By Keith Howard

Somerville is home to many budding artists that pepper the city with a fresh flavor, but only one performer is the director of the short film with EgoArt, a Boston-based dance and theater company, entitled “Peckers Restaurant.”

East Somerville artist Nicole Pierce was the guest at the Feb. 1 Somerville News contributor’s meeting and spoke of her unique work and the meaning of her dance company’s name.

‚ÄúIt was EgoAart because it was all about me and my whole monologue was all about me. I took pictures of my naked self-front [and] back. Then took out a pointer and pointed all the things I couldn’t stand about myself and then point out an occasional thing I liked,‚Äù she said.

‚ÄúThe beauty of EgoArt is we’re very comfortable-probably on the more serious side I feel that my dances, my monologues are all the result of my subconscious and I have no control over that so it’s from my ego, and it’s called EgoArt,‚Äù she said.

‚Äú[Our goal] changed over the years. My original reason was to mix up the dance concert so it wasn’t just a plane old dance concert. Then I realized that all the dances got kind of buried,‚Äù she says. ‚ÄúWhat’s important to me is that there’s always a live element. I don’t like to make things that you hang on a wall.‚Äù
Originally from Los Angeles, the East Somerville resident has been living in the city since 1991, first coming to city as an undergraduate at Tufts University. “I went to Tufts and never left,” she said.

Pierce earned a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the Massachusetts College of Art, majoring in Studio for Interrelated Media. For her thesis, Empirical Laws, she built a 70-foot walk-through installation that began in a tunnel lit with video projection.

‚ÄúI made rooms, the walls of which were bubble wrapped [and] at the very end of the experience was a black box,‚Äù she says. ‚ÄúAnd I projected on this [eight-month pregnant woman’s] belly. It was really kind of beautiful. It was strange watching the people. She was naked so there was this issue of ‘am I being a voyeur?’‚Äù

Pierce just wrapped up a two-day performance at Green Street Studios featuring four dance works and a new video.

She said her recent video, ‚ÄúIf Esther Williams and Leni Riefenstahl had an arm wrestle‚Äù is a humorous work reminiscent of Esther Williams mixed with the camera work of Leni Reifenstahl’s Olympic athletes.
‚Äú[Riefenstahl] films are gorgeous. There’s divers above her and clouds in the background and I copied that and had us doing our best dives. So I just keep alternating between my Leni and my Esther,‚Äù she said. 

Keeping busy isn’t tough for Pierce, who serves on the dance faculty at Emerson College and Green Street Studios, teaches classic piano and works as an installation artist, creating dance environments for live events. But the choreographer, comedian, dancer, director and musician admits she has trouble keeping all of her passions in check.

‚ÄúI cannot define myself. This is the problem with sort of expressing, I have too many things I have to clarify and focus,‚Äù she said. ‚ÄúI’m both proud of the fact that I do a lot of things, but at the same time it’s really difficult to explain what I do. People don’t know what to call me, people just don’t know what to say and I guess my point is I do a lot of things.‚Äù

Despite her interests, Pierce enjoys time at home with a glass of wine, in the company of her two cats Isabelle and Sal, she said. ‚ÄúThey’re sisters, [and] all cats speak French.‚Äù