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2 episodes with bessie award
2 episodes with bessie award
3 episodes with bessie award
2 episodes with bessie award
2 episodes with bessie award
Marjani Forté-Saunders is a mother, choreographer, performer, community organizer and three-time Bessie Award winner. In this episode, Marjani speaks about the score a dancer's body keeps, both on and off the stage. It's a journey of acceptance, fearless expression and hard personal truths.Homegoings is a production of Vermont Public. Follow the show here.This episode was hosted and reported by Myra Flynn and edited by Aaron Edwards, with production support from Peter Engisch, Mike Dunn and our associate producer James Stewart. Myra composed the theme music with other music by Everett Asis and Blue Dot Sessions. Kaylee Mumford is the graphic artist behind this episode's Homegoings artist portrait.Thank you for listening. You can see a video version of this episode on our YouTube channel.To continue to be part of the Homegoings family: Subscribe to our YouTube channel Sign up for the Homegoings newsletter Write to us at: hey@homegoings.co Follow us on Instagram @wearehomegoings Make a gift to continue elevating BIPOC storytelling Tell your friends, your family or a stranger about the show! And of course, subscribe!
Send us a textIn this episode of Soul of Travel, Season 6: Women's Wisdom + Mindful Travel, presented by @journeywoman_original, Christine shares a soulful solo episode honoring Women's History Month.If you are new to the Soul of Travel community, we extend a warm welcome to you and would love to introduce the host, creator, and connector extraordinaire, Christine Winebrenner Irick.Christine launched the Soul of Travel Podcast in 2021, and since has passionately educated and inspired listeners to embrace mindful travel and celebrate women making a positive and revolutionary impact in travel and tourism. Named one of "2023's Most Influential Women in Travel" by TravelPulse, her commitment to transformational travel and gender equity is evident in every episode, with her podcast earning a prestigious Bessie Award from Wanderful in 2022. Her belief that travel combined with meaningful connections can transform travelers into agents of change has led her to interview over 100 women from various countries who are creating positive global impact.Christine also creates and guides transformational journeys to support gender equity, extending her influence beyond podcasting to champion purposeful travel and positive impact for women+. A mother of three daughters, she balances her professional passion with family exploration and finds joy in simple pleasures like reading and spending time in nature, drawing from her Montana roots. Through both her podcast and Lotus Sojourns, Christine has created an inclusive platform that amplifies diverse voices in tourism, consistently advocating for a more equitable and mindful approach to global exploration that inspires her audience to become conscious, compassionate travelers.In this episode, Christine shares:· Celebrations from our incredible Soul of Travel listener and guest community · Soul of Travel BEYOND, our new subscription platform· Wisdom, inspiration, and upcoming insights into the growth of Soul of Travel Join Christine for this soulful episode.Support the show
Before there were influencers, Donald Byrd was busy influencing art and culture through his countless contributions in Dance. As an established force on both coasts with Seattle now his home, the iconic choreographer shares stories, insights and deep feelings that are the culmination of an artist's life well lived. In this honest conversation with high school senior Gavin M., the legend articulates the significance of an Artist in 2025. He also debunks Drug use and addiction from a years-long struggle that he successfully overcame. He discusses Blackness in America, and how Black people are alchemists that turn pain and oppression into gold. And together they explore the ways that we can achieve more balance, growth and compassion through work on Self. Donald Byrd has been the Artistic Director of Spectrum Dance Theater since December 2002. Formerly, he was Artistic Director of Donald Byrd/The Group, a critically acclaimed contemporary dance company, founded in Los Angeles and later based in New York, that toured both nationally and internationally. His career has been long and complex, and his choreographic and theatrical interests are broad. The New York Times describes him as “a choreographer with multiple personalities ... an unabashed eclectic.” He received a Tony-nomination for his choreography for The Color Purple and a Bessie Award for The Minstrel Show. Co-presented by 4Culture, Coping 101's Artist Mental Health Stories amplify voices from King County's cultural sector to empower individual artists, uplift the creative community and destigmatize mental health from a teen's perspective. No matter our age or background we all face challenges, and there are many healthy ways to find balance. Get started with more episodes and resources hosted at c895.org/coping101 more about Donald Byrd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Byrd_(choreographer) more about Spectrum Dance Theater 4Culture - 4culture.org
BONUS EPISODE: Qudsiya chats with Kayla Hamilton, the Bessie Award-winning dancer, educator and consultant. Her performance, choreographic and disability arts work has been presented by institutions across the US. In July 2024, Kayla announced the creation of Circle O, a new cultural organization established by and for black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives. In this episode, Kayla shares her origin story and how it has informed her approach to being a creative maker, and how she engages with communities through artistic expression. Kayla views disability as both subject and method. Visit our website for transcripts. -- Subscribe to Qudsiya's Substack, Getting Down To It Support the team behind the podcast with a donation Follow us on Instagram @DownToTheStruts Let us know what you think with a comment or review on Apple podcasts.
Check out this podcast replay of our SDCF Panel: The Journey from Dancer to Choreographer with Mayte Natalio, Adesola Osakalumi, and Ellenore Scott. This conversation focuses on career transitions or expansions, specifically for dancers who have shifted or added choreography to their artistic practice. We hosted this panel at Sunlight Studios in February 2024. This video and audio was recorded by Michael Weir supported by the Maria Torres Emerging Artists Foundation. Transcript available upon request. Ellenore Scott (she/her) is a BIPOC, New York based choreographer and director. Through her work, Scott values lifting diverse voices in her community while creating a joyous space where the creative process can bring as many people in as possible. Her Broadway credits include Grey House, Funny Girl, Mr. Saturday Night. Her Off-Broadway credits include Little Shop of Horrors, Titanique (Lucille Loretel Nomination), I Can Get It For You Wholesale. Other choreography credits include: So You Think You Can Dance?, Single All the Way (Netflix). In 2023, Scott co-directed The Lonely Few, a world premiere rock musical at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, CA that will transfer to Off-Broadway's MCC Theatre in Spring of 2024. Scott's work has also been seen at The Bushwick Starr, The Old Globe, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, McCarter Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Cape Fear Regional Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. In 2020, Scott was a finalist for the SDC Breakout Award for the first ever TikTok Music Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical which raised over $2 million for The Entertainment Fund. As a performer, Scott appeared in numerous television shows (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Smash, The Blacklist, Glee! to name a few) and was a finalist and All-Star on So You Think You Can Dance? Scott is the Artistic Director of ELSCO Dance, a contemporary-fusion dance company. Mayte Natalio: Broadway: Suffs (spring 2024), For Colored Girls… (Associate Choreographer). Off-Broadway: Measure for Measure (The Public Theater, Mobile Unit). Regional: The Winter's Tale (DTC, Public Works), Into the Woods (Barrington Stage Company), Love in Hate Nation (Two River Theater), Hair (The Old Globe), Kiss My Aztec (Hartford Stage), How to Dance in Ohio (Syracuse Stage). Adesola Osakalumi: is a Bronx native, Bessie Award-winning, Drama Desk-nominated Choreographer and Actor. Inspired by his family's dance company Africa 1 Dance Theater, he began performing at an early age and was immediately captivated by popping, locking, and all diasporic hip-hop dance styles. He began training seriously at every opportunity possible while maintaining a strong presence in the New York club scene where these styles flourished. Selected Choreographic credits include: Fall For Dance/Jam On The Groove 3 For 30 (City Center),Skeleton Crew (Broadway MTC), Cullud Wattah, Coal Country, Othello (Public Theater), runboyrun, Eyewitness Blues (NYTW), Good Grief (Vineyard), Jam on the Groove (Minetta Lane) and the film School Of Rock. Upcoming: The Hippest Trip (Soul Train Musical) Associate Choreographer & Dance Consultant and Syncing Ink (Victoria Theater) Spring 2025. As an Actor: Skeleton Crew, Fela!, Equus (Broadway), runboyrun (NYTW), Syncing Ink (Flea/Alley Theater) and the films Red Pill, IBRAHIM, Enchanted, Across the Universe, and Sex and the City 2. TV: "Endgame", “Ice”, Blue Bloods. Awards: Bessie Award Recipient, Drama Desk Recipient. I give thanks to my Ori, Ancestors, and Family for their constant support and love. adesola.com IG @adesolaosakalumi.
