03/02/2023
A LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Today we would like to officially say goodbye to Lion's Jaw performance + dance festival.
After 3 years of covid-inspired limbo and so many shifts in my own life, it's time to let go.
Nothing lasts forever. But what do you do with the time you have?
A little bit of heartache but a lot of love.
What began as a dream to energize Boston dance and connect with the experimental and contemporary dance worlds turned into a truly dreamy laboratory for teaching and performance making that surpassed anything we imagined - packing Green Street Studios for nearly a week. The entryway filled with folks registering, lobby strewn with belongings, the studios humming and the performances packed with wild and strange visions.
For me personally it all began with a dream of what the hardcore shows and art-school parties of my youth might feel and look like as a dance festival. For Sarah Mae I think it was about helping to support a city she had given so much to already.
We worked night and day all year to make that 5 day blitz of creativity happen and never would have been able to pull it off without the help of Molly Hess, Anya Smolnikova, Delaney McDonough, Ben Van Buren, Lizzy Mulkey, Ellen Maynard, Quentin Burley and so many others and of course such BRAVE teachers - taking a chance on a totally unknown curator doing an unknown event!
Thank you Thomas F. DeFrantz, Hana van der Kolk, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Anya Cloud, Keith Hennessy, Larry Arrington, Miguel Gutierrez, Jesse Zaritt, Sara Shelton Mann, Taja Will, Faye Driscoll, Joy Mariama Smith and so many others... too many to name of course.
Thank you for the fierceness. Thank you for the magic.
Thank you for the memories. Every Body a Little Revolution.
Fare-well. We are now an extinct-dance festival - as so many others are. And perhaps a piece of history that matters, just a little.
Jared Williams
