Various Artists – Merce Cunningham Celebration
The Joyce Theater
April 17 – 21
As part of the international celebration of the life and work of Merce Cunningham which takes place during the week that Cunningham—born April 16, 2019—would have celebrated his 100th birthday, The Joyce Theater brings together three companies Compagnie CNDC-Angers/Robert Swinston from France, Utah’s Ballet West and The Washington Ballet to perform works by Cunningham.  Angers/Robert Swinston performs Suites for Five, Ballet West presents Summerspace, and The Washington Ballet Duets—all performed with live music. Having begun in the fall of 2018, and continuing throughout this year, the Merce Cunningham Centennial unites artists, companies, and cultural and educational institutions around the world in a multifaceted display and celebration of the dance legend’s vital impact. Find out more about the Joyce performances here.  Click here for the International calendar of events.

Antonio Ramos/Antonio Ramos & the Gangbangers
Rubin museum
April 24
Ramos & the Gangbangers featured this week as part of the Rubin Museum of Art's partnership with Pentacle, the site-specific series with works that reflect the theme of “Power – Within and Between Us”, which the Rubin will explore through exhibitions and programs all year long. Find out more here
 
Maria Valencia
The Chocolate Factory Theater
April 18 – 27
Created and performed by Valencia, Bouquet “examines authorship within the premise of transmission, relation, alliance and ensemble. Her body is the main archive as she quotes dances by Alvin Ailey, Trisha Brown, Frank Conversano and nia love, as well as Eurhythmics and Garifuna dance forms…[and]… invites the audience to traverse a dense field of collective reference,” according to the release.  Find out more here
 
Hot Brown Honey
NYU’s Skirball
April 19 – 20
This “…riotous celebration of Hip-Hop politics, dance, comedy, circus, striptease and song…is set in a dazzling beehive with lighting, music and costume to rival Beyoncé at Madison Square Garden,” notes the release.  Find out more here
 
Various Artists
Movement Research at Judson Church
April 22
Don’t miss this free, on-going, Monday night performance series of experimentation and works-in-progress.  This week’s featured artists are: Oluwadamilare Ayorinde , Janeill Cooper , K.Go , Ye'ela Wilschanski.  Find out more here

Centered around the desire of young black girls to seize freedom no matter the societal demands on unstraightened hair, creator/performer Okpokwasili and designer/director Peter Born collaborated on Adaku’s Revolt (March 17 – 24) at Abrons Art Center.  This timeless and for some, painful topic, resonates, and so in Okpokwasili’s tale, young black girls call out the wrongs and take charge to make a change.  Equally important though, to those who have no idea about these “existential threats” that black girls have had to endure, a lot was shared.  Born brings the audience into the experience from the beginning.  After a long walk through a winding hall, the audience sat on three sides, around the artists already positioned in the space, a large stage portioned off to include everyone.  We are all very close.  The traditional auditorium seats are blocked off by a large white screen inclined upward from the floor to the ceiling.  The performers, AJ Wilmore (Adaku), Audrey Hailes & Khadidiatou Bangoura (Aunties/Ethereal ones), Okpokwasili (Aunty/Mother), and Breyanna Maples (Sister), are on the floor, perched on their elbows, chests lifted, heads dropped back and feet flexed, under a chandelier of desk lamps and a gigantic piece of plastic blowing over them.  In yet another tale, the black comedian Whoopi Goldberg might have called this her “long luxurious blonde hair.”   

The name Adaku, in the Igbo language spoken in Okpokwasili’s native Nigeria, means “one who brings wealth to the family.” So it follows that the text is built on empowerment, counter to those about the difficulty in combing “the kitchen,” (hair at the nape of one’s neck) aka “naps,” and more.  The text came so fast it’s hard to keep up, but here are a few: “my daughter’s hair was very strong…it would even carry a goat,” or “I want my hair to fight,” Okpokwasili would say.  The text, the space, the props (a hot comb, wigs hanging on the branch on a “tree”), or the promise of freedom in the large white screen, kept things real.  The slow and deliberate walks, crawling on all fours, supported pairing when their heads fall back from the release of their arched backs, or the convulsing spin when Adaku refuses to be one with the unnatural wig, makes Okpokwasili and Born’s dance drama physically, visually and spiritually satisfying.  “Nappy” black hair, the protagonist, conjured up ways to empower each character in our imagination.  We can leave with this, from Adaku and the cast:  “I’m gonna grow my hair…gonna open all the doors in my hair…don’t try to make me brush my hair…It is time to put aside the lying we been doing…”
 
Adaku’s Revolt was presented as part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s (FIAF) TILT Kids Festival.