The 2024-2025 Cohort of The Creatives Leadership Academy is starting up soon. If you're ready to design your life and career with more intentionality so that you can take things up a notch, earn more income, do the gold standard of whatever it is you love to do, AND have time for the rest of your life, Book a call with me today so we can discuss how CLA can help get you there! ---> CHAT WITH KATE Today's guest is Dr. Mila Thigpen, chair of dance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where her teaching portfolio includes classes like salsa, dance & pop culture, as well as mentoring independent student research projects. A “lively dancer” (the Boston Globe), Thigpen is an international teacher-artist who has danced works by Doris Humphrey, Paul Taylor, Trisha Brown, Seán Curran, Germaul Barnes, Wendy Jehlen, Arthur Aviles, and Aszure Barton. Thigpen's work has been presented in CRASHarts's Ten's the Limit and the Bronx BlakTina Dance Festival. Her commissions span from concert to commercial work internationally. Thigpen was a Boston cast member of the Bessie Award-winning Skeleton Architecture. She was also the movement coach for Pass Over, under the direction of Monica White Ndounou, which received a Lortel Award for outstanding play. Thigpen's advocacy for equity has been nationally recognized, and she has been called to major gatherings on social justice and equity to lead people in embodied practices that support their work. Dr. Thigpen created and implemented a cultural humility professional development workshop for artists and educators, which she has facilitated for secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. She has presented research on teaching dance from racialized bodies, and continues learning new methodologies for culturally informed somatic healing practices. Her work in this field has led to invitations as a guest speaker at the Beijing Dance Forum and the Gulf Center for Law and Policy's Sacred Waters Pilgrimage, and Taproot Earth, a climate justice organization. Dr. Thigpen earned a B.A. from Kenyon College, an M.F.A. from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, an Ed.M. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in dance at Texas Woman's University. Her research reclaims salsa as part of the African diaspora through ethnographic inquiry of the Bronx-based Yamuleé Dance Company. Thigpen has presented multiple times at the Dance Studies Association and the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance. Follow Mila at: @bailaconmila on IG or at www.milathigpen.com Follow Kate at @kkayaian on IG, or at www.katekayaian.com Don't forget to download your free Quarterly Retreat Planning Guide! to get your Q4 off to a great start!
In this episode, Vangeline has a conversation with her collaborator Emmy-Award winner Machine Dazzle, discussing their new project "Venus Ex Machina", costumes for MAN WOMAN, life as an artist, and the importance of saying yes. For more information about this new project visit www.vangeline.com and Instagram Instagram: @machinedazzle @vangelinebutoh https://www.vangeline.com/news/2024/8/15/venus-ex-machina-machine-dazzle-and-vangeline Machine Dazzle. Emmy award winner and beloved downtown bon vivant and all-around creative provocateur Machine Dazzle has been dazzling stages via costumes, sets, and performances since his arrival in New York in 1994. An artist, costume designer, set designer, singer/songwriter, art director, and maker, Machine describes himself as a radical queer emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker trapped in the role of costume designer, sometimes. Machine designs intricate, unconventional wearable art pieces and bespoke installations. As a stage designer, Machine has collaborated with artists from the New York downtown scene and beyond – including Julie Atlas Muz, Big Art Group, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, Basil Twist, Godfrey Reggio, Jennifer Miller, The Dazzle dancers, Big Art Group, Mike Albo, Stanley Love, Soomi Kim, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Opera Philadelphia, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, the Curran Theatre, and Spiegelworld; and has created bespoke looks for fashion icons including designer Diane von Furstenberg and model Cara Delevingne for the 2019 Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala. Machine's costumes and sets were featured in Taylor Mac's Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music. A documentary feature film directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein and co-produced by Pomegranate Arts will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023. In 2019, Machine was commissioned by Guggenheim Works and Process and The Rockefeller Brothers to create Treasure, a rock-and-roll cabaret of original songs including a fashion show inspired by the content. Recent collaborations include the Catalyst Quartet on Bassline Fabulous – a reimagining of Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his debut collaboration with Opera Lafayette, for the historic premiere of the never-before-seen Rameau comedic opéra-ballet, Io. Dazzle was a co-recipient the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design, the winner of a 2017 Henry Hewes Design Award, and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. He delivered a TED Talk at TED Vancouver in 2023. Machine Dazzle's work has been exhibited internationally. His first solo exhibition, Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, was held at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City in 2022. https://www.vangeline.com/ https://www.pomegranatearts.com/projects-and-artists/machine-dazzle https://www.hbo.com/movies/taylor-macs-24-decade-history-of-popular-music
In this week's episode I sat down with Kayla Hamilton. Kayla is a Texas-born, Bronx based performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant. She is a Bessie Award-winning dancer and her performance, choreographic and disability arts work has been presented by institutions across New York City and the U.S. In July of 2024 she announced the creation of Circle O, a new cultural organization established by and for Black Disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives. We discuss her journey to becoming a dancer, creating space in places where disability is often not welcome, the stories that can be told and the voices that can be heard through the art of movement and much, much more. Buy Tickets: Open Call: Kayla Hamilton at The Shed HERE Follow Kayla: Website: https://www.khamiltonprojects.com/k-a-y-l-a-h-a-m-i-l-t-o-n Follow Circle O: Instagram: @circleo_org Website: https://www.circleo.org Follow Me: Instagram: @jill_ilana , @alwayslookingup.podcast TikTok: @jillian_ilana Website: https://www.jillianilana.com Email: alwayslookingup227@gmail.com This episode was edited and produced by Ben Curwin.
ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program produce the SLC Performance Lab. During the year, visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program's Performance Lab are interviewed after leading a workshop with the students. Performance Lab is one of the program's core components, where graduate students work with guest artists and develop performance experiments. Sibyl Kempson is interviewed and produced by Julia Duffy (SLC'25) Kempson's plays have been presented in the United States, Germany, and Norway. As a performer she toured internationally from 2000-2011 with Nature Theater of Oklahoma, New York City Players, and Elevator Repair Service. Her own work has received support from the Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Dixon Place. She was given four Mondo Cane! commissions from 2002-2011 for The Wytche of Problymm Plantation, Crime or Emergency, Potatoes of August, and The Secret Death of Puppets). She received an MAP Fund grant for her collaboration with Elevator Repair Service (Fondly, Collette Richland) at New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), a 2018 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for American Playwright at Mid-Career (specifically honoring “her fine craft, intertextual approach, and her body of work, including Crime or Emergency and Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag”), and a 2014 USA Artists Rockefeller fellowship with NYTW and director Sarah Benson. She received a 2013 Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation commission for Kyckling and Screaming (a translation/adaptation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck), a 2013-14 McKnight National residency and commission for a new play (The Securely Conferred, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S.), a New Dramatists/Full Stage USA commission for a devised piece (From the Pig Pile: The Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach), and a National Presenters Network Creation Fund Award for the same project. Her second collaboration with David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group, I Understand Everything Better, received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production in 2015; the first was Restless Eye at New York Live Arts in 2012. Current and upcoming projects include a new opera with David Lang for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston for 2018, Sasquatch Rituals at The Kitchen in April 2018, and The Securely Conferred, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S. Kempson is a MacDowell Colony fellow; a member of New Dramatists; a USA Artists Rockefeller fellow; an artist-in-residence at the Abrons Arts Center; a 2014 nominee for the Doris Duke Impact Award, the Laurents Hatcher Award, and the Herb Alpert Award; and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Her plays are published by 53rd State Press, PLAY: Journal of Plays, and Performance & Art Journal (PAJ). Kempson launched the 7 Daughters of Eve Theater & Performance Co. in April 2015 at the Martin E. Segal Center at the City University of New York. The company's inaugural production, Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag, premiered at Abrons Arts Center in New York City. A new piece, Public People's Enemy, was presented in October 2018 at the Ibsen Awards and Conference in Ibsen's hometown of Skien, Norway. 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens, a three-year cycle of rituals for the Whitney Museum of American Art in the Meatpacking District of New York City, began on the vernal equinox in March 2016 to recur on each solstice and equinox through December 2018
“I don't give you a trophy for showing up. I don't applaud a bird for flying or a fish for swimming. You chose to be here and so you got to eat a little sand from the sandbox because it builds up your immunity.” In this episode we discuss… What do you do when you start to become a leader? What happens after you're told no? What is good teaching? Hope Boykin, a two-time "Bessie Award" winner, is an acclaimed dancer, choreographer and artistic advisor known for her 20-year tenure with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and her choreography for various companies worldwide. With a passion for pushing artistic boundaries, she has co-directed Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, while her virtual works have earned acclaim from institutions like Carolina Performing Arts and theGuggenheim Works And Process Virtual Commissions initiative. As a motivating force, Hope has served as a keynote speaker for Lincoln Center Activate and received a grant for her Covid Safe residency #BoykinBubble. Hercreative endeavors extend to filmmaking, including the Emmy-nominated short film "Beauty Size & Color." Frompremiering "An Evening of Hope" at 92nd Street Y to directing performances like "The Other Side" for the KennedyCenter, Hope's artistry knows no limits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two time “Bessie Award” winning dancer, choreographer, educator, director, writer, and speaker, Hope Boykin, founder of HopeBoykinDance, was an original member of Complexions, danced with Philadanco, and performed for 20 years with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. On September 16, a new piece from HopeBoykinDance will be presented by the Catskill Mountain Foundation at The Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville, NY.
