Performance Dates

TERRA will be performed outdoors at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education on June 13, 14, 15 and 20, 21, and 22.

Location

Address: 8480 Hagy’s Mill Road Philadelphia, PA 19128

TERRA will be performed at the Schuylkill Center in a densely forested area adjacent to the Visitor Center. There is parking available on site. Audience members should dress for rough terrain and seating on wood logs.

Accommodations can be provided for audience members with mobility impairments. In case of severe weather, performances may be rescheduled. Please contact [email protected] to arrange for mobility accommodations.

Directions to the Schuylkill Center via car, bike, and public transport.

Silvana Cardell
Choreographer

Silvana Cardell, a dancer, choreographer, and educator, has been awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography. With roots in Argentina and the US, she has directed dance companies and developed programs in both countries. Cardell’s performances blend dance, theater, and visual arts, and draw inspiration from her personal experiences and cultural background. Her work often addresses social issues and challenges dominant cultural narratives.

Cardell’s performances have been showcased domestically and internationally since the late-90s. Her projects have received significant funding from prominent organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Center for the Arts & Heritage, and the New England Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and Mid Atlantic Foundation of the Arts. She is also committed to advancing dance in her communities, having founded several organizations, including EDA Escuela de Danza del Abasto, a three-year professional dance training program sponsored by Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion in Argentina, and Sala Ana Itelman, a performance space sponsored by the Instituto Nacional del Teatro in Buenos Aires and Cardell Dance Studio in Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, Cardell has collaborated extensively with Manfred Fishbeck at Group Motion Dance Company, Myra Bazell and Madison Mario at Scrap Performance, Merian Soto, theater director Blanka Zizka and created Cardell Dance Theater and Cardell Dance Studio.

Cardell is Associate Professor of Dance at Georgian Court University where she has been Chair of the Dance Department since 2009 .

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Sarah Kavage
Visual Artist and Set Designer

Sarah Kavage is a Seattle-based visual artist who creates public projects that call attention to land, ecology, and place. Kavage was born into a family of DIYers, makers, and nature lovers in 1970s rural Ohio.

She came to Seattle from NYC with a BFA and a sense of burnout from waiting tables, seeking a new vocation through grad school in urban planning. Urban planning unexpectedly turned her art practice inside out, away from studio work and towards outdoors and community. Much of her work since has taken place along Seattle’s Duwamish River.

In 2021, Kavage built 16 functional ecological artworks as lead artist for Lenapehoking~Watershed, an ambitious project about the Delaware River watershed, with sites centered on Philadelphia and spanning 3 states.

Sarah was a featured artist on the 2022 Farm/Art DTour and she looks forward to returning to the Driftless Area this fall.

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Devin Arne
Composer and Sound Designer

Devin Arne, DMA is a composer, producer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist.  He has established a reputation as a versatile musician and producer with a portfolio that spans multiple genres including rock, electronic, jazz, and film scores.

Working with top Music Houses in New York and Los Angeles, Devin has composed music for national ad campaigns for Mercedes-Benz, Samsung, Tide, and YouTube, among others.  His compositions have been featured on TV shows including MTV’s The Real World, E!’s Keeping up with the Kardashians, Total Divas, TLC’s Four Weddings, and MTV Canada’s Grand Benders. Devin composed the music for Mo Faramawy’s comedic short film Ordinary World which premiered in Cairo, Egypt, and was featured at the 2015 Chicago Comedy Film Festival.

As Assistant Professor of Studio Composition at West Chester University, Devin teaches courses in Film & Media Scoring and Studio Production. He holds a Doctoral Degree in Music and Interdisciplinary Digital Media from Arizona State University, a Master’s Degree in Jazz Performance from McGill University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from The Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University, where he was a recipient of the Charlie Byrd Memorial Scholarship.

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Blanka Zizka
Dramaturge

Blanka Zizka has been Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater since 1981. In January 2016, The Vilcek Foundation announced Zizka as recipient of the Vilcek Prize, which is awarded annually to immigrants who have made lasting contributions to American society through their extraordinary achievements in biomedical research and the arts and humanities. She received the Zelda Fichandler Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation in 2011, and was a Fellow at the 2015 Sundance Institute/LUMA Foundation Theatre Directors Retreat.

