We are excited to continue our series “Conversations with Artists” with artist Rachel Bernsen. Among the ambient bustle of the galleries, Bernsen and our new curatorial assistant, Peili Heitzman, had a chance to talk about Bernsen’s work as a dancer, choreographer, and Alexander Technique instructor. The interview gives insight into her discovery of dance and her practice as an improvisational and interdisciplinary artist whose journey has connected her to musicians, painters, and textile artists alike. Bernsen and her collaborators are exhibiting their multi-media work, “Novel Formats On-Site” at AVA, including Bernsen’s performance of Novel Formats #6, “You Are Here, Change, Change, Change” on February 6th and 7th. Tickets are available on our website at avagallery.org.

Peili Heitzman:  Hi, Rachel. Thanks so much for being here and talking to us.

Rachel Bernsen: Absolutely. It’s my pleasure.

PH: I’m just going to start! When did you begin dancing?

RB: I started dancing late for a dancer. I started in college, and I was almost 20 when I started formal dance training. So fairly late in my life, but I was always pretty athletic. I always did a lot of dancing. It started in my teens in an informal way, but that’s definitely where I got my love of dancing.

PH: How did your dance practice evolve into the disciplinary practice that it is today? 

RB: I think it really started when I started improvising and exploring improvisation as not just a kind of process for creation, but as a practice in itself. Around that same time, I started collaborating with musicians who were from that improvisational tradition, like Black creative music, jazz tradition. Taylor Ho Bynum, who’s my spouse, was a big influence on me. Through him, I started working with other musicians and composers and learning a lot about musical composition that uses improvisation. The first piece that I made in 2005 was made using musical forms, both rhythmical structures and compositional structures. I think that was a really good genesis of my interdisciplinary interest. I fell in love with working with musicians and artists of other disciplines in my work – exploring, making work with musicians and performers, not just as accompaniment to my work. My practice further expanded when I started working with a visual artist, Megan Craig. She and I had quite an extensive collaboration for a number of years. Mostly, we both performed in the work, but the work was really informed by both of our practices. We were trying to figure out how to use the improvisation, both as a way to connect to each other’s practices and a way to find a way forward to shared language that you can use to make a cohesive performance piece. That’s kind of how my practice initially expanded into visual art or installation, living installation, or maybe even performance art.

PH: What did that research process look like? What kind of things were you looking at?

RB: One of the things we talked a lot about was inhabiting the other person’s discipline, like a musician dancing or a dancer making music or sound. Where were the boundaries for that? And questions about amateurism, what was okay to embrace and what felt off limits? At first, I think we really did try to set some boundaries, but as we continued to explore and improvise together, those lines became naturally really blurry. I think that’s one way in which our unique approach really evolved, which was in finding our way through some of those questions. We came up with a set of shared principles about improvisation, about group improvisation, and about listening and working across disciplines. We had very specific approaches to working with each other that helped us stay together for a long period of time; a lot of mutuality. And we were able to sustain a collective interest in continuing together to keep evolving.

PH:  Could you speak about your choreography process?

RB: My process as a choreographer varies quite a bit from work to work. This project, “Novel Formats”, which is the project I initiated at the beginning of 2024, I set out to make seven different dance pieces all rooted and improvisation at its core. I set certain parameters around the creative process for this project. In part, because I was thinking about the fact I didn’t have a lot of resources. For the first three pieces, I created structures for each piece ahead of time. I thought about a kind of structural arc, and I was thinking about each of these sectionally, so I came up with between three to five unique structures that would then be organized together as a cohesive whole. Then, I would bring together a group of artists that I had chosen for that project, and we would have two days to explore these structures. We would implement them, question them, work with them, maybe ultimately decide that we don’t need them, or don’t need all of them, or see that certain things work and certain things don’t. In that process of two days of rehearsal, we would create a work that is really an expression of that particular ensemble’s working practice. But the structures were the starting point. Over the course of two days, I would let it open up, let the ensemble explore in whatever way seemed to really work or be a result of individual expression or some kind of imaginative expansion. At the end of those two days, I would make some directorial decisions about how the piece will flow, how it will unfold, or maybe some kind of order. A very loose kind of directorial oversight, which is something that I was actually really excited about – I’ve  given myself permission to to make some of those decisions. That’s kind of where my role as a choreographer comes in. 

Each piece so far has only had the opportunity to have one performance. So, I’m excited that these two works that will be in the gallery will have two nights of shows, and then they can evolve further. No two performances will be the same because the first performance is going to be an extension of that process, of an ever-evolving dance.

PH: You are a teacher of the Alexandra Technique. Can you speak about what this technique is and how you can cross it? How has the Technique impacted your creative process as both a dancer and a teacher?