After two decades as an acclaimed dancer and star of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Jamar Roberts is one of today's most sought-after choreographers. The Bessie Award winner has created commissions for the Ailey company, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and The Juilliard School, just to name a few. Jamar recalls how his early obsession with music made him want to move, candidly shares the challenges of learning to be an artist, and discusses how he developed his choreographic voice. Alicia surprises Jamar with a treasured gift he made for her years ago and explains her thoughts behind matching his energy when they were dance partners at Ailey.Check out Jamar Roberts on Instagram and the web.Follow Moving Moments on Instagram.Follow Alicia on Instagram.You can find out more about Artful Narratives Media on Instagram or the web.The Moving Moments theme song was composed by Saul Guanipa for Videohelper.Moving Moments was co-created by Alicia Graf Mack, Jessica Handelman, and David Krauss.This interview has been edited and condensed to fit the time format.Episode copyright © 2023 Artful Narratives Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest on Movers & Shapers are Joan Myers Brown and Kim Bears-Bailey of Philadanco. Joan is the founder of Philadanco which was created in 1970 out of a need to provide performance opportunities and training for Black dancers. PHILADANCO! has since grown into a professional dance company that is recognized around the world for its artistic integrity, superbly trained dancers, and captivating performances. Of her many honors, she is the honorary chairperson for the International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD), an organization she established in 1991, and she received the prestigious National Medal of Arts Award and 2019 Bessie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance for her choreographic influence on black dance in America. Kim joined Philadanco in 1981 and its current Artistic Director. She is a Bessie's award recipient and Associate Professor of Dance at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Kim is one of few artists granted permission to remount the works of many world-renowned choreographers including Talley Beatty, Pearl Primus and Gene Hill Sagan. For more in this episode of Movers & Shapers: themovingarchitects.org/podcasts Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
On today's episode of ‘Conversations On Dance', we are joined by Ephrat Asherie, Bessie Award winning b-girl and choreographer. We caught up with Ephrat on her artistic output since her first appearance on the podcast in January 2021, including her work for Guggenheim Works & Process, collaborating with the elders of the underground dance scene, and […] The post (295) Ephrat Asherie, Artistic Director of Ephrat Asherie Dance, coming to the Vail Dance Festival appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
On today's episode of ‘Conversations On Dance', we are joined by Ephrat Asherie, Bessie Award winning b-girl and choreographer. We caught up with Ephrat on her artistic output since her first appearance on the podcast in January 2021, including her work for Guggenheim Works & Process, collaborating with the elders of the underground dance scene, and […] The post (295) Ephrat Asherie, Artistic Director of Ephrat Asherie Dance, coming to the Vail Dance Festival appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
Today's guest is Shamel Pitts. Shamel is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, as well as performance, conceptual, and spoken word artist. Since 2019, he is the artistic director/founder of TRIBE, a New York-based multidisciplinary arts collective which was a 2020-21 Artist-In-Residence at 92Y Harkness Dance Center. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he started his professional dance career with Mikhail Baryshnikov's Hell's Kitchen Dance and BJM_Danse Montreal. Between 2009-2016, he was a company member of the Batsheva Dance Company, led by Ohad Naharin where he studied Gaga movement language, of which he is now a certified teacher. Since 2015, Shamel has created a triptych of award-winning multidisciplinary works known as “BLACK Series,” which has been performed and toured extensively to many festivals around the world. He is the recipient of a 2018 Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Award winner in Choreography, and a 2020 Jacob's Pillow artist in residence, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, and the cast member of the 2021 Bessie Award-winning production of “The Motherboard Suite” at New York Live Arts. For more on Shamel and this episode: Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast
Today on Conversations On Dance we are joined by New York based choreographer and dancer Caleb Teicher. Caleb began their career as a founding member of Michelle Dorance's critically acclaimed company Dorrance Dance, quick achieving personal critical acclaim as well when they received a Bessie Award at age 17. In 2015, Caleb shifted their creative focus […] The post (278) Caleb Teicher, New York based dancer and choreographer appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
Today on Conversations On Dance we are joined by New York based choreographer and dancer Caleb Teicher. Caleb began their career as a founding member of Michelle Dorance's critically acclaimed company Dorrance Dance, quick achieving personal critical acclaim as well when they received a Bessie Award at age 17. In 2015, Caleb shifted their creative focus […] The post (278) Caleb Teicher, New York based dancer and choreographer appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
In this episode Durell speaks with Niegel Smith. Niegel is a Bessie Award winning theater director and performance artist. He is the Artistic Director of NYC's Obie Award winning theater, The Flea; board member of A.R.T./New York; and ringleader of Willing Participant (www.willingparticipant.org) an artistic activist organization that whips up urgent poetic responses to crazy shit that happens.His theater work has been produced at The Alley Theater, The Barbican, Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Flea Theater, The Goodman Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Hip Hop Theatre Festival, The Invisible Dog, Luna Stage, The Melbourne Festival, Magic Theatre, Mixed Blood, New York Fringe Festival, New York Live Arts, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, Playwrights Horizons, Pomegranate Arts, The Public Theater, St. Ann's Warehouse, Summer Play Festival, and Under the Radar, and his participatory walks and performances have been produced by Abrons Arts Center, American Realness, The Brooklyn Museum, Dartmouth College, Elastic City, The Invisible Dog, Jack, The New Museum, Prelude Festival, PS 122, the Van Alen Institute and Visual AIDS. He often collaborates with playwright/performer Taylor Mac. Smith is co-director of the critically acclaimed ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music', winner of the Kennedy Prize in Drama, Bessie Award, the Edwin Booth Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He associate directed the Tony Award winning musical FELA! – restaging that production in London, Lagos and its world tour, assistant directed the off-broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and both the Broadway and off-Broadway productions of Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change. He has worked on the artistic staffs of The Public Theater, Trinity Repertory Company and Providence Black Rep. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Smith has received residencies, grants and/or fellowships from Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the MAP Fund, New York Stage and Film, Sundance Theatre Lab, Theater Communications Group, Tucker Foundation, Van Lier Fund and VoxFest. Before surviving high school in Detroit, he grew up in the North Carolina piedmont, fishing with his dad, shopping with his mom and inventing tall-tale fantasies with his two younger brothers. www.niegelsmith.com
This conversation was a true masterclass in creativity and the art and practice of tapping into who we really are.At 84 years old Brenda has had an extraordinary career and a lifetime of experience. She sits down to talk to Lisa about life, dance the joy of teaching and what living in the moment means to her.About working with Charles "Honi" Coles" :"Honi never told me anything. Nothing! And that was probably the biggest gift he gave me."BioBrenda Bufalino is a true legend. Her career as a performer, choreographer and innovator spans more than 60 years. She has been awarded: The Flobert Award, The Tapestry Award, The Tap City Hall of Fame Award, The Dance Magazine, and the prestigious Bessie Award - all for outstanding achievement and contributions to the field of tap dance. A true visionary, she is known for her collaborations with her partner and mentor the great Charles ‘Honi' Coles, and her many performances with Gregory Hines, The Nicholas Brothers, and the many giants of tap dance. She is founder of the award winning American Tap Dance Orchestra and her own experimental work, with taps, electronics and poetry has influenced generations of tap artists. She is a published author, poet and ceramist and a revered educator and master teacher.Links: https://www.brendabufalino.com/Episode recorded January 18th, 2022 (Lac Selby, QC)Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/STOPTIME)
“How do our cells become oriented to justice?” Dancer and activist Emily Johnson invites us to embody justice through song, dance, and vibration. “Think of the ground lifting up with you, beneath your feet … this vibratory lift. The stomp is after the sound, the impact, the land. The spaces in-between: possibility, otherwise.” Emerging from Johnson's land and water protection efforts in Lenapehoking (New York City), her Transmission serves as a call-to-action to resist setter capitalism. “Artists-in-Presidents” is initiated by Constance Hockaday, curated by Christine Shaw, and commissioned by The Blackwood (University of Toronto Mississauga). Podcast production by Vocal Fry. Transmissions are released every Friday from August 6–December 17, 2021. To view the portrait gallery, access ASL videos and transcripts, and for additional information about the project, visit www.artistsinpresidents.com and www.blackwoodgallery.ca. Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land- and water-protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty, and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in Lenapehoking/New York City. Johnson is of the Yup'ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and care processions, they engage audienceship within and through space, time, and environment—interacting with a place's architecture, peoples, history, and role in building futures. Johnson is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present and future. Contributor Acknowledgments: Love to Karyn Recollet, ever collaborator; Zach Crumrine, sound engineer and support; and Eileen Myles who offered feedback. Photo: Adam Sings in the Timber
Camille A. Brown is a prolific Black female choreographer, who is reclaiming the cultural narratives of African American identity. Her bold work taps into both ancestral stories and contemporary culture to capture a range of deeply personal experiences. Ms. Brown is the first Black woman to serve as a director at the Metropolitan Opera, with their current production Fire Shut Up In My Bones. Shortly thereafter she's taking the reins of the Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls.She has received numerous honors including a Guggenheim Award, Bessie Award, Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Dance Magazine award, a United States Artists Award, 2 Audelco Awards, 5 Princess Grace Awards, and a New York City Center Award. She has received a Tony nomination, 3 Drama Desk, 3 Lortel nominations for her work in Theater. She is an Emerson Collective fellow, a TED fellow and the recipient of a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, among others. She is the 2021 Distinguished Artist, presented by The International Society for the Performing Arts. Other honors include the 2020 Dance Magazine Award recipient and 2020 Obie Award Winner for Sustained Excellence in Choreography.As Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers (CABD), Ms. Brown strives to instill curiosity and reflection in diverse audiences through her emotionally raw and thought-provoking work. Her driving passion is to empower Black bodies to tell their story using their own language through movement and dialogue. Through the company, Ms. Brown provides outreach activities to students, young adults, and men and women across the country.
