Jake Blount (pronounced: blunt, they/he) is an award-winning interpreter of Black folk music based in Providence, RI. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician, Blount has charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course on his pilgrimage through sound archives and song collections. In his hands, the banjo, fiddle, electric guitar and synthesizer become ceremonial objects used to channel the insurgent creativity of his forebears. From transfixing solo sets to full-band festival appearances complete with crowd-surfing and ecstatic chants, Blount’s performances – like his recent Smithsonian Folkways release, The New Faith – seamlessly merge centuries-old traditional songs with the trappings and techniques of modern Black genres.
Composer and hammer dulcimer virtuoso Simon Chrisman (he/him) brings an unusual and path-breaking style to an instrument that has previously been thought to have limited range and technique, combining “chamber music’s finely calibrated arrangements with bluegrass’s playful virtuosity and pop music’s melodic resourcefulness.” (The Boston Herald) His touch and sophisticated rhythmic sensibilities are redefining the instrument and earning the attention of musicians from all over the world. Based in Oregon, he tours with Grammy-nominated Kittel and Co., the Bee Eaters, and Wes Corbett.
One of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch," Nic Gareiss (he/they) has been hailed by the New York Times for his "dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance" and called "the most inventive and expressive step dancer on the scene” by the Boston Herald. Informed by 25 years of ethnographic study and performance, Gareiss’ work draws from many percussive dance practices to weave together a technique facilitating his love of improvisation; clog, flatfoot, and step dance vocabulary; and musical collaboration. In this way Gareiss reimagines movement as a musical practice, recasting percussive dance as a medium that queers the boundaries between sight, sound, and touch.