Participants
Artists-in-Residence ~ Summer 2024
In partnership with Maverick Concerts
SIMON SHAHEEN TRIO
Simon Shaheen, oud, violin
Tareq Rantisi, percussion
Rami Abu Olaya, nay
Simon Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arab music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, bracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award at the White House. In the 1990s, he released four albums of his own: Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP), Taqasim (Lyrichord), and Simon Shaheen: The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Axiom), while also contributing cuts to produce R&Bill Laswell’s fusion collective, Hallucination Engine (Island). He has contributed selections to soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X, among others, and he composed the entire soundtrack for the United Nations–sponsored documentary, For Everyone Everywhere. Broadcast globally in December 1998, this film celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter. But perhaps his greatest success has come with Blue Flame (ARK21, 2001), where he led his group, Qantara, on a labyrinthine journey through the world of fusion music to discover the heart of the Middle East. The album was nominated for 11 Grammy Awards.
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MARGARET LENG TAN, piano and toy piano
Maverick Chamber Music Festival
Margaret Leng Tan has established herself as a major force within the American avant-garde; a highly visible, talented and visionary pianist whose work sidesteps perceived artificial boundaries within the usual concert experience and creates a new level of communication with listeners. Embracing aspects of theater, choreography, performance and even “props” such as the teapot she “plays” in Alvin Lucier’s Nothing is Real, Tan has brought to the avant-garde, a measure of good old-fashioned showmanship tempered with a disciplinary rigor inherited from her mentor John Cage. This has won Tan acceptance far beyond the norm for performers of avant-garde music, as she is regularly featured at international festivals, records often for adventurous labels such as Mode and New Albion and has appeared on American public television, at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
Born in Singapore, Tan was the first woman to earn a doctorate from Juilliard, but youthful restlessness and a desire to explore the crosscurrents between Asian music and that of the West led her to John Cage. This sparked an active collaboration between Cage and Tan that lasted from 1981 to his death, during which Tan gained recognition as one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Cage’s music, partly through her New Albion recordings, Daughters of the Lonesome Isle and The Perilous Night/Four Walls. She has subsequently recorded Works for Piano 4 and Works for Piano 7 for Mode Records’ Complete John Cage Edition. After Cage’s death in 1992, she was chosen as the featured performer in a tribute to his memory at the 45th Venice Biennale.
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ANTHONY DE MARE, piano
with the
ARIEL QUARTET
Anthony de Mare is one of the world’s foremost champions of contemporary music. His versatility over the past three decades has inspired the creation of over 75 new works by some of today’s most distinguished artists including Steve Reich, Wynton Marsalis, Nico Muhly, Annie Gosfield, Fred Hersch, Ethan Iverson, Meredith Monk, Mason Bates and Andy Akiho. The Chicago Sun Times says “de Mare’s passion and vision almost radiate from the stage … he causes all involved –composers, performer and audience members –to think about how music is made and how we listen to it.”
Known for his entrepreneurial performance projects, he continues to expand the boundaries of the repertoire, which includes the speaking-singing pianist genre that he pioneered over 25 years ago with the premiere of Rzewski’s “De Profundis”, based on the writings of Oscar Wilde. The piece remains one of his signatures — this past season, New York Classical Review described a recent performance as “gripping and moving … a living thing on stage, as if one was sitting in de Mare’s home, listening to him tell his own story. This was an ideal meeting of composer and interpreter — a unique and wonderful experience.”
FILMMAKERS GABRIELA PENA & PICHO GARCIA
Gabriela Pena is a Chilean-Spanish documentary filmmaker and producer, and co-founder of the production company Grieta Cine along with Picho García. In 2021 she directed her first documentary feature ‘Zoila’ which premiered at SANFIC Santiago de Chile International Film Festival’s Chilean Feature Film Competition and was awarded Best Film Prize at the International Premiere at FIDBA Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival’s Gender and Generations Competition. In 2024 she co-directed with Picho García the hybrid shortfilm ‘Familia ‘, which had its World Premiere at True/False Film Festival.
Currently Pena is working on her second documentary feature ‘Here, the Silence is Heard,’ co-directed with Picho García, currently in the editing stage. The project is a Chilean-Spanish co-production, and has been supported by international funds such as Sundance Institute, Chicken&Egg Pictures and Open City Documentary Festival.
Chilean filmmaker and producer Picho García is a Chilean-Spanish documentary filmmaker and producer, and co-founder of the production company Grieta Cine along with Gabriela Pena. In 2024 he co-directed along with Gabriela Pena the hybrid short film ‘Familia’, which had its World Premiere at True/False Film Festival. As producer, he worked on ‘Zoila’ (2021), the first documentary feature by Gabriela Pena, as well as independent chilean short films such as ‘In Will Come a Breeze Asking For Me’ (2024) by Francisca Droppelmann.
Currently he is working on his first documentary feature ‘Here, the Silence is Heard’ co-directed with Gabriela Pena, which is a Chilean-Spanish co-production and has been supported by international funds such as Sundance Institute, Chicken&Egg Pictures and Open City Documentary Festival.
ACTOR & EDUCATOR DANA WHEELER NICHOLSON
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson is an actress who has starred in over 40 films and 50 television shows, including Fletch, Tombstone, Nashville, Friday Night Lights and Seinfeld. She is an adjunct professor in the Film and Media Studies Department at the University of Utah teaching Acting for Film. She also coaches actors, directors, musicians and other creatives and taught a private acting class in Austin, Texas for a decade.
Dana is an accomplished singer who has had residencies including Joes Pub, Deanna’s and The Cutting Room (all in NYC), and The Continental Club in Austin, Texas. She is a Rauschenberg Fellow. Dana was born and raised in New York City, and is married to filmmaker Alex Smith.
FILMMAKER & EDUCATOR ALEX SMITH
Alex is a screenwriter, filmmaker & educator who hails from Montana. His feature film WALKING OUT, which he made with his twin, Andrew, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The Smith Brothers also wrote, directed & produced the feature film WINTER IN THE BLOOD. Adapted from James Welch’s landmark First Nations novel, the film depicts the tragicomic odyssey of an Indian Cowboy which ultimately leads him to his true name, his spiritual power, his blood. The Smith Brothers wrote & directed THE SLAUGHTER RULE, which profiles a young man trying to decide if his football coach is falling in love with him— while coping with toxic masculinity and rural isolation.
The Smith Brothers have written feature film scripts and television pilots for HBO, Warner Bros, Disney, Columbia, Focus Films and FX. They adapted the graphic novel SON OF THE GUN by cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for Fox Searchlight. They adapted Wallace Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel REMEMBERING LAUGHTER for filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. Alex has worked with directors Robert Redford, Lars Von Trier, David O. Russell, Terrence Malick, Brian DePalma and Jodie Foster.