A transcript of this episode is available here: https://thedanceedit.com/transcript-episode-77Links referenced in/relevant to episode 77:-Full list of 2021 Bessie Award nominees: https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwdance/article/Nominees-For-The-2021-Bessie-Awards-Announced-20010101-Times Union story on SPAC's new school and the National Museum of Dance: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/SPAC-launching-School-of-the-Arts-working-toward-16380447.php-New York Daily News piece on how the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries is helping Broadway performers prep for return: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-broadway-reopen-harkness-center-helps-performers-20210815-i5wz2eysfjdh7cfgnsdcbdegoq-story.html-CNBC piece on slow Broadway ticket sales: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/14/with-hamilton-disney-wicked-ticket-sales-slow-broadway-isnt-back.html-New York Times story on the NYC dance directors who banded together during the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/arts/dance/artistic-directors-meet-during-pandemic.html-Pointe feature on the resulting BAAND Together Dance Festival: https://pointemagazine.com/lincoln-center-baand-together-dance-festival/-New York Times feature on the dancers filming K-pop dance covers at CB3 in Paris: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/arts/dance/paris-kpop-dancers-la-defense.html
Beatrice Capote shares how Cuban dance of the African diaspora influences her as a performer, educator, artist and creator of the Capotechnique. BIOBeatrice Capote is a Cuban American contemporary dancer, choreographer, educator and founder of Contempo: Capotechnique Exercises. In her work, she fuses Modern, Ballet, African and Afro-Cuban dance techniques to support artists with building technical skills while deepening knowledge on African Diaspora traditions.Ms. Capote has served as the choreographer for Citrus, a choreopoem play (Northern Stages) & The Wedding Band Musical (Montclair State University). She has received choreographic commissions from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The Dark Elegy Project inspired by Suse Lowenstein performed at Gibney Dance. In 2019, she was a MANCC Forward Dialogues artist in residence where she developed her most recent solo based on “Reyita, The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century” written by Maria De los Reyes Castillo Bueno. Her work has also been shown in major festivals/venues such as WestFest Dance Festival, Battery Dance Festival, BAAD! ASS Women's Festival, Amherst College, Casita Maria!, Contemporary Dance Series at Bryant Park, Vision Festival and more. She began her training at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and was featured in “Attitude! Eight Young Dancers Come of Age at the Ailey School” written by Katharine Davis Fisherman. She received her A.A. from University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a B.A. in Dance Education and an MFA focused on Afro-Cuban Dance Forms from Montclair State University. During the graduate program, her MFA Thesis choreography excerpt was featured on Bronx NETTV.Ms. Capote has performed for prestigious companies such as INSPIRIT, a dance company and Kyle Abraham/Abraham. In. Motion. She is a current member of Bessie Award-winning Camille A. Brown & Dancers. To continue her work in the Latinx Artist community, she co-founded The Sabrosura Effect dance company and co-curates Pepatián's Dancing La Botanica: La Tierra Vive project and Bronx Arts and Conversation showcase under the direction of Pepatián South Bronx. Prior to her position at IU, she served on faculty at Montclair State University, The Ailey School, Gibney Dance, Joffrey Ballet School, and as a guest artist/mentor for many universities and dance institutions. Action StepsBeatrice leads our movement exploration segment with a focus on the cuban torso.Connect with Beatrice CapoteWebsite: http://www.beatricecapote.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/b__capote/ @b_capoteWatch Beatrice Solo Performance: Battery Park August 20th Free To The PublicStay Connected to Get The Point! Dance 1. Stay tuned for behind the scenes POINTTV on IGTV and Join the discussion.2.Get Inspiration, Empowerment and Education straight to your inbox with our Newsletter Coming SoonLinks: https://linktr.ee/getthepointQuote:There are no mistakes every process makes us grow. -Beatrice Capote
Choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili and curator Sophie J Williamson, consider how time, history and circadian rhythms imprint themselves on our bodies. In Being Taken for Granite, Ursula K. Le Guin described a kinship with mud as a body that yields, reacts, imprints and responds. Taking this text as a guide they will unravel relationships between the body and the soil from which it is born, considering ways of archeologically excavating and reading bodies – human, non-human and geological – to understand their ever-present dialogue with the past. From the sedimentary strata of mountains to the narratives secreted in our own gestures, Okpokwasili and Williamson discuss the body as an accumulation and amalgamation of historic interactions. They will consider how lineage, past lives and trauma secret themselves in bodies, and how these silences resurface to reveal our entangled pasts, form us in the contemporary and redirect futures. Okwui Okpokwasili is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer and writer. Her performance work has been commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Danspace Project, Performance Space New York, the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, the 10th Annual Berlin Biennale, and Jacob's Pillow, among other institutions. Her work includes two Bessie Award–winning productions: Pent-Up: A Revenge Dance and Bronx Gothic. She has held residencies at the Maggie Allesee National Choreographic Center, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Rauschenberg Foundation Captiva Residency, and New York Live Arts, where she was a Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist. She is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts. Okpokwasili is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Sophie J Williamson is the initiator and convenor of Undead Matter, a multidisciplinary research platform focused on the intimacies of being with the geological. Williamson was Exhibitions Curator at Camden Art Centre (2013 – 21), prior to which she was part of the inaugural team at Raven Row (2009–13) and worked at the Singapore Biennale (2006), Venice Biennale (2007) and Manchester Asian Triennale (2008). Her writing has appeared in frieze, Art Monthly, Elephant and Aesthetica, among others. Residencies and awards include: V-A-C Research Prize Recipient (2020), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Curatorial Fellow (2020); and Gasworks Curatorial Fellow (2016). Her anthology, Translation, part of the Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press – Documents of Contemporary Art series, brings together writings by artists, poets, authors and theorists to reflect on the urgency of building empathy in an era of global turmoil. Produced by: Zakia Sewell Music by: Nicolas Gaunin Design by: Mariana Vale This series has been programmed as part of the Freelands Lomax Ceramics Fellowship.
Bates Dance Festival | Artist Talk July 12, 2021 Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in Lenapehoking / New York City. Emily is of the Yup'ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and care processions, they engage audienceship within and through space, time, and environment- interacting with a place's architecture, peoples, history and role in building futures. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present and future. Emily hosts monthly ceremonial fires on Mannahatta in partnership with Abrons Arts Center and Karyn Recollet. She was a co-compiler of the document, Creating New Futures: Guidelines for Ethics and Equity in the Performing Arts and is part of an advisory group, with Reuben Roqueni, Ed Bourgeois, Lori Pourier, Ronee Penoi, and Vallejo Gantner – developing a First Nations Performing Arts Network. www.catalystdance.com www.batesdancefestival.org
Ward Shelley works as an artist in New York and Connecticut. He is interested in constructed worlds and intersecting narratives; how they create, mediate and inform each other. He wants to know how things really work. Shelley specializes in large projects that freely mix architecture and performance. For more than a decade, he has been collaborating with Alex Schweder, using experimental architecture to explore the dance between the designed environment and its consequences. Since 2007, the duo have designed, built, and lived in (or on) seven structures, all of them in locations where the public are invited not only to witness, but also to actively engage with the artists in direct dialogue about their practice—an activity that has coalesced into what they call “performance architecture.” Shelley also works on diagramatic paintings: information-based timelines on culture-related subjects and historical postmortems. He frequently works with Douglas Paulson on installations and environments that attempt to turn mind, text, and meaning inside out (for a better look). They created the “The Last Library” project for Spaces in 2015. Shelley's work has been exhibited in more than 10 countries and is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Shelley received a Painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, and grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in New York. A new septuagenarian, this year Ward claims to be taking a year off to re-evaluate the direction of his life and his work. He has re-booted and found time for few extra-curricular activities, particularly around music and reading, and has begun rescuing plants (otherwise known as gardening). Being outside has become a priority. The book mentioned in the interview was: A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry.
