The conversations I’ve been having lately with the quarry ensemble have focused on what this year of struggle has shown us to be important - simplicity, meaningful connections, spaciousness, time to ponder, a new perspective on the familiar.

We are delighted to share with you the film from The Quarry Project 2020, While We Wait.

These are precious moments together - excellent medicine for each of us, not fame, not money, but friends who will be there through thick and thin.

Someone recently asked me if we were fundraising for the project this year. I realized, oops, our internal decision had not become public. The answer is not this year.

Each day, it becomes clearer that our overall health is enlivened by the treasured relationships we nurture. Here are five recent examples of the way vibrant communications, even from a distance, act as our crucial connective tissue.

At the end of September, the TABLE dancers met near the quarry at Jay Southgate’s very long outdoor granite table to improvise, six feet apart, with the gestures from the Table dance.

Much to my surprise, two awards have come my way in September of this strange and wonderous year!

The other day, I was driving to Montpelier to meet up with two Quarry Project dancers to experience a slice of their lives outside on their own turf. Out of the blue, I got a call from someone I have known peripherally since 1980.

Over the course of seven weeks from June 17 – July 31, I spend a few hours nearly every day in the quarry, floating on the water, usually with just one person - ensemble members and a few supporters. It was a lovely, lovely time, quietly, slowly circumnavigating the perimeter, talking, listening, grateful for this unique pause in our lives.

Since mid-June, I have been in the quarry on the working stage floating about with one or two people from the ensemble and our community of supporters. As of this writing, there have been 20 floats with another dozen before we haul out the stage and leave the site for the year.

How does an ensemble ride this out together and arrive on the other side resilient, cohesive and filled with creative energy? Will we be able to complete our project in the way we envisioned?

Amy, Emily, Leslie and I have done our work to design a path forward for The Quarry Project during this extra year. We will "meet” once a month for an hour, cycling through a series of three “meetings.”

Meanwhile, we are collectively discovering new pathways of learning and interacting while we keep our distance. This Sunday, the ensemble will have its 3rd remote gathering.

Well, here we all are, in the same boat, reliant, entwined, interwoven, vulnerable.
Daily, we learn new skills and remember what we have forgotten. We step carefully, with loving attention for each other.

It may be the dead of winter here in Vermont, but inside, I am thinking about the CHAIR scene of The Quarry Project whose finale is a mere six months away.

A foot of snow fell over two days, then the sun came out. Sparkling, expanse of white.
Flashes of blue as the jay lands, wing prints on the snow.

Throughout the ages, music and dance have had a powerful synergy, each becoming more as a result of the partnership. Having been both a singer and a dancer, I experienced that deep expansion.

Outside, it is another world - snowy, brown, cold, cloudy - but inside, everyone in The Quarry Project has a warm and powerful memory of being on the water in this amazing space.

We have completed our last Development summer; a deeply challenging and rewarding time. Thanks to all those who helped with design, fabrication and site preparation in early August.

We are closing in on our time in the quarry where we will put together what was created in separate rehearsals off-site, choreographing the whole to see The Quarry Project come to life.