jill turner



	Jill Turner \| video artist Human Resource Development for the Arts contact: 413.549.3643 info@jillturner.com back to main site (requires Flash plug-in - click here to get Flash) "Jill Turner, of Amherst Mass, makes short private performances that have the look of a thing that she never intended to be seen or that escaped secrecy by leaping onto the screen and into the public realm. In truth, she has very carefully composed, performed, recorded, edited, and revised over several years. She presents them as a looped set of shorts that ‘… explore the paradox of middle-age, especially for women.’ The astonishing thing is that with austere economy she gives the surface of the screen a pleasing appearance as she jaunts through harsh themes that involve reflection on a mother’s suicide, a working-class woman’s experience with group therapy, an aborted idea of pregnancy that never happened...Introspective artwork on the edge." Michael Tillyer - APE Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts 2006 BIO Though Jill is primarily a self-taught artist she has studied and been influenced by many great teachers and artists. She had early music, theater, and dance training with American Ballet Theater under the direction of Marguerite de Anguera. At 14, she dropped out to tag along with the NYC-based, Bread and Roses guerilla theater company and then joined the MDS political collectives in Springfield. Then she began her own guerilla theater troupe - the Bonzo Raggamuffins. In the 70's, she co-founded the women's band Lilith, one of the premier women's bands in the country. She composed and recorded more than 50 original songs. Her song Sunglasses in the Shade was inducted into the Smithsonian Folkways Institute as part of the Fast Folk music collection. As a jazz singer and songwriter, performed at over 580 performance venues nationally including nightclubs, major festivals, college concerts, and radio stations. Performed with and along side of famed artists Loudon Wainwright, Billy Taylor, Sheila Jordan, White Heat Jazz Orchestra and many others. Jill has been a Vipassana Meditation practitioner since 1989. More recently she produced over 30 solo and community based video shorts. She was responsible for all creative and technical aspects, including writing, performing, directing, filming, and post-production. Works were screened in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, APE Gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts, International Art Expo in Portugual, Blizzard Gallery at Springfield College and elsewhere. "A singer of extraordinary ability. Her sense of vocal color and nuance is spellbinding and almost equal to her flare for rhythmic and melodic variation. " - Dr. Horace Boyer, Curator Smithsonian Institute, Professor Emeritus UMass Music Department. "Distinctively Hip" – Ernie Santosuosso, Boston Globe "Very good timing... combines strong technical skills with many layers of meaning." - Nancy Stark Smith, Contact Quarterly "Mix one part Joni Mitchell with equal parts of David Byrne and Meredith Monk and you scratch the surface of her vocal flexibility…Jill’s true strengths, however, lie in her character songs like ‘Julia’ and ‘Victor,’ which are themselves mini jewel-like novels of faulted lives." - Lari Bond, Dirty Linen music magazine. RESUME AND CREDITS M.A. Human Resource Development with distinction The design of organizational and training intervention systems. Specializing in the artist as the intervening variable. American International College Springfield, MA 1995B.A. Journalism and Music, cum laude University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 1980 Thirty-two years of continuous professional growth as a performing and video artist; and as a producer, organizational trainer, and marketing consultant to arts organizations, businesses and educational institutions. 2001 – current Produced over 30 solo and community based video shorts. I was responsible for all creative and technical aspects, including writing, performing, directing, filming and post-production. Works were screened in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, APE Gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. See www.jillturner.com. 1998 - 2006 Conducted an independent intervention with the Amherst Survival Center and the Town of Amherst to improve distribution of goods and services in the area. Worked with consumers, town officials, and area organizations. 1970 –1992. Smithsonian Folkways/Fast Folk Artist. Composed and recorded more than 50 original songs. As a jazz singer and songwriter, performed at over 580 performance venues nationally including nightclubs, major festivals, college concerts, and radio stations. Performed with and along side of famed artists Loudon Wainwright, Billy Taylor, Sheila Jordan, White Heat Jazz Orchestra and many others. 1993 – 2002 Developed and delivered customized interpersonal training workshops for a number of social service organizations, school, colleges and business programs. These highly interactive workshops used theater, video and improvisational methodologies as a basis for addressing organizational issues such as sexism, racism and family business succession. 