Dana Caspersen is conflict engagement specialist, award-winning performing artist, and author. She has developed teaching, communication, and public dialogue models and practices that integrate traditional conflict engagement strategies with choreographic methodologies, engaging thousands of people from diverse communities across the globe. Her book, Changing the Conversation: The 17 Principles of Conflict Resolution (A Joost Elffers Book), has been translated into 8 languages and is widely used as a training tool by organizations, schools and individuals worldwide. She has a master's degree in Conflict Studies and Mediation and an MFA in Dance. As a leading collaborator of the choreographer William Forsythe for over 30 years, Caspersen has co-created and performed across the world as a principal artist with the Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company. Their collaborations range from the visual arts, as in the creation of work commissioned by Artangel in London, to the development of award-winning stage works such as Eidos : Telos and I Don't Believe in Outer Space. Dana has received the Bessie Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the United States and was nominated for the Lawrence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in England. For more information on Dana's work, please visit danacaspersen.com Photo: Dominik Mentzos
www.proartesmexico.com.mx Interview in English with Emily Johnson by Peter Hay. Dec. 4th, 2020. Entrevista con Emily Johnson, por Peter Hay. 4 de dic, 2020. Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty, and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in Lenapehoking / New York City. Emily is of the Yup’ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and care processions, they engage audienceship within and through space, time, and environment- interacting with a place's architecture, peoples, history, and role in building futures. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present, and future. Emily hosts monthly ceremonial fires on Mannahatta in partnership with Abrons Arts Center and Karyn Recollet. She was a co-compiler of the document, Creating New Futures: Guidelines for Ethics and Equity in the Performing Arts and is part of an advisory group, with Reuben Roqueni, Ed Bourgeois, Lori Pourier, Ronee Penoi, and Vallejo Gantner - developing a First Nations Performing Arts Network. Emily Johnson es una artista que crea trabajos basados en el cuerpo. Es protectora de la tierra y el agua, y activista por la justicia, la soberanía y el bienestar. Coreógrafa ganadora del premio Bessie, becaria Guggenheim y ganadora del premio Doris Duke Artist Award; vive en Lenapehoking/Nueva York. Emily es de la nación Yup'ik y desde 1998 ha creado trabajos que consideran la experiencia de percibir y ver el performance. Sus danzas funcionan como portales y procesiones de atención, involucran al público dentro y a través del espacio, el tiempo y el entorno; interactuando con la arquitectura, los pueblos, la historia y el papel de un lugar en la construcción del futuro. Emily está tratando de crear un mundo en el que el performance sea parte de la vida; donde es una conexión integral entre nosotros, nuestro entorno, nuestras historias, nuestro pasado, presente y futuro. Emily organiza fuegos ceremoniales mensuales en Mannahatta en asociación con Abrons Arts Center y Karyn Recollet. Fue co-compiladora del documento “Creando Nuevos Futuros: Pautas para la Ética y la Equidad en las Artes Escénicas”, y es parte de un grupo asesor -junto con Reuben Roqueni, Ed Bourgeois, Lori Pourier, Ronee Penoi y Vallejo Gantner-, para desarrollar la Red de Artes Escénicas de las Primeras Naciones.
Suzy Nece is a yoga instructor, comedian, professional dancer, choreographer, and teacher for the last 20 years who toured nationally with the New York-based Bessie Award-winning dance company, Jane Comfort and Company. Beyond her professional credits she is also an amazing friend and a loving mother. Every conversation I have with Suzy, I still learn something new. This one is no exception. Join us as we get existential in our trip to a story from both our pasts where we recount how the world was when we first met and explore those inner voices (if any) in our minds! Runtime 76min
Find PJ:https://www.instagram.com/pj_pennewell/https://tanneryworlddance.com/winterdance-fest/About Pj:Norwood Pennewell (Rehearsal Director/Assistant to Mr. Fagan) who joined Garth Fagan Dance in 1978, is the quintessential Garth Fagan dancer and Fagan's assistant and muse. Pennewell is a recipient of a 1988 Bessie Award and has had several major works created for him, including Passion Distanced, Time After Before Place, and Moth Dreams, among others. Pennewell's dancing has been seen on PBS's Great Performances, The Tonight Show, and Duke Ellington's Queenie Pie. In 1994, he was invited to perform in the 66th Annual Academy Awards broadcast. Pennewell teaches both company and masterclasses for Garth Fagan Dance. He assisted Fagan during his work on Broadway's The Lion King and the NYC Ballet 50th anniversary Ellington Project. Pennewell had his first choreographed premiere in 2010 with Hylozoic and presented Liminal Flux in 2011. Pennewell has choreographed seven works for Garth Fagan Dance: Hylozoic (2010), Liminal Flux (2011), Gin (2013), After Hours (2014), So You See (2015), A Moderate Cease (2016), and this year, he choreographed WeCoo Duende to critical acclaim.Support the show (Http://Www.patreon.com/speakforchangepodcast)
"Your life is your canvas and your body of work is your legacy,” says Ms. Kenya Joy Gibson to all her students and emerging artists. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the researcher is committed to provoking a conscious thought in African-American history, and spirituality, to all people through storytelling and movement. A former Dance Theatre of Harlem student, and one of the last to experience the tutelage of the late Arthur Mitchell, Ms. Gibson fuses classical ballet and modern with the polyrhythmic movements of West African Dance. She has performed masterworks such as “Dougla” by Geoffrey Holder and “Forces of Rhythm” by Louis Johnson. A conduit for retaining and reclaiming the legacy of the African Diaspora, Kenya visits West Africa yearly to bring our ancestral history, “home from home;” she is currently working towards ending education equity in Senegal as a Fellowship Fundraiser Ambassador for Teach For Senegal. As a performer, Ms. Gibson is a company member with Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. With Forces, they won the 2017 Bessie Award for ‘The Healing Sevens' for Outstanding Performance at DanceAfrica 2017 at BAM. She was also featured in the New York Times for her performance in Saya Woolfalk's “ChimaTEK” installation, and in Spike Lee's “Art of Daring” campaign for Cadillac. As a choreographer, her works were presented at the Kumble Theatre for the Performing Arts, Symphony Space, the Ailey Citigroup Theatre, and the Salvatore Capezio Theatre, to name a few. In May 2020, Kenya graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Master's in Dance Education from the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program (CUNY-Hunter College), with special recognition for “Outstanding Choreography.” She now returns to Dance Theatre of Harlem as a West African Dance Teacher, grooming the next generation of young dancers to establish their legacy. Ms. Gibson is currently a Guest Choreographer for the Hunter College Dance Department. Her latest works, Honor and Rebirth, are captivating virtual audiences. #BlackExecllence --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mastermine-mrg/message
The SLC Performance Lab is produced by ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program. Each month we interview visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program's Grad Lab, one of the core classes of the program where grads work with guest artists and develop group generated performance pieces monthly. Emily Johnson is interviewed by Yuexing (Star) Sun (SLC21) and Emily Aviles (SLC21). Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in New York City. Originally from Alaska, Emily is of the Yup’ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and installations, engaging audiences within and through space, time, and environment—interacting with a place's architecture, peoples, history and role in community. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present and future. * Note: There is an accidental citation in this podcast stating that Leanne Simpson wrote Emergent Strategy, which is incorrect. adrienne maree brown is the author of Emergent Strategy, though Leanne Simpson's book As We Have Always Done, is highly recommended as well Photo by Tracy Rector and Melissa Ponder