He and his brother are currently writing AMERICAN RADICAL, a feature film based on a true story about a Communist cowboy bootlegger sheriff. They are also adapting BETTER ANGEL, a non-fiction book about Walt Whitman. They recently wrote THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD for Amazon & THE DARKLINGS for Red Arrow Television.
Alex is an Assistant Professor of Fiction Film at the University of Utah. He has taught filmmaking/screenwriting at Columbia University, NYU, the University of Tulsa and the University of Montana. He also taught, for ten years, at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the Creative Director of the University of Texas Film Institute. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Woodstock Filmmaker Residency. He is a Sundance Fellow, a Rauschenberg Fellow and a Michener Fellow.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Spring 2024
VIVX Team at Silver Sun for the 4th annual collaboration
May 2024
Beginning in 2016, a handful of Colombian defenders and media makers convened by Skylight SolidariLabs united in their commitment to human rights decided to create a virtual network in which supporters of human rights could virtually accompany, champion, and make visible the work of defenders—protecting defenders and at the same time shifting public narratives.
Over the next five years, as the idea attracted defenders and media makers stretching from Peru to Mexico, the original idea morphed to focus more on mutual support: a network by defenders for defenders. Understanding the concept of protection in a broader and more holistic way to include resources and access to self-care practices, legal advice, digital security, and secure spaces for mutual support.
The 2024 Silver Sun Residence brought the expanded team together and allowed for several days of reflection combined with planning for the next phase of SolidariLabs/VIVX, which they are calling SolidariLabs 2.0. This new phase will bring together key participants from the 5 SolidariLabs to consolidate one regional transnational network to tackle the issue of environmental protection, with a focus on water sources, through narratives that raise the profiles of water guardians in the countries where the SolidariLabs have been held.
At the Residence the team also had the opportunity to screen Borderland and discuss outreach & impact strategies both in the U.S. and Latin America to raise the issue of immigration reform, the rights of immigrants, and action plans. There is a powerful connection between Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and the U.S. when it comes to immigration, so a comprehensive outreach and impact strategy is essential.
WRITER HANNAH GROSS
Hannah Gross is an actor and theater maker based in New York. She is an advisory board member and frequent collaborator with the Brooklyn-based experimental theatre company The Million Underscores. Film and television credits include I Used to Be Darker, Stinking Heaven, The Mountain, The Adults, and “Mindhunter” (Netflix). She was a 2018 artist-in-residence at Arteles Creative Center in Finland, a 2019 MacDowell Fellow, and a fellow of the 2020 Oxbelly Screenwriters & Directors Lab. She graduated with a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Experimental Theater Wing.
FILMMAKER SIERRA PETTENGILL
Sierra Pettengill is a filmmaker from Brooklyn. Most recently, she directed the all-archival film, RIOTSVILLE, USA, which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Her previous all-archival feature-length film, The Reagan Show (2017), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival; her short The Rifleman premiered at Sundance in 2021, and her previous short, Graven Image (2018), is held at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2013, she produced the Academy® Award-nominated film Cutie & the Boxer, which also won an Emmy® Award for Best Documentary. She has also worked as an archival researcher for many artists including Jim Jarmusch, Mike Mills, and Adam Pendleton. She was a Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow and is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. She serves as a board member of Screen Slate, a cinema nonprofit based in New York.
The Wild Walking Women Artist’s Collective
The Wild Walking Women are six artists of varying experience and mediums who coalesced during the early days of the pandemic. With limited opportunities to socialize safely, this group met weekly (masked) to walk, talk and make art. Weather permitting they would bring materials and stop along the trail to paint and sketch. They bonded over the local landscapes, discussions about art projects, and museums and galleries to visit in the future. They hoped for a return to “normal.” As the world opened up, they continued to explore the vistas, walk, and create artwork together.
Natalie Boburka: Conceptual mixed media artist. (@boburkastudios, BoburkaStudios.com)
Dawna Johnson: Painter, mixed medium and textile artist.
Ellen Mahnken: Interdisciplinary artist, designer, maker—many mediums. (@ellenmahnken)
Kate Masters: Landscape painter. (@kate_masters_, KateMasters@Art.)
Ellen Roth: Nature themed drawing, painting and collage.
K. VelisTuran: Mixed media fiber. (@kvelisturan, kvelisturan.com)
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2023
Choreographer & Dancer Malini Srinivasan
Malini Srinivasan is a third-generation Bharatanatyam artist and the disciple of world-renowned artist Sri C.V. Chandrasekhar. She began learning Bharatanatyam at a young age with her mother Radha Srinivasan and grandmother Komalavalli Mani. She started studying the Kalakshetra style in 2000 with Smt. Savitri Jagganath Rao and performed her Arangetram (debut) under the guidance of Meena Raman. Malini grew up in Maryland, and lived in Chennai from 1999-2004 to pursue her study of dance and its allied art forms such as Nattuvangam, Carnatic vocal music, Kalaripayattu, Yoga, Sanskrit and Tamil.
A critically-acclaimed soloist, Malini has presented solo Bharatanatyam to various audiences in the U.S., India and Europe. She has also performed with groups including the Padmini Chettur Group, Ragamala, Rajika Puri and Dancers, Thresh and Kala Nivedanam.
Malini has choreographed solo and group Bharatanatyam pieces, including Being Becoming, Ode to Love’s Arrows and Tejas-Luminous. She was awarded the Dance in Queens Residency (2009) the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Residency (2010), and the Queens Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant (2010, 2012, 2014) and a New Music USA Grant (2016).
Based in Queens, NY, Malini is committed to spreading a deep understanding of Indian classical traditions through teaching. She founded the Gitanjali Dance School in 2009. She has been a visiting artist/lecturer at Princeton University, Wellesley College, UNC Asheville, Brooklyn Friends and Colgate University. From 2006-2016, she served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Asian & Asian-American Studies Department at SUNY Stony Brook. She is the School Programs Manager and a Teaching Artist with City Lore. www.malinisrinivasan.com
DANCE ARTIST ESRAA WARDA
Esraa Warda is New York’s leading Algerian-American dance artist specializing in traditional Algerian dance(s) and performance addressing socio-cultural subjects around decolonial body knowledge, sexuality, and North African feminism.
Warda is a North African Dance Artist and Educator in NYC, a Heritage Ambassador Fellow at Brooklyn Public Library, and a Working Group Artist at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater.
Artist-in-Residence Celeste Krishna
Celeste Krishna is an artist and producer who composes songs as a life practice. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, now based in Brooklyn, New York, Celeste’s work is characterized by a “disarmingly soulful” style and earned her recognition as a “true-blue southern soul in lyrics and voice,” according to The Austin Chronicle. Working with a family of collaborators she calls Monarchs, Celeste ingeniously draws from diverse genres to tailor her music to its emotional core. This approach has resulted in a robust catalog of evocative, poetic, and danceable songs. In her latest album, “My Blue House,” Celeste delves into family heritage, metaphorically set within her maternal grandmother’s blue house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Celeste’s time at Silver Sun focused on her forthcoming album, “The New Room,” a metaphorical addition to “My Blue House.”
