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 In the middle, and without doubt, the highlight of the evening, was the 2013 Sombrerísimo originally made for a cast of six men by Ochoa.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!
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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.” SUMMER | MODULE19 APPLICATIONS ARE LIVE Biannual research laboratory with internationally recognized Sidra Bell Dance New York in New York City. Project dates: June 24-30, 2019. Apply HERE by April 19, 2019 at Host Partner: CPR-Center for Performance Research. To showcase artists and bring together community
music, dance, theater, visual art, and healing arts If you're interested in sharing your art, or helping out as a volunteer please reach out to us at volunteer@artsonsite.org Check us out on Instagram (@artsonsite) and Facebook (Arts On Site) for more updates! Arts On Site Performance Party Saturday, April 20th 12 St Marks Place 8pm Doors Open 9pm Performances Start $10 Suggested Donation BYOB + Donation Bar Much love! 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 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 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 Ishmael Houston-Jones choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, across the US, and in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. He and Fred Holland shared a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award forCowboys, Dreams and Ladders. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. He curated Platform 2012: Parallels and Platform 2016: Lost & Found, both at Danspace Project. He has received a 2016 Herb Alpert, a 2015 Doris Duke Impact and a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artists Awards. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. Monday, April 15 6:30pm Award Ceremony Segal Theatre The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street FREE + Open to the public First come, first served Houston-Jones’s performance works and curatorial projects attend to the urgent materiality of the sexed, raced, desiring body on stage. As an educator, Houston-Jones has passed down improvisational techniques and practices that are both artistically experimental and that helped maintain and perpetuate experimental dance during periods of embodied and economic crisis. Through the 2010 re-staging ofTHEM and his curatorial and choreographic work on the Danspace Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Houston-Jones has ensured that a new generation of dance artists inherit the kinesthetic legacy of the early AIDS epidemic’s impact on the New York dance community. He has simultaneously nurtured the development of new work by young dance artists, especially those who are queer and/or of color. In recognition of his outstanding oeuvre as a performer and choreographer, as well as his commitment to the legacy and continuation of experimental performance practices through his curatorial and pedagogical practices, the Doctoral Theatre Students’ Association of the CUNY Graduate Center is proud to present Ishmael Houston-Jones with the 2019 Booth Award. Organized by Ashley Marinaccio and Janet Werther Seeking New Company Members! We're officially holding auditions for new Company members! Seeking highly skilled dancers with experience in acting and singing. This is a 30-week salaried position with full health benefits. Auditions will be held Monday, April 22nd from 12 - 5 PM at New York Live Arts, with callbacks later that week. Those auditioning may be asked to dance, sing and read text. Auditions are by appointment only, with a deadline to apply on Thursday, April 18th. To apply, please email your headshot and a PDF of your resume to auditions@newyorklivearts.org. 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. The dancers of Ailey II are always the star. Bring on any choreographer, and they will undoubtedly take the work and make it their own. The indomitable dancers for their 2019 season at NYU Skirball March 13-17 are: Grace Bergonzi, Leonardo Brito, Antuan Byers, Carl Ponce Cubero, Caroline Theodora Dartey, Amarachi Valentina Korie, Kyle H. Martin, Corrin Rachelle Mitchell, Alisha Rena Peek, Arianna Salerno, Marcus Williams and Marcel Wilson, Jr. The usual double program: “All New Program” and “Returning Favorites,” offered a lineup of named choreographers. Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Road To One, Juel D. Lane’s Touch & Agree, and Renee I. McDonald’s Breaking Point were on the “Returning Favorites” program, and on opening night— “Ailey family” night, the “All New “program included Tracks by former Ailey dancer Uri Sands, Ebb and Flow by Ailey II Artistic Director Troy Powell, Flock by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artistic Director Robert Battle, and Where There Are Tongues by The Ailey School and Ailey II alumnus Bradley Shelver. This all premiere night, except Battle’s 2014 Flock, offered a mix bag of styles to showcase the dancer’s ease of transference. Sand’s dance and music review Tracks was packed with a killer playlist of music by The O'Jays, Big Louisiana, Arthur Davis, and Willy Rafus, Powell’s Ebb and Flow demanded precision, then Battle’s dramatic Flock changed the pace with his signature pairing of percussive movement and music, exemplifying the dancer’s range. The highlight of the evening was Shelver’s Where There Are Tongues, where attention is pulled like a tennis match, to and from different sides of the stage, for a glimpse of small or large groups surrounding solos, duets or trios. For the 12-person cast, the movement is fast and furious, never seeming to stop, and what drives them is their own energy, with the added full-bodied commitment in response to the rhythmic and vocals stylings from Lo Còr De La Plana.
Desire: A Sankofa Dreama work-in-progress by Maria Bauman-Morales/MBDance Friday & Saturday April 5 – 6 @ 7:30 pm Desire: A Sankofa Dream is a multi-disciplinary, site-responsive artwork centered on imagination and consent as mechanisms of survival which must be practiced rigorously. The piece – which takes place inside a kaleidoscope – includes dancing, original text, art installation, and music. Desire: A Sankofa Dream is a sprawling fantasy, spilling out across several rooms and spaces throughout the BAX building. Witness-participants (audience members) travel at leisure from space to space to experiment with how their imagination and desires shift the kaleidoscope. (Note: some seating will be available.) Creator Maria Bauman-Morales is joined by Sharon Bridgforth as dramaturg for this work. The performance collaborators are Jasmine Hearn, Audrey Hailes, J. Bouey, Angie Pittman, Kayla Hamilton, Denise Shu Mei, and Ebony Golden with rehearsal assistance from Courtney J. Cook. ** The entrance for this showing is on 8th Street, not the normal front door entrance on 5th Avenue. ** General Seating, Sliding Scale: $20 / $15 / $10 (Choose the ticket price that best fits your budget.) Find out more here ******************* Company SBB - Stefanie Batten Bland Saturday, April 6th @ 7:00 pm Martha's Vineyard PAC Walls and borders. Open (with love). Closed (with a vengeance). The 2019 Winter Yard ends with COMPANY SBB STEFANIE BATTEN BLAND in ‘Welcome . . .’, (pictured below) a dance-theater meditation on what makes (or denies) a public space open to all comers. With graffiti help by island students and adults! Find out more here Jersey Moves! Festival of Dance presents:
Carolyn Dorfman Dance Sunday, April 7 @ 3PM Victoria Theater Featuring Love Suite Love, Dorfman’s version of “pillow talk,” set to love songs of Patsy Cline; Odisea (Odyssey), a homage to the journey of exiled Jewish refugees who were the first to arrive in New Amsterdam (New York); and Interior Designs, where the entire theater becomes the stage. Special cameo appearances of Dorfman Dance alumni scheduled! Find out more here |
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AuthorI am a performer, historian, consultant and dance writer. I am a Empire State College's online program Center for Distance Learning. I am also a former faculty member at The Ailey School and the Alvin Ailey/Fordham University dance major program, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College (Guest), Kean University and The Joffrey Ballet School's Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program. I write on dance for The Amsterdam News, Dance Magazine and various publications. Click below to read more about me at my home page - "About Me." |