Envisioning a rich, thriving creative arts community in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, arts professionals Phil Reynolds and Heather Hartley announce the launch of Trillium Arts, a non-profit residency center that provides regional, national and international artists in various disciplines time and space to create their best new work.
Located just 35 minutes north of the culturally thriving city of Asheville, Trillium offers artists a secluded space on 22 rural acres, with facilities where artists in dance, theater, literary arts, photography and arts administration can imagine, develop and create new work.
Among Trillium’s activities are two annual fellowship programs: Asheville/Chicago Exchange (ACE) and the “Miss Sarah” Fellowship for Black Women Writers.
The ACE Fellowship, which launches this month, invites established Chicago-area choreographers and dancemakers time and space to create new work. Trillium offers ACE Fellows a menu of resources, including transportation between Chicago and Asheville, private lodging, rehearsal space, an honorarium/per diem and access to a developing ACE roster of western North Carolina artists for experimentation and collaboration. Each ACE fellowship is one to two weeks, with no obligation for the artist to produce a finished work.
Trillium’s inaugural ACE residency, with funding from the PERT Foundation, welcomes two groups of artists from Chicago who will engage in limited ways according to safety protocols due to the pandemic. Choreographer Joshua Blake Carter, director of Giordano II with Giordano Dance Chicago, and three Chicago-area dancers will be in residence from October 10-17. Vershawn Sanders-Ward, founding artistic director and CEO of Red Clay Dance Company (RCDC) in Chicago, and three RCDC dancers will be in residence from October 15-24.
“Joshua and Vershawn were selected because their work aligns with Trillium’s core values,” explained Hartley. “They are artistically innovative, they have dedicated their careers to community engagement, and their practices and company philosophies support and advance diversity, equity and inclusion.” More information about the 2020 ACE Fellows is available here.
Honoring Sarah “Miss Sarah” M. Johnson and her commitment to social justice, the “Miss Sarah” Fellowship for Black Women Writers offers a seven-day residency at either Trillium’s primary location in Mars Hill or a residence near downtown Asheville, courtesy of board member E. Patrick Johnson. “Miss Sarah” Writing Fellows may use this time to develop the seed of a new project, fiction or non-fiction, or complete a work already underway; they have access to transportation to and from Asheville and receive a stipend. More information about “Miss Sarah” is available here. Information about the application process for the “Miss Sarah” Fellowship will be available in early November.
For more information, visit www.trilliumartsnc.org.
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