Curatorial Council

Each year our National Curatorial Council of experts in their disciplines selects more than 70 artists for Hermitage residencies. Members of the Curatorial Council are connected to some of the most renowned American cultural institutions.

2021 CURATORIAL COUNCIL

Eric Booth, Arts Education Author and Speaker

Christopher Burney, Artistic Director of New York Stage and Film

Daniel Byers, Director at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University

Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Claire Chase, Flutist, Avery Fisher Award Winner, MacArthur Fellow

Jennifer Clement, President, PEN International

Kimberly Drew, Writer, Activist, and Curator of Black Experiences

Nataki Garrett, Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director of Williamstown Theater Festival

Mitchell Jackson, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author

Christopher Merrill, Director of Creative Writing Program, University of Iowa

Terrance McKnight, WNYC Radio Host

Emily Nemens, Former Editor of The Paris Review

Robert Spano, Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

EMERITUS:

Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York, NY

Past Curators:

Darrell Ayers, retired Vice President for Education and Jazz, The Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; now in Sarasota, FL

Dr. Anthony Bannon, Director, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

Dan Cameron, Former Chief Curator of Orange County Museum of Art

Anne Cattaneo, Dramaturg and Director, LCT Directors Lab, Lincoln Center, New York, NY

Michael Bigelow Dixon, Assistant Professor of Theater, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY

Kenneth Fischer, retired President, University Musical Society at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Linda S. Golding, Founder/Director, The Reservoir

Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, Executive Director, Arizona State University Gammage, Tempe, AZ

Emily Mann, longtime Artistic Director of The McCarter Theater, Princeton University

Josip Novakovich, Writer; Professor, Department of English at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Christopher Offutt, writer, formerly with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

Carey Perloff, retired Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Kiki Petrosino, Director of Creative Writing Program, University of Louisville

Franklin Sirmans, Director, Perez Museum of Art, Miami, FL

George Steele, at the time with the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, New York, NY

Limor Tomer, General Manager, Live Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The property is maintained by the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Inc. and the Sarasota County Department of Parks and Recreation.

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May

Fri

“Hermitage Poet’s Corner: The Contemporary Word” @ Bookstore1

Tickets

May 20 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“Hermitage Poet’s Corner: The Contemporary Word”
with Hermitage Fellows DaMaris B. Hill and Kirya Traber

Presented in partnership with Bookstore1

DaMaris B. Hill’s Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Jane and Bill Knapp.

Kirya Traber’s Hermitage Residency generously sponsored by Charlotte and Charles Perret.

Friday, May 20 at 5pm

Bookstore1 (entrance at 117 S. Pineapple Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34236)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Two incredible writers and Hermitage Fellows come together to read and discuss their evocative work. DaMaris B. Hill shares selections from her critically acclaimed Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, a Netgalley “Must-Read Books by Black Authors” in 2022. Playwright, performer, and award-winning poet Kirya Traber shares selections from her previous works and teases her forthcoming novel. Join these two writers, both deeply engaged with our contemporary moment, for a discussion following their readings.

DaMaris B. Hill is the author of A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland (2020 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry), The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland, Vi-zə-bəl Teks-chərs (Visible Textures). Hill is inspired by the anxieties of our contemporary existence, complicated by fears that certain linear narratives of history fail to be inclusive. “I belong to a generation of people who do not fear death, but are afraid that we may be forgotten,” she states. Driven by a keen interest in the work of Toni Morrison and theories regarding ‘rememory’ as a philosophy and aesthetic practice, Hill uses digital material and critical fabulation research methods to write about “America” and geographic place. Similar to her creative process, Hill’s scholarly research is interdisciplinary. Hill is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky. damarishill.com

Hermitage Fellow Kirya Traber is a nationally awarded writer, performer, and cultural worker. Originally from Northern California, she now resides in Brooklyn. She is a collaborating artist with Ping Chong + Company and is Curator-in-Residence with Hi-ARTS. She was New York Stage and Film’s 2020 Founders Award recipient. From 2015-2020, she was Lincoln Center’s lead Community Artist in Residence. She is the recipient of a NY Emmy Nomination (First Person, PBS), Robert Redford’s Sundance Foundation award for Activism in the Arts, a California Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and an Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award for Poetry. She has been commissioned by notable New York arts institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, Morgan Library & Museum, Orchestra of St Luke’s, and La Mama, among others. Throughout her ambitious performance and writing career, Traber has continuously utilized her art for social change as a cultural organizer. KiryaTraber.com

May

Thu

“Worlds: A Part” @ Bay Preserve - Osprey

Tickets

May 26 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

“Worlds: A Part”
with Hermitage Fellows Pauchi Sasaki and Monica Youn

Presented in partnership with Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast

Monica Youn’s Hermitage Artist Residency generously sponsored by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

Thursday, May 26 at 6pm

Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast at Bay Preserve (entrance at 400 Palmetto Avenue, Osprey, FL 34229)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Internationally renowned composer and performer Pauchi Sasaki and acclaimed poet Monica Youn, seem worlds apart. Sasaki is an interdisciplinary artist working on an original opera inspired by NASA’s mission to transport the first woman to the surface of the moon that utilizes a self-designed dress made of speakers. Winner of the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award, Youn’s poems are sharply crafted and weave together historical allusions and cultural references as diverse as Piero della Francesca, Goya, Martha Graham, and Twinkies. Both artists are grounded in their intersectional identities and multifaceted pursuits. Join these two Hermitage Fellows at the cutting edge of their disciplines as they discuss and share work on the beautiful grounds of the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast.