For the past six years, she has been developing practices and programs for local theater artists to create working conditions that support creativity through continuity and experimentation. She has directed over 70 plays and musicals at the Wilma. Most recently, Blanka directed Describe the Night, There, Romeo and Juliet, When The Rain Stops Falling, Tom Stoppard’s U.S. premiere of The Hard Problem, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Hamlet, Paula Vogel’s world premiere Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq, Richard Bean’s Under the Whaleback, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s Our Class, Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, and Macbeth, which included an original score by Czech composer and percussionist Pavel Fajt. Her recent favorite productions are Wajdi Mouawad’s Scorched, Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love and Rock ’n’ Roll, Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice (which featured an original score by composer Toby Twining, now available from Cantaloupe Records), Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, Athol Fugard’s Coming Home and My Children! My Africa!, and Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9.She collaborated closely with Dael Orlandersmith on her plays Raw Boys and Yellowman, which was co-produced by McCarter Theatre and the Wilma and performed at ACT Seattle, Long Wharf, and Manhattan Theatre Club. Blanka was also privileged to direct Rosemary Harris and John Cullum in Ariel Dorfman’s The Other Side at MTC. For the Academy of Vocal Arts, she directed the opera Kát’a Kabanová by Leoš Janácek. She has collaborated with many playwrights including Paula Vogel, Richard Bean, Yussef El Guindi, Doug Wright, Sarah Ruhl, Tom Stoppard, Linda Griffiths, Polly Pen, Dael Orlandersmith, Laurence Klavan, Lillian Groag, Jason Sherman, Amy Freed, Robert Sherwood, and Chay Yew.

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Vasi Zivanic
Costume Designer

Vasi Zivanic is an experienced costume designer for the theater that has collaborated with Zizka and Cardell in the past. She is a trusted collaborator who has dance and movement at the forefront of her designs. Ms. Zivanic works as a fashion designer and illustrator for various clients in the US and Europe. She is a Professor at Parsons and FIT in NYC. Some of her work is published in The Big Book of Contemporary Illustration by M. Dawber and Fashion Drawing by M. Bryant.

She is the recipient of the Kahn Career Award for Exceptional Talent, Ms. Zivanic’s credentials include There, Romeo and Juliet, Passing Strange, When the Rain Stops Falling, The Hard Problem, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Don Juan Comes Home From Iraq by Paula Vogel, and Leaving by Václav Havel (The Wilma Theater); The Daughters of the Mood (Edinburgh Festival); Cosi Fan Tutte (Huntington Theatre); Venus, Necessary Targets, Godspell, La Lorona(The Beckett Theatre, NYC); and The Magic Flute. She has been a fabric painter for leading New York studio Parson Meares on Broadway including The Lion King, Wicked, Spamalot, Dracula, and Disney’s Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., and Aladdin.

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Core Dancers

Meghan Frederick
Core Dancer

Meghan Frederick and Kate Seethaler’s Carnivore is the third of three research performances that form a year-long project, which the duo hopes to synthesize into an evening-length work. The confident spatial and temporal choices make this piece strong.

Frederick begins the performance with a diagonal walk upstage where she freezes, facing a chair in the corner, her stance wide, arms outstretched above and to the side of her. Almost imperceptibly at first, she moves through a slow and smooth pattern of poses around and eventually onto the chair, where she gazes at the floor as Seethaler enters the space.

In contrast to Frederick’s controlled movements, Seethaler spirals and sails around the stage, with movements that feel free. Towards the middle of the work, the pair trade roles; Frederick whirls in and out of the floor, while Seethaler slows and becomes calculated with her movements.

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Chloe Marie
Core Dancer

Chloe Marie is a performer and choreographer based on the Lenni Lenape land also known as Philadelphia. Chloe’s rich artistic background commenced in high school where she attended the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. There she received rigorous ballet, jazz, and modern dance training, and performed in many classic modern dance repertoires; some including Donald McKayle, Christopher Huggins, and Jose Limon. Chloe continued her performance dance education at the University of the Arts in 2013, and performed in works by Doug Varone, Yazmeen Godder, Sidra Bell, Faustin Linkeyula, Jesse Zaritt, and others.

Since earning her degree in 2017, she has actively engaged in numerous collaborative and solo projects that explore themes of identity, community, and the human experience.

Chloe recently premiered her solo work “Afraid of the Abstract” at Judson Church as part of Black Aesthetics; a weekly performance evening, curated by Arien Wilkerson and Malcolm-x Betts. Her versatility has led her to perform in a variety of settings, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Fringe Festival. In addition to her performance work, Chloe has ventured into video projects, contributing her movement to dance films, and music videos, and as an educator, she shares her passion for dance with children and adults. With each endeavor, Chloe continues to push creative boundaries, hopefully making a meaningful impact in the Philadelphia dance Landscape.