Follow or listen to Celeste Krishna on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, or Instagram
Artist-in-Residence Suki Rae
Artists-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2023
Artist-in-Residence Lydia Dean Pilcher
Lydia Pilcher has produced over 35 feature films, including Queen of Katwe, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Radium Girls and Cutie & The Boxer, which was nominated for an Academy Award. She has just completed a climate change-themed film called Homing Instinct.
Presented by the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, the installation Homing Instinct, written & directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher was presented from September 27 – October 1, 2023 in conjunction with the Woodstock Film Festival at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY.
An immersive cinematic installation, Homing Instinct is based on the story by Dani McClain published in the anthology, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. The exhibition was supported by a Silver Sun Foundation residency.
In partnership with Close Up ~
A training, development, and mentorship program for documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa.
Positioned at the intersection of arts, media, social change, and peace-building, Close Up is the only initiative of its kind in the region, creating a transformational experience for emerging filmmakers, coming from diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and political backgrounds, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
During September, Silver Sun Director Karen Goodman was joined at the Residence by Close Up Founder and Executive Director Sigal Yehuda, Founding Partner and Mentor Bruni Burres, and Close Up Program filmmakers Firas & Dhia Rebiai for a film presentation ~ RESISTANCE THROUGH DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING ~ in partnership with Upstate Films.
Karen Goodman with Sigal Yehuda and Bruni Burres at Upstate Films.
Director Karen Goodman with Tunisian filmmakers Firas & Dhia Rebiai at Upstate Films in Saugerties, NY to present their work-in-progress project Trash Cemetery.
Filmmakers Dinner with Close Up guests Sigal Yehuda, Bruni Burres, Firas & Dhia Rebiai, filmmaker Noa Ben-Shalom and cinematographer Geert Van Kesteren
Artists-in-Residence ~ Summer 2023
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NILSON MATTA BRAZILIAN VOYAGE
Jazz at the Maverick
Vitor Gonçalves, Piano
Rafael Barata, Drums
Nilson Matta, Bass
ANNUAL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT
with Simone Dinnerstein, Caroga Arts Ensemble and conductor and Maverick Artistic Director Alexander Platt
DALI QUARTET
Chamber Music
Ari Isaacman-Beck, violin
Carlos Rubio, violin
Adriana Linares, viola
Jesús Morales, cello
The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. Tours of its Classical Roots, Latin Soul programming have reached enthusiastic audiences across the U.S., Canada and South America.
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VERONA QUARTET
Chamber Music
Jonathan Ong, violin
Dorothy Ro, violin
Abigail Rojansky, viola
Jonathan Dormand, cello
Acclaimed as an “outstanding ensemble…cohesive yet full of temperament” (The New York Times), the Verona Quartet has firmly established itself amongst the most distinguished ensembles on the chamber music scene today.
Silver Sun in partnership with The Secret City
Founding Artistic Director Chris Wells with Cellist and Composer Leah Coloff
Leah is a regular performer and band member for the Obie Award winning the Secret City and cellist for the Scorchio String Quartet, featured in the award winning documentary, Inside the Perfect Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome.
She has performed and recorded with numerous musical artists including Trey Anastasio, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Michael Cerveris, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed, Damon Albarn, Ziggy Marley, Linda Thompson, Dean & Britta, Angelique Kidjo, Nancy Sinatra and Mark Mulcahy among others.
Leah’s multimedia autobiographical song cycle, ThisTree, premiered in the 2019 Prototype Festival and received commissioning, development, and production support from HERE as part of the HERE Artist Residency Program.
In addition to her personal creations, Leah is a professional cellist most recently performing as a member of the 7 piece onstage band in Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! from its run at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn to the Tony Award winning production of Oklahoma! Broadway. She can also be heard on the Grammy nominated Oklahoma! cast recording.
Leah and Chris with host Amanda Palmer at her Gravesend Variety
for a performance of Leah’s new composition Super Second Rate for voice and cello.
Silver Sun in partnership with
UNTITLED FILMMAKER ORG
Emelie Mahdavian is an Emmy, Peabody, and Sundance Award-winning filmmaker who was selected for DOCNYC’s 2020 “40 Under 40” list. Her nonfiction feature Bitterbrush screened at Telluride Film Festival, Doc Fortnight at the MoMA, and was released by Magnolia Pictures/Hulu. She produced, wrote, and edited Midnight Traveler, which won numerous international prizes and was nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Documentary.
Navied Mahdavian has been a contributing cartoonist at The New Yorker since 2018, where his comics, cartoons, and illustrations have appeared regularly. His cartoons have also been published in Reader’s Digest, Wired, Private Eye, American Bystander, and Alta Online and in the books The Rejection Collection and Send Help! His first book This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America will be released by Princeton Architectural Press in fall 2023.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH UPSTATE FILMS,
Emilie presented her feature film Bitterbrush with a Q&A conducted by filmmaker Rachel Grady.
Navied presented his forthcoming publication This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America in conversation with fellow New Yorker Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Spring 2023
Silver Sun in partnership with Skylight
VIVX ~ A human rights media organization and its leadership team from Colombia, Guatemala, México and the U.S.
Skylight and the VIVX team are back in Woodstock for their annual retreat at Silver Sun Foundation Residence. VIVX is a Latin American network for environmental defenders, by defenders, for their protection, using cinematic storytelling to challenge toxic narratives that put them at risk.
Our focus this year is on AfroColombian women who are protecting the rivers in the Chocó region of Colombia. The Atrato has been designated a river with rights by the Colombian government as it joins the international movement to confer legal status to rivers as part of the growing global rights of nature movement. We will be presenting “River Guardians” our upcoming multi-media international campaign designed to highlight the positive narratives represented by defenders on the frontlines of protecting our planet.
In partnership with Vic Brooks, Senior Curator,
Time-Based Visual Art at EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Author May-Zhee Lim
Born and raised in Malaysia, May-Zhee Lim is a writer living in New York. Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature and is forthcoming from AirMail. She is formerly a publicist for Riverhead Books, an executive assistant for PEN America, and is currently at work on her first novel.
Kukuwa Ashun
Kukuwa Ashun is a writer and editor from Brooklyn. A progeny of Ghanaian immigrants, Kukuwa holds a degree in creative writing from SUNY Purchase and received her MFA in fiction from New York University. She is currently working on a novel.
Natalie Jasmine Harris
Natalie Jasmine Harris is a Black queer filmmaker from Silver Spring, Maryland currently based in NYC. She received her BFA in Film and Television from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As a filmmaker, her work spans narrative, documentary, and experimental forms but is centered around a mission to tell stories that capture coming-of-age experiences, showcase Black joy, and reimagine liberation for marginalized communities.
