When audiences catch the dramatic central aria of Susan Yankowitz's new opera this summer, they will be watching a moment inspired in part by the Jean & Louis Dreyfus Foundation. A collaboration with composer, musician, and vocalist Kamala Sankaram, the opera Thumbprint tells the story of Mukhtar Mai, who blazed a trail for women's rights in Pakistan by bringing men who sexually abused her to trial.
Part of the Foundation's new support for performance-based disciplines at The MacDowell Colony, Yankowitz's 2013 residency allowed her to nearly complete the script and work daily with Sankaram.
"MacDowell – what can I say? Heaven and haven, as always," Yankowitz said. "Everything, everyone, conspired to help me make the best use of my time."
By establishing two Jean & Louis Dreyfus Fellowships with a generous 2012 grant, the Dreyfus Foundation is helping to make room for one of the Colony's fastest growth areas—work made to be performed on stages and in other venues. The Fellowships are anchoring MacDowell's New Theatre Initiative to embrace emerging practices in performance-based work, including devised theatre and choreography. Through the initiative, The MacDowell Colony aims to designate more Fellowships for these disciplines and to build momentum for a versatile new studio with the space and technical specifications to support more collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and movement-based work.
A good benchmark for this growth is the increase in collaborative residencies in music, theatre, and interdisciplinary practices. Last year, 20 artists worked collaboratively at the Colony, more than double the eight from a decade ago. In theatre alone, MacDowell Colony residencies have increased more than five-fold from seven in 2001 to 36 in 2012. Also last year, residencies in all performance-based fields rose to 72 from 57 the previous year, a gain of 26 percent.
Along with Yankowitz, composer Huang Ruo received one of the inaugural Jean & Louis Dreyfus Fellowships. Huang composed more than 30 minutes of original work, including a viola concerto, In Other Words, and a song for the National Opera Center's Recital Hall. His second opera, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, which he worked on during a previous MacDowell residency, will premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in 2014. Yankowitz and Sankaram's Thumbprint will appear in workshop at the Watermill Center in Watermill, N.Y. in June and will be produced by Beth Morrison Projects in New York in 2014.
For more information about New Theatre at MacDowell and the new studio project, send us an email.
