On Saturday, June 5, 2010 from 11 am – 4 pm, Grounds for Sculpture and MM2 Modern Dance will be kicking off the celebration of their mutual tenth anniversaries with an Anniversary Arts Party. The annual celebration of the founding of Grounds For Sculpture, offers a host of activities and events, including kid-friendly workshops for ages 6-12 years. Meet the Artists and tour the grounds with select Artists-in-the-Park at 11am, 1pm, and 2pm.
MM2 Modern Dance will be on site performing improvisational dance at select sculptures in accompaniment to the Meet the Artist Tours. New this year, in conjunction with the Spring/Summer 2010 Exhibition Season, Grounds For Sculpture will paint a car, donated by Suburban Wrench in Pennington, NJ, with the help of local graffiti artists Leon Rainbow and Will “Kasso” Condry. Additional activities will include the Community Quilt Project! A display of the work thus far will be on exhibit, as well as the opportunity to make a square in contribution for the Commemorative Quilt as a work-in-progress. Adults, kids, and families are invited to create their own special squares depicting their favorite things about Grounds For Sculpture! Also featuring free musical performances throughout the day, free ice cream and cake, the Peacock Calling Contest and much more!
MM2 Modern Dance began in 2000 as Music & Motion Dance Productions, a youth based company, which has performed at the Grounds for Sculpture for the past six years years. The company has drawn much of its body of work from the programs developed at GFS. Now in 2010, under the direction of Steven Weisz, it has evolved as a leader in imaginative movement and creative collaboration for college age dancers as well as post-college dance majors in career transition. MM2 dancers are committed to creating a new body of work each year, in which the dancers themselves create choreography as a group process. This provides an opportunity for dancers to explore the choreographic process as well as to have a chance to present their work to both the professional dance community as well as the public. Weisz and his dancers “are looking forward to creating improvisational dance pieces, on the spot, to select sculptures with input from both the artists and audience”. He goes on to add “there is nothing better than dancing in open space in which inspiration and improvisation arise naturally, and then to be able to share that experience withothers”. The group will return in August with an exhibition if dance photographs taken over the years at GFS as well as a sneak preview and performance of their new work, Emergence.
Grounds For Sculpture, located in Hamilton, New Jersey (midway between Philadelphia and New York), is a whimsical thirty-five acre sculpture garden and arboretum on the former site of the New Jersey State Fairgrounds. Founded by Seward Johnson to promote an understanding of and appreciation for contemporary sculpture, the park has been enchanting visitors since 1992. Grounds For Sculpture features more than 250 contemporary sculptures, and two 10,000 square foot museum galleries with rotating exhibits. In addition, the park offers workshops for children and adults, concerts, performances, fairs, shopping and fine dining at the Zagat’s-rated Rat’s Restaurant.
For more information on MM2 Modern Dance, visit www.mm2dance.org and for information on Grounds for Sculpture visit their web site at www.groundsforsculpture.org