To find out more about Time In, click here.
The Judy Dworin Performance Ensemble (JDPE) and a capella gospel singers Women of the Cross (WOTC) join forces to present an eye-opening and moving multi-arts performance piece integrating dance, music and text. In a uniquely authentic and unusually provocative way, Time In focuses on the theme of time as experienced by women—mothers, daughters, wives—serving time in prison. Many of the women—real women who have shared their stories—have battered histories of physical abuse, drugs, and street life; many are good women who made bad choices and are paying the price.
The piece incorporates the jarringly honest words and voices of dozens of women inmates at the maximum-security York Correctional Institution who participated in a six-month arts residency with JDPE and WOTC. The residency included an intensive five-day session in June that culminated in two performances of Time In at the prison, with inmates performing alongside JDPE dancers and WOTC singers. As Jan Willis, author of Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey comments about Time In, "This is as close as most people will ever get to hearing the voices of incarcerated women, of seeing the world through their eyes, and experiencing how they feel—about life, crime, space, and especially time. A truly masterful gift for us all."
Sign language interpreter Deborah Thompson will sign the performance in its entirety. "Stories of women in prison very often fall on deaf ears," says Judy Dworin, JDPE artistic director and executive director of the Judy Dworin Performance Project (JDPP). "The signing is a metaphor for both our unwillingness to hear and the urgent need for these unheard voices to be heard."
Performed to overflow audiences and standing ovations at its premiere at Charter Oak Cultural Center and since, the Judy Dworin Performance Project's Time In returns to the stage at Trinity College's Goodwin Theater on March 8th at 7:30 pm for a special benefit performance. Acclaimed author Wally Lamb will give opening remarks and will precede the performance at 6:30 with a book signing of his latest edited collection of writings: I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies of the Women of York Prison. Many of these women have been, or are participants in JDPP's Moving Matters! Residency program at York. The proceeds from this performance will support college courses at the York CI and Interval House, a service provider for abused women and children.
Goodwin Theater, Austin Arts Center, Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Tickets for Time In are $20 for general audiences and $10 for students. A donation of $100 or more includes a reserved seat and a signed copy of I'll Fly Away. For more information and ticket reservations: call (860) 527-9800 or email jdworinens@earthlink.net. Checks made payable to the "Judy Dworin Performance Project, Inc." can be sent to JDPP, Inc. at 233 Pearl Street, Hartford, CT 06103.
Building Bridges IV: Women, Prison, and the Arts
In the afternoon of March 8th from 1:00-5:00 pm there will be a symposium, Building Bridges IV: Women, Prison, and the Arts held in Trinity's Mather Campus Center, that will feature an interactive art exhibit, Talking Paintings, sponsored by the Concerned Citizens for Humanity and Community Partners in Action Prison Arts Program and created by the women at York, that considers the impact of HIV/AIDS on the women and those around them. Other highlights of the afternoon include introductory remarks by distinguished former warden Janet S. York, conversations with authors Rena Fraden, Jean Trounstine, and PEN Award winner Barbara Parsons, panels on domestic violence, children of the incarcerated, and more.
Click here to register for Building Bridges IV: Women, Prison and the Arts Symposium on March 8th.
Click here to learn more about the March 8th events.
Moving Matters! Parkville/Montessori Culminating Performance
May 1, 2008, 10:30 A.M. at Trinity College's Koeppell Community Sports Center on New Britain Ave. in Hartford, CT. Over 300 children from Parkville Community School and the Montessori Magnet School at the Learning Corridor join Trinity College students, Judy Dworin Performance Project teaching artists and world musicians Sirius Coyote in a dance/story celebration that invites us all to slow down. For the 12th year of this special collaboration, Judy Dworin has written an original story titled “Slowed Down” based on the theme of time and our need to slow down and appreciate the world around us.
Click here for more information on this important residency project.
Dreamings will premiere April 2009 at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford, CT. This performance piece will be the result of a year-long residency focusing on the dream-life of the women at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, CT with members of the Judy Dworin Performance Ensemble and Women of the Cross.
Click here for more information on JDPP's Moving Matters! Residency at York and the Dreamings project and performance.
