Creativity and new work celebrated in 15th Hermitage Greenfield Prize events

The Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood is marking its 20th anniversary and the 15th year of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, which provides major commissions to artists in a rotating variety of disciplines to create new work.

For the anniversary, two $30,000 prizes were awarded to visual artist Sandy Rodriguez and groundbreaking hip hop dancer, choreographer and teacher Lorenzo “Rennie” Harris. Harris received a special award, the first in the field of dance. In its 10th year, David Burnett became the first photographer to receive a commission. He created a collection of photos about senior athletes, which was later shown at The Ringling.

Both Rodriguez and Harris will talk about their work during a busy weekend of events, which also includes the first reading of excerpts from the work being created by playwright Aleshea Harris, who won the 2021 prize.

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“Aleshea is still working on her piece. No new thing is ever finished finished,” said CEO and Artistic Director Andy Sandberg. “We talked with her about the best way to share the work in a way that we felt would be viable at this time to share a snapshot of where it is and let her give us a sense of the full picture. It will be the first time actors are wrapping their heads around this piece.”

Harris is the Obie Award-winning playwright of “Is God Is” and “What to Send Up When it Goes Down.”

At the time her Greenfield Prize was announced, before she started writing, Harris told the Herald-Tribune that her proposal was inspired by stories of two men from different periods “who both suffered a similar kind of violence, one at the hands of the American justice system and the other at the hands of an organization that displayed him like an animal in a zoo.”

Earlier in her career, Harris performed with the touring Eckerd Theater Company that was part of Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.

The reading will be at 5:30 p.m. April 14 at the Cook Theatre in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts. A $5 registration fee is required at hermitageartistretreat.org.

Rodriguez, known for the way she uses maps in her artwork to capture a sense of the history and culture of a community or location, will talk about her process at 2 p.m. April 15 at the Hermitage Artist Retreat Palm House, 6660 Manasota Key Road, Englewood. She will be joined by two of the jurors who chose her for the prize, Anne Patterson and Christine Kuan.

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Rennie Harris will talk about his career and his company Puremovement in a program at 6 p.m. April 15 at the Hermitage Beach. A $5 registration is required for both talks.

The weekend concludes with the annual Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner, a gala event held this year at 6 p.m. around Ca’ d’Zan at The Ringling, 5401 Bay Shore Road. In addition to award presentations, it will include a brief performance by the 2022 winner, composer Angelica Negron. Sandberg said she is working on a major orchestral and string piece that will have its first performance next year.

A limited number of $600 dinner tickets may still be available. For more information contact Development Director Amy Wallace at 941-475-2098, ext. 2 or email development@hermitageartistretreat.org.

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Hermitage Greenfield Prize honors winning artists in weekend programs