Rachel Jendrzejewski and Terry Hempfling establish conversations and hack the routine of conversations at the same time. They exchange and layer movement and speech; break spoken word and make new demands of it; and engage in physical endurance and multitasking exercises with people and environments. Potential collaborators from diverse academic disciplines (communication, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and philosophy) took part in those conversations, while Terry and Rachel challenged relationships to meaning-making—their own and their interlocutors’.

In April 2019, Jendrzejewski and Hempfling hosted one of these experimental conversations in the Target Studio alongside Dr. Thomas Stoffregen of the School of Kinesiology, their primary University collaborator.

In June 2019, the collaborators hosted bs : workshop, a two-day workshop dedicated to teaching artists layering and multitasking performance strategies, including how to combine writing, speech, and movement in their practices.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Terry Hempfling is a movement-based interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn and Minneapolis. Her work has been presented in New York at The Bell House, Fourth Arts Block, The Living Theatre, A.U.N.T.S., Secret Project Robot, and Dixon Place, among others; in San Francisco at ODC Theater; and in Minneapolis at The Playwrights’ Center and Bryant Lake Bowl. Terry is working ongoing with artists Rachel Jendrzejewski, Laure Prouvost, Pierre Droulers and Phoebe Berglund. Past residencies include Lighthouse Works, the Shandaken Project, and Antioch College. In addition to her art practice, Terry works as a videographer for the dance collection at the New York Public Library and is an independent disc jockey. Terry studied aerial acrobatics at the San Francisco Circus Center and holds a BFA in Theater and Dance from Antioch College.

Rachel Jendrzejewski is an experimental writer and performance maker. She frequently collaborates with visual artists, choreographers, and musicians to explore new performative vocabularies. Her work has been presented by the Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, Public Functionary, Padua Playwrights, Tricklock Company, RISD, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, and Wild Project, among others. Published performance texts include Walker Yam: 100 scores for Open Field (boxed set, Walker Art Center), encyclopedia (Spout Press), and In Which _______ and Others Discover the End (created in collaboration with SuperGroup, Plays Inverse). Honors include the Playwrights’ Center McKnight and Jerome Fellowships, residencies at MASS MoCA and the University of Minnesota Institute for Advanced Study, and grants from the Network of Ensemble Theaters, PEN America, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, among others. Rachel is a Core Writer at The Playwrights’ Center. MFA Playwriting, Brown University.

Back to the Collaboration Incubator program >>

Image: Rachel Jendrzejewski and Terry Hempfling. Photo by Landon Newton and Rocco Ruglio-Misurell.