Natalie’s NYU thesis film, “Pure,” received The 2020 Directors Guild of America’s Student Film Award and had a film festival run that included over 50 festival screenings worldwide. In February 2022, the short film was acquired by HBO and is now available to stream on HBOMax. Natalie is now working with award-winning producer, Avril Speaks, to adapt the concept behind “Pure” into a feature-length film of the same name that has garnered support from SFFILM’s Rainin Screenwriting Grant, The Gotham Week Project Market, Outfest’s Screenwriting Lab, The Toronto LGBTQ+ Financing Forum, Film Independent Fast Track, and The WIF x Sundance Financing Intensive.
In December 2022, Natalie was included in The Alice Initiative’s 2022 List of Emerging Female Directors. Natalie was a 2022 Creative Culture Filmmaking Fellow at The Jacob Burns Film Center and is also an emerging commercial director, having directed spots for Hyundai and Verizon. Natalie’s work has been featured in publications that include Teen Vogue, THEM Magazine, Huffington Post, The Cut, and NBC.
Kerry LeVielle
Kerry LeVielle (she/they) is a queer filmmaker originally from Schenectady NY and is currently based in Brooklyn. By way of semi-autobiographical docu-fiction, their work investigates the emotional dissonance experienced while coming-of-age in circumstances of abandonment.
Kerry is the Silver Sun Foundation’s Spring 2023 Artist-in-Residence. She’s an alum of the Sundance Ignite Fellowship and Creative Culture fellowship. Her two short films Playhouse and Partners in Crime were nominated for Best Narrative Short at NFFTY 2019 and 2020. She is currently developing the script for her first feature film, Upstate.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2022-23
The Wild Walking Women Artist’s Collective
The Wild Walking Women are six artists of varying experience and mediums who coalesced during the early days of the pandemic. With limited opportunities to socialize safely, this group met weekly (masked) to walk, talk and make art. Weather permitting they would bring materials and stop along the trail to paint and sketch. They bonded over the local landscapes, discussions about art projects, and museums and galleries to visit in the future. They hoped for a return to “normal.” As the world opened up, they continued to explore the vistas, walk, and create artwork together.
Natalie Boburka: Conceptual mixed media artist. (@boburkastudios, BoburkaStudios.com)
Dawna Johnson: Painter, mixed medium and textile artist.
Ellen Mahnken: Interdisciplinary artist, designer, maker—many mediums. (@ellenmahnken)
Kate Masters: Landscape painter. (@kate_masters_, KateMasters@Art.)
Ellen Roth: Nature themed drawing, painting and collage.
K. VelisTuran: Mixed media fiber. (@kvelisturan, kvelisturan.com)
Writer Max Friedlich
FILMMAKER MARTHA GREGORY
Martha is a filmmaker, producer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her short doc “Three Red Sweaters,” about images, family and memory, won Best Documentary at Aspen Shortsfest in 2017, screened at festivals worldwide and is a vimeo Staff Pick. In 2021 her short doc “Now that they See us,” about a feminist Chilean performance collective, screened at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival as well as festivals across the US. She is currently producing Paul Felten’s “Last Year in Another Country,” and she is an executive producer on Chloe Abraham’s debut film “The Taste of Mango” as well as Billy Luther’s “Frybread Face & Me.” She is also an adjunct professor at School of Visual Arts and Fashion Institute of Technology.
~ In collaboration with ~
PRODUCER ARNO MOKROS
Artists-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2022
Silver Sun in partnership with Close Up
A cinematic initiative for non-fiction filmmakers from the Middle East & North Africa region
Yemeni Filmmakers Mariam Al-Duhubhani and Mohammed Al-Jaberi join us at Silver Sun to work on their feature documentary ‘Let’s Play Soldiers.’ The filmmakers are seen here participating in the 2022 Middle East Now Festival in Florence, Italy as a part of the “Focus Yemen” program.
~ Filmmakers’ work-in-progress Q&A at Silver Sun ~
November 2022
LET’S PLAY SOLDIERS
Mariam Al-Duhubhani, YEMEN & Producer: Mohammed Al-Jaberi, YEMEN
‘Let’s Play Soldiers’ has been selected to participate in the 2022 Hot Docs Forum at the 2022 Festival, where 20 Forum projects representing 19 different countries and 26 filmmakers, 14 of whom are women and 15 of whom are BIPOC, will pitch to international decision makers. The work-in-progress doc will be featured at the Cannes Docs 2023 festival, and has been selected to pitch and present at the prestigious MEDIMED: The Euro-Mediterranean Documentary Market & Pitching Forum.
Silver Sun in partnership with
WFUV 90.7 fm Public Radio
In September, Silver Sun welcomed the two winners of WFUV’s songwriting contest to create a new theme song for their local music feature, New York Slice. Recording artists WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE and SEA GLASS were each awarded 2 weeks at the Silver Sun Residence, along with an FUV Live session broadcast with on-air talent Alisa Ali. @AirwavesAli
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The Women’s National Hockey League
The Women’s National Hockey League is a New York City based “post mom rock” band.
Making music at the Silver Sun Residence ~ September 2022
Listen Here to their residency work!
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SEA GLASS ~ JAKE MUSCAT
Blending classic songwriting and modern indie production, Sea Glass is the project of Brooklyn-based producer Jake Muskat. Inspired to release music after the birth of his first child, Sea Glass’s music taps into universal emotions around growing up and dreaming.
Sea Glass has been praised by the likes of Indie Shuffle, WFUV, Record of the Day, Variance Magazine and The Wild Honey Pie.
Jake finding inspiration at his Silver Sun Residence ‘studio’.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Summer 2022
Silver Sun in partnership with
Maverick Concerts
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~ Paul Winter ~
Special Guest with NEXUS 50th Birthday Bash
Seven-time Grammy® winner Paul Winter has a body of work that chronicles his wide-ranging experiences in the musical traditions and natural environments of the Earth. The saxophonist, composer and bandleader founded Living Music as the recording context for his ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, and his community of colleagues, which includes some of the world’s finest jazz, world, and classical musicians, along with notable voices from the great symphony of wildlife.
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~ PIANIST TERRENCE WILSON ~
Acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun as “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last 25 years” pianist Terrence Wilson has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Washington, DC (National Symphony), San Francisco, St. Louis, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
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~ KASA Quartet ~
First Prize winner of the 2017 Coltman Chamber Music Competition, the Kasa Quartet was founded in the summer of 2016 by Andy Liang, Aaron Schwartz, Stephanie Price-Wong and Kyle Price. KASA utilizes its fluency in multiple styles to curate fresh, innovative, genre-defying performances that harken the classical standard repertoire and fuse it with favorites of the jazz, musical theater, folk and pop standards. The quartet takes pride in creating and interpreting original arrangements and transcriptions of works by Jacob Collier, Marvin Hamlisch, George Gershwin among others.
~ The Secret City at Silver Sun ~
The Secret City is a community of artists, creative types, and conscious people who seek a deeper engagement with the world.
