Year: 2023-2024
DanceForce Member: Robin Collen
Artists: Hettie Barnhill, Kerri Canedy
Community Partner: SUNY Potsdam
Audience: 333
County: St. Lawrence

Goals
1. Provide a venue for a (self-identifying) Black queer artist to teach and produce her work—an artist whose identity is a prominent feature in her pedagogy and choreography.
2. Give college students an experience working with an excellent teacher and choreographer, more specifically, give students of color an experience with an artist whose presence will energize them toward feeling seen, included, valued.
3. Give North Country citizens an opportunity to see choreography that (a) reflects Black and queer sensibilities, opening their minds and hearts to people who are different from them, and (b) provide an aesthetic experience which also engages them in reflection on political and social issues.

Principal artists: (a) Hettie Barnhill and (b) Kerri Canedy.

Planning:
• Communicating with Hettie about available times to be in Potsdam.
• Securing a hotel room for Hettie’s 2 visits to Potsdam.
• Coordinating audition over Zoom; traveling to Potsdam for the audition was not feasible.
• Coordinating with Kerri Canedy to rehearse Ms. Barnhill’s choreography in her absence.
• Coordinating Hettie’s teaching, technical rehearsal, and performance schedules with SUNY Potsdam Department of Theatre and Dance colleagues.

Activities:
• January 27: Audition and Casting on Zoom.
• March 11: Hettie taught an Afro-Modern class, 1:00-2:45pm.
• March 11: Hettie rehearsed the cast, 4:30-9:00pm.
• March 12: Hettie taught a Broadway Dance class, 11:00am-12:15pm.
• March 12: Hettie rehearsed the cast, 4:30-9:00pm.
• March 13: Hettie taught an Afro-Modern class, 1:00-2:45pm.
• March 13: Hettie rehearsed the cast, 4:30-9:00pm.
• March 14: Hettie spoke to students in the Dance Composition 2 class.
• March 14, 2024: Hettie rehearsed the cast, 4:30-9:00pm.
• March 18-April 26, 2024: Kerri Canedy rehearsed the cast, weekly.
• April 28, 2024: Hettie (a) rehearsed the cast, cleaning the dance and making necessary changes to the choreography and (b) worked with the technical director, clarifying lighting cues.
• May 2-5, 2025: Students performed Hettie’s 7.5-minute dance, “Handle with Care” in the Department of Theatre and Dance’s Spring Dance Concert.

Promotional and marketing activities—press release, poster, and program—were handled by Kerri Canedy, in her role as production manager for the concert.

I partnered with colleagues in the Department of Theatre and Dance to: (a) facilitate audition and classes, (b) provide technical assistance, and (c) work front of house.

This residency served dance students, the college campus community, and the North Country. Of note: As I watched a dress rehearsal of Hettie Barnhill’s dance, reveling at the students’ committed work on stage, I was grateful for how the Dance Program (inclusive of guest artists, such as Hettie) has served so many students over the years. As a rarity—not requiring an audition—the Dance Program—and Hettie’s dance—welcomed students with all levels of experience, with the belief that dance, as a discipline, has a vital place within a liberal arts education. Hettie’s dance included not only dance majors, but students majoring in Theatre, Arts Management, Criminal Justice, Psychology, Anthropology, Speech Communications, Environmental Studies, History, Creative Writing, and Art Education—and 2 alumni.