Open Rehearsal

Open Rehearsals is a series that brings dance and movement beyond the proscenium stage and into other cultural and architectural contexts. This event repeats Thursday, March 13, 5:30-7 pm.
"In the RISD Museum, we follow dancer and choreographer Jessica Howard through the galleries. The "guided tour" acts as the framework to explore how we look and spectate, constructing different ways for the audience/viewer to relate to performers and performance. The performance is contextual and attentive to the physical spaces that we pass through and occupy. How do these different contexts prompt particular and distinct kinesthetic responses from us both as museum visitors and performers?
The museum is not only concerned with conservation and display of stable historical artifacts but also with creation and intellectual exploration. We expand on this aspect of the museum as a place of teaching, learning, and making that brings together visitors, students, and working artists. Into this expanded purpose, Open Rehearsals introduces performance, emphasizing process, dialogue, and provisional or incomplete forms. We show practice, rehearsal, and use of techniques and tools by choreographers and dancers in the development of new work."

— Li Jun Lai, Independent artist and producer of Dance and Movement
Free. Co-sponsored by the RISD Museum.
Li Jun Lai
Li Jun Lai is a visual and performance artist. She draws on a wide range of traditions and disciplines including neuroscience, Chinese ink painting, oil painting, color and music theory, and contemporary dance. Her current work investigates how social and physical space is articulated with movement and things.
She received a BA in Visual Arts from Brown University and has had recent exhibitions at Newport Art Museum and AS220 Project Space.
Jessica Howard
Jessica graduated with her Bachelor of the Arts in Theatre and Dance and was recipient of the Alta Lu Townes Memorial Endowment and the Charles Hildebrandt Award in 2009. As a theatre and dance undergraduate Jessica was privileged to study under Marcia Murdock, Cathy Nicoli, Candice Salyers, and William Seigh and was selected to work with guest artists such as Paul Besaw, Mark Dendy, Pilobolus, and Sara Sweetly Rabidoux.
Jessica is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Heron Dance Yoga & Meditation Studio. She is Steward of the P.O.T.E.G.P Spiritual Guidance center as well as apprenticing under Greg Squillante in the studies of spirituality, meditation and world religions.
Jessica is also an independent performance artist & dance educator. She is on her third season performing with Lorraine Chapman, the Company and currently performing with Ali Kenner Brodsky of Rhode Island. Jessica has presented her own work in Cambridge MA, Keene NH, NYC, and Bethlehem NH. She has lead educational workshops for grades K-12 as well as higher education.