Mackenzie Morris
Core Dancer

Mackenzie Morris graduated summa cum laude from Georgian Court University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and honors in dance and choreography.

She has been with Cardell Dance Theater since 2015, performing “Supper, People on the Move” in New York, the Dominican Republic, and various locations across the east coast.

Most recently, she has been involved in the 2022 premier of CDT’s “Disposable Bodies.” In addition to her work with Silvana, Mackenzie has performed in various showcases in and around Philadelphia and is a certified aerialist.

 

 

 

 

 

Tammy Carrasco
Core Dancer

Tammy Carrasco  is dance artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Carrasco’s work has been presented by Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, Dumbo Dance Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church in collaboration with Ann Sofie Clemmensen, Dixon Place, Jennifer Mueller/The Works, Triskelion Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and Philadelphia’s Performance Garage, to name a few.

Tammy was in the first round of awardees for the New York State DanceForce Western NY Choreographers’ Initiative sponsored by New York Council on the Arts, which supported a long-term creative process for now dance film, “Desert Picnic.” Her work has also been supported by Bryn Mawr College, Greater Columbus Arts Council, The College at Brockport, SUNY, and The Ohio State University. Her current projects are multidisciplinary collaborations in which dance, visual art, film, text, and design merge for presentation in traditional and alternative artistic spaces.

As an active dance-artist-educator, Tammy has worked full and part time in various educational structures, from studios to academia, including Interim Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College, Assistant Professor at SUNY Brockport, lead instructor at North Carolina Governor’s School East, part-time at Bryn Mawr College and Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL. She has guest taught at University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Maryland, College Park, Montclair University, Nazareth College, University of Rochester, Jansen Dance Project, Dance with Utica festival, and internationally at Beijing Dance Academy. Tammy is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College, Dance Program.

Carrasco received an MFA from The Ohio State University, BFA in Contemporary Dance from University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is a Walnut Hill School alum. Committed to a lifetime of learning, Tammy is grateful for her formative study with Brenda Daniels, Bebe Miller, Sean Sullivan, Susan Rethorst, Nancy Stark Smith, and Noa Zuk, among several others.

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Tamar Gutherz
Core Dancer

Tamar is a dancer, teacher, and movement lover originally from Lynchburg, Virginia.  She began her dance training with Keith Lee at the Dance Theatre of Lynchburg , and has a BFA in Modern Dance Performance from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

While living in Philadelphia, she danced with the physical theatre company Brian Sanders’ JUNK and with PHILADANCO 2, under the artistic direction of Joan Myers Brown.

In Israel she danced with Kolben Dance Company for three years, and has worked with independent choreographers such as Ella Ben Aharon, Smadar Goshen, Shlomi Bitton, and Shlomit Fundaminsky.

Today she teaches modern dance and contact improvisation.  She is also a certified Gyrotonic® & Gyrokinesis® Instructor, and gives classes in Charlottesville and the surrounding area.

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Maria Urrutia
Core Dancer

Cuban Born, Maria Urrutia, holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College, an EdM from Temple University and a BFA in Dance from The University of the Arts.  She is an Associate Professor at West Chester University.

Ms. Urrutia is a company member with Cardell Dance Theater, which is directed by Guggenheim fellow Silvana Cardell. In addition to this work, she continues to collaborate with a variety of artist in addition to creating and presenting her own work. Her choreographic and scholarship practice focuses on Cuban Rumba and has been presented in London, Montreal, Trondheim, Miami, Ladek, Angers, São Carlos, Paris, New York and Edinburgh.

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 Guest Performers

In TERRA: Bodies & Territories, the ensemble embodies the interwoven stories of different generations, with each dancer bringing a distinct presence to the work. We highlight the unique contributions of our youngest performer, Adeline, whose movement reflects emerging energy and possibility, alongside Sheila and Germaine, whose artistry carries decades of wisdom and resilience.

Germaine Ingram
Guest Performer

Germaine Ingram is a Philadelphia PA-based jazz percussive dancer, choreographer, song writer, vocal/dance improviser, oral historian, and cultural strategist and archivist. She creates evening-length pieces that explore themes related to history, collective memory and social justice, and designs and directs arts/culture projects that explore and illuminate community cultural history.  She collaborates with artists from diverse cultural traditions and artistic disciplines, including jazz/experimental music composers, site-specific/informed choreographers, dance and vocal improvisers, African Diasporic culture specialists, and visual/media artists.

