Arts Activities Support

481 patrons attended Snow Bound! over 4 performances. 34 artists were able to work directly on this production. Demographic surveys showed 52% had never attended an Eclectic Edge Ensemble performance before! Female audience members made up 65% while 35% were male. In terms of ethnicity 18% identified themselves as being African American, 7% Asian American, 6% Hispanic/Latino and 69% Caucasian. Eclectic Edge Ensemble achieved our Artistic Goal for Snow Bound!: A Journey from Autumn to Spring which included creating a rich environment for diverse artists by bringing multiple mediums together to create one collaborative work. We collaborated with an array of artists including a director, choreographer, 3 local composers, 11 dancers, 11 puppeteers and 7 designers to work on the full production of Snow Bound! Snow Bound grew from a 60 minute work to a full evening production running 87 minutes. For our new version of Snow Bound the directors decided for the lead character to be played by a woman. We had local actor Emily Madigan perform as The Figure. She did an incredible job of taking the audience on her journey by feeling everything she was experiencing. We added 3 new sections Birth of a Snowflake, Isolation and Survival. Eclectic Edge Ensemble collaborated with composers Richard Sloss, Warren Park and Nathaniel Kling to create these new sections. Birth of a Snowflake gave a touching glimpse of motherhood as the audience watched the Mother snowflakes make the difficult decision on when it was time to release their baby snowflakes into the world. Isolation ended with 3 dancers being trapped in boxes of light giving the haunting feeling of being stuck in a never ending winter. Finally Survival followed a pack of rams fighting amongst each other for the limited supplies they needed. These 3 new sections really completed our production. The directors worked closely with their technical director and designers on creating a snowy world while finding hiding places for all of the puppets including a giant snow dragon, whirling snow tornadoes, and hibernating wire framed animals. The Lab’s space is very unique with little to no masking. The scenic design made it possible for the audience to feel a part of this world, its magic, wonder and keep everything a surprise. Snow Bound!, gave a unique opportunity for the artists of Eclectic Edge Ensemble and Mad Munchkin Productions to bring the art forms of dance and puppetry to the stage as a cohesive experience of narrative imagery. Eclectic Edge Ensemble company members rehearsed roughly 10-15 hours/week for the 5 months leading to the show with the ambitious undertaking of creating work that challenged the dancers beyond picking up choreography, they also had to find ways to embody all these different elements and objects of winter that changed from scene to scene. They also worked with director Laura Wilhelm on puppetry sequences for Snow Bound., including taking puppetry workshops in October that introduced this art form and gave them an understanding for rehearsals. Similarly to the dancers, the puppeteers were also stretched in new ways as performers. This cast reversed roles many times, using a completely different medium from what they are used to. Instead of manipulating a snowflake puppet, a puppeteer used their entire body as a snowflake dancing in a choreographed blizzard. And a dancer, performed the dance of migrating geese using puppets in the air rather than their own limbs. Eclectic Edge Ensemble had great success in reaching our intended community. To add a wider reach even farther beyond the dance community, Eclectic Edge Ensemble identified youth and seniors as potential patrons that would be well served by this production. We provided 80 free tickets for youth and their guardians through Project SUCCESS. During the same performance we also offered Ebenezer Senior Living Life Long Learning Program 20 free tickets to their seniors. We held a talk back after this performance to give both of these groups a chance to ask questions to Snow Bounds’ creators, designers, composers and performers. We heard great feedback from both groups who were so grateful for the opportunity to see Snow Bound! Focusing in on youth audience members we also decided to design and hold our first youth poetry competition asking for winter themed poems. Submissions could be any style of poetry (limerick, haiku, free form, etc.) and must be original work. We worked directly with 5 classrooms, ranging in age from 1st– 6th grade, 6 different dance studios and was open to the public. Entries were submitted on-line, by mail or picked up at the school or studios we directly worked with. Winners read or had their poems read to the audience during intermission of one of our performances and received two free tickets to the selected show. All other entries were displayed in the lobby of the Lab Theater throughout the run of our show. We had huge success with our Youth Poetry competition with over 80 entries! It was incredibility memorable watching students see their poems displayed in the lobby or who were chosen build confidence as they read their poems in front of an audience. It also brought in many students and families who had never attended a dance concert before and had exciting feedback and seemed to leave an inspiring imprint. We had a talk back after our Saturday and Sunday productions, which was ASL interpreted on Sunday, and we were able to answer audience questions about our process and experiences. Even though we tried different avenues of advertisement we did not have any members of the deaf/hard of hearing community attend our Sunday matinee. We also offered a pre-show tactile experience for blind and low vision patrons before Saturday matinee performance which was also going to be audio described. We were excited because we were contacted by one family who had a low vision 10 year old they wanted to bring to our production, but then he was unable to come because he had a horrible cold. We also addressed accessibility in more practical ways by offering concert tickets at a below-average rate ($17 advanced, $20 at the door). We had a study guide that was offered on our website that included interviews with choreographers, composers, designers etc., affiliated with Snowbound, and fun related puzzles. We received great feedback from patrons on our study guide on how helpful, informative and fun it was.