Each year, Jacob’s Pillow’s College Partnership Program hosts two esteemed faculty members from regional institutions to engage with the renowned Pillow Archives and further develop their ongoing research as part of the Faculty Research Fellowship. Aligned with the Pillow’s broader mission to champion dance creation, presentation, education, and preservation, this unique opportunity enhances the Pillow’s legacy as a center for dance research and development.
Continue reading for an exclusive interview with the 2023-24 Faculty Research Fellowship recipients, Stephen Ursprung and Sarah Zehnder.
Q: Can you provide some information about your university affiliation and your specific role within the institution?
Stephen: I am an Associate Professor of Dance Studies at Dean College in Franklin, MA where I oversee our dance composition and dance history curricula.
Sarah: I am the Director of Dance and Assistant Professor of Dance at Springfield College.
Q: Can you briefly describe your research focus and the project that you are currently working on?
Stephen: I am researching choreographic methods and artistic practices. More specifically, my initial research looked at how themes of grief, trauma, and loss have been explored and depicted on stage.
Sarah: While groundbreaking female choreographers and performers have been pushing the feminist lens forward in a diverse array of spaces and styles, impacting numerous communities, this research will focus on selected female choreographers who have found ways to hold space, intentionally using their voices to amplify the stories and experiences of women using the concert dance stage as a platform, from the 1970’s until today. I am interested in female choreographers who also intentionally work within the communities they reside in, embrace and cultivate the individual voices they are working with, hold a strong belief in the power of mentoring, work within educational systems, and believe dance as a way to express our stories, make sense of the world, and as a path towards healing.
Q: What were your primary goals or objectives for your visit to the Pillow?
Stephen: My goal was to immerse myself fully in the Archives and to give myself time and space to fully take advantage of the resources available. I am splitting my fellowship into two separate weeks, so now that I’ve completed a week in the Archives, I am taking time to edit and refine my research questions in preparation for my residency in the spring. My first week was about breadth whereas my second week will be about depth.
Sarah: My goals are to dig deeper into specific works of female choreographers, analyzing their work, writings, and interviews through a political and feminist lens. In addition, I want to research more history and terms that will help frame the direction this could go. I also want to continue researching and discussing how the preconceived notions of women in dance historically have developed. I think there is often a misconception about contemporary dance being equitable towards women, in particular because the modern dance movement was started by women. However, I want to dig deeper into what politics were at play surrounding this assumption.
Q: Were there particular resources, archival materials, or staff members at Jacob’s Pillow that were instrumental to your research?
Stephen: Norton [Owen, Director of Preservation], Patsy [Gay, Associate Archivist], and Sumi [Matsumoto, Digital Archivist] are incredible—their guidance during my time in the Archives has been invaluable. The magic of the Archives is that there’s so much contextual information available beyond the performance footage: the PillowTalks, post-show discussions, and library of written materials give you much more access to the thoughts and intentions of the artists who come to the Pillow. It’s a lot to navigate, though, so I am grateful that there’s an expert team of scholars available to help guide research. They’re also great people to brainstorm with—my research has been strengthened immensely by the formal (and informal) discussions I’ve had with them during my time in the Archives.
Sarah: Patsy was so amazing to engage in dialogue with! I am so grateful to her. As I spoke through some of the research and my interests, trying to decide which direction to go, she was able to raise more questions and curiosities. As the only full-time dance person in my program, the dialogue was invaluable. Norton was also amazing in pulling books and/or resources I would not have directly thought of that informed and helped frame some of the research.
Q: How did the College Partnership Program Faculty Research Fellowship enhance your research or academic work? Were there any unexpected insights or discoveries that emerged during the fellowship?
Stephen: This research project articulates with an ongoing choreographic project that I’ve been workshopping for the past few years called The Space[s] We Hold. I wanted to conduct some formal academic research to better understand how my artistic work articulates with existing work in our field. This research has introduced me to artists I had previously never heard of from all over the world and my depth of understanding has broadened immensely. I have so much material that I think I’ll be able to publish at least two articles based on my research—something I didn’t go into this process expecting to do but am thrilled to explore further!
Sarah: All the “hats” (educator, performer, choreographer, researcher, feminist, mentor, etc.) I wear continually inform each other, as well as raise more curiosities helping me grow as a human being and artist. I am really thankful for this experience as I do not typically have the time or space to only focus on research. To be able to stay on the grounds and fully dive into this all day for multiple days was incredible.
There are continual discoveries emerging through this research. For instance, it was really exciting to read something by Ananya Chatterjea where she referenced the work of another choreographer I had been researching. Finding the unexpected connections and influences of each of the choreographers as well as noting the timelines of their works politically and geographically has been really interesting. Also, it has been really exciting learning more about choreographers who, in my opinion, have not been written about enough that were, and in some cases still are, doing tremendous work to further women’s progress and address inequities and injustices. I hope I can amplify some of their tremendously impactful work through this process.
Q: How do you plan on utilizing this experience back at your home university?
Stephen: One of the unexpected outcomes of this experience is that I’m much more intimately familiar with all of the wonderful ways that I can connect my students with resources at the Pillow. I am also sharing my research process with my students, which has led to some great conversations about the work and how it resonates with their generation.
Sarah: I would like to publish my research as well as use it as a starting point towards my next choreographic project for Zehnder Dance.
Q: For other researchers who might be interested in applying for the College Partnership Program Faculty Research Fellowship, what key advice or insights would you offer to make the most of the opportunity?
Stephen: I would encourage applicants to be specific in scope, but open minded to change. The resources at the Pillow are enormous, so part of the fun is trusting that the research will take you on a transformative journey. My research questions have shifted and evolved in ways I never could have anticipated and my work is stronger as a result.
Sarah: Use the full time and take advantage of the resources that are not available through the streaming services. It has also been so useful to be able to talk through ideas and engage in conversations with Patsy and Norton. They were able to raise new questions and offer resources I may not have considered, or thought of.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to share or any additional information that you think is important for our readers to know about your research fellowship?
Stephen: As my research fellowship is in-progress, I welcome conversation and input from any interested parties! I expect my research questions to continue evolving throughout the year and I look forward to seeing where this work takes me when I return to the Pillow in February.
Sarah: I love dance, I love choreography, and I love learning. To be able to combine my love of research with choreography and teaching through this process has been beyond exciting for me. I can’t wait to see where this research takes me, as well as how it will influence and inform my embodied research process.
“I am so grateful for the support and space through Jacob’s Pillow to explore the possibilities. I have never experienced this kind of support before in my dance career; it’s really amazing.” -Sarah Zehnder
If you want to learn more about the College Partnership Program Faculty Research Fellowship, click here.
Written by Angela Ciarochi. Published December 2023.