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~ PARTICIPATING ARTISTS ~
Adam Ashraf Elsayigh is an Egyptian writer, theater maker, and dramaturg who writes and develops plays that interrogate the intersections of queerness, immigration, and colonialism. Adam’s plays (including Drowning in Cairo, Revelation, Memorial, and Jamestown/ Williamsburg) have been developed and seen at New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, The Tisch School of the Arts, The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, and Golden Thread Productions. Adam holds a BA in Theater with an emphasis in Playwriting and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and is an MFA Candidate in Playwriting at Brooklyn College.
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Blake Pfeil is a multidisciplinary musician, writer, and performance artist. His original theatrical work has been featured in notable stints at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, Rockwood Music Hall, Highline Ballroom, Icaro Teatro (Mexico), Gyeonggi English Village (South Korea), Concordia College, and the National YoungArts Foundation, among others. As an actor, Blake’s notable credits include the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Huntington Theatre Co., New Repertory Theatre, Company One, among others. He is the creator of the Joni Mitchell-inspired THE BBC, 1970 (originally commissioned by 54 Below), his debut album Wallpaper is available wherever you can find it, and he is one of the cofounders of NYC-based folk-fusion band Macabre Americana. Blake hosts “The Pfeil File” on Radio Kingston/WKNY (107.9 FM/1490 AM in the Hudson Valley) and currently serves as Operations & Programs Manager at Hudson Valley-based nonprofit storytelling organization TMI Project. His current project is All-American Ruins, a multimedia travelogue in which he recounts his experiences exploring abandoned spaces across the United States and transforms them into fantastical essays of prose and poetry, audio storytelling, and documentary film. MA, Purchase College; BFA, Emerson College. Blake was recently accepted to the prestigious Audio Podcast Fellowship at SUNY Stony Brook.
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Kiebpoli Calnek (they/them), a non-binary queer Black creative, born and raised in New York City/ Lenapehoking, has generated nuanced performances and artistic direction seeped in poetic elements for over two decades.
Their social enterprise, Black*Acrobat, produces interdisciplinary programming sharing stories of, for, and with fringe communities, celebrating authentic visions and a spectrum of viewpoints through research, access, and collaboration.
Guest contributor: “How It Feels… To Be An Aerial Acrobat.” Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine. Commission: Divine Vertical Liberation – Black Bodies and the Healing Power of Aerial Rope Dance. IMAGINING: A Gibney Journal, issue 3. Current: Queer & Trans Love Stories (QTLS), Black Trans Stories Matter – TMI Project.
Kiebpoli’s works received generous funding and support from Elizabeth Streb, Astraea Foundation, Asian Arts Initiative, The Secret City, and The New York Foundation for the Arts. Member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, SAG-AFTRA, and Actors’ Equity Association.
www.kiebpoli.com
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Laural Meade works as a theater artist, musician and educator in her native Los Angeles. Her current writing and performing focuses on the life of jazz singer Sophie Tucker. As a faculty member at Occidental College, she teaches playwriting, dramatic literature, and the art of acting a song. While in residence at the Silver Sun Foundation, she’s developing a work-in-progress performance of her original cabaret piece Ms. Tucker Will See You Now, in collaboration with The Secret City, a non-profit arts collective that builds community around creativity.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Spring 2022
~Creative Culture Alumni Filmmakers ~
June 2022 ~ Community Engagement Screening and Discussion
at Silver Sun Residence
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Direct
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Aisha Amin is a NYC-raised and Kenyan-born filmmaker. As a director, she works across experimental, narrative and documentary forms to tell authentic stories built from real experiences. Her past film projects have explored and highlighted overlooked communities particularly in New York City, including formerly incarcerated mothers and communities struggling with the presence of gentrification in their neighborhoods. She was a recipient of the 2019-2020 Sally Burns Shenkman Woman Filmmaker Fellowship at the Jacob Burns Film Center where she directed two short documentaries. She is also a recipient of The Shed’s Open Call Fellowship. Her short film ‘Friday’ is a Vimeo Staff Pick and was picked up for distribution by The Bureau of Creative Works. Her latest film ‘Choir’ played at BAMCinemaFest 2021. Aisha is also a freelance film critic and writer. Her work has been published in The Huffington Post, sister-hood-magazine, and Operation Condor. Aisha completed her MFA in Directing and Writing at Columbia University in Fall 2021.
Mariales Diaz is a Dominican born and Brooklyn raised filmmaker. They are a graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Film Conservatory, a 2019 NeXt Doc Fellow and the JBFC Fall 2019 Valentine and Clark Emerging Artist Fellow. Their work exists between narrative and documentary, exploring human relationships and generational traumas, deeply focusing on LGBTQ+ stories, specifically those of trans and gender non-conforming peoples.
Casey Friedman is an artist, filmmaker, director, editor, and animator based in Brooklyn, NY. He was a 2021 Short To Feature Fellow, the 2019 Valentine and Clark Emerging Artist Fellow at The Jacob Burns Film Center, and a 2015 graduate of Brown University with a BA in Sociology.
He has worked at Cinereach, Ghetto Film School, DCTV, and Meteor Films. While at the Burns, he directed an animated film inspired by humanity’s troubled relationship with nature.
Lauren Minnerath is a writer and director of films and television. As a writer she has appeared on the Young & Hungry List, placed second on the the 2018 Hit List and is a two-time Nicholl semi-finalist, placing among the top 10 highest scoring women from the 2019 competition. She has been supported by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Jacob Burns Creative Culture Fellowship. She is also a member of the WGA East’s inaugural Showrunner Academy Program, which launched late last year.
She is currently developing multiple projects including a television series at Amazon Studios and her feature directorial debut, CLARE, produced by Josephson Entertainment.
Cameron Morton is New York City based, originally from Atlanta, GA. She is an alum of the Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium and a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts with a BFA in Acting. She was a Jacob Burns Film Center Creative Culture Fellow from 2019 to 2021. Her short film, AUGUST, premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival and is currently available on NoBudge. Her short film, Whalebone, premiered at the Maryland Film Festival. Motherhood, addiction and isolation are recurring themes in her work.
She is currently in post-production on her most recent short film, Soft Landings. The film is being supported by the Jacob Burns Film Center, the Puffin Foundation, and the NYC Women’s Fund for Media.
Silver Sun in partnership with Skylight
A human rights media organization and its leadership team from Colombia, Guatemala, México and the U.S.
SolidariLabs, a program of Skylight, is designed to open a creative space where accomplished filmmakers, artists and storytellers, come together with movement leaders and human rights activists, forming networks that shift cultural perceptions through new and impactful narratives for social change. Since its inception in 2016, SolidariLabs convenings have taken place in Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico.
One of the projects that came out of SolidariLabs is VIVX, a mutual support network of human rights defenders and filmmakers that creates artistic tools to strengthen protection for those at risk on the frontlines of defending human and environmental rights in Latin America. The invitation-only network is in beta testing phase and public campaigns are planned to launch later this year to introduce the VIVX network to the world.