RB: The Alexander Technique is a somatic practice that is designed to connect mind and body, to really foster greater sensitivity to yourself through your kinesthetic sense.  It’s an intelligence; it’s a type of intelligence that is not intellectual, but very deeply embodied, and I discovered it through being a dancer. It’s really applicable to performing artists because we’re always looking for that deeper knowledge, to be able to deepen our expressive power, whether it’s through movement, or text, or an instrument, whether it be the voice or an actual physical instrument. Our fundamental primary instrument is ourselves, no matter what the discipline. When I found the Alexander Technique, it was something that really changed my relationship to dance. It allowed me to feel that dance was something I embodied, as opposed to something that I learned that was outside of myself. It has informed my dance practice but also my creative practice. Using the Alexander Technique as a jumping off point for preparing the body is very, very important –  preparing the body for dancing, preparing the body, or preparing myself for improvising, getting in an open mindset and cultivating presence, quieting my nervous system. Not be in the position of being overly judgmental or critically in my analytical brain. It really does help me drop into my body. With improvising, you’re making choices in the moment, and you don’t want to be having too much oversight. You don’t want to be thinking critically about the choices you’re making. You need to be really open to being responsive and spontaneous. So I find that the Alexander Technique has been like a big part of that preparation process. 

PH:  Who are some of your dancing inspirations? Or what dancers/choreographers have you learned the most from?

RB: I would say Anthony Braxton, who is a composer and a multi- instrumentalist who I had the chance to work in different capacities. That’s someone who I’ve definitely been influenced by, both in their composition, their musical language, but also in their performance ideas. Some choreographers whose work I’ve really been inspired by are Meg Stuart, who is an American-born choreographer but who has been based in Belgium for many, many years. [She] made very large-scale dance theater work, but is also a really deep improviser. Her practice encompasses both. I would say the early works of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who is a Belgian choreographer. She was also making a lot of work that was built around a musical compositional form. I really liked that in her early work, which had this particular type of rigor and kind of deep compositional idea. There’s a choreographer, Wally Cardona, whose work I really love. He’s done a lot of projects that also range from large-scale choreographed pieces to just really interesting projects with really interesting artists outside of his particular milieu. And then there’s a whole series of dance artists from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, some of whom are still working today, the Judson post-Modernists. Those are artists who have been like super, super present and whose influence is deeply, deeply felt in the dance world, still after all these years. The work of Deborah Hay, [she] is someone I’ve been influenced by, and the work of Ivon Rainer, who was actually someone I did have the chance to work with in 2019. All of their practices are pretty multidisciplinary and exploratory.  

To introduce the series, we have interviewed Sam Eckert, AVA’s Exhibition Manager and Curator. Sam is both an artist and a curator. The conversation explores the connection between these two practices, as well as how Eckert approaches curating a show at AVA. In this introductory blog, Eckert will reflect on the 2025 exhibition series.

Lastly, we’re delighted to announce the 2026 exhibition schedule. You can read a preview of what’s happening in the galleries below and find a link to the upcoming exhibitions and events schedule.

Enjoy!

The Interview:

Emmie Foster: Hi Sam, it’s so nice to have the opportunity to chat with you. I guess we’ll start with a question to orient everyone: How did you become a curator?

Samantha Eckert: Well, I started late in my curating career; most people in this field begin much younger. I studied studio and commercial art in undergrad, but it wasn’t until my early 40s that I went back to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts for museum studies. After I graduated, I was an adjunct in the Museum Studies Dept. and ran the student gallery. In 2015, I earned my MFA in Visual Arts. So, I have a varied background– heavy in administration and higher ed., combined with coordinating and installing large group exhibitions featuring a wide range of content and media. Incidentally, curating exhibitions might be in my genes: my ancestor, Giuseppe Saverio Mercadante, was an opera composer in the 1800s- so you could make the correlation that musical arrangement is similar to arranging visual art.

EF: What do you see as the primary role of the curator? Do you see a parallel between world-building and curating?

SE: I think a good curator will show off the artwork first and the venue second. For AVA, the primary role is to showcase a broad range of contemporary artists, providing the audience with variety. This could mean artists working with current events or with abstract ideas. Sometimes this pushes comfort zones, but in the goal of generating conversations.

As a curator, your goal is to broaden a visitor’s point of view or say something impactful, whether that be aesthetically, emotionally, politically, or intellectually.

I like to build stories within exhibitions. I guess this is my curatorial voice, poetic in nature. The “stories” are always arranged differently; a story could be about color, shape, or content. Some curators do quite the opposite, arranging things so that there is a change-up and no relationship between each work, which just doesn’t resonate with me. Also, selling art is vital to an artist and to a gallery.

EF: What made you decide to focus on contemporary art? What draws you to it?

