Meet the Artist - Jerilynn Bedingfield - Performer and Master Gardener

Jerilynnn Bedingfield

Photo: Sandra Hughes

Jerilynn Bedingfield is a principal performer with Gateway Performance Productions. She currently portrays the character Honey Bee in the company's new touring productions -
Honeybees Are Important! for family audiences and the school version of this production.   Jerilynn's an international and national performer for Gateway whose passion for gardening makes her uniquely qualified to understand and portray the character of Honey Bee and to offer garden related workshops and residencies in conjunction with these performances.  

Jerilynn says, Let's learn basic skills to help design a pollinator's garden to attract the beneficial insects that are important to our environment. Let's build a pollinator's garden and learn about good soil quality and compost as we prepare the soil to plant plants that attract the pollinators. Then let's  plant a variety of mostly native plants and learn along the way what attracts the pollinators to each specific plant.

Jerilynn is a Master Gardener in Dekalb County in the state of Georgia. She apprenticed at the Union Agricultural Institute in Blairsville, Georgia and was  the staff gardener/site manager and volunteer coordinator at the Oakhurst Community Garden in Decatur, Georgia. In this position Jerilynn worked with 600 volunteers annually. She continues work with the chickens and bees on this two acre urban greenspace.

Her experience includes developing schoolyard gardens, pollinator gardens, vegetable gardens, outdoor reading rooms, arboretum and creek bank restoration. Jerilynn has taught garden- to- table cooking classes, earthworm education and compost and soil science.  She currently offers garden coaching, consultation and design specializing in sustainable urban edible gardens. Jerilynn  is also an active volunteer in  her community in many garden and environmental education related activities.

Recent performances for Gateway include Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale and Kabalevsky's The Comedians at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival in Florida,  Illusions - Mask Theatre and A Mummers Tale of the Seasons at the Aero International Mask Festival in Denmark, The Honeybee Story at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta as well as Honeybees Are Important! at Seaborn Lee Elementary School in College Park, Georgia and at Garden Hills Elementary School in Atlanta.  

Jerilynn's performing arts background is diverse. She's toured internationally  for Core Performance Group and worked as a choreographic assistant for Tanzfabrik Dance Company in Berlin, Germany. Her professional career has taken her across international waterways for Royal Viking Cruise Lines as a performer with Driscoll's Magic Productions and around the three rings of Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus on national tours. She's also appeared in commercials and several art house films.  

Jerilynn studied dance with with Bill Evans, Garth Fagen, Mark Morris, Ohad Naharin, Katherine Dunham, Johanna Haigood, Pat Grainey, Cleo Parker Robinson, Eiko and Koma, Susan Marshall and Mark Dendy. Her performing arts and movement training includes modern, jazz, ballet, tap, ethnic,mime, ariel ,trapeze, eurythmy, drama, musical theater, gymnastics, yoga, tai chi and clowning.

Jerilynn has taught dance for Tanzfabrik in Berlin, Germany; Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia; The High School of Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas as well as  throughout the state of Georgia at The Art Station in Stone Mountain,  Cartersville Dance in Cartersville, Gilmer Arts in Ellijay, the YWCA in Atlanta, and the Atlanta Children's Shelter.

To find out more about bringing these performances, workshops and residencies to your community:  

email -  gatewaypp@masktheatre.org  or  phone - 404 222  9262

http://www.masktheatre.org/
http://www.thebeeproject.org/