"THE photographer Mathew Pokoik swears he didn’t choose this charming Catskills town as the home for an interdisciplinary festival because of its almost total lack of cellphone reception. 'Although it also makes for a perfect residency experience,' he added in an e-mail message about the summer-long event he founded with the choreographer Aynsley Vandenbroucke, his wife...."
"Perched on a hillside above the Esopus Creek in Mount Tremper, there is a center for contemporary performance and visual art, dedicated to providing a rich and challenging environment where artists and audiences can stretch the limits of their understanding. The founders of Mount Tremper Arts (MTA), Mathew Pokoik and Aynsley Vandenbroucke, are young, energetic and daring...."
"Vandenbroucke and Pokoik, the founders and directors of Mount Tremper Arts, are themselves a “hybrid couple”: she's a choreographer, he's a photographer. At 33 and 35 respectively, they may be the youngest impresarios in the Hudson Valley—and among the most impressive...."
"It seems silly, in a way, to think of dances as being handmade. But the word comes to mind when sinking into Aynsley Vandenbroucke's carefully constructed works. Spare and delicate, they leave ample room for the imagination...."
We've had some excellent recent press (and a collective audience review) for our off site Spring Season at CPR - Center for Performance Research, in Williamsburg Brooklyn and for our upcoming summer festival at MTA...
Laurie Dahlberg starts her lecture, “Pirates, Pilferers, and Pranksters: A Brief History Of Photographic Appropriation,” with a photo of Duchamp’s “Fountain.” And then she dives into the juiciest questions about making art. In her talk she speaks about Duchamp’s shift from an old definition of aesthetic value (beauty, truth, and craftsmanship) to a new definition focusing on recognition and choice. She posits that this shift did nothing less than justify the practice of photography as an art form....
Audience Review
By Mika Dashman
Last night I attended a performance by dancer/choreographer Jonah Bokaer and poet Anne Carson. I have seen plenty of mixed-media performance events over the years and I find they often suffer from a certain imbalance, where one aspect of what is going on on stage captures the attention much more than the other. This was not such an occasion. In two pieces “Falling” & “Stacks” the choreographer and the writer collaborated with a sculptor, Peter Cole.
STACKS at Mount Tremper Arts
The stage was filled with stacks of cardboard boxes which were stacked, re-stacked, knocked down and manipulated in a a wide variety of ways by the dancers...
Listen to interview here
(It’s at the end of the show)
Finally, it’s the ArtSpace. Today we introduce you to a dancer with a difference. Aynsley Vandenbroucke, dancer, choreographer and founder of the Mount Tremper Arts in New York’s Catskills…was told by her teachers that she thinks too much to be a dancer. She’s rebelled against the rules that make dancers obedient robots with perfect technique. Her work combines thought with everyday motion.
Aynsley Vandenbroucke is a dancer and head of the Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group. You can find out more about her and Mount Tremper Arts, as well as the center’s summer festival, at mttremperarts. com.