The Grum Project
Launched in the fall of 2016, the Grum Project is Williston’s visiting artist program. Funded by a generous alumna from the Northampton School for Girls, the Grum Project brings artists of all kinds—musicians, actors, visual artists, dancers, and more—to campus for mini-residencies so that the entire Williston community can participate.
2022-23 Grum Presenters
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Dance Iquail, Dance Company
Founded and directed by Iquail Shaheed, Dance Iquail was formed to “create a relevant company that would educate and empower dancers and the audience, while also bringing a positive influence to inner-city youth through education and community initiatives.” Dance Iquail uses the art of dance as a conduit for combating issues of social injustice primarily experienced by the disadvantaged.
Performance, September 16, 7–8:30 p.m.; master class with Dance Ensemble TBD
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Elizabeth Duffy
More information about visiting artist Elizabeth Duffy coming soon.
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Ekow Nimako: Lego sculptor
Ekow Nimako is a Toronto-based, internationally exhibiting Lego artist who crafts futuristic and whimsical sculptures from the iconic medium. Rooted in his childhood hobby and intrinsic creativity, Nimako’s formal arts education and background as a lifelong multidisciplinary artist inform his process and signature aesthetic. His fluid building style, coupled with the Afrofuturistic themes of his work, beautifully transcend the geometric medium to embody organic and fantastical silhouettes.
His large scale public installations include the monumental Cavalier Noir (Nuit Blanche, 2018) which features a seven-foot Black rider atop a dauntless Black unicorn.
January 16-21; Program is called “Williston 3023”
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Kevin Shannon, Dancer, ceramacist
Kevin J. Shannon is a dancer, potter, artist, and teacher living in Chicago. He grew up in Baltimore and studied at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Kevin received his BFA from The Juilliard School and has been dancing with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago since 2007. He has led the Intermediate/Advanced Hubbard Street Summer Intensive, taught dance master classes around the world, and is currently a guest teacher for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s main company. In addition, Kevin is proud to be a certified IMAGE TECH for Dancers teacher.
His ceramic work is primarily soda fired, a process in which soda ash, soda bicarbonate (baking soda), and calcium carbonate are added to the firing at a very high temperature. Throughout this process the pots are painted with flames and soda as they dance and fly through the kiln. His work always connects back to movement, either in the dances that are created in the kiln, on the stage, or in life.
Spring 2023, exact date TBD
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Miguel Bregante, Theater Artistic Director, La Mona Ilustre
Miguel Bregante is scheduled to visit this spring to work with our theater, Spanish and visual art students. Bregante is Artistic Director of La Mona Ilustre, an award-winning theatre company based in Santiago, Chile founded in 2008. Trained in the methodology of Jacques Lecoq, Bregante approaches theater-making through a unique combination of collaboration, movement, physical storytelling, puppetry, and mask. With La Mona Ilustre he creates a unique storytelling language for each production. Bregante has been a professor of commedia dell’arte and neutral mask at Chilean university DuocUC Viña del Mar since 2016. He has also taught students of all ages the world over in La Mona Ilustre’s pre- and post-show workshops.
Tentative dates: April 6–8, 2023
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Phoebe Stephens '93, Jewelery maker
Phoebe and Annette Stephens founded the jewelry company Anndra Neen in part to celebrate their grandmother, Annette Nancarrow, an artist, designer, and friend and muse to celebrated Mexican painters Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco. Their one-of-a-kind statement pieces challenge conformity. Anndra Neen is the manifestation of their unique sensibility, a means of both honoring their creative legacy and evolving it by producing jewelry and accessories they consider modern heirlooms.
Date TBD
Past presenters
Lorelei Ensemble
Boston’s Lorelei Ensemble is recognized nationally for its bold and inventive vocal interpretations of overlooked compositions. In October 2019, the group performed a private concert in the Phillips Stevens Chapel and hosted a Q-and-A session with members of Williston’s choral groups.
Rosemary Fiet Covey
The paintings of artist Rosemary Feit Covey ’72—often connected to her deep interest in science, including evolutionary biology, entomology, and, presciently, emergent diseases—are housed in more than 40 major museum and library collections worldwide. During winter 2020, she shared her art and perspective with students.
Kiel Johnson
During a six-day residency in January 2020, Los Angeles-based artist Kiel Johnson worked with students to create a collection of unique cardboard trophies that celebrated victories both personal and humorous. He also addressed the student body during an assembly, telling students, “If you pursue your dream 150 percent, life will open up to you.”
Ben Needham-Wood
Dancer, filmmaker, and five-time-regional-Emmy-award winner Ben Needham-Wood in January 2019 worked with dancers on a special number for the forthcoming spring dance performance. He screened his film BaseBallet, which celebrates the athleticism of dance and the artistry of sports.
Mark Guglielmo
Following numerous trips to Cuba, Mark Guglielmo created large collages using 4″x6″ photo prints he took on the island. Landscapes to intimate portraits of family life hung in Grubbs Gallery in October 2018. Guglielmo also spoke in a variety of classes, from Latin American history to Spanish class, and brought to campus a four-piece local Cuban band.
Tectonic Theater Group
In the run up to the Williston production of The Laramie Project, Tectonic Theater Group, which created the play—conducting 200 interviews in the aftermath of the hate-crime murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998—arrived on campus in October 2018 to work with students and reflect on how theater can be a vehicle for social change.
Anis Mojgani
Two-time National Poetry Slam champion Anis Mojgani brought his wit and insight to campus during a three-day visit in April 2018. The author of five books of poetry worked with students and performed alongside them during a Friday-night spoken word festival.
Dan Phakos '06
Film director Dan Phakos and a crew came from NYC in April 2018 to help execute the vision of student Aidan Bourbonnais ’20. Her PSA, meant to draw attention to the dangers of texting and driving, was inspired by the death of her cousin. Williston students and the crew plotted out the ad and shot over a three-day period.
David Holt
In a wide-brimmed hat and tap shoes, musician and music historian and three-time Grammy winner David Holt performed songs on an array instruments with his musical partner, Josh Goforth, in December 2017.
Cody Rutty
Rutty, an American painter living and working in Boise, Idaho, in April 2017 lead classes, worked with individual students, and created a large oil painting that will remain at the school.
Pitch Slapped
Pitch Slapped, a co-ed a cappella group based at Berklee College of Music in Boston, performed at assembly and lead workshops with singers in February 2017.
Tanja Hollander
In November 2016, photographer and artist Tanja Hollander spent three days on campus with students exploring the intersection between art and social media.
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