Meet the Artists: Caroline Harvey and Sarah Slifer Swift

March 03, 2021 / Art and Music, Good to Know, Local Characters

Meet local artists Caroline Harvey and Sarah Slifer Swift. Each has a passion for the arts (performance, dance, writing, and storytelling) and education in their respective mediums, plus run successful businesses contributing to Gloucester’s vibrant artistic community. These are their stories.

Caroline Harvey
Poet, Educator, Activist, and Co-Owner of Dogtown Books

Passionate about telling stories of creative survival, Caroline Harvey has been touring internationally as a spoken word poet, educator, and activist for over 15 years. Currently, Caroline teaches for Berklee Online and is co-owner of Dogtown Books, an independent bookstore in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Find Caroline’s poetry and narrative nonfiction published in national and academic literary journals, including Gertrude Press, Radius, The Legendary, the Cantab Poetry Anthology, the National Poetry Slam Anthology “High Desert Voices,” and The Lowestoft Chronicle. Featured on Season Five of HBO’s Def Poetry. There is a chapter devoted to Caroline’s life and work in Camille Colatosti’s book, To Be An Artist: Musicians, Visual Artists, Writers, and Dancers Speak. Caroline has shared stages and classrooms with Alicia Keys, Livingston Taylor, Melissa Ferrick, Donna De Lory, Mary Lambert, Danez Smith, and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), and has writing published alongside Gillian Welch, Mike Reid, and Pat Pattison, among others.

As an educator, Caroline’s original curriculum inspires authentic artistry and are informed by diverse approaches to wellness and awareness; her education and training in multiple artistic disciplines, physical and psychological health sciences, and various mind/body and yoga techniques combine to form unique classroom experiences for students of all levels. In addition to her 10+ years at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has held teaching residencies and provided educational programming in a variety of spaces, including The Esalen Institute, Urban Word NYC, National Poetry Slam, Inc., The College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Emerson College, Youth Speaks, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.

Discover More

  • On March 10, 2021, Caroline was one of the speakers at the Gloucester COVID-19 Memorial.
  • Learn more about Caroline’s work at caroline-harvey.com.
  • Visit Dogtown Books by visiting the shop in person or online at Dogtown Books.

Sarah Slifer Swift – Dancer, Educator, Owner of MAGMA

MAGMA is a center for movement practices where people of all ages can discover, develop, and create in a broad curriculum of movement styles. MAGMA (Movement Arts Gloucester MA) Director Sarah Slifer Swift has been on faculty at Boston Ballet School, Salem State University, George Washington University, Amsterdam College of Art/School for New Dance Development, Scotland’s National Center for Dance (Dance Base), and Liza Indiciani Studio of Dance. Through the Gloucester Education Foundation, she created and taught two dance curricula for Gloucester Public Schools. Since 2014 she had directed the Trident Live Art Series @ Trident Gallery. She was Director of the Gloucester New Arts Festival (2005-2009) that specialized in site-specific art and performance.

Slifer Swift performed as a dancer with several dance companies and choreographers in the US and in Europe, seeking out radical, experimental work that challenged ideas about performance and aesthetics. Her choreography has been performed in Amsterdam, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and in New England and has received several grants and awards, including a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship.

Discover More 

  • Learn more about Sarah’s choreographic work, classes, workshops and events at www.magma.center.