2023-2024 Senior Fellows in Practice

Fairfield University College of Arts and Sciences

The Senior Artist Fellowship in Practice program provides recognition and funding support for artists to pursue new work and advance their artistic careers. It is awarded to artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. Support for individual artists has been a focus of Senior Fellows in Practice since its inception. Fellowships in practice increase the exploratory opportunity, economic stability, and productive capacity of artists by providing unrestricted support for professional development opportunities. Fellowships provide customized resources and support to advance selected artists’ work with the aim of strengthening connections in their fields, opportunities for artistic collaboration and presentation, access to Fairfield University faculty, and individual professional development. In return, senior fellows help us understand broader issues, reach new audiences, and learn through the power of their art.

Nora Chipaumire

“I like to think of her as a Michelin-star bedecked chef—when you sit at her table, you just have to trust and surrender: you may never know what she will cook up this time.” – The Brooklyn Rail

Zimbabwe-born nora chipaumire has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa and the Black performing body for more than two decades. Her work fuses the personal and political experience of growing up in Zimbabwe with questioning how status and power are experienced and presented through the body. Her work critiques colonialism and complicated notions of spectatorship and power. The human body for her, and for those born without property, name or class, can be a means of self-invention and self-determination. As a 2023-24 senior fellow, chipaumire will work in residency to present NOT waiting… What if Samuel Beckett had dreamt up two African women in perpetual conversation? nora chipaumire‘s newest project NOT waiting... brings this concept to reality with Senegalese choreographer Germaine Acogny, however, not as a recreation but rather as an original work that focuses on the relationships of women.

This program is made possible through the support of Deborah Murtaugh, Louise Levin, The Humanities Institute, and Irish Studies Program

Michael Keegan-Dolan

Supported by the Humanities Institute and Irish Studies

Teaċ Daṁsa was founded by Michael Keegan-Dolan (Micháel MacAodhagáin-Ó Dobhailen) in 2016. Its first production, Swan Lake / Loch na hEala, continued a tradition of ground-breaking productions winning the Irish Times Theatre Award in 2017 for Best New Production and the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Production in 2018. MáM, created in 2019, was the first show entirely conceived, rehearsed, and produced in the West Kerry Gaeltacht. It was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Production in 2020 and two UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in 2022. As senior fellow, Keegan-Dolan and members of the company will be in residence to stage MáM, as well as work with faculty through the Humanities Institute and Irish Studies to develop new work.

Michael Keegan-Dolan rose to acclaim as the artistic director of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre (1997-2015), creating three Olivier Award-nominated productions, including Giselle (2004) which won an Irish Times Theatre Award. His work, The Bull, received a UK Critic’s Circle National Dance Award in 2008 and Rian, created in 2011, won a Bessie Award (New York Dance). He also has extensive experience teaching and has led workshops for different dance and theatre companies around the world. KeeganDolan was an associate artist at the Barbican Centre, London and is now an associate at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London.

Melanie Hoopes

Melanie Hoopes is a writer/director/performer whose credits include Kindness Committee, Six Feet: A Play About What’s Between Us (RiverArts), Murder Birds! (or Suspending Tati Copeland) (Rivertowns LAB), Lethal Lit (IHeartRadio, EEP), One Giant Leap: The Apollo Moon Landing 50 Years On (New York Times), and Bloodline (Netflix). She is the creator of the long-running New York-based episodic stage show, Laurie Stanton’s Sound Diet, a dark, modern twist on Prairie Home Companion. She is a producer and host of Yesteryear: Stories from Home, a podcast about the history of living in a small village on the Hudson River. Her public radio credits include work for WNYC, KCRW and WBUR, including This American Life and Studio 360. Melanie has written and performed four solo shows on subjects ranging from obesity to aging.