Dear Luminarium Community,

This month commemorates 14 years since Luminarium Dance Company's founding, and it is with both deep contemplation and profound appreciation that we announce the decision to venture on to something new.

Luminarium began in 2010 with the goal of embracing contemporary dance, light, and interdisciplinary collaboration to illuminate aspects of our lives and the world we live in. With the invaluable help of our supporters, patrons, and participants (like you), we swiftly established ourselves as an award-winning 501(c)(3) non-profit contemporary dance company, regularly hailed for its unique combination of dance and illumination. Over the past decade and a half, we have been proud to present professional annual dance productions alongside our yearly community outreach programming. We had the privilege of receiving regular commissions to create new choreographic works and performance installations—for venues ranging from gardens and art walks to opening act performances for TEDxCambridge (Boston Opera House) and the Rosoff Awards (The State Room)—and presented our works at several hundred events across the U.S. and abroad in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

For the past seven seasons, Luminarium's two directors have bridged a geographical divide while expanding the company's programming across the Northeast from Boston, MA, to Princeton, NJ. During this time, we continued to further hone our individual artistic voices, with Luminarium's breadth encompassing a growingly diverse array of public programming. In March, we were deeply saddened to learn of the unexpected passing of our lawyer Freya Shoffner who, as a fellow Mount Holyoke alum, provided Luminarium with unwavering support and guidance from its first season. With Shoffner & Associates closing its doors, we have taken this as an opportunity to reevaluate the direction of Luminarium as a company that now embodies two distinct artistic pursuits. Luminarium has been an invaluable incubator and launching pad for both of our artistic careers, and we feel this is the moment to allow ourselves the freedom to each explore our creative research journeys to their fullest by diverging into two separate entities.

Although this is Luminarium's final letter, we encourage you to continue following our individual endeavors as we move on to the next chapter.

Kim is excited to announce that she’s digging her heels into Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood. One year ago she founded Human Movement Lab, a physical space for both fitness and also a home for professional performing artists that need creative space, and has been both training clients and rehearsing in the space. She will transition to the moniker Human Movement Project for her artistic work (housed at the Lab)—the nonprofit will continue her quest to serve the needs of her immediate Boston neighborhood through performance as a tool for storytelling, building empathy, and developing community. This year Kim was selected by the Boston Foundation and the Aliad Fund as Next Steps for Boston Dance recipient through 2025, awarded Mass Cultural Council funding for her work, and continues to develop her recent projects Common Circus and Contradictions + Casual Self Loathing with her team. Learn more about Kim's projects at humanmvmtproject.com, and save the date to join us downtown at Boston’s City Hall Plaza on the evening of 8/3 for Future Fest, or on 9/8 in Harvard Square for Arrow Street Art’s inaugural festival in the former OBERON space.

Merli is back on her feet after a whirlwind year, with a new baby and cross-country move to Texas. In January, Merli joined Texas A&M University as its Assistant Professor of Dance Technology, a new position in the university's School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts, where she is continuing her creative research as an interdisciplinary choreographer and filmmaker. In March, she served as an adjudicator for the Pittsburgh International Dance Film Festival; while her own films will be screened at the 32nd Quinzena de Dança de Almada International Dance Festival (Almada, Portugal) and the Women in Dance Leadership Conference (Los Angeles) this fall. Merli remains dedicated to innovating and producing public arts events that celebrate historic sites through her ongoing PLACE Project. Her next project? Dancing with mammoths—yes, mammoths! Keep an eye out for an upcoming email from Merli about her new collaboration with the active paleontology dig at Waco Mammoth National Monument and her work with interactive screendance, virtual reality choreography, and "fossilizing the ephemeral" through motion capture technologies. 

We wish to thank all of you, our Luminarium family, for your enthusiastic support all these years. Thank you also to the many artists and organizations who championed our work through collaborations, grants, space rentals, and creative resources. Most of all, thank you to all current and past Luminarium company members and guest artists who brought both levity and dedication to every rehearsal, production, and community engagement event. It has been our privilege to work with you, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate through these new endeavors.

Be on the lookout for emails from each of us respectively. You are welcome to unsubscribe, but we'd love it if you didn't—we'd like to stay in touch!

With appreciation,
Merli & Kim