1995 - 2000. Co-created/produced theater performances for UMASS Family Business Center and Western Mass Social Action Theater. Founded and directed Fool’s Cafe, an incubator artist’s performance space. 2002 – 2004. Wrote a screenplay, Trust Fund Baby and the Welfare Queen. 2004. The story follows one woman’s journey from her teens in the Vietnam antiwar movement to present day social political crises. VIDEO AND THEATER PERFORMANCE Blizard Gallery - Springfield College 07 APE Gallery, Northampton, MA 06 International Art Expo Frame Fest, Portugal 06 Earthdance, Plainfield, MA 06 Amherst Community Television MA 02 - 07 Massatucky Productions, Worcester, MA 05 Massatucky Tour to Anthology of Films Archives, New York, NY, New Nothing Cinema, San Francisco, CA, Revolving Museum and Evos Arts, Lowell MA 05 Artist Television Access, San Francisco, CA 05 Flywheel, Easthampton, MA 05 Northampton Community Television MA 1976 Space At The Chase, Boston 1976 Family Business Seminars with University of MA Family Business Playback Theater Holyoke Community College with Western Mass Social Action Theater University Dancers Improvisation Ensemble at Bowker Auditorium, UMass Amherst And others METHODS STUDIED AND ADAPTED Olympia Dukakis and Voices of Earth Jeff Wirth - Interactive Improvisation Carol Prescott - Improvisation of Presence Sleeveless Theater – the work of Viola Spolin Claude Van Italie - Theater of Transformation Linda Putnam - Source Work Peggy Petit - Intergenerational Theater Liz Lerman – Intergenerational Dance Augusto Boal - Theater of the Oppressed Jonathan Fox - Playback Theater Ruth Malezcheh –Mabou Mime Theater Carolyn Sadeh - Ruth Zaporah's Action Theater Ellen Kaplan - Smith College Acting III Constance Congdon - Playwright Jack Shea of Westfield State College Theater Department Azure Forte – Psychodrama and Sociodrama work of Jacob Moreno Bill Bob Brown – Umass Dance Department Sheryl Stoodley - Laban methods, Viewpoints. Deb Margolin - of Split Britches and N.Y.U. Performance Studies MUSIC PERFORMANCE Smithsonian Folkways Fast Folk Artist, see http://www.folkways.si.edu/search/AlbumDetails.aspx?ID=79 Sin-e Cafe, NYC Speakeasy, NYC Universal Jazz Center, NYC Opened for Loudon Wainwright at SheaTheater, Turner’s Falls Iron Horse Coffee House, MA Independent record releases - Barebones and Trying Too Much Bezanson Recital Hall, University of MA Festival of the Weird, NYC Plough and Stars with the White Heat Orchestra, Boston Bennington College with Lilith, VT Stage West, Springfield, MA Studio Red Top, Boston WFCR, Amherst WRSI, Northampton Eastern States Exposition, Springfield Flywheel, Easthampton Fool’s Cafe, Northampton, MA Green River Cafe, MA Hampshire College, MA Hartford Civic Center Cafe Kansas City Jazz Festival Kripalu Center, Lenox, MA Look Park Songwriter’s Festival, Northampton, MA White Heat Jazz Ensemble, Boston Northampton Center for the Arts, MA Springfield Fourth Festival, MA Tufts University, Boston ZONE Art Center, Springfield, MA Old Vienna Kauffeehaus, MA Common Ground, VT And others WORK WITH BUSINESSES AND ORGANIZATIONS Arise for Social Justice - Springfield, MA UMass Family Business - MA and CT Western Mass Social Action Theater Western Mass Training Consortium Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Project Aim Mental Health Center - Springfield, MA Spanish American Union Teen Theater Project - Springfield, MA Survivor’s Project Theater Workshops- Geenfield, MA Women in Action Theater Workshops - Greenfield, MA Fools Cafe Unitarian Universalist Society - Northampton, MA Hampshire College Theater Department - MA International School of Psychodrama – NYC UMass Continuing Education - MA National Artist’s For Mental Health - Rye, NY Women’s Health Conference with Margo Adler - Greenfield, MA Arkhom Geology Education Project - MA And other organizations and private clients TECHNICAL SKILLS Macintosh computers, applications, and peripherals, video production using Sony Camcorders and Final Cut Pro. Facility with Web applications, PC, the Internet, and Microsoft Office. SERVICES Performance Videos, Human Resource Development for the Arts For over ten years I have used Human Resource Development (HRD) methods to guide artistic projects and my own artistic work. I have adapted over 20 improvisational theater and art methods (see about page) with a systematic empathic communication model. Feelings plus reasons for feelings = meaning. I want to help move art beyond concepts of right and wrong towards guiding principles for seeing and being. Relating to artistic production with empathic sensibilities and techniques we can explore the beliefs and assumptions that underly our behaviors, and, in turn, bring about the effects we are having on our environment - both people and place. I want to collaborate in creating a public arts project related to the theme: "Technology and Identity: perpetuating wealth and poverty". CONTACT Jill Turner 413.549.3643 info@jillturner.com