15th Annual Women’s Works: re-union

An Evening of Contemporary Dance

July 26th & July 27th 7pm

The Clifford Arts & Student Center 42 Depot St. Unity, ME 04988 

Tickets: $20 cash at door, kids free, tix available online (Clifford Arts)

Tickets: WW2024 Tickets

Choreography and performances by:

Shana Bloomstein, Nnenaya Bloomstein, Dawud Bloomstein, Jenny Cobuzzi, 

Molly Gawler, Maria Jacobs, Neal Jacobs, Margi Pulkinghma, Daisy Xu, Courtney Porter, Grace Littlefield, Lisa Newcomb, Antone Vieira

Guest Artist from NYC: Jesse Phillips-Fein

Women’s Works is an annual festival of contemporary dance by female choreographers that began when Shana Bloomstein, the founder and artistic director, returned to Maine to raise her two children. At the time, she was in the midst of a blossoming dance career that had taken her to New York City, across the United States, and to Senegal, West Africa. As a young mother, she felt the difficulties of balancing parenthood with her life in dance. She began Women’s Works to continue to develop her choreography and performance by building a supportive artistic community that aims to strengthen our creative minds, hearts and bodies.

Over the next 19 years, Women’s Works became an anticipated annual summer performance of contemporary dance where audiences are moved to laugh, to cry, to wonder, to reflect and to connect.  Since its humble beginnings at Unity Performing Arts Center, Women’s Works has evolved from five choreographers with an audience of thirty, to a collective of over twenty artists and an audience of over five hundred. What draws both artists and audiences to Women’s Works is its distinct core value of support not competition, and our aspiration to make art that heals through a commitment to birthing multiple expressions of our own stories. The resulting performance allows the audience greater potential to access ideas of possibility and imagination in their own lives.

The 15th Annual Women’s Works “re-union” celebrates 19 years of journeying together as artists in the Mid-Coast Maine community, and begins with a simple invitation: that we may connect to a reunion with self and with one another. The show features themes of past work with new manifestations that unfold to honor where we are currently. We carry the history of our bodies into the present, and honor the stories of our ancestors within each dance.   

Women's Works Mission Statement

Women’s Works focuses on the female experience and the lens from which we witness and view the world. This offering is done in a way that is not limiting, but instead broadens our understanding of the multiple perspectives within the identity of "woman.” We represent artists from a range of age, dance and aesthetic backgrounds. The aesthetic of the show is not driven by the desires of a pervasive media driven definition of dance, but rather on the honest expression that occurs when our stories as women unfold with integrity and support. The emphasis on the creative process and individual voices, reflected in the diversity of styles in the show, gives an emotional and intellectual depth to the work. It fosters dialogue and conversations between community members through art. Our goal is to support the creative mind, heart and body of all beings.

TESTIMONIALS:

“My god, I don’t know how you continue to enthrall me with these Women’s Works Shows year in and year out, but again, I was slayed. Each dancer/choreographer and each dance -- so unique and passionate and talented and excellent in craft and choice of music/sound.... Each of your solo pieces brought me to tears. Thank you.  ...(A)ll the pieces were great, and in such different ways, evoking different emotions in me and wowing me with movement.

Oh, I love dance.  And Women’s Works is as good as anything I’ve ever seen in NYC and LA, truly. We are so lucky to have you right here. Shana, you are a genius, not just as a choreographer and mover, but as an electromagnetic force that pulls all these talented and brilliant dancers with varying backgrounds, ages, and techniques, together, make a whole out of all these disparate parts, and do it again year after year ... and always with a smile on your face.” -Kathryn Robyn

    “What a feast of dance! Your Women's Works show was brilliant. I loved it! The span of style, concepts, stories and ages is so magnificent and true. What a testament to your openness and deep sense of dance and all it can be. The beautiful, powerful vitality and extraordinary force of women's work all together like that is so nourishing and inspiring!” - Barbara Maria, Belfast, ME.

“Loved the women's work performance on Saturday night.  I can't believe it took me so long to get to one...don't plan on missing any again, it was wonderful.” - Jen Kirchoff, Hope, ME.

“Shana -- First of all thank you again for providing an awesome evening of dance for us all!!!!  The suit/white was so tender and sensual, the untying was incredible dancing and hilarious....  Joan's piece absolutely blew me away as my mother had reverted to child before her death. If you make a DVD please make one for me to purchase, thanks!”  - Susan Hellewell, N. Anson, Me

 “The choreography and execution throughout the evening evoked such varying and deep feelings,  I left the performance more "nourished" than I have felt in years. Thank you all so very much! And thank you Shana for your dedication and amazing talents.  From my first experience of the smaller group at Unity, I have loved your work. It just seems to be getting deeper and deeper. If this performance were to be done again, I'd find it hard to miss.  It always seems so sad to me that often gorgeous dance is often left behind never to be experienced again whereas  music is performed over and over.”  -Mariah Williams, Liberty, ME.