SURGE: Interview + Dance Demo

Hortense Gerardo interviews Jessie + Dr. Pratt about their dance+science collaboration on the topic of sea level rise during Boston Dance Theater’s second installment of its new virtual series SURGE and will be joined by the Boston Dance Theater dancers in a lecture/demonstration format. RSVP your spot today for September 16, 2020. bostondancetheater.com/sea-level-rise

SURGE is an online event series that is designed to expand our dialogue with like-minded individuals whose work and interests straddle the realms of art+science and environmental sustainability. It is also our goal to raise awareness of / fundraise for the continuation of BDT’s Sea-Level Rise project. To make a tax-deductible gift please visit: https://bit.ly/31fWabO

Bios

Boston Dance Theater Dancers: https://www.bostondancetheater.com/dancers

Jessie Jeanne Stinnett (PROJECT LEAD + CHOREOGRAPHER) is a dance teacher, choreographer, and co-artistic director of Boston Dance Theater with veteran Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili. She received a BFA in Dance Performance from The Boston Conservatory and an MFA in Creative Practice: Dance Professional Pathway from Trinity Laban Conservatoire, in conjunction with Independent Dance/Siobhan Davies Dance. 

Most notably Jessie has performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Tate Britain (UK), Prometheus Dance, Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), The Boston Baroque Opera, and Bard College’s SummerScape Festival. 

Her choreographic work has been described by Hannah Chanatry of WBUR as “conceptually driven performance that unpacks the complexities of being female, and pushes the academic boundaries of choreography” and has been sustained in part by grants from The Boston Foundation with support from The Barr Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, Assets4Artists at MASS MoCA, and Fidelity Charitable. 

Some of Jessie’s recent teaching and choreography credits include: Boston Ballet School, Dean College, Keene State University, Providence College, Endicott College, Goethe Institut Boston, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, and Emmanuel Music. She is the recipient of the 2020 Boston Dancemakers Residency grant award and will be the 2020 Choreographer in Residence at Boston Center for the Arts and Boston Dance Alliance.

Dr. Lawrence J. Pratt (LEAD SCIENCE COLLABORATOR) is a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a B. S. and M. S. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Pratt’s research interests include theory and modeling of ocean and marginal sea circulation and mixing, mesoscale and submesoscale instability and turbulence,  sea strait hydraulics, abyssal circulation in deep canyons, and the use of dynamical systems and chaos theory to understand mixing and stirring at various scales.

He has collaborated on a number of dance and ocean science projects and public workshops in the Boston area with choreographers Riley Watts, Courtney Peix, Mariah Steele, and Jessie Jeanne Stinnett. His extended arts and science projects have been presented at the Boston Science Museum, New Bedford Art Museum, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Boston Arts Academy, with support from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Hortense Gerardo is a writer and anthropologist and serves as the newly-appointed Director

of the program in Anthropology, Performance, and Technology at the University of California

San Diego. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally, including: LaMama

Experimental Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the International

Performance Art Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto and The

Fence International Playwright Network. She is a co-founder of the Asian American Playwright

Collective and serves on the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Council and on the Board of

Directors of the Woods Hole Film Festival as Head of the Screenwriting Competition. Dr.

Gerardo received a B.A. in Biology, an M.A. in Anthropology, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology and

Performing Arts from Boston University.