Director/Choreographer: Hanna Satterlee
Featured Dancers: Caitlin Morgan, Grace Palmer, Hanna Satterlee
Choreographic Contributors: Maia Sauer, Marisa Hall, Nicole Dagesse, Caitlin Morgan
Original Sound: Willverine
Set and Graphic Design: Adrian Tans
Project Development Supported by: The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Murmurations Aerial Dance Studio, Blossom Wellness Center
Funding Support from: New England Foundation for the Arts New England Dance Fund/Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation, and The Marc and Dana vanderHeyden Endowment in the Fine Arts
Special Thanks: Bill Lockwood

Director’s Note

The development of this piece began in February 2024 with Nicole Dagesse, Marisa Hall and Maia Sauer, with whom I created an 18 minute work for the stage, titled Whelm. Whelm was created as a way to digest the role of being an American witness to the genocide in Gaza. While an expression of empathy felt inappropriate, it felt worth exploring the embodiment of “whelm” and the commonality of its associated feelings- being engulfed by rage, buried in disbelief, yet still submerged by day-to-day life. The four of us performed this tense work in June at the Barre Opera House for the 50th Anniversary Gala for the Montpelier-based Contemporary Dance & Fitness Studio- where I was raised dancing. The tone of the work seemed to fit, even within a celebration. We were all feeling it.

After this commission, the work and I took a break, though I knew it was only the beginning. While traveling in Amsterdam over the summer, a common Dutch phrase "This Is Also Possible," caught me by surprise. A glorious, albeit complicated way to allow for multiplicity. From experience I know that the art you make will inevitably envelope your life, I chose to change the title before continuing to fully flesh out the work. This new title has helped me embrace and surrender to the whelm of living in our situation(s). The phrase “this is also possible” can be uttered both as a lament as well as a reassurance.

Our world and our lives constantly rearrange and change, and the pace of such fluctuations has become faster, more painful and seemingly constant. Yet we are always adjusting and finding a way; our shifts to the changes have become louder, more intense, and with more certainty and determination. What else is possible?

Starting in September with a residency at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, I began a new process with dancers Caitlin Morgan and Grace Palmer. We learned and reworked the Whelm choreography from video footage, and then added to, rearranged, layered and restructured the work to become a full length piece.

In this dance I have always felt I am inside a collapsed building, the edges surrounding me pliable if I believe I can move them. Visual artist Adrian Tans has gifted me the confidence that if I have a three dimensional image, it is worth creating. He signed on to help create the four corners of our world. And thus, a moveable set was born.

After performing once with Will Andrews/Willverine in “soft rocks,” a dance/sound improvisation collective, I asked him to create an original score for the work, and thankfully he said yes! Our collaborative language deepened at a rapid rate, turning the creation puzzle into a mathematical, descriptive conversation.

Many thanks to the artists that helped to conceive and contribute to all of the versions of this work. Thank you for being here to complete the circle.

Artist Bios

Set and Graphic Design
Adrian Tans is a self-taught painter, illustrator, and sculptor based in Woodstock, Vermont. He is known for his public art project, The Woodstock Town Smiler, a free-standing chalkboard in the center of the village where he creates large, elaborate drawings in chalk pastel. Adrian has appreciated successes as an oil painter exhibiting throughout New England, the illustrator of 5 published children’s books, an international award winning snow sculptor, renown visual public artist, non-profit community art gallery and events Director, and now as the Director of Youth Services at the Norman Williams Public Library. Adrian is known for creating dynamic spaces and installations that encourage and celebrate wonder and imagination.

Dancer
Caitlin Morgan is a Burlington-based creative with roots in the Midwest and NYC, interested in flow-state embodiment as a means of eliciting nuanced, collective understanding and alchemical impact. Her work—commonly inspired by ecosomatics, communication theories, and postmodernism—has been featured across New York and Vermont, including for Small Plates Newburgh, Junction Dance Festival, Mark Morris Dance Center, and The Actor’s Fund Arts Center. Beginning her training with the Berrien County Dancers (a pre-professional program for Modern dance, closely tied to Chicago-based repertoire companies, Giordano Dance and Hubbard Street), Caitlin went on to study English and dance at Ohio University where she worked with Kyle Abraham, David Dorfman, Joanna Kotze, and other Bessie Award-winning artists. Presently, Caitlin edits novels, performs with ANIMAL Dance, and facilitates classes at Lines Vermont, Studio 3, and Sangha Studio.

Dancer
Grace Palmer (she/her) is a Vermont-based dancer and movement facilitator. She trained in improvisation and modern dance at Barnard College and has performed with Barnard/Columbia Dances at Miller Theater. Recent collaborative endeavors have included facilitating a community grief-moving space (The Altar Project, 2023), choreographing for Burlington Highlight’s Big Gay New Year (Friendlove Universe, 2024), and producing an evening of dance showcasing local artists (Seven-Five, 2024). In addition, she co-hosts Queer Country Line Dance, a Burlington community event. Grace's work has been supported by Barnard College, Burlington City Arts, and the Vermont Arts Council.

Choreographer, Director, Dancer
Hanna Satterlee believes that dancing can be an avenue for research, understanding, questioning, and envisioning new possibilities. Hanna has performed in many US dance companies and collaborative performance groups, and has worked internationally as an independent artist, choreographer, and movement and mindfulness teacher. Her work across communities proves that dancing can be an approach to life, a way of participating in the world. Hanna works across Vermont as an intergenerational educator, interdisciplinary performer + collaborator, experimental curator and event producer. In 2017, she founded the Vermont Dance Alliance where she served as the Executive Director until 2021. Hanna launched the Burlington based ANIMAL Dance Company in 2022, and began the INSTINCT Festival in 2024. Hanna is as passionate for dance as she is in connecting people to it.

Sound
Will Andrews/Willverine
Willverine is the stage name for Colchester, Vermont-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and performer Will Andrews. As a mainstay in the Vermont music scene for the past twenty years, Willverine relies on connection and collaboration to fuel his musical endeavors. Whether it's performing in bands like Freeway Clyde, Japhy Ryder, or Acqua Mossa, playing every week at the Wallflower Collective in Burlington, or writing, recording, remixing, and producing music with some of Vermont's finest musicians; Willverine thrives on working with others. His latest piece "This Is Also Possible," his first foray in scoring, depicts a lush, hazy, volatile world for a group of dancers to live in.