ABOUT
Support Structures featuring performers, MacKenzie LeTorré and Nora Stephens, took place in the Mezzanine Gallery of Boston City Hall on October 23, 2025. The performance sought to display soft power in contrast to the Brutalist architecture of City Hall.
Nora and MacKenzie's performance begins with a slow, deliberate descent down the staircase. Their bodies exemplify responsiveness, flexibility and agility as they traverse the hard, unyielding hand railings. Caregiving requires similar soft skills to navigate systems of care and yet we often overlook the strength and tenacity required to get a loved one's needs met. At the culmination of their performance, MacKenzie and Nora become intertwined in Kate Holcomb Hale’s plush railing. Relief washes over them (and possibly us) as the softness they laid bare on Boston City Hall cushions and connects their tired bodies as they exit the space banded together.
Support Stuctures (above)
live performance at Boston City Hall (Boston, MA)
featuring MacKenzie LeTorre + Nora Stephens
October 23, 2025
ABOUT
I can hold you, you can hold me is a dance and performance work in relation to Kate Holcomb Hale’s soft sculpture, I want to climb this but I know it can't hold me. Direction by Nora Stephens in collaboration and improvisation with Adriane Brayton. Performance by Adriane Brayton and Nora Stephens at the Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center.
I can hold you, you can hold me (above)
Live performance at Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University's
Women's Studies Research Center (Waltham, MA)
Performed by Nora Stephens and Adriane Brayton
August 19, 2025
ABOUT
This multi-disciplinary collaboration for the Danforth Art Museum feature performers, MacKenzie LeTorré and Nora Stephens, and the artwork of Kate Holcomb Hale. These works center around the dining table as surrogate/placeholder for the body and the corporeal experience. In this project, live performance, dance, video, stop-motion animation and soft sculpture interweave to provoke questions around invisibility, presence and ephemerality. Their boundary blurring collaboration with/in Kate’s studio, home and the museum space magnifies the weight of invisible labor on individuals and families while reminding us that through care we can help support and heal one another.
lean, STAND, Collapse (above)
single channel video, 6 min
featuring Nora Stephens + MacKenzie LeTorré
music by Derek Nievergelt
2022