Everett’s Good Grief
About The Piece
Everett’s dynamic multimedia dance theater enters an unburdening process: the minds and bodies of individuals after enduring trauma.
The artists have used therapeutic approaches such as Internal Family Systems, EMDR, dioramas and performance to explore healing for their own life experiences. Onstage, they dive inward, uncover parts of the self, slip into the unconscious, and look at the body made foreign and disconnected – all in search of a true self. In Good Grief, Everett presents a journey of fragmented memories, exiled parts, and the hope that dwells in a thriving imagination.
Premier & Touring
Good Grief premiered at Brown University in September, 2018. It then ran for four weekends at Everett Stage in January of 2019. Good Grief then toured to Contemporary Dance Theatre in Cincinnati, OH, The National Internal Family Systems (IFS) Conference in Denver, CO, and Emerson College In Boston, MA. The tour of Good Grief was then cut short due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Performance Excerpt
Audience Quotes
“Everett’s Good Grief is an artistic front row seat into the way trauma enters into our lives, and resides in our bodies, minds, and hearts. The Everett Company performers were able to use their signature blended art forms of dance, videography, and personal storytelling, to give us hauntingly beautiful depictions of pain, chaos, and ultimately, a releasing of their personal lived experiences with trauma. It is truly important work–a must see!”
-Wendy Grossman, Healing Arts Program, Butler Hospital
“Each of the cast of five of Good Grief is intimately acquainted with trauma and its aftermath and, like all of Everett’s work, this production is cutting edge theatre and choreography. But Good Grief is more than this; it is also a dynamic and thought-provoking recovery project.”
-Kylie Fitzpatrick, PhD, author and researcher in the use of creative practice for recovery and rehabilitation.
“I just really want to thank you guys for this, beautiful, powerful and moving piece. I am an IFS therapist and I would love every single client of mine to see this.”
-Jill Stanzler-Katz, LICSW
“I’m an IFS therapist and I’m really familiar with all these concepts, but when you guys switched into dancing and moving with each other, it just pried me open.”
-Ken Jaeger
Press
Everett Company’s ‘Good Grief’ grapples with physical, emotional trauma
“Good Grief showed how trauma of all kinds can be a visceral experience, taking over an individual physically and cognitively… Artists cycled through various identities, using masks, dresses, cloaks and even shadows to portray family members, emotions and stages in their lives, providing a fully immersive experience for both themselves and the audience… After the final dancing act and a standing ovation, Everett Company opened up the stage for a question-and-answer opportunity. Attendees lauded the theater troupe for their talent, skill and emotional vulnerability in presenting their story.” Full Article Here.
-Katherine Ok, Brown Daily Herald
Dance: Providence’s Everett troupe explores personal trauma as a way to heal
“The power of art in its various forms to unburden the soul can be endless, creating what a new Everett Company multimedia presentation dubs “Good Grief.” The Providence company is staging “Good Grief” as the moving culmination of a collaborative and therapeutic process in which the five artists explored personal trauma and their power to release its grip on their minds and bodies.” Full Article Here.
-Susan McDonald, The Providence Journal
Providence Theater Company Everett Premieres GOOD GRIEF
“In the performance, Everett company members use therapeutic models such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) and EMDR to explore their own individual attempts to recover from trauma. Their journeys are theatricalized in this multimedia piece, communicating experiences and cutting through barriers of understanding in a way that uniquely moves audiences to explore their own and others’ relationships to trauma. This subject is of widespread interest to people from every background and age. When GOOD GRIEF had three preview showings to sold-out audiences at Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Arts in October, almost all audience members stayed for post-show discussions and many expressed deep connections and responses to the material.”
-Ken Abrams, What’s Up Rhode Island
EVERETT’S GOOD GRIEF EXPLORES THE TRAUMA BENEATH OUR MASKS
The moment the lights go to black, the audience is captivated by a film of water that slowly becomes backlit to reveal dancers moving, floating and drowning behind the screen. It is both disturbing and beautiful at once. The image fades and viewers are thrust into a scene with a therapist and a woman, which begins the journey into Everett’s exploration of personal traumas and how we carry them with us in our lives. Good Grief depicts each performer’s personal life and the baggage they carry with them — performers literally carry, drag and kick bags throughout this production.
-Cindy Racinski, Motif Magazine
Grant Spotlight: At the Intersection of Theater and Trauma with Everett: Company, Stage and School
According to Aaron Jungels, co-artistic director of Everett: Company, Stage and School, a 1996 study showed that more than two-thirds of the population has experienced an adverse childhood experience, with 20 percent having experienced three or more of these traumatic events. For many young people, those incidents result in post-traumatic stress. Everett, which has served the Providence, Rhode Island community for more than 30 years by providing free access to performing arts training, received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in the latest round of funding to support the creation and production of Good Grief, a multidisciplinary theater piece created to help participating artists and audiences heal from PTSD. We spoke with Jungels via e-mail about the devising process for the work, how the arts can help the healing process, and the importance of NEA funding to the success of Everett’s mission.
-Paulette Beete
