Michael Bodel:
The Institute for Folding

VDA 2025 Artist in Residence

A cardboard choreography of human knowledge, neglect and wonder.

Created by Michael Bodel

Choreography and Performance by Michael Bodel, Cailin Morgan, and Hanna Satterlee

Original Score by Rodrigo MT

Additional Choreography and design by devising lab participants

LAYERS

Institute for Folding Photo Credits: Kay McCabe

About Michael:

Michael makes interdisciplinary dance works. Many integrate objects, place and sensorial stuff. His process involves wide-ranging research and both serious and silly play. And collaborators vary from project to project. Michael’s past works have included dances choreographed to oral histories of immigration, a pageant set in an apple orchard, and a dance iteration of Foucault’s Corps Utopique. Prior to The Institute for Folding, he created a dance project centered on grain—how it is sown, gathered, cared, hoarded and lost. 

He is honored to sit (and move) on the board of advisors of The Field Center in Rockingham, VT, and has served on the board of the Society of Dance History Scholars (now Dance Studies Association). He fancies writing about historical pageantry and embodied cognition, and works daily as the Director of External Affairs at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. Michael lives with his family in the fields of Putney, VT.

Collaborating Artists

Rodrigo MT

Hanna Satterlee

Caitlin Morgan

  • Sound Composition

    Rodrigo Martínez Torres (CDMX, Mexico) is a composer interested in the inner architecture of sound, and its resonances with the mind. He is a multi-instrumentalist, and his work spans radio broadcasting and production, performing in rock bands, composing for the orchestra, and scoring for film and theater.

    Rodrigo’s recent projects include a sonic and sculptural installation inspired by the architecture of Luis Barragán and composing the score for the film Doce Lunas, which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. Rodrigo has been a MacDowell Fellow, won the 2020 Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble Composition Competition, and the 2017 Arturo Márquez composition competition with his piece “Mambo Urbano”, for chamber orchestra. He studied music composition in Academia de Arte de Florencia (CDMX) and in Centro Superior Katarina Gurska (Madrid, Spain), and holds an MFA in Sonic Practice from Dartmouth College (NH, USA)

  • Ensemble

    Caitlin Morgan is a Burlington-based creative with roots in the Midwest and NYC, interested in flow-state embodiment as a means of eliciting nuanced, collective understanding and alchemical impact. Her work—commonly inspired by ecosomatics, communication theories, and postmodernism—has been featured across New York, Vermont, Ohio, and Michigan, including for the Junction Dance Festival (as a ChoreoLab artist in residence), the Small Plates Choreography Festival, Teatro LATEA, Mark Morris Dance Center, the Actors’ Fund Arts Center, and more. Woven around her movement research, Caitlin edits novels, performs with ANIMALDance and other local makers, and facilitates classes at Lines Vermont, Studio 3, and Sangha Studio.

  • Ensemble

    Hanna Satterlee creates performance experiences and conceptual artworks for stage, site and film. Hanna holds degrees and certifications in dance therapy, psychology, performance, choreography, vinyassa/yin/restorative yoga, non-profit management​, interdisciplinary art, and arts integration. Hanna shares these passions as an intergenerational educator, interdisciplinary performer​ + collaborator, contemporary choreographer, experimental curator and event producer.

    Dance has brought her around the world but always back home to VT, where she has had the opportunity to create new programs, curriculums, organizations and events for dancers and the public. ​Hanna is the founder of the Vermont Dance Alliance, the INSTINCT Experimental Dance Festival​, and ANIMAL Dance Performance and Production Company​. Hanna currently directs ANIMAL Dance, based in Burlington VT.

Vermont Dance Alliance celebrates dance as a powerful force to connect, inspire, and transform. We support artists statewide through community, resources, and events that make Vermont a vibrant place for dance.

Thanks to our presenting partners that have helped make this residency possible!

Vermont Arts Council, The Byrne Foundation, Middlebury Dance Department, Next Stage Arts Project, Highland Center for the Arts, Mascoma Bank, Junction Dance Festival, LINES Vermont Dance Studio, The Flynn, The Dance and Movement Center, The Putney School, The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, and Junction Arts & Media!

  • Vermont Arts Council

  • The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation

  • Middlebury College Dance Deptartment

  • Next Stage Arts

  • Highland Center for the Arts

  • Mascoma Bank

  • The Junction Dance Festival

  • LINES Vermont Dance Studio

  • The Flynn

  • Dance and Movement Center

  • The Putney School

  • The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth

  • Junction Arts & Media

A special thanks to the following individuals who have worked hard to help support this creative process!

Alexandra Bodel, Megan Stearns, Jennifer Skinder, Elizabeth Kurylo, Jessica Batten, Cara Lewis, Laurel Jenkins, Bert Crosby, Patrick Noyes, Ruth Shafer.