The Silver Sun Foundation Residency provides the SolidariLabs leadership team a safe and peaceful environment, free from the threat of physical violence that rights defenders face daily in Latin America, in which to connect more deeply with one another and the initiative they are designing, as well as to enjoy respite and space to build resilience for life and work ahead.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM ~ MAY 2022
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Pamela Yates is the Creative Director and Paco de Onis is the Executive Director of Skylight, a human rights media not-for-profit that combines cinematic arts with the quest for justice to inspire the defense of human rights. Their most recent film 500 YEARS had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, launched theatrically, was broadcast on PBS and was chosen to stream world-wide as part of the Amazon Festival Stars program. At Skylight, Pamela and Paco share their model of catalyzing collaborative networks of artists and activists through the SolidariLabs program. Their current documentary film in production is BORDERLAND.
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2022
Emir West with Dial Winfield
In partnership with Vic Brooks, Senior Curator, Time-Based Visual Art at EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Emir West is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York who uses text, sound, sculpture, and the moving image to draw out the interdependencies of the aural and the visual. Contorting sensory evidence and language of the built environment, they investigate the principles of context, authorship, and narrative that shape it.
Dial Winfield is an artist from Jersey City, NJ currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work in sound attempts to emphasize the changeable nature of musical instruments through extended technique and exploration. Dial draws a line connecting possible sonic expressions back to the instrument via the body, betraying the intended use of instrument parts. She adds amplification to brass instruments that themselves amplify the micro-movements of the mouth and cavities within the body, approaching near-trance consciousness in performance and practice to project herself outside of a body. The body extends into the sound, within melodic and rhythmic incantations that imply a trajectory not influenced by parts, pieces, or internal chemistry.
LEAH COLOFF
Cellist, Singer, Songwriter/Composer, Creator
Leah Coloff is described by The New York Times as “a combination of artful angularity and a rock-inflected assertiveness.” Raised in the Pacific Northwest, her classical roots collide with 70’s rock and a pioneer spirit creating her self-identified style, CLUNK (Classical + Punk) with songs and works that are honest, sensual, funny, brutal, pissed-off, beautiful and chilly sweet.
Leah is currently on an artist residency at the Silver Sun Foundation in Woodstock, developing a new piece of multimedia music theater.
Leah’s multimedia autobiographical song cycle, ThisTree, premiered in the 2019 Prototype Festival. In addition to her personal creations, Leah is a professional cellist most recently performing as a member of the 7 piece onstage band in Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! from its run at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn to the Tony Award winning production of Oklahoma! Broadway. In the classical realm, Leah’s focus is working with contemporary living composers including Philip Glass, Ted Hearne, Joel Thome, Sean Friar and Michael Gordon.
Leah is a regular performer and band member for the Obie Award winning the Secret City and cellist for the Scorchio String Quartet, featured in the award winning documentary, Inside the Perfect Circle: The Odyssey of Joel Thome.
She has performed and recorded with numerous musical artists including Trey Anastasio, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Michael Cerveris, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed, Damon Albarn, Ziggy Marley, Linda Thompson, Dean & Britta, Angelique Kidjo, Nancy Sinatra and Mark Mulcahy among others.
Read more about Leah’s work HERE.
Artist-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2021
Silver Sun & WFUV 90.7 fm Public Radio
In September, Silver Sun welcomed the two winners of WFUV’s songwriting contest to create a new theme song for their local music feature, New York Slice. Recording artists Sidney Riley and Renée Orshan were each awarded 2 weeks at the Silver Sun Residence, along with an FUV Live session with Alisa Ali to be broadcast this fall. @AirwavesAli
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Singer/songwriter Sidney Riley
Sidney Riley with Producer Rob Harkness at Silver Sun
Musician & Artist Rén with the Mane
Brooklyn based artist Rén with the Mane is back with new track ‘On My Own’. Receiving plaudits from Nylon Magazine, Paste, Line of Best Fit, Kitsune, and more, Rén is no stranger to the blogosphere. Grooving tracks like Changes, ‘Into the Unknown’, Already Gone and Fool For You have been featured on numerous Spotify playlists such as New Music Friday, Indie Pop, A Shot of Indie, and also TV shows including MTV’s Teen Mom, and Girlfriends Guide to Divorce.
In addition to being a prolific songwriter and artist, Rén is an intoxicating performer and has become somewhat of a figure around the streets of New York this past year. In a time the city was yearning for connection, she found herself singing with a brass band throughout Manhattan to offer her fellow New Yorkers a sense of camaraderie and joy. She also works as a Hair/Makeup Artist and Stylist, primarily working with other musicians such as Regina Spektor, AJR Brothers, and St Lucia to help bring out their best side.
Ren with siblings & bandmates Eden and Reuben at Silver Sun
Watch Ren’s video for “On My Own” here
Artist-in-Residence ~ Summer 2021
Maverick Concerts at the Silver Sun Residence
Music Director Alexander Platt
August ~ 2021
Maverick Concerts’ Music Director Alexander Platt celebrated his 20th Anniversary at Maverick Concerts in 2021. His innovative programming reflects his commitment to the highest level of artistic excellence and his role as an advocate for the music of our time. He reintroduced chamber orchestra concerts to Maverick and created a chamber orchestra version of Del Tredici’s Final Alice.
Alexander Platt has built a unique career spanning the worlds of symphony, chamber music and opera. He is presently Music Director of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Philharmonic Orchestra, and Artistic Director for Music at the Westport Arts Center in Westport, CT. Previously, he also spent twelve seasons as Resident Coordinator and Music Advisor at Chicago Opera Theater, where he led the Chicago premieres of such landmark 20th Century operas as Britten’s Death in Venice, John Adams’ Nixon in China, and the world-premiere recording of Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik – all to high acclaim.
A graduate of Yale College, King’s College Cambridge (where he was a British Marshall Scholar) and conducting fellowships at both Aspen and Tanglewood, he started his career as the apprentice conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Minnesota Opera. He has guest conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Illinois Philharmonic, the Freiburg Philharmonic in Germany, the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, Camerata Chicago, the Banff Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the Houston, Charlotte, Columbus and Indianapolis Symphonies. He has recorded for NPR and the BBC. His Cedille Records disc with Rachel Barton Pine of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy is often heard on radio stations throughout the world.
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Pianist Daniel Gortler joins us at Silver Sun Residence
for Maverick Concerts’ program
Surviving: The Triumph of Creative Expression
in concert with the Catalyst Quartet
Acclaimed Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler has delighted audiences and critics alike with his memorable performances around the world, receiving great praise for both his technical mastery and his musical ingenuity. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world including the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, as well as the Houston, New World, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. Other highlights include his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, recital at Wigmore Hall in London, and tours around the world.
