A festival of contemporary dance by local creators will soon return to its rightful stomping grounds.
The Stomping Grounds Dance Festival, a showcase for original, movement-based performance pieces, returns to 33 Hawley in Northampton on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8.
“One of my favorite aspects of the festival is the breadth of styles of choreography that we get, and this year is even broader than ever,” said Kelly Silliman, festival producer and co-director of the Northampton Center for the Arts. “I’m really excited to share that.”
Lisa Leizman, who runs the resident dance company at 33 Hawley, has been part of Stomping Grounds since 2021, when Silliman produced a series of community dance performances that later became the festival. This year, she and her group will perform site-specific work they’ve already performed a number of times over the years at various venues, both inside and outdoors.
At this year’s Stomping Grounds, the group will perform their piece outside the building, using 6-foot bamboo sticks in a way that “illuminates both the natural landscape — the trees, the bushes — on Hawley Street, as well as the architectural features of the front of our beautiful building,” Leizman said.
“Different places bring out different imaginative parts of dances, spark different kinds of creativity, and are always really intriguing places to perform,” she said. Every time she does site-specific work, “I always learn something about choreography and performance, and I also always learn something about the place.”
Madelyn Farr, who joins the festival for her first year, will perform three dances in her part of the show: two pieces choreographed individually by Farr and her dance partner Kathy Champagne, and one collaborative work.
“Both of us have lived a long time and have had lifelong dance experience, and this is about really recovering the joy and the meaning of moving at this stage of our lives,” she said.
“It is easy to believe in our society that older bodies are done with playfulness and sensuality, but they are not!” Champagne said in an emailed statement. “Dance is a wonderful way for people in every kind of body to express what is in their spirit.”
As an instructor at 33 Hawley, Farr teaches classes that help older adults reconnect with sensuality. As she said in a previous interview with the Gazette, those classes are not about eroticism or sex, but rather “the experience through the five senses,” such as catching a sunset, listening to moving music or tasting flavorful food.
Her work at Stomping Grounds will carry the same spirit. As she described it, “empowering us to dance full-throatedly … finding the freedom within to really dance as if no one’s watching.”
Samantha Grossman, returning for her third year with the festival and her second year presenting her own work, will showcase a piece she described as “an emotional journey over the course of eight minutes.” The work, inspired by the Biblical story of Hannah and performed in the modern Limón technique, features a “nigun” —a Hasidic Jewish melody traditionally performed only by men — sung live by several of Grossman’s female friends. Grossman belongs to a group of female and nonbinary individuals in Northampton who gather biweekly to sing these melodies.
“These melodies are really beautiful. They’re very prayerful. I really think about dance as my first language of prayer … Dance has always been, even from a young age, the way that I’ve connected to something larger than myself,” Grossman said.
Grossman appreciates how the festival showcases a diverse range of modern dance styles and remains highly accessible to choreographers, noting that no one has to pay a fee or have their work scrutinized by a review committee. Instead, “The requirements for the festival are basically: ‘Can you make the dates? Can you attend a work-in-progress showing, and have you applied?’” she said.
In fact, when the performers held their work-in-progress showing the day before she spoke with the Gazette, it offered a valuable preview. “It was such a nice opportunity to see what both friends and strangers are working on … and how everybody is bringing something totally different and totally unique and special to the table,” she said.
When audiences see the show, Grossman hopes they come away with “a real appreciation that dance in western Mass. doesn’t look like one thing.”
Performances will take place at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 7, and at 4, 5 and 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8. Guests can also attend a community reception on Saturday at 5 p.m. Tickets range from $15 to $50 on a sliding scale, excluding fees. For tickets, schedule details and more information, visit nohoarts.org/stomping-grounds.