For nearly fifty years now, Latin and now Latinx identity has been a part of Ballet Hispánico’s trajectory.  This year, Cuban-American artistic director Eduardo Vilaro, since taking the helms in 2009, continues to shed a well-needed light on cultural amalgams for the Company.  "Immigration has enabled plethora of cultural diversity…this program is an example of our leadership role in embracing the diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality in culture. We continue our mission to expose the American experience of Latinx culture and encourage our audience to go beyond the surface of what they know," said Vilaro,  In their one-week season (March 26-31) at The Joyce Theater, the mix included works by Taiwanese-American Edwaard Liang, Filipino-American Bennyroyce Royon, and making a return, Belgian-Colombian Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.  The dancers are glorious in each of the works!  Premieres by Liang and Royon opened and closed, respectively.  Though no specific cultural bent is glaring in Liang’s linear El Viaje which opened, Royon’s imaginative infusion of folks (well...dancers), carousing, while manipulating and moving through colorful shipping crates in Homebound/Alaala closed the program.  In the middle, and without doubt, the highlight of the evening, was the 2013 Sombrerísimo originally made for a cast of six men by Ochoa.  The women, Shelby Colona, Jenna Marie, Eila Valis, Gabrielle Sprauve, Dandara Veiga and Melissa Verdecia, were phenomenal.  Take note men, because these fierce movers mastered this mix of play, traditional movement (quick bits of salsa), defying and daring flips, balances and so much more, to cement their no-question-asked sisterhood, all the while with bowler hats traversing the space and sometimes stealing the spotlight.  BRAVA!

Camille A. Brown who hails from Queens, New York, and Juel Lane from Atlanta, Georgia, have spent a good deal of their ever-evolving dance carriers working on the same stages. Now, years after graduating from North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), Brown (’01) and Lane (’02) will each receive $20,000 from their alma mater.  Brown’s award is given for creative enterprise, and earmarked to help sustain her New York-based company, Camille A. Brown and Dancers, and Lane, for creative project, will be used to create new choreographic work.
The Chancellor’s Alumni Artpreneur of the Year Awards were launched in 2018 to support alumni who establish creative projects or creative enterprises of the highest merit, artistic excellence or innovative potential. Says Chancellor Linsay Bierman, “Camille A. Brown and Juel Lane exemplify what it means to be an artpreneur,” he added. “Trained as dancers and choreographers, they create groundbreaking work that enriches our culture, enlightens our society, lifts our spirits, and feeds our souls. They take creative risks, but are grounded in sound business practices. We’re proud of them, and we’re pleased to support their very promising careers.”

The Artpreneur of the Year Awards are part of the University’s initiative to nurture entrepreneurship. In the fall, the University will offer an entrepreneurship minor concentration – its first minor. “More than ever before, it is important that artists are able to carve their own path in the $800 billion creative economy,” Bierman said. “Disruptions across the arts and culture industries provide more opportunities for artists, but they must have the grit – business agility and the courage to take risks – to create their own career path.”

Various Artists
Performance Space
April 11 – 14
Arika, Performance Space New York and the Whitney Museum invited artists Alice Sheppard, Amalle Dublon, Jerron Herman, Carolyn Lazard, Park McArthur, and Constantina Zavitsanos to imagine together what a festival organized by and for disability communities would look like, composed through friendship and solidarity, one that could be simultaneously social and art-based - the result is I wanna be with you everywhere, described as “a gathering of, by, and for disabled artists and writers and anyone who wants to join in a series of programs that refuse policies of individuation and inclusion in favor of (and in the flavor of) whatever disability aesthetics has in bodymind.”  I wanna be with you everywhere honors disability aesthetics and disability justice while extending the theme of Performance Space New York’s “No Series.” The festival celebrates the world-making and experimentation that comes from refusing both exclusion and inclusion. At the same time, this gathering is propelled by a refusal of the separation that ableism imposes, starting from the belief and desire that access is a shared commitment to each other.