Ward Shelley works as an artist in New York and Connecticut. He is interested in constructed worlds and intersecting narratives; how they create, mediate and inform each other. He wants to know how things really work. Shelley specializes in large projects that freely mix architecture and performance. For more than a decade, he has been collaborating with Alex Schweder, using experimental architecture to explore the dance between the designed environment and its consequences. Since 2007, the duo have designed, built, and lived in (or on) seven structures, all of them in locations where the public are invited not only to witness, but also to actively engage with the artists in direct dialogue about their practice—an activity that has coalesced into what they call “performance architecture.” Shelley also works on diagramatic paintings: information-based timelines on culture-related subjects and historical postmortems. He frequently works with Douglas Paulson on installations and environments that attempt to turn mind, text, and meaning inside out (for a better look). They created the “The Last Library” project for Spaces in 2015. Shelley’s work has been exhibited in more than 10 countries and is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Shelley received a Painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, and grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in New York. Information on the book mentioned in the interview - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion is a 2012 social psychology book by Jonathan Haidt, in which the author describes human morality as it relates to politics and religion.Haidt presents moral foundations theory, and applies it to the political beliefs of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians in the US. In Orbit; 2014 - A collaboration of Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley in Brooklyn. As a performance, the artists lived on the wheel for 9 days and nights. Walking together turns the wheel and brings them their beds, bathroom, kitchen and desks. photo credit Double Cyclops Work, Spend, Forget; 2013 - In this diagram, Shelley traces the parallel histories of consumerism, manufacturing, and marketing using the form of a dissected frog to suggest their effect on society. photo courtesy of Pierogi Gallery. The Room Where It Happened; 2020 - A diorama that imagines a series of rooms in which plans are made to alter and direct public opinion for political and economic purposes. An immersive yet diminishing environment, the rooms contain charts, files, books, and notes, all which have a certain historical resonance. Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson. photo credit: Carlton Bright
Today’s episode is with American dancer and choreographer, Kyle Abraham. Born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, into a home of loving and supportive parents, Kyle’s family instilled in him the sense that he could do and achieve anything. He discovered his love for dance in his late teens after being cast in his highschool musical, Once on This Island, later receiving his Bachlors of Fine Arts from SUNY Purchase and his Masters in Fine Arts from New York University. This all sounds lovely and quaint, but Mr. Abraham is a force to be reckoned with. After performing with a number of prestigious companies, including the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, he founded his own namesake company in 2006: Abraham in Motion, now known as AIM. And it is here, where Kyle has created many of his critically acclaimed pieces including ‘The Radio Show’ and ‘Pavement’ which, inspired by John Singleton’s 1991 film, Boyz In The Hood,truly exemplifies his seemingly eclectic style. Like a writer of prose, Kyle weaves together memories of his childhood in Pittsburgh along with the impact of violence within black communities , with a dash of WEB Dubois, with a dose of Jacquel Brel and Johann Christian Bach. He’s choreographed for The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and New York City Ballet. He’s worked with Misty Copeland and Beyonce. He’s a Princess Grace Statue award recipient, and a Doris Duke award recipient, and a Bessie Award recipient, and a United States, Artist Fellow, and a Macarthur “Genius” Fellow and, well, you get the picture. Recorded safely and remotely, this conversation explores Kyle’s journey to dance, how he deals with his own insecurities, what it’s like being fired by one of your heroes, how to balance empathy and ambition, and his journey back to dance after an extended hiatus. It is with great pleasure to introduce to you, a master of his craft, Kyle Abraham, to the IBI podcast. Here are some highlights: On his relationship with dance: “Dance is actually my longest relationship, sometimes an unhealthy one but um I think I’m actually in love with dance in some way.” On the question dance answers for him: “It’s really a question of who I am and how I feel um because we hold so much history in our bodies and along with that history we can hold so much joy, sure, but a lot of sadness for someone like me um and a lot of struggle and I think you can see that when you watch me dance, the struggle.” On how he deals with insecurities: “For me, it’s honoring my parents and those aunts and uncles that, you know, aren’t blood relatives but you still call them aunt and uncle. And so thinking about how they interacted with each other in the early to mid 80’s um just trying to live in the richness of kind of ownership that they possessed um so you can’t really be insecure and do that successfully.” Kyle's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kyle_abraham_original_recipe/ (@kyle_abraham_original_recipe) A.I.M. Website: http://aimbykyleabraham.org (aimbykyleabraham.org) Thank you for tuning in! Please don't forget to rate, comment, subscribe and SHARE with a friend (https://www.instagram.com/blackimaginationpodcast/ (@blackimaginationpodcast)). Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackimagination/support (anchor.fm/blackimagination/support) Editorial content provided by Kalimah Small. Support this podcast
1. Allison Loggins-Hull - Hammershttps://youtu.be/ANZrjcAiqPU2. Valerie Coleman - Shotgun Houseshttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ThyYRZwAsJrYeqtEan5eXTomeka Reid - Present Awareness, Mvt. III. Radical Hopehttps://youtu.be/4b4CkxraLXkPanelists:Alisha Patterson is the co-founder and Managing Director of Afro House. Since the organization’s founding in 2011, Patterson has been at the forefront of producing live experiences that are in alignment with its ambitious mission. They include, Cloud Nebula, an Afrofuturistic sci-fi opera-ballet, the Afro House Concert Series, which celebrates Baltimore’s extraordinary maker scene, and the 100 Year Symposium, a conversation about what a community might be like in 100 years.As one of Afro House’s chief architects, Alisha has successfully secured funding from foundations such as the T. Rowe Price and Robert W. Deutsch Foundations. In addition, she has played an instrumental role in the commissions Afro House has received from both local and regional theaters and the highly acclaimed choreographer Camille A. Brown. She also worked closely with Afro House’s Artistic Director on creating his award-winning Baker Artist Portfolio.In 2016 Alisha was tapped by Kaisha Johnson, the Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts to manage the organization’s flagship program. Under Alisha’s stewardship, the Leadership Through Mentorship program has become a highly sought-after career and community building opportunity for entry level, mid-career and seasoned arts administrators of color. Kibibi Ajanku, the GBCA's Equity and Inclusion Director, appointed Alisha to the Urban Arts Leadership Council in 2019. Alisha has an MA in Organizational Management from The George Washington University, a BA in English Literature and Certificate of Concentration in Women’s Studies from the University of Cincinnati.Scott Patterson is a pianist, composer and librettist of incomparable talent, whose work has been described by the Pittsburgh Review-Tribune as “a masterly blend of virtuosity, singing style and beautiful voicing.” His blend of classical, soul and rock music is futuristic, emotive and luxuriant. Since 2012 Patterson has toured with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. He is contributing composer of the Bessie Award winning Mr. TOL E. RAncE and Brown’s critically acclaimed work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play and ink. His compositions for these have been performed for audiences at venues such as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Belfast Festival at Queen’s, White Bird, and more.Patterson is co-founder and Artistic Director of Afro House, a Baltimore-based art house committed to creating disruptive, music culture. Through Afro House, Patterson leads the Astronaut Symphony, a contemporary ensemble that creates symphonic performance art pieces. His compositions for the ensemble include the Afrofuturistic opera-ballet, Cloud Nebula and the sci-fi tone poem Ebon Kojo: The Last Tribe. He also serves as Music Director and Composer for the Afro House Concert Series. Patterson is a 2020 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellow and a recipient of the 2020 Regional Independent Artist Award for Performing Arts from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is a 2019 Baker Artist Award, Mary Sawyers Imboden Awardee, and is a recipient of a Creative Baltimore Fund Grant and Artist/District Grant. He studied under Richard Fields at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and Phillip Kawin at the Manhattan School of Music.
Welcome to series one of "Queerona" where three gay friends: each creatives, professors and pop-culture geeks sit down with a creative from the global LGTBQ adjacent community to discuss what ever they like during the Pandemic. Abby Zbikowski is Bessie Award winning choreographer and founder of Abby Z and the New Utility (@abbyzandthenewutility) . Abby is known for her “unique and utterly authentic movement vocabulary in complex and demanding structures to create works of great energy, intensity, surprise, and danger.” We talk to her about how to dance in a pandemic and how to stack weird electronics and fruit on top of each other if you are bored. Series One was recorded from March to May 15th 2020.
July 17, 2020, features guests Emily Johnson and Amber Webb. This conversation will be centered around learning about land acknowledgementAmber Webb is an artist & activist from Dillingham, Alaska of Yup’ik and Unangan heritage. She received a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award and a Project Award. Amber explores pictorial Yup’ik storytelling to tell contemporary stories of oppression and resilience.Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer and a 2015 Guggenheim fellow in choreography, she is based in New York. Raised in Soldotna, Alaska, she is of Yup’ik descent. more.