SE: I’ve always been drawn to abstract painting, conceptual art, and the Fluxus movement. When I was a kid, I saw a biopic film about the Beatles. There was this scene in the film when John Lennon met Yoko Ono, and he visited the gallery where she showed her piece “Yes”. John climbed up the ladder, picked up the magnifier, and read the word. I remember thinking, “What the heck!”, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And still do. Now, of course, I think about it as being so powerful and poetic. So, in grad school, this was my focus: to make art that had poetic and meaningful messages. I was making sculptures and installation works using all sorts of materials, from humble household things to personal objects, each chosen to convey something I wanted to say to the audience. I’m drawn to mystery and beauty and the endless search for truth in my own work and in looking at other artists’ work.

EF: Being in touch with that inner knowing, or visual sensibility, can be difficult but grows easier over time, as we’ve discussed before. Do you think your curatorial sensibility and the inner knowing you use when making art are the same? Is there a difference between your curatorial and artistic practices? Do they overlap?

SE: They overlap for me for sure. I am always thinking about how I will curate my own work, how I will install it, and what I will need hardware I’ll need, plinths or pedestals, that kind of construction stuff. Curating feeds my art practice; I am constantly learning from other artists, and I think that my art practice lends to curating. As an example, as an artist, I make both discrete objects and immersive installations. We featured a show at AVA in the spring titled Understory, which was thematic in both nature and political stories. I really wanted to feature a large installation in the West gallery, so I invited my friend Marcie Scudder to make a paper sculptural form to stretch across the ceiling. I loved that the piece dipped down and nearly touched the heads of the audience. I think it was the cornerstone of the show; it really nailed the thematic content, but in a subtle way.

EF: I love hearing the direct connection between your art-making and themes for shows here at AVA. Do you consider the audience when you curate a show? What role does the audience play?

SE: I think about AVA’s audience and the broader audience. I know that AVA’s audience appreciates seeing new work from regional artists they know. So, it’s helpful to curate varied time slots: artists in AVA’s network, and some unknown artists.

SE: That’s an interesting question because many of the shows at AVA are considered “solo shows,” but what I like to do is build a narrative bridge between them so that all the artists showing in one time slot are working together to communicate a broad theme to the audience. For instance, our first show of 2025 spoke about humanity. Mark Lorah’s paintings were visceral, large-scale works that the audience could approach in a bodily way, experiencing them with multiple senses. Cynthia Atwood’s fiber sculptures were playful and corporal; the colors, textures, and shapes worked well with Mark’s paintings because his palette and shapes were similar to Cynthia’s sculptures. And also, Mark often uses fabric collaged into his paintings. So, there was a commonality between two seemingly different bodies of work. In the next gallery, Heidi Broner’s realist paintings depicted people working. Their body language mimicked the shapes used in both Mark’s and Cynthia’s work. In the Mayor gallery, Chris Papa’s sculptures depicted fragmented bodies, pulling the thread of the body, handmade, labor, and (uniquely) human traits. And, that they were made of such interesting materials, he uses manufactured and organic detritus, this idea of materiality was threaded back into Mark and Cynthia’s work.

EF: I think that was the first exhibition I worked on with you, and I remember having a similar discussion about the thread between each gallery and body of work.

EF: Do you see yourself continuing to work this way for each time slot? Or what is one vision you have for future shows at AVA?

SE: I’d really like to build more thematic or topical group exhibitions into the schedule for the main galleries. Personally, I love to imagine poetic themes that reflect our culture. I love that AVA can be a soapbox for activism, but in a way that touches people in nuanced ways. Discourse is the word today, right? We need and want to communicate our passions or causes and then hold conversations in a safe space. Art galleries can be the impetus and ideal medium for dialogue, exchange, and change. I think group shows are exciting because they give more artists opportunities to show in the main galleries. Plus, it’s an opportunity to build a larger audience, and that’s our goal: to reach more people.

EF: That’s a great vision! I think AVA has a bright future. Do you have any final parting thoughts or words?

SE: The artist is a cultural producer, the storyteller of this moment in time. Making art is uniquely human; I think society must honor the handmade and advocate for artists by showing up and supporting them for their talent, ideas, ingenuity, labor, and courage. If we lose sight of the importance of art, we risk losing humanity. I know that sounds a bit heavy, but it’s true.

I think there is more opportunity for audience and collector engagement. I have a few ideas, but I’d really like to hear from the audience about what they’d like AVA to offer.

The 2026 AVA exhibition schedule is now live! We’re excited to announce a range of shows in our main galleries. As always, the shows will feature a range of media – painting, photography, and sculpture. New to this year’s programming is a performance and workshop series led by choreographer Rachel Bernsen. For the annual Juried Exhibition, AVA has invited Bennington Museum curator Jamie Franklin. Annual exhibitions featuring work from local high school students and the AVA members’ holiday show will anchor the calendar.

Additionally, we’re delighted to announce new programming surrounding the exhibitions. A lecture series on topics like outsider artists, comic illustration, and museum theory, and workshops hosted by some of our exhibiting artists.