Alice Sheppard says of the process and the program that process created, “These artists are leaders in their fields and their thinking, pushing new boundaries—and people you felt like you could sit and talk and share your heart with; that was critical, both to the experience we were having and for that experience to guide the festival itself.” Find out more here
 
Stephen Petronio Company
NYU Skirball
April 11 – 13
For the fifth season of "Bloodlines," Stephen Petronio Company will debut Merce Cunningham’s Tread (1970) as part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.  Also on the program is Coverage (1970) by Rudy Perez, one of the singular artists of color of the Judson Dance Theatre. Petronio’s American Landscapes, a new work for the entire company, with “…a series of shifting pastoral, emotional, and social “kinetic canvases” that reflect the complicated beauty and roiling histories of the United States of America,” according to the release, rounds out the program. Find out more here
 
Davalois Fearon Dance
Rubin museum
April 10
Davalois Fearon Dance is fetured this week as part of the Rubin Museum of Art's partnership with Pentacle, the site-specific series with works that reflect the theme of “Power – Within and Between Us”, which the Rubin will explore through exhibitions and programs all year long. Find out more here
 
Dance Theatre of Harlem
New York City Center
April 10 – 13 (no performance on 4/11)
In celebration of their 50th anniversary, Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) returns to New York City Center (April 10 - 13) offering a mixed bill of classics and repertory favorites.  The lineup pays homage to the classics and highlights works by the co-founder, Arthur Mitchell: The Greatest, Creole Giselle (Mr. Mitchell’s interpretations of the classic ballet, set in Louisiana), Bach Passacaglia (danced by students of the Dance Theatre of Harlem School), and Tones II, which Mr. Mitchell was setting on the company at the time of his passing.  Also included in the lineup is resident choreographer Robert Garland’s Return, and Nyman String Quartet #2; plus Geoffrey Holder’s masterwork Dougla, revived last season by the DTH Company.  A special opening night performance and “Vision Gala” will honor the legacy of Mitchell with revivals of timeless works by revered choreographers including Louis Johnson’s Forces of Rhythm, George Balanchine’s Agon, and John Taras’ Firebird, Mitchell’s The Greatest and others.  Several special guests have been invited to dance some of these works are including Ashley Murphy, former DTH company member currently with The Washington Ballet, former DTH Principal dancer Paunika Jones, and Brooklyn Mack.  Post-performance conversations with artistic director Virginia Johnson and founding Dance Theatre of Harlem company members are also scheduled. Find out more here
 
Faye Driscoll
Peak Performances
April 11-14
Choreographer, performer, and director Driscoll brings the final installment in her three-part work, Thank You For Coming: Space “…both an intimate shared performance (audience capacity is set at approximately 60) and a liberatory ritual that confronts life’s most notable transition,” according to the release. Here, Driscoll is alone with the audience and constructs a temporary world—upheld by pulleys, ropes, and the weightiness of others—to invoke the sensations of absence.  Find out more here
 
Newsteps: a choreographers Series – Various Artists
Chen Dance Center
April 11 – 13
The semi-annual emerging choreographer’s series returns with six choreographers selected through an open audition by a panel of dance leaders.  Featured are: Annie Heath, Mat Elder, Spencer Weidie, Erin Bryce Holmes and Tanner Ryan.  Find out more here
 
Ursula Eagly
Danspace Project
April 11 – 13
In the premiere of her latest work, Our Epithelium, Eagly builds on years of research using psycho-social material through Group Dynamics and Visual Sensitivity. “I know most people will have to look up the word ‘epithelium,’ and I like that,” says Eagly. “It requires engagement, like the work itself. Our Epithelium is a piece for a large cast and a small audience, with two performances per evening at 8pm & 9pm. Find out more here

The People Movers
Brooklyn Studios for Dance
April 11 - 13
The People Movers’ choreographer and artistic director Kate Ladenheim and performer–designer Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs collaborates on OH, CELINE MAGNUM OPUS: A Desert Reflowering – a multidisciplinary evening of solo performance combining theater, dance, and scenic installation and an on-depth look at their heroine’s journey.  Find out more here
 