This week we are Dancing Through Change with diasporic dance icon, Marina Magalhaes! Join us for this episode as we sway and move through the uncertainty with ease and passion. We can’t wait for you to listen! MARINA MAGALHÃES is border-crosser, bridge-builder, and dance-and-change-maker from Brazil, based in Los Angeles. Her unapologetically feminist and latinx work has been shared throughout Los Angeles (REDCAT Theater, Ford Amphitheatre, Zipper Concert Hall, Highways Performance Space, UCLA Fowler Museum, Blaktina Festival), San Francisco (CounterPulse, Yerba Buena Night, Dance Mission Theater), New York (Bowery Ballroom), Brazil (Universidade do Rio De Janeiro, Centro de Teatro do Oprimido, and Parque das Ruínas in Rio), Cuba (Teatro Favorito in La Havana), South Africa (The Wits Theatre in Johannesburg and My Body My Space Festival in Mpumalanga), Botswana (Maitisong Festival in Gabarone) and France (University of the Arts MFA program in Montpellier). She was awarded the LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Choreography in 2013 for her original work in the pop musical phenomenon “Patty! The Revival”. In 2014 she received the Pennington Dance Group Space Grant @ ARC and the UCLA Hothouse Residency to create her critically acclaimed work, (UN)BRIDALED. Hailed as "the type of show that keeps concert dance relevant in our lives" by LA Dance Review and "an unrivaled dance theater experience" by Theatre Ghost, (UN)BRIDALED was adapted with a cast of South African women and performed at The Wits Theatre's Human Rights & Social Justice Season 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa. There, it was hailed as "riveting... a physical and emotional feat" by Creative Feel magazine. In 2017 she began a multi-year choreography residency with the LA-based Viver Brasil Dance Company, who commissioned Cor Da Pele, a dance concert work selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as one of the top 40 best choreographic works of 2018. Other choreography credits include collaborations with visual artist Carolina Caycedo on the experimental film Apariciones / Apparitions (commissioned by The Huntington Library and officially selected for the Motion Capture series at Highways Space), music videos for the YouTube sensation Watsky (including “Moral of the Story” with over 9 million views), and live tours nation-wide with the rising East LA-based band Las Cafeteras. Magalhães holds a B.A. in World Arts and Cultures with a Dance Concentration from UCLA, where she was the recipient of the international Moss Scholarship ($76,000) and had the opportunity to study with renowned artists such as David Rousseve, Victoria Marks, Barak Marshall, Susan Foster, Rennie Harris, Ronit Ziv, Maria Gillespie, and Cheng-Chieh Yu. Additionally, she has trained extensively in contemporary dance with Maria Bauman, House and Hip Hop with Jackie "Miss Funk" Lopez of Versa-Style, Afro-Brazilian dance with Rosangela Silvestre & Vera Passos of Bahia, Brazil, and conducted separate two-month long apprenticeships with Urban Bush Women in NYC and Gregory Maqoma of Vuyani Dance Theatre in South Africa in 2016. She is also an alum of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Emerging Leaders Institute (2014) & Director's Lab West (2014). For seven years, Magalhães worked with CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Latin Dance Theater as a Performer, Teaching Artist, Resident Choreographer, Director of Arts Education, Assistant Artistic Director and ultimately Artistic Director Interim, playing a crucial role in the company’s development of a unique and powerful dance activist methodology. Magalhães has also performed in works by Victoria Marks (Smallest Gesture, Grandest Frame, voted runner-up in REDCAT Theater’s A.W.A.R.D. show in 2011), Viver Brasil Dance Company (alongside Grammy Award-winning artist Sergio Mendes at the world-famous 18,000 seat theater Hollywood Bowl), as a guest soloist with Maria Bauman's MBDance Company, and as a guest artist with Bessie Award-winning choreographer Joya Powell and her company Movement Of The People. Magalhães is a dedicated and experienced educator whose unique and inclusive approach to movement has been shared throughout the world. Her on-going movement research is called Dancing Diaspora, based on the fundamental belief that decolonization is inherently a transformative and futuristic process of reinventing and reclaiming tradition, and like the word diaspora communicates, it seeks to embody past and future, tradition and creativity, ancestry and individuality. In 2017 & 2018, Magalhães received the California Arts Council Artists In Communities award to provide the Dancing Diaspora class at Pieter Space free of charge, which she is currently offering a weekly basis. Additionally, Magalhães has taught in over twenty-five K-12 schools and designed dozens of original curricula that introduce young people to yoga and meditation, creative movement, and dance as resistance. Magalhães has taught Latin American Social Dances as Adjunct Faculty at various universities, including California State Polytechnic University of Pomona, Occidental College, Scripps College, and where she currently lectures, UC Riverside. She is a co-founder and faculty of UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures's Travel Study program, which brings college students to study at the renowned Center for Theater of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is also a certified yoga instructor and a founding teacher of the East LA-based People's Yoga studio since 2014. While Magalhães is based in Los Angeles, she has special ties to Latin America and especially Brazil, her native country, as she routinely travels to conduct her artistic research and share her work. To learn more about Marina’s work please visit her https://www.marinamagalhaes.com/. Follow her on Instagram @marinamagalicious, YouTube @marinaomagalhaes Remember, it’s no fun to SHIFT alone so share, review, like, and repost to invite your friends and loved ones along for the ride! Follow us @shapingtheshiftpodcast and host Thea Monyee´ @theamonyee on IG! There are many ways to support this joy-centered, pleasure-focused work! Thea’s Patreon, Ca$h App ($theamonyee), or Venmo (@theamonyee), so pick your favorite and show us some love!
On our first episode of Dance Trends month, your co-hosts Martheya and Azaria interview (pre-Covid) Lucille Lortel and Bessie-Award nominated choreographer, Jennifer Weber. In this episode, we go behind the screen and talk about Jennifer’s career as a physical storyteller, how to plug into the commercial dance world, rehearsal environments, female voices in hip hop, and her experiences creating for The Hip Hop Nutcracker, the new West End Musical &Juliet, and Disney’s Zombies 2 movie. Special thanks to LSG Public Relations for connecting us for this interview.
Angie Hauser is a choreographer, performer and teacher. Since 2000, Hauser has been a member of the Bebe Miller Company, receiving a BESSIE Award for her creative work with the company. Her work is featured in the online score “TWO” as part of MotionBank a Forsythe Company project (http://scores.motionbank.org/two/#/set/sets) and in the 2015 eBook “Dance Fort.” Other choreographic projects include collaborations with gifted dance artists including Chris Aiken, Jennifer Nugent, K.J. Holmes, Darrell Jones, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and musicians Mike Vargas, Jesse Manno, Tigger Benford, and Andre Gribou & Roger Baum. Her long time collaboration with Chris Aiken has yielded multiple grants and work presented at national and international venues. In addition to her long-time relationship as a teaching artist at Bates Dance Festival, Hauser has also taught dance technique, choreography, contact improvisation, and improvisation for many other national and international festivals/organizations including American Dance Festival, SaltFest, Earthdance, International Contact Festival (Freiburg), Transformation Danse (Montreal), and La Escuela Profesional de Danza (Mazatlan). She is currently an Assistant Professor at Smith College in the Department of Dance. www.batesdancefestival.org
This month on Live Culture I am delighted to welcome artist, educator and thinker Power Boothe to the program. The program promises to be a heady mix of art, technology, ideas and books as well voyaging from the past to the NOW and the future, talking life in the New York artworld that was, and getting an advanced look at some of his upcoming exhibits and projects here in Connecticut. Power Boothe has exhibited his paintings for over four decades. His work is represented in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the British Museum in the UK, as well as many private collections nationally and internationally. In addition to his studio practice, Power has spent years working in the theater- notably for Richard Foreman and the Ontological-Hysterical Theater Company in NYC . He has received awards for his designs for experimental theater, dance and video productions, including a Bessie Award for set design, a Film/Video Arts Foundation Award for film, and several Art Matters Grants for theater. He came to New York as a student in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1967, He continued to live and work as an artist for the next three decades in New York City. He studied classical archeology at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece and linguistics and philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts degree from Colorado College for his mid-career accomplishments. Locally, he exhibits at Fred Giampietro Gallery in New Haven and has a forthcoming exhibit at Five Points Gallery in Torrington. Boothe is currently Professor of Painting at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford. He served as Dean of the Hartford Art School from 2001 to 2010, where he led a successful campaign to build the Renée Samuels Center, a studio facility focused on teaching art and technology. As Director of the School of Art at Ohio University from 1998 to 2001 he produced a symposium on cognitive theory and the arts: Art/Body/Mind. As Co-director of the Mount Royal Graduate School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1993 to 1998, he curated the exhibition, Art + Necessity. Boothe served as Lecturer in the Humanities at Princeton University from 1988–1994 and served on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts from 1979 -1988. Among his other talents, Power can also list RADIO. A former radio presenter himself, we welcome him back to the live airwaves as we welcome in 2020! To see some of Power's work online and to find out more please visit: https://www.powerboothe.com/
Stay tuned for Season One of Shani Jamila’s new podcast Lineage, which will feature live shows and in-depth interviews about the idea of home with some of New York City’s most imaginative thinkers– including MacArthur geniuses, Pulitzer Prize winners and Bessie Award recipients. Check out the trailer for a sneak peek into what’s to come!
