Artistic Director
Bio
Deborah Goffe is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, curator, and dance video enthusiast. Since earning her BFA in modern dance from the University of the Arts and an MFA in performance and choreography from California Institute of the Arts, Scapegoat Garden has served as the vehicle and creative community through which the Hartford-native explores the intersection of dance with other media. Founded in 2002, Scapegoat Garden is a Hartford-based collaborative dance theater, driven to create daring, interdisciplinary performance that goes in through the nose, eyes, skin, ears and mouth to stir those who witness or participate. Through the company, Deborah is inspired to conjure lush worlds where dynamic movement, sound, video, costumes, sets, lights and a genuine expression of the human experience converge. With collaboration at the center of its process, the company's repertory has been selected for performance in festivals and venues throughout the region including: Hartford's Charter Oak Cultural Center, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, Provincetown Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival in Maine, New York City's Raw Material Performance Series at Dance New Amsterdam, DUMBO Dance Festival, Artists of Tomorrow Festival, and Fridays at Noon at the 92nd Street Y. In this, Scapegoat Garden's 10th anniversary year, Deborah remains committed to the company's vision of exemplifying the artistic integrity and innovation of Hartford's cultural community. Through its performance works, community engagement activities, and its laboratory for creative process at The Garden for Contemporary Dance, Scapegoat Garden strives to forge relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and our city.
In 2012, the Connecticut Dance Alliance honored Deborah for Distinguished Achievement in Dance. In service to her work with Scapegoat Garden, Deborah has received Artists Fellowship Grants from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the City of Hartford Arts & Heritage Jobs Grant, and the Surdna Foundation. In 2010, Deborah was invited to participate as New England Emerging Choreographer at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine. In that same year, she served as a yearlong Artist-in-Residence at Billings Forge Community Works. Deborah has taught dance and related courses in a number of institutions, including Belmont High School in Los Angeles, California Institute of the Arts, CREC Center for Creative Youth, Trinity College, and CulturArte - a youth arts summer residency program in Cape Verde, Africa. She currently serves as member of the core faculty in the dance department at CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. In addition to her work with creative youth and with her Scapegoat Garden collaborators, Deborah served as Dance Coordinator at Charter Oak Cultural Center from 2011-2012, working closely with area dance-makers to revitalize and re-envision the Greater Hartford dance community through the Homegrown Dance initiative. To serve her growing interest in performance curation, Deborah is currently a student in Wesleyan University's Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance.
click here to view Deborah's curriculum vitae
Artist Statement
I
am a “we” person, and I am growing more and more aware of a power I summon
when I nurture this sense of “we”. The creative process has been most
fulfilling for me when generated within a community of creative individuals
who act as advocates for one another and for the work produced among them. I
have been fortunate to find myself among such individuals and groups
throughout my life, which has motivated me to place collaboration at the
center of my creative process. While I have faith in my ideas and confidence in my
ability to bring them to fruition, I have also found that every artist’s
capacity expands in the presence of other perspectives. The combination of
time, consistent effort applied to unearth each vision, and the commitment of
a creative community allow my ideas to incubate and grow to full size.
I have found
that fusing multiple media within a collaborative process can produce a form
of dance theater that is layered with multi-sensory stimulation, attention to
detail and a deeply physical engagement. Much of popular media desensitizes
the observer through a barrage of images, I look to those same mediums for
their ability to engage and, on occasion, to move, inform and transform in
unexpected ways. I seek the balance between technique, choreographic process,
the integration of theatrical elements, and high production value. In a
culture where strict adherence to one’s assigned labels are encouraged, I
have found it difficult to be both traditional and progressive, process
oriented and concerned with polished end-products, organic and technical.
Ultimately, I am convinced that my unique voice rests in the space between technique,
concept and product. In this, the total theatrical experience, I strive to
soften by heightening sensation and encouraging introspection on the part of
the performer and audience. My desire is that audiences leave performances
more aware than before the encounter.
Fledge: v. 1. to grow feathers required for flying 2. to provide with feathers 3. to prepare for flight, or independent existence
mailing address: 810 Tower Ave Hartford, CT 06112 860.881.9943
deborah@scapegoatgarden.org
Site designed by Jeff Mathew Design