Mini Fest 2024 Artists
Sampson Spadafore
Sampson Spadafore (they/he) is a white, neurodivergent, queer person currently living on settled Wabanaki land. They are a theatre artist with a BFA in Musical Theatre from Nazareth University. Sampson thematically focuses his work on trans and queer identity, liberation, the body, god, grief, and healing. He also identifies as a poet and writer where he centers his trans and queer experience. Learn more about Sampson’s work at samspadaforeofficial.com
Rori Smith, Max Laszewski, Megan Mizanty, and Augusta Sparks
Max Laszewski (they/them, Rochester NY), Megan Mizanty (she/her, Scranton PA) and Rori Smith (she/her, Alna ME), are collaborators who, catalyzed by the Dobbs decision, formed a creative collective in search of tensegrity and resilience. They research and theorize approaches to social organization through improvisational movement scores. The questions that drive their work are: how do we support one another in health and healing? How do we remain in relationship with our own bodily authority?
With an undercurrent of curiosity and research, Augusta Sparks practices sensemaking: the act of making to understand or as rumination. She works with and in collaboration, by showing up as herself to meet others' mastery. Augusta Sparks is a mother of grown children, has a BA in photography from Bard College, a masters in Arts in Medicine from University of Florida, and will graduate summer 2024 from the Intermedia MFA at University of Maine.
Walking at night remains on view at The Parsonage until February 26.
Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye (Kaolack)
Born and raised in Senegal by his grandmother, Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye, a.k.a. Kaolack, has studied and performed as part of the Jant-bi company at Ecole des Sables, Senegal, from 2000 to 2010 and is a MFA candidate at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. In 2008, he won the Danse l’Afrique Danse Choreographic competition from Africa and the Indian Ocean in Tunisia with his solo J’accuse’ in Tunisia. In 2011, he moved to Czech Republic with an emerging solo practice, teaching experience and rich choreographic skills. In 2014, he started working with Nora Chipaumire on portrait of myself as my father, which opened his mind and furthered his understanding on the aesthetics of the Black body, Black African performing bodies and the radical Black African presence. Over the years, he has acquired experience in performance, choreography and knowledge through his study of the Acogny technique and Nora Chipaumire’s works. From these experiences and inspired by the Senegalese Ndaga, he created his own dance vocabulary and continues to investigate and unpack its potential as a technique. Kaolack’s work is entirely focused on pushing boundaries off space and time, liveness and fully being in the spaces we inhabit and claim as our own, while making space for spirit to be present. It is also about the transmission of embodied knowledge. Our bodily knowledge, the animist information rooted in Indigenous cultural dance practices that are connected to ancestral wisdom. And finally, it is about deconstructing the notion of decolonization by creating images that are mesmerizing and futuristic.
Kristen Stake
Kristen Stake (She/her) is a dance-theater artist who has lived in the Wabnaki territory now called Portland, Maine for 25 years. Rooted in somatics and postmodern dance, her work explores ritual, memory, and emotional-relational dynamics. In her current project, “YOU ARE GOING TO BE HEALED,” she gets the audience to create a group healing ceremony together. She was the Director of The Living Room Dance Collective, an artist-run dance project that cultivated a contemporary dance community in Portland, Maine.
Hannah Wasielewski
Hannah Wasielewski (She/her) is a dancer, performer, educator, and biodynamic craniosacral therapist based in Portland, Maine. Her practice today is centered around contact improvisation, experimental contemporary dance forms, and healing through radical performance. Locally, she presents solo choreography and is 1/2 of imaginary island, a collaboration with Kristen Stake. Their show "YOU ARE GOING TO BE HEALED" has been presented by SPACE Gallery, NEFA’s New England Now’s Regional Dance Initiative at the ICA in Boston, TEMPOarts in collaboration with visual artist Pamela Moulton, and by Hewnoaks Artist Residency.
Photo Credit: imaginary island (Hannah Wasielewski and Kristen Stake) by Kerry Constantino.
Mafe Farias Briseño
Maria “Mafe” Fernanda Farias Briseño (she/her) is a life-long dancer and performer. She grew up in Queretaro, Mexico and traveled the world pursuing her education before moving to Maine in 2019. Mafe is an enthusiastic and creative member of the Mount Desert Island community. She received an undergraduate degree in Human Ecology at College of the Atlantic with an interdisciplinary trajectory in the Arts & Humanities and a focus on political and cultural anthropology, performance studies, and education.
Holly Taylor
Holly Taylor (she/they) is a movement artist, educator, and arts administrator based in Portland, ME. Holly's research interests include queer and feminist embodiment; place-based art-making; and experimental models of human relation. Their artistic practice incorporates modern contemporary forms, gaga movement language, postmodern procedure and site-specific composition. Holly is currently the Operations & Program Manager for Creative Portland and teaches youth dance classes at Casco Bay Movers.
Liz Mulkey
Liz Mulke is Los Angeles born and raised, now in Southern Maine. She is a dance and mixed-media artist, actor, film-maker and dance/somatics//fitness teacher. She finds these areas inform each other and help identify the stories we live by, the stories that are possible to tell physically and emotionally, and the adaptability and changeability available to us at any given time. She presents her original choreography as live performance, site specific, film, and photography. Her work has a strong thematic focus on mental health. Her performances are visceral and theatrical, with heavy use of breath, and often set against the natural world or unconventional performance spaces. Check more, like her award-winning films and various offerings at her website: lizmulkey.com
Katherine Ferrier
Katherine Ferrier is a queer dancer, poet, and textile artist based in Rockland, Maine. Her research grows out of a deep practice of paying poetic attention to the world, and lives in the intersecting communities of movers, makers, writers and activists. She is a founding member of The Architects, an improvisation ensemble whose performance history spans nearly 30 years, and The (stillness) Collective, who will be showing new work at SPACE Gallery in February and March. Katherine directs the Medomak Fiberarts Retreat, a nationally recognized gathering of fiber artists from around the world, where she teaches patchwork, slow stitching, wet felting, and writing for makers. She regularly teaches and performs throughout the US and abroad, and believes in both patchwork and improvisation as the radical practice of being patient, saying yes, and making space for everyone at the table.
