Aurora Nibley
Los Angeles, CA
Instagram: @nibleyaurora
Other social media platforms: @auroranibley
Aurora Nibley is a novelist, amateur historian, and lifelong Angeleno with a deep love for the city and its history. As a writer of speculative fiction, much of her work involves reframing classic myths and folklore in contemporary or historical settings to create a unique new style of fantasy. Her first novel, WHOM THE GODS LOVE, is a version of the Cassandra myth set in 1920s Hollywood, against the backdrop of the silent film industry.
Residency Plans:
During her time at Trillium she hopes to focus on drafting a companion book set in the same world, following the stories of Leda and the Swan and the life of Helen of Troy. She is also doing preliminary work on a potential science fiction piece inspired by the story of Shahrazad and the Arabian Nights.
Erin Elizabeth Rodgers
Houston, TX
www.erinelizabethrodgers.com
Erin Elizabeth Rodgers grew up listening, watching, and reading, assuming that one day all of that information would crystallize into some great singular awakening. It didn’t, but it did provide her with the knowledge, empathy, humor, and nuance that are the essence of her work. These same traits make her a versatile and sought-after collaborator. Erin’s hallmark is her ability to distill complex emotions and concepts into elegant and effective storytelling. She brings this lyricism to all of her work, which includes poetry, literature, songwriting, composition, multimedia, and textile work.
Residency Plans:
In 2021, Erin (under her artist moniker National Pleasure) released a collaborative album and accompanying art book to critical acclaim. Erin intends to spend her time at Trillium writing lyrics for the follow up album, for which the musical compositions are already complete. She hopes to release the final album in early 2023.
JoAnna Mendl Shaw
New York City, NY
www.equus-onsite.org
Instagram: @equus_projects_nyc
Veteran choreographer and dance educator, JoAnna Mendl Shaw has been devising performance works for stage, rural and urban landscapes since the 1980’s. Her body of interspecies performance works embody visceral engagements with the natural world and immersive engagement with diverse communities. In her research into the human-equine dialogue Shaw has been expanding the parameters and strategies for dance-making, since 1998. Her company, The Equus Projects, has toured throughout the States and Europe for over 20 years, creating site-specific works in collaboration with local equine and arts communities. An internationally recognized dance educator, Shaw has taught on faculty at NYU, The Juilliard School, Alvin Ailey, Princeton, Mount Holyoke and Montclair State. Shaw is the recipient of NEA Choreographic Fellowships and multiple NEA grants for Interdisciplinary Performance. She has brought her somatic practice of Physical Listening into elementary schools and academic think tanks, into the Strategic Studies group at the Naval War College and NYU Medical school. She is a certified Laban Movement Analyst. She is the author of the 2021 book, Physical Listening, A Dancer’s Interspecies Journey.
Residency Plans:
Over the course of 28 years of creating choreographic works with dancers and horses, I developed a somatic practice of Physical Listening focused on multi-sensory perception and embodied decision-making. I am interested in how our hands inform embodied decision-making. I will be investigating the specific tactile task of paper folding with my focus on a particular paper folding score that I have been teaching for over ten years. Over a hundred photos and numerous videos document this paper folding process. During my Trillium residency I will collaborate virtually with Harvard spider researcher and visual artist Sarah Kariko who shares my interest in this tactile creative and decision-making process. Kariko is similarly interested in how embodied experiences inform both her scientific research and her art-making. We are collaborating on a book about this subject. At Trillium I hope to develop a preliminary outline for the book.
Maura Way
Greensboro, NC
mauraway.com
Instagram: @curdsand
Originally from Washington, DC, Maura Way lives in North Carolina, by way of Boise, Idaho. Her work has previously appeared in Hotel Amerika, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Chattahoochee Review, and Poet Lore. ANOTHER BUNGALOW (Press 53), her debut collection, was released in 2017. Maura has been a schoolteacher for over twenty years, most recently at New Garden Friends in Greensboro.
Residency plans:
I plan on using the time for the revision of my book length project Mummery. I am eager to be in the mountains as I work on creating a cyclical ordering/organization of individual poems as a narrative thread.