial support for me to begin and sustain this outpouring of my life.
Thank you to all who take the time to dive deeper here ~ your presence & participation mean so much. If you feel moved in any way to respond, I would love to hear from you.
In Joy,
Jeni
KINSHIP: Bodies of Belonging
is a transdisciplinary dance work that engages landscape, community, and seasonal cycles, featuring a sculpture conceptualized and designed for this project.
KINSHIP is developed in responsive-relationship with two primary places: the sacred land stewarded by Blue Deer Center in the Catskills Mountains, and daily life as place, allowing the artist to create within the spontaneity, rhythms, and intimacies of day-to-day habits and cycles.
THANK YOU!
Immense gratitude for everyone who has supported KINSHIP through their donations, skills, time, and encouragement.
Newest Thank You’s: To the group who joined me for the recent Kinship Community Conversation: your presence, stories, & financial contributions are forever interwoven within KINSHIP. Dustin Lamberta, Yuko, Bea Ortiz, Michaela & Eric Himelfarb (and family), Krishna Hilton, Kate B., Lisa M., Chris Brown, and additional anonymous friends — Thank you!
Foundational and Sustaining Donations & Support: Stacey Lamendola, Millicent Young, Tom Hammang, Kate, Rebecca Jeter, Colleen & Paul, Julie, Bea, Carlos, Michaela, W. P. Carey Foundation, and Anonymous.
Thank You Leonard & Donna Ascosi for directly supporting essential medical care needed in this season. Being able to tend well to my health is a gift that keeps giving!
Thank you Blue Deer Center and all who care-take the Land and the River of Peace.
Many of the above donations have been made possible through The Field, a 501(c)(3) artists organization, which enables tax-deductible individual and company donations on behalf of my work as an artist.
If you feel moved to directly support my heart-work as an artist, you can donate here. Thank you!
