The Center for Latter-Day Saint Arts chose six artists from around the world, including two from Utah, to participate in a week-long residency program in New York City in October.
Eighty-eight artists applied to the art residency program through the Center for Latter-Day Saint arts. A jury selected six artists from across the world: Jenna Carson, Sara Lynne Lindsay, Joseph Sowa, Aaron Toronto. The last two, Jessica Heaton and Alixa Brobbey, are from Utah.
The artists all specialize in different disciplines, specifically literature, poetry, choreography, visual art, music and film.
This is the inaugural year for the program. Stanley Hainsworth is a board member for the center and the host of the residency program.
“We're bringing together multi-discipline artists, and all of them identify with the Latter-day Saint faith in some way," Hainsworth said. "And they're going to live together in a house for us for a week in Hamilton Heights in Manhattan. And each one of them has a project to work on.”
Jessica Heaton is a choreographer and founder of the Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company. Her project for the residency is in cooperation with a New York City based dance company.
“There was a choreographer in New York that my dance company, Wasatch Contemporary, was trying to work with and trying to bring her out to work with us. And then she owns a small company in New York. So we ended up working out a trade. So she came out and worked with my dancers this month, and then I will go out and work on her dancers. And then additionally, we decided to make it into a dance film,” Heaton said.
Heaton said she is excited for the program and the chance to work with artists from different disciplines and new dancers.
“I'm also just really excited because the theme of the dance film I'm working on is very personal to me," Heaton said. "It's been a very important learning time in my life over the past year, so lots of changes in my family and to my faith as well. And so it'll be really interesting to use choreography and dance film to learn more about what I've been going through.”
