Murielle Elizeon and Tommy Noonan
Murielle Eliz\xe9on and Tommy Noonan \u2014 partners in life, art and business \u2014 both have lengthy resumes that list an impressive array of dance, choreography and teaching projects with august companies from Mexico and Argentina to Australia and Slovakia. At first glance, it is therefore surprising that in 2014 they chose the small unincorporated village of Saxapahaw, NC (pop. 1,418 in the 2010 census) as the home of their latest artistic venture, Culture Mill, a performing arts laboratory. \nAs Murielle and Tommy explain in this conversation with Pier Carlo Talenti, however, Saxapahaw was the perfect place in which they could engender their vision: an organization whose artmaking was woven inextricably into the fabric of its geographic home. In their first full year of operation, for instance, Culture Mill launched \u201cTrust the Bus,\u201d an experience in which audiences boarded a 44-seat Bluebird biodiesel school bus and were then driven to an assortment of interdisciplinary performances throughout rural Alamance County. \nSince then Culture Mill has welcomed many noted international artists in various disciplines to Saxapahaw for lengthy residencies; offered countless free or low-cost workshops and arts events to the community; and become a regular fixture at the prestigious American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, which commissioned one of their latest pieces, \u201cThey Are All,\u201d a dance work created in collaboration with people living with Parkinson\u2019s Disease, many of whom performed in its world premiere in 2019. \n\xa0\nMurielle and Tommy spoke with Pier Carlo from Culture Mill\u2019s studio, several weeks into the COVID-19 lockdown.\nhttp://culturemill.org/ (http://culturemill.org/)\nhttps://indyweek.com/culture/stage/rethinking-revenue-based-arts-Culture-Mill/ (https://indyweek.com/culture/stage/rethinking-revenue-based-arts-Culture-Mill/)