Show’s program!
Maine Mini Fest
January 12th-14th, 2024
Portland, Maine
Original print by Mafe Farias Briseño
Workshops, performances, and opportunities to connect
Sharing creative practice and resources
Exploring methods of solidarity and collective care
Maine Dancemakers Collaborative (MDC) serves as a connective resource for dance artists in Maine. Mini Fest will serve as MDC’s initial launch event, but longer-term dreams for the Collaborative include fund shifting, performance production, leadership development and education, community arts engagement, and artist resourcing such as healthcare, housing, transportation, and creative support.
MDC is a collaboration of Dani Robbins and Maria “Mafe” Fernanda Farias Briseño, two dancemakers and community organizers based on unceded Wabanaki land in Downeast Maine. Dani and Mafe use the language “co-facilitators” to describe their role in initiating MDC, with the ultimate goal of inviting as many other Maine-based artists into facilitation capacities as possible over the coming months.
ABOUT US
WHY DANCERS? WHY MAINE?
Dance training provides artists with skills that are essential in the building of worlds beyond extraction and transaction. Creativity, resilience, deep listening, interdependence, accountability, and collective care are present in many of the relationships that we build as dance artists, and can be used to imagine possible alternatives.
Many dance artists in Maine utilize these tools to build creative networks that enrich communities and bring us into more meaningful relationship with place and with each other. Frequently working outside of urban centers and without heavy concentrations of national-scale resources, Maine-based artists are often engaged in constant grassroots organizing efforts.
Through offering “Maine Mini Fest '' as a gathering space, Maine Dancemakers Collaborative aims to connect movement artists across disciplines, genre, and geographic location to enrich Maine’s creative economy so that artists can engage more deeply in social praxis.
SCHEDULE
SCHEDULE
Friday January 12
5-7pm
Free
Opening Reception and Welcome
Light Refreshments and meet-and-greet
@ Mechanics Hall
Saturday January 13
7pm
Ticketed
Mini Fest Showing
Rori Smith, Kaolack, Heather Flor Cron, and Sam Spadafore share 15-20 minutes of work.
@ SPACE Gallery
Sunday January 14
9-1 pm
Kristen Stake, Hannah Wasielewski, Mafe Farias Briseño, Katherine Ferrier, and Lizy Mulkey share 30 minute invitations into their creative practice.
Maine Dancemakers Lunch
Embodying Transformation: Movement Artists and Restorative Justice Practices
Workshop facilitated by Halley Phillips of The Restorative Justice Institute of Maine
Practice Swap
@ Casco Bay Movers
2-5pm
@ SPACE Gallery
@ SPACE Gallery
1-2pm
The first Maine Mini Fest will run January 12-14th, 2024 and will consist of multiple events happening at SPACE Gallery, Mechanics Hall, and Casco Bay Movers Studio.
Our programming goals include:
1) Creative Practice: Sharing creative tools, celebrating our dance lineages, performing our creative work, and embedding our organizing in the context of physical practice.
2) Resource Management: Exploring and sharing resources, redistributing toward under-resourced artists and communities, envisioning more sustainable funding and presentation structures.
3) Social Practice: Exploring methods of solidarity and collective care taught to us by dance and utilizing the momentum of relationship to better serve our communities and one another.
You might have seen us on the streets!
Meet the MDC team
Dani Robbins (they/them) is a Maine-based choreographer, educator, and organizer. They grew up training as a dancer and actor in central Massachusetts before receiving a Bachelors in dance performance from Bennington College in Vermont. Dani has shown solo and collaborative work throughout New England and Europe. Their most recent performance work, PLAYFIGHT: unprofessional wrestling theater premiered at the Reykjavik Fringe Festival in June of 2023. Dani teaches as adjunct faculty at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor where they offer courses in dance composition, improvisation, anti-technique, and disability-related body politics. They are a 2023 National Arts Strategies New England Creative Community Fellow.
Dani’s creative practice centers community-building where they live on Mount Desert Island, Maine. They co-facilitate the MDI Time Bank, offer arts programming for youth, engage neighbors in public art projects, and are a 3-5th grade classroom teacher at The Community School of MDI. Dani’s interest in building a connective resource for Maine’s freelance dance community comes from their experiences with labor organizing and their belief in creative collaboration as a tool for transformative change.
Maria “Mafe” Fernanda Farias Briseño (she/her) is a life-long dancer and performer. She grew up in Queretaro, Mexico and traveled the world pursuing her education before moving to Maine in 2019. Mafe is an enthusiastic and creative member of the Mount Desert Island community. She received an undergraduate degree in Human Ecology at College of the Atlantic with an interdisciplinary trajectory in the Arts & Humanities and a focus on political and cultural anthropology, performance studies, and education.
“In my experience, dance allows you to embark on a self exploration while simultaneously combining creativity, collective awareness, and critical thinking. A dance-focused project has the potential to open up spaces for conversation and connect people across Maine through their movement practices and beyond.”
Mafe strongly believes that a responsible and critical system transformation will be possible through collective learning, discussion, and decision-making for a restorative, healthy, and equitable future. Mafe is excited to collaborate with Maine Dancemakers Collaborative.
Our Collaborators and Sponsors
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Maine Arts Comission
Through the National Endowment for the Arts
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National Arts Strategies
Through the New England Creative Community Fellows program
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Onion Foundation
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SPACE Gallery
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Casco Bay Movers Dance Studio
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Mechanics Hall
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Restorative Justice Institute of Maine
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