THE SECRET CITY at SILVER SUN RESIDENCE
JULY ~ 2021
Participating Artists:
Alison Cimmet, is an actress and a writer. She’s writing a collection of personal essays about otherness, art making, mental illness and family legacy.
Raghubir Kaur Khalsa is a visual artist, teacher and Kundalini yoga practitioner who’s working on a new book about yoga and creativity.
Filmmaker César Martínez Barba
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Creative Culture
at the Jacob Burns Film Center
Filmmaker Brit Fryer
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Creative Culture
at the Jacob Burns Film Center
BRIT FRYER is a queer and trans director and producer. He has produced a variety of narrative and nonfiction projects, most recently the Tribeca Film Institute-supported documentary, BUG FARM, which will premiere on PBS this June. His work has been shown at festivals including Indie Grits, NewFest, Outfest, Inside Out, MIX NYC, and Blackstar Film Festival. Brit is an alum of Sundance Ignite Fellowship, the Creative Culture Fellowship, and sits in the Jonathan Demme Changemaker Board Member Seat at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He currently supports established and emerging writers in his role at the Writers Guild of America, East.
Filmmaker Lydia Cornett
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Creative Culture
at the Jacob Burns Film Center
Lydia Cornett is a documentary filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland. She is an alum of the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio and the Jacob Burns Film Center Creative Culture Fellowship, and she is a two-time recipient of the NYC Women’s Fund. Her short films have screened at numerous film festivals including BAMCinemaFest, Sheffield DocFest, AFI Docs, AspenShortsFest, and DOC NYC. Her work has been distributed and featured by The New Yorker, PBS Reel South, Nowness, and Vimeo Staff Picks.
Spring 2021 Residencies
Filmmaker Crystal Kayiza
Artist-in-Residence ~ Spring 2021
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Creative Culture
at the Jacob Burns Film Center
Filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee
Artist-in-Residence ~ Spring 2021
In partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Creative Culture
at the Jacob Burns Film Center
PRODUCER & MENTOR BRUNI BURRES
Artist-in-Residence ~ Spring 2021
In partnership with Close Up ~ A cinematic initiative for
non-fiction filmmakers.
For over 25 years, Burres has been a passionate leader, media educator and producer at the intersection of arts, culture and human rights & social justice. She is a Senior Consultant for Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, and a founding partner and tutor for Close-Up, an international co-production initiative for emerging Middle East and North African filmmakers. Burres is an advisor with Doc Society’s Good Pitch, and from 1991 to 2008 was the director of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which she also cofounded. Bruni is the co-writer and associate producer of Beyond My Grandfather Allende, which won best documentary at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and cowriter and producer of Whose Country? by Mohamed Siam, which had its USA premiere at the 2016 New York Film Festival.
Winter 2021 Residencies
MUSICIAN DAVID PULKINGHAM
Artist-in-Residence ~ Winter 2021
David Pulkingham is an internationally renowned guitarist, recording artist and performer, known for his abilities in numerous styles, including classical, Flamenco, Brazilian, rock ‘n’ roll and jazz.
From 2002 until 2012 David toured internationally with the famed Texas troubadour Alejandro Escovedo, and served as his orchestra’s music director. He has performed on many international stages such as Carnegie Hall, and has performed with icons including Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Robert Plant and Patty Griffin.
In 2011 he released a solo instrumental album entitled “David Pulkingham Plays Guitar.” In 2012 he released a 5 song EP of originals called “David Pulkingham Plays Guitar and Sings” and in 2014 he released a third volume of “David Pulkingham Plays Guitar”, and will soon release a full album of originals. David currently tours with Patty Griffin and plays internationally under his own name.
Paul Sturtz & Polina Malikin
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2021
In partnership with Upstate Films, a non-profit, member-supported arts organization presenting the best in world & independent cinema in the Hudson Valley since 1972.
Autumn 2020 Residencies
Musician Helen Ballentine & Producer Noah Weinman
Artists-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2020
Ballentine has been playing music for most of her life — piano from age five, guitar since high school — but her songwriting didn’t emerge until later. After moving from her home in upstate New York to Los Angeles to study studio art in college, Ballentine was working full-time at a Los Angeles gallery, poised to continue onto the trajectory of visual art she had been on since she was a teenager. Instead, it didn’t feel right, and she quit. Suddenly faced with a peculiar freedom, Ballentine decided, somehow both confidently and tentatively, to seriously pursue music for the first time. While nannying on the side to make ends meet, she wrote “Places/Plans,” her first song for Skullcrusher, a little over a year ago.
Despite her extensive background in visual arts, Ballentine suddenly found songwriting to be the best avenue for her artistic visions, an easy way for her to organically discover what it is she was trying to say. ‘Skullcrusher is, by all accounts, an exploration of the ways you become yourself when you aren’t looking – and how that feels once you start paying attention.’
FILMMAKERS SIMON LIU & RACHAEL LAWE
Artists-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2020
In partnership with Vic Brooks, Senior Curator, Time-Based Visual Art at EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Simon Liu is a film artist whose work centers on building a lyrical catalogue of the rapidly evolving inner and outer landscapes of his place of origin in Hong Kong through alternative documentary forms, abstract diary films, multi-channel video installations and 16mm projection performances. Liu’s work has been presented at film festivals and institutions globally including the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam: Tiger Short Competition, Toronto International Film Festival: Wavelengths, Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films at MoMA & Film at Lincoln Center, BFI London Film Festival, M+ Museum, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Cinéma du Réel, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Light Industry, and “Dreamlands: Expanded” with the Whitney Museum of American Art & Microscope Gallery. An upcoming solo-presentation of Liu’s films and performances will take place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of their ongoing Modern Mondays series. Liu is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a teacher at the Cooper Union School of Art, and a member of Negativeland; an artist-run analogue film lab in Brooklyn. Liu is currently editing his first feature film, Staffordshire Hoard.
Rachael Lawe holds a Bachelor’s & Master’s degree in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, U.K. (2005). After graduation she became Director & Curator of FRED, an art gallery based in London U.K. & Leipzig, Germany. Following a move to New York in 2009, she served as the Founding Director of the International Collage Center, an educational arts nonprofit with a lending and research collection. In 2013 she joined the Decorative Arts and Design team at Tiffany & Co. Between 2016 and 2017 she curated three exhibitions with artist collective Regina Rex. From 2017 she has worked in Interior Design focusing on residential projects, and is an active participant in female focused curatorial groups in New York and continues to independently curate arts programs. Since 2017 she has produced and collaborated on several short films with filmmaker Simon Liu which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. They are now working together on their first feature film.
Summer 2020 Residencies
ALISA ALI, Producer and DJ at WFUV.ORG
Artist-in-Residence ~ Summer 2020
Prior to her DJ shifts on WFUV, Alisa spent years as a host on “The Alternate Side” channel, riding the cutting edge of new music and playing her old faves. Alisa does a lot of her work behind the scenes too, as producer many of the FUV Live sessions and live broadcasts. She also collaborates with NPR Music on various projects, most recently including their Turning the Tables project, where they recast the popular music canon with a closer eye on female artists.