New Chamber Ballet
German Academy
April 11 – 12
Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet will present works by Magloire, Rebecca Walden and Mara Driscoll in Stray Bird, a site-specific evening of dances to music by Ursula Mamlok, and a tribute to the late composer, featuring live music by the Momenta String Quartet. This is a FREE event, but RSVP required.  Find out more here
 
Kelly Bartnik
Gibney Dance
April 11-13
Bartnik will premiere Fuck/Love: The Poetics of Adoration “an exploration of the emotional disconnect between physicality and language” as part of Gibney's Spotlight Artist programming, notes the release. Find out more here
 
It’s Showtime NYC!
The Met
April 12
The dancers of “It’s Showtime NYC!” continues their regular presentations at The Met combining hip-hop and the age of chivalry matching freestyle dance with knights in armor. This series is commissioned by MetLiveArts in collaboration with The Met's Arms and Armor department and the urban dance organization Dancing in the Streets of the South Bronx. Find out more here
 
Karole Armitage - Armitage Gone! Dance
Japan Society
April 12 - 13
Armitage’s You Took a Part of Me, “inspired by the 15th-century noh play “Nonomiya,” in which the ghost of one of Prince Genji’s jealous lovers from The Tale of Genji returns to the world of the living… explores erotic entanglement, unresolved attachments and the search for harmony, all of which are hallmarks of mugen noh, or a play that features a ghost or spirit” according to the release.  Find out more
here
 
Dances Patrelle
New York Live Arts
April 12 – 14
For their spring 2019 season, on the program is the world premiere of Francis Patrelle's The American Dream: It's Only Business, Madame X (1999), featuring New York City Ballet principal dancers Abi Stafford and Ask la Cour: American Overture (2007), a solo piece set to a Leonard Bernstein score and performed by Reed Tankersley of the Twyla Tharp Company.  Find out more here
 
Various Artists
Movement Research at Judson Church
April 15
Don’t miss this free, on-going, Monday night performance series of experimentation and works-in-progress.  This week’s featured artists are: Paul Singh / Singh & Dance , Sarah A.O. Rosner , Te Ao Mana and Cathy Weis. Find out more here

One had to be strapped in and truly ready for a Netta Yerushalmy’s 4-hour, 6-part marathon, Paramodernities (March 14 – 17) at New York Live Arts.  The ambitious event included 2 intermissions with snacks, a cast of 20 dancers and scholars, and a blow-by-blow deconstruction of Nijinsky’s Sacre (1913), Graham’s Night Journey (1947), Ailey’s Revelations (1960), a mix of Cunningham works Rainforest, Sounddance, Points in Space, Beach Birds, and Ocean (1968-1990), dance numbers from the 1969 Fosse’s film Sweet Charity, and a response to Balanchine’s Agon (1957) that includes none of the original choreography.  This history within history that tackled “…contemporary themes of sovereignty, spectacle, race, feminism and ableism…” was jam packed with truth and quips, and paired long ago movement with text.  In Paramodernities #2, for example, Yerushalmy and Taryn Griggs’ in Grahamesque torqued and dramatic breath-driven movement was in response to Carol Ockman’s text on her visit to the dentist and more.  There was also Paramodernities #4 where in requisite long sleeve unitards, Marc Crousillat and Brittany Engel-Adams, danced sleek Cunninghamesque movement alongside text by Claudia La Rocco but added their own; a nod to Cunningham’s “Chance” dance.  Paramodernities #3 Revelations: The Afterlives of Slavery closed the program, and to text by Thomas F. DeFranz, Stanley Gambucci, Jeremy Jae Neal, Nicholas Leichter and DeFarnz brought the house down.  Powered by the evangelization of Ailey’s Revelations, this newly envisioned version took on another life and demanded a new look at people as people, period.  Yerushalmy leaves us with a lot to think about.

The large cast of intoxicating performers are (in order of appearance): Crousillat, David Kishik, Yerushalmy, Michael Cecconi, Griggs, Ockman, Michael Blake, Joyce Edwards, Julia Foulkes, Hsiao-Jou, Megan Williams, Engel-Adams, Claudia La Rocco, Gerald Casel, Magdalena Jarkowiec, Georgina Kleege, Mara Mills, DeFrantz, Gambucci, Neal, and Leichter.