06/09/2026
“Christy and the team are very intentional with the way NCCAkron builds space for creative practice. This is not a transactional relationship, it is body-felt.” – Gerald Casel
Longitudinal relationships—what do they look like in practice?
Gerald Casel’s work complicates and provokes questions surrounding colonialism, cultural amnesia, and structures of power. NCCAkron’s relationship with Gerald (San Francisco, CA/ Brooklyn, NY) is long, evolving, and deeply rooted.
In 2017, as part of NCCAkron’s Open House, Gerald and Dianne McIntyre (Cleveland, OH) led Wrecking sessions with University of Akron dance students—a choreographic practice developed by Susan Rethorst that deconstructs and recomposes existing material. During that same opening event, Gerald reconnected with Netta Yerushalmy.
In 2018, Gerald returned as part of Netta’s PARAMODERNITIES technical residency cast.
In 2019, as part of the Cunningham Centennial, he was invited to participate in the Dancing Lab: Immersive Media Through Cunningham. We also worked out extending his time on the ground to realize a Creative Residency for his next work, Not About Race Dance.
Gerald is a respected dance educator and has been essential as we develop media platforms to support dance scholarship and research. From 2021–23, he served on NCCAkron’s Artist Editorial Council, helping shape the question: how can dance be a podcast? This led to our long-form series How People Move People.
Over these years, Gerald’s own path has shifted—from San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz, to Rutgers University, and now as Director of the School at Jacob’s Pillow.
Collaboration does not always look the same, sometimes you’re the lead artist, sometimes a cast member or consultant. This is what a longitudinal relationship includes: flexibility, return, and embodied trust.
💫 As part of our Anniversary, we’re sharing stories of artist residencies, collaborations, and research from the past ten years — just a glimpse at 800+ artists from 100 U.S. cities.