Described by The Wire as an artist “unafraid of working within different disciplines and stylistic constraints,” Hermitage Fellow Pauchi Sasaki’s interdisciplinary approach integrates musical composition with the design of multimedia performances and the application of new technologies. A Peruvian-Japanese composer, performer, and improviser who collaborates actively with projects linked to film, dance, theater, installation, site-specific, and interdisciplinary performances. An active film scorer, “Pauchi Sasaki’s effective scores” (Variety) are featured in more than 30 feature and short films. Commissions include ACO/Carnegie Hall, The Silkroad Ensemble, Pan American Games Opening Ceremony Lima 2019, among others. Her work has been presented at international venues and festivals as the Tokyo Experimental Festival, Venice Biennale, Carnegie Hall, Cannes Film Festival, Walt Disney Hall, MET, Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Lima), The Kitchen, Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú, Festival Cervantino, the Art Basel Miami week, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Monica Youn is the author of Blackacre, which won the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America. It was also shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Award, longlisted for the National Book Award, and named one of the best poetry books of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and BuzzFeed. Her previous book Ignatz was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hermitage Fellowship, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship, among other honors. The daughter of Korean immigrants and a member of the Racial Imaginary Institute, she teaches at Princeton and in the MFA programs at New York University and Columbia.

Jun

Thu

“UNSCRIPTED: Sparking Creativity” @ ZOOM

Tickets

Jun 2 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

“UNSCRIPTED: Sparking Creativity”
with Hermitage Fellow Nandita Shenoy

Presented in partnership with the Van Wezel Foundation as part of the UNSCRIPTED Series

Thursday, June 2 at 5pm

ZOOM (Guests will receive a link after registering.)

Register here.
Registration is required.

In this season’s final installment of the interactive UNSCRIPTED series, lauded playwright, actor, and Hermitage Fellow Nandita Shenoy will give insight into her process and share examples of her work which have resulted from that process. Prior to the program, she will share a prompt question so that audience members can try it out for themselves and share their work as part of the event. No theatrical experience needed – just an open mind and willingness to jump in!

Hermitage Fellow and theater artist Nandita Shenoy is a New York-based writer and actor. Her play The Future is Female was recently a Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and her Rage Play was named to the 2020 Kilroys List. Her play Washer/Dryer has been produced multiple times nationally after its world premiere at LA’s East-West Players and an Off-Broadway production at Ma-Yi Theater, in which she also starred. Her first full-length play, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by the Hegira in Washington, DC. Her one-acts have been produced in New York City and regionally. Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting. Her acting credits range from dancing on national tours to Shakespeare festivals to world premieres of new plays by living playwrights. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the dtfwaw, Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity Association, and SAG/AFTRA. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Asian-American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC), which won a 2020 Obie for their Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. NanditaShenoy.com

Jun

Tue

“Soulful Strings: An Evening of Harp Music” @ Selby Gardens

Tickets

Jun 7 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm

“Soulful Strings: An Evening of Harp Music”
with Hermitage Fellow Ashley Jackson

Tuesday, June 7 @ 8pm

Made possible by the Ruby E. Crosby Alumni Music Initiative at the Hermitage

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (entrance at 1534 Mound St, Sarasota, FL 34236)

Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.

Celebrated harpist and Hermitage Fellow Ashley Jackson returns to Sarasota to launch the Ruby E. Crosby Alumni Music Series at the Hermitage – a new initiative launched this year with support from Carole Crosby to honor the legacy of her mother and their shared love of music. Jackson is the winner of the distinguished Theodore Presser Award, which honors musicians dedicated to artistry as well as citizenship. Jackson’s work is spurred on by academic excellence and a commitment to diversifying the classical music canon and audience. Preparing to launch her first solo album, Ennanga, and praised by Musical America for her “soulful” and “eloquent” playing, this special concert will feature works from across her impressive repertoire. Ashley Jackson is the first Hermitage alumna selected to participate in the Ruby E. Crosby Alumni Music Series at the Hermitage, and her concert will be held outdoors at Selby Gardens.

Praised for her “soulful” and “eloquent” playing (Musical America), Hermitage alumna and celebrated harpist Ashley Jackson enjoys a multifaceted career as a highly sought-after musician and collaborator in New York and beyond. As a soloist, she has performed at Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn!, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Qatar Philharmonic, and is a regular member of the Harlem Chamber Players. Jackson is currently working on her debut solo album Ennanga, an exploration of African-American spirituals and their influence on other forms of American musical expression. She is currently an Assistant Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Music Department at Hunter College. Jackson holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University. AshleyJacksonHarp.com

May – June 2022 May – Jun 2022

Curatorial Council

Hermitage Artists Respond to COVID-19.

Engage Creativity