Her recent writing is represented by a chapter she co-authored with Dr. Toni Shapiro-Phim for an international academic publication on the arts and human rights.  She collaborated with musician/composer/curator Alex B. Shaw and filmmaker Aidan Un on a media installation for the 2023/2024 group exhibition Bahia Reverb, sponsored by the California African American Museum.  She is part of an international cohort of improvisational vocalists and movers in Murmuration, a new performance ensemble led by improvisational vocalist Rhiannon and Canadian dancer/choreographer Margie Gillis.  Germaine’s work has been recognized with fellowships, project grants and residencies from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Leeway Foundation, Independence Foundation, Lomax Family and Wyncote Foundations, the Sacatar Institute in Itaparica Brazil, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, and in 2024 with a Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Fellowship.

Sheila Zagar
Guest Performer

Adeline Urrutia
Guest Performer

+ Ensemble (Community Dancers)

Kayliani Sood

Kate Sheethaler

Ashleigh McGown

Abigail Mosier

Lilly McGonigle

Eun Jung  Choi

Esmerelda Luciano

 

TERRA: Bodies & Territories is a work of experimental dance theater by Silvana Cardell, set in a forest with a multi-generational ensemble of women and femme dancers ranging in age from 7-70. Performed within the forest of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, TERRA activates the land as a living laboratory and stage. This immersive, multi-sensory performance is laden in kinetic, theatrical, and sonic experiences of dance, sound and land-based visual art.

Responding to the land’s sloping topography, the piece immerses audiences in an experience where bodies align with the land and human movement and nature merge to reveal our inextricable livelihood and empowerment. The performers will explore the natural setting, moving seamlessly among the trees and using props to create shelters and unveil imaginative landscapes collaboratively.

The dancers are accompanied by a site-specific sound installation by composer Devin Arne, capturing the essence of the forested space at the Schuylkill Center by recording the sounds of plants actively moving and growing. Visual artist Sarah Kavage creates art installations and props from natural materials harvested from the land for the dancers to interact with. Costume Designer Vasi Zivanic creates costumes appropriate to the setting, that allow dancers to be protected and enhance movement. Theater director Blanka Zizka is dramaturge for TERRA, working in close collaboration with Silvana Cardell.

Conceptually, TERRA confronts the patriarchal subjugation of marginalized bodies and natural spaces. TERRA’s performance narrative uplifts the ancestral role of women and femmes as environmental guardians. Women, femme, and gender non-conforming audience members will be invited to join the performers at the end of each performance, offering kinship and unity with the forest.

Leading up to June performances of TERRA, a series of public workshops and other programs will introduce  community members to the project’s concepts.

Visual Art Workshop with Harvested Natural Materials

April 12, 2025 | 11am-1pm
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

Harvest natural materials to make collaborative artwork with artist Sarah Kavage. Sarah Kavage is a Seattle-based artist who creates large-scale public art projects that call attention to ecological processes and human relationships with place.

Creative Movement Workshop with Silvana Cardell
Thursday, April 24, 2025 | 4-5:30pm
Taller Puertorriqueño

In this community workshop at Taller Puertorriqueño, dancer and choreographer Silvana Cardell will lead participants in creative movement exercises. Participants will learn about Cardell’s current project, TERRA: Bodies and Territories, which explores the shared vulnerabilities between women’s bodies and the environment through the medium of dance.

TERRA Preview Performance at Naturepalooza
April 26, 2025 | Time TBD
Preview TERRA at Naturepalooza, the annual Earth Day Festival at the Schuylkill Center

Creative Movement Workshop with Silvana Cardell
Saturday, May 10 | 11am-12:30pm
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

In this workshop geared toward family members of all ages, dancer and choreographer Silvana Cardell will lead participants in creative movement exercises. Participants will learn about Cardell’s current project, TERRA: Bodies and Territories, which explores the shared vulnerabilities between women’s bodies and the environment through the medium of dance.

Bodies & Territories: Ecofeminist Legacy
A Conversation and Screening with Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, Silvana Cardell, and Mey-Yen Moriuchi
Saturday, May 17, 2025 | 4-6pm
Taller Puertorriqueño

Bodies & Territories: Ecofeminist Legacy brings together choreographer Silvana Cardell, filmmaker Raquel Mendieta, and art historian Mey-Yen Moruichi for a screening and conversation that reflects on and reimagines ecofeminist artistic practice. Silvana Cardell’s new production TERRA: Bodies & Territories will premier in June on the forested land of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in northwest Philadelphia. Cardell’s production aligns the bodies of her dance ensemble with the land, merging human movement with nature to reveal our inextricable livelihood and empowerment.

Dance merges with nature in immersive world premiere set in a Philadelphia forest