Murielle Elizéon and Tommy Noonan — partners in life, art and business — both have lengthy resumes that list an impressive array of dance, choreography and teaching projects with august companies from Mexico and Argentina to Australia and Slovakia. At first glance, it is therefore surprising that in 2014 they chose the small unincorporated village of Saxapahaw, NC (pop. 1,418 in the 2010 census) as the home of their latest artistic venture, Culture Mill, a performing arts laboratory.

As Murielle and Tommy explain in this conversation with Pier Carlo Talenti, however, Saxapahaw was the perfect place in which they could engender their vision: an organization whose artmaking was woven inextricably into the fabric of its geographic home. In their first full year of operation, for instance, Culture Mill launched “Trust the Bus,” an experience in which audiences boarded a 44-seat Bluebird biodiesel school bus and were then driven to an assortment of interdisciplinary performances throughout rural Alamance County.

Since then Culture Mill has welcomed many noted international artists in various disciplines to Saxapahaw for lengthy residencies; offered countless free or low-cost workshops and arts events to the community; and become a regular fixture at the prestigious American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, which commissioned one of their latest pieces, “They Are All,” a dance work created in collaboration with people living with Parkinson’s Disease, many of whom performed in its world premiere in 2019.

Murielle and Tommy spoke with Pier Carlo from Culture Mill’s studio, several weeks into the COVID-19 lockdown.

http://culturemill.org/

https://indyweek.com/culture/stage/rethinking-revenue-based-arts-Culture-Mill/