Read more about Alisa and hear her middays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., on WFUV.org or at 90.7 FM
PHOTOGRAPHER SHEDRICK PELT
Artist-in-Residence ~ Summer 2020
Shedrick Pelt is an editorial, live-event and commercial photographer. He specializes in documentary, music, product and portrait photography with a style driven by an urge to be the fly on the wall, capturing an experience without disrupting the nature of the moment. Based in Washington D.C., Shedrick works worldwide while keeping strong ties to the local community in his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, and his adopted home of NYC.
Spring 2020 Residencies
Spring 2020 Filmmaker Residencies have been developed in partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Programs, Media Arts Lab and Creative Culture at the Jacob Burns Film Center
FILMMAKER EMILY ANN HOFFMAN
Emily Ann Hoffman is an award winning animator, filmmaker, and artist. Her films have screened at Sundance, SXSW, Slamdance and more. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies with the New York Film Festival Artist Academy, the Sundance Institute, the Jacob Burns Film Center and Mighty Oak animation studio. As a fine artist, her work is represented by Spacey Studios and has been featured on Architectural Digest, Fast Company, and more. She has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work explores female sexuality, body, and vulnerability through a comedic lens.
FILMMAKER MATTHEW PUCCINI
Matthew grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives in Brooklyn. His short film Dirty had its World Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Award for Acting. His short film Lavender premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Searchlight Pictures for an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run, and was nominated for Vimeo’s Best Drama of 2019. His previous short film The Mess He Made premiered at SXSW in 2017 and was a finalist for the Iris Prize.
Matthew is a 2018 Sundance Ignite Fellow, a member of the 2017 New York Film Festival Artist Academy, a recipient of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship and a Creative Culture Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He was selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2019 25 New Faces of Independent Film and as one of Indiewire’s 25 LGBTQ Filmmakers On The Rise. He is currently developing his first feature film.
FILMMAKER ADAM MEEKS ~ Spring 2020 Resident
Adam Meeks is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His last short film Union County premiered in competition at the 70th Berlinale, and has continued on to screen at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Maryland Film Festival, and numerous others. His work frequently examines rural and peripheral American communities, and aims to exist within the intersection of documentary and narrative processes. He is a 2019 Jacob Burns Emerging Artist Fellow and a Yaddo Residency recipient. He currently works as a video producer at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Winter 2020 Residencies
Silver Sun Artist Resident Noah Souder-Russo ~ February 2020
Noah is a native New Yorker, a dj, producer, and educational rapper who collaborates with visual artists, dancers and musicians. He is currently working on a music project with a visual component. See and hear more at http://www.iamnsr.com/ and https://soundcloud.com/iamnsr/tracks.
Silver Sun Artist Resident Gary Louris ~ January 2020
Gary Louris is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter of alternative country and pop music. He was a founding member of the Minneapolis-based band the Jayhawks and their principal songwriter and vocalist. See their brilliant 2016 NPR Tiny Desk Concert and follow Gary's music at https://www.highroadtouring.com/artists/gary-louris/
Autumn 2019 Residencies
October 2019 ~ Woodstock Film Festival Filmmakers at the Silver Sun Residence
Ivana Black and Lea Nayela, producer and cast members of ‘The Garden Left Behind (2019). Dawn Young is a producer and actress, known for The Garden Left Behind (2019), Awkwardly (2018) and Choice (2017).
The story centers around the life of Tina Carrera, a Mexican trans woman, struggling to make a life for herself as an undocumented immigrant in New York City.
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- Ivana Black
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- Leah Nayeli
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- Dawn Young
AUGUST 2019 ~ CREATIVE CULTURE FILMMAKER RESIDENTS
Leah is a 2017 Sundance Ignite Fellow and documentary filmmaker living in Westchester, NY. Leah was named Variety magazine’s “110 Students to Watch in Film and Media” while a student at Ithaca College for her work on the SXSW hit, The Provider and Beyond the Wall. Leah was the inaugural Sally Burns Shenkman Women Filmmaker Fellow at Jacob Burns Film Center where she completed Kitty and Ellen.
Filmmaker Leah Salant’s work includes two award winning short documentaries about several remarkable Holocaust survivors which have been shown internationally at numerous Film Festivals, including SXSW, HotDocs and the San Fransisco Jewish FF.
https://www.leahgalant.com
Maya is a mixed Latina filmmaker from Berkeley, California. She is an award- winning director and producer and her work has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Latino USA, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post, StyleCaster, and NBC’s Nightly News.
Her short documentary, The Provider, was screened internationally and across the U.S., including SXSW, Palm Springs International Short Fest, and the International Youth Film Festival Langesund in Norway. The Provider also won an Emmy at the College Television Awards. Featured in the list “#40WomentoWatch: Incredible trailblazers that completely ruled 2016” by The Tempest, Maya is a 2019 Sundance Ignite Fellow, part of the Sundance Film Institute and was a Valentine and Clark Emerging Artist Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center.
Maya’s short film Only The Moon/ Solamente La Luna (9m.) is an animated documentary about her father’s immigration story from Peru to the U.S., visualizing his dreamlike memories of transformation through the ‘60s, and what it means to grow old as a Latino immigrant in the age of Trump.
https://www.mayamcueva.com/#/schwane/
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- Filmmaker Leah Galant & Creative Culture Director Sean Weiner
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- Filmmaker Maya Cueva presents Solamente La Luna
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- Filmmakers’ Reception
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- Filmmakers’ Reception
Filmmakers' Showcase
On August 10th, we hosted a Filmmakers-in-Residence Showcase with Leah Galant & Maya Cueva at the Silver Sun Residence, featuring a screening of award-winning short films and a work-in-progress presentation by our resident artist filmmakers. Both Leah and Maya have been Sundance Ignite Fellows at the Sundance Film Institute and Creative Culture Fellows at the Jacob Burns Film Center, and their work has been shown at numerous international film festivals. We were delighted to host our Woodstock community to meet the artists and learn more about their films.
July 2019 ~ Secret City Residencies
Laural Meade ~ Laural Meade is an award winning Los Angeles playwright whose work has won The LA Drama Critics Circle Award and more. Her plays have been seen around the US and Europe. For her residency. Laural has been working on a new play with music about the Vaudeville legend, Sophie Tucker, which she performed selections from along with Woodstock musician Marta Waterman on piano.
Leah Coloff ~ Leah Coloff is a cellist, singer/songwriter whose recent show, This Tree, was developed and presented at HERE Arts in SoHo. She’s performed her dynamic cello rock songs all over the world and appeared at Carnegie Hall, Galapagos, and more, and is currently onstage in the band of Oklahoma on Broadway! For her residency, Leah’s been developing a new song cycle that she’ll share.