Choreographer Karen Sherman talks about the politics of applause and the olfactory landscape of the stage. ABOUT THE GUEST: Karen Sherman makes performances that have been presented by P.S. 122, Walker Art Center, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, PICA/TBA Festival, Highways Performance Space, Philadelphia Dance Projects, and many other spaces across the U.S. Her work has been recognized with a Bessie Award, two McKnight Foundation Fellowships in Choreography, several MacDowell Colony fellowships, and residencies through Vermont Performance Lab and the Bogliasco Foundation program in Liguria, Italy. She was a 2016-2017 Hodder Fellow in The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. More information at karenshermanperformance.org. ABOUT THE HOST: Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA and other museums, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE: SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS: This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Stella Binion, Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Assistant Producers: Itai Almor, Charlie Theobald Editor: Andrew Litton Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Media: Justine Lee with help from Angela Liao and Alex Qiao
Inside Dance is a podcast that celebrates the artists and teachers of the Bates Dance Festival. This episode features: nora chipaumire during her time at the Bates Dance Festival in 2018 Born in Mutare, Zimbabwe and based in NYC, nora chipaumire has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa, the black performing body, art and aesthetics since she started making dances in 1998. chipaumire is currently touring #PUNK 100%POP *NIGGA (verbalized as hashtag punk, one hundred percent pop, star nigga), a three-part live performance album which had its full world premiere at The Kitchen in NYC in October 2018. Her current and ongoing work includes a digital book project – nhaka – a theory, technology, practice and process to her artistic work. Her upcoming work will be an opera entitled “Nehanda” (2020). chipaumire is a 2018 Guggenheim fellow and a three-time Bessie Award winner. www.batesdancefestival.org www.companychipaumire.com
Jessica and Clara had the great pleasure of interviewing five 2019 Bessie Award nominees this year – in order of interview: Caleb Teicher, Molly Poerstel, Shamar Watt, Ni’Ja Whitson and Leslie Cuyjet! (See below for nominations!) The Bessies – which celebrate their 35 anniversary this year – are New York City’s premier annual dance awards honoring outstanding […]
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a Nigerian American poet, curator, and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI. He is a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2018 NEFA National Dance Project Award recipient, a 2018-20 New York Live Arts Live Feed Artist-in-Residence, a 2019 Gibney DiP Artist-in-Residence, a 2017 Jerome Foundation Artist-in-Residence at Abrons Arts Center, a 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow, a 2016 Gibney Dance boo-koo resident artist, and a recipient of a 2016 USArtists International Award from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. His previous work #negrophobia (premiered September 2015, Gibney Dance Center) was nominated for a 2016 Bessie Award and has toured throughout Europe having appeared in major festivals including Moving in November (Finland), TakeMeSomewhere (UK), SICK! (UK), Tanz im August (Berlin), Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival (Norway), Zurich MOVES! (Switzerland), Beursschouwburg (Belgium) and Spielart Festival (Munich). His current work, Séancers, premiered at Abrons Arts Center in December 2017 and has toured nationally and internationally to critical acclaim. Recent highlights include Mousonturm (Frankfurt, DE), FringeArts (Philadelphia, PA), Sophiensaele (Berlin, DE), and the Wexner Center (Columbus, OH). In 2019, Séancers will have engagements at the Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX) and Montréal Arts Interculturels (Montréal, CA), among others.American performance venues include: Abrons Arts Center, Joyce SoHo, DTW, FringeArts, Dixon Place, Dance Theater Workshop, Bennington College, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, the CEC Meeting House Theater, Wexner Center for the Arts, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, LAX Festival, Miami Theater Center, Art Basel Miami, and the Painted Bride Arts Center, among others.He was a Co-Curator of the 2015 Movement Research Spring Festival and the 2015 Dancing While Black performance series at BAAD in the Bronx; a contributing correspondent for Dance Journal (PHL), the Broad Street Review (PHL), and Critical Correspondence (NYC); a 2012 Live Arts Brewery Fellow as a part of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival; a 2011 Fellow as a part of the DeVos Institute of Art Management at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and an inaugural graduate member of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University where he earned his MA in Curatorial Studies.His work in performance is rooted in a creative mission to push history forward through writing and art making and advocacy. Kosoko’s work in live performance has received support from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage through Dance Advance, The Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative, The Joyce Theater Foundation, and The Philadelphia Cultural Fund. His breakout solo performance work entitled other.explicit.body. premiered at Harlem Stage in April 2012 and went on to tour nationally. As a performer, Kosoko has created original roles in the performance works of Nick Cave, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Keely Garfield Dance, Miguel Gutierrez and The Powerful People, and Headlong Dance Theater, among others. In addition, creative consultant and/or performer credits include: Terry Creach, Lisa Kraus, Kate Watson-Wallace/anonymous bodies, Leah Stein Dance Company, Emergent Improvisation Ensemble, and Faustin Linyekula and Les Studios Kabako (The Democratic Republic of Congo).Kosoko’s poems can be found in such publications as The American Poetry Review, Poems Against War, The Dunes Review, and Silo. In 2009, he published he chapbook, Animal in Cyberspace, and, in 2011, he published his own collection, Notes on an Urban Kill-Floor: Poems for Detroit (Old City Publishing). Publications include: The American Poetry Review, The Dunes Review, The Interlochen Review, The Broad Street Review, Silo Literary and Visual Arts Magazine.Kosoko has served on numerous curatorial and funding panels including the Brooklyn Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, Movement Research at the Judson Church, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and the Baker Artists Awards, among others. In 2014, Kosoko joined the Board of Directors for Dance/USA, the national service organization for dance professionals. He is also a founding advisory board member for the Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving.He has held producing and curatorial positions at New York Live Arts, 651 Arts, and The Watermill Center among others. He continues to guest teach, speak, and lecture internationally.
Host Deardra Shuler talks with creator, producer and director, Darrin Ross, who will be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of his spectacular show in tribute to Michael Jackson 10 years after his passing. The Tribute show will be at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx, Saturday, May 25 at 8pm. Darrin Ross has been producing and engineering songs since 1984. He worked with Jam On Productions, producing hit songs “Jam On It,” “Push the Button,” “Destination Earth” etc. He later created his own record company with Keith Davis wherein they started a group called The Roots. He worked with Rennie Harris Pure Movement as the Executive Director and co-collaborator, creating music and lighting. He worked on Rome and Jewels, a hip hop version of Romeo and Juliet resulting in Ross winning a Bessie Award for Sound Design and Composition. Darrin created his current show Invincible: A Glorious Tribute to Michael Jackson in 2009, right after Jackson died. Ross searched all over the world to find people that could sing and dance like Michael and worked closely with them to perfect his vision of a one of a kind spectacular tribute show that truly captures the essence of Michael Jackson. Tickets for INVINCIBLE can be purchased by calling the Lehman Center box office at 718-960-8833 or through online access at www.LehmanCenter.org.
In this episode Ni'Ja talks about forgiveness, Love and healing…finding home on a cellular level…the functions of nomadism….and the work of exploring Ancestral stories - centralizing dark matter, dark energy and Blackness as everything. An interdisciplinary artist and writer - Ni’Ja is and Creative Capital, MAP Fund, Bessie-Award winning artist currently teaching experimental choreography at the University of California, Riverside. http://www.nijawhitson.com https://vimeo.com/nijawhitson #whoyopeopleis #nijawhitson #crossroadsleadershiplab
Wendy Whelan spent 30 years with New York City Ballet, 23 of those years as a principal dancer. She has danced virtually every major Balanchine role, and worked closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets. She originated leading roles in works by such notable choreographers as William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon. Wendy has been a guest artist with The Royal Ballet and the Kirov Ballet and has performed on nearly every major stage across the globe. She received the Dance Magazine Award in 2007, and in 2009 was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. In 2011, she received both The Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for her Sustained Achievement in Performance. Since 2013, Wendy has been developing her own independent projects including, Restless Creature and Some Of A Thousand Words both co-produced by The Joyce Theater Productions, Whelan/Watson Other Stories co-produced by London’s Royal Opera House and Hagoromo, self-produced for the 2015 BAM Next Wave Festival. A documentary, entitled Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan, was released during the summer of 2016, in movie theaters across the country.
Anxiety. Finding your artistic voice. Stripping labels and connecting with humanity. We cover a broad spectrum with Juel D Lane. Juel is an American dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” With elite training from Tri-Cities High School and the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta, Lane earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a focus on Contemporary Dance. Currently dancing with Bessie Award-winning Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Lane made history in 2012 as the first local and independent black choreographer to have his work commissioned by the Atlanta Ballet. From there, he participated in the 2015-2016 Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab, and collaborated with dance legends across the United States. His dance films, "Just Another Day," "How to Kill a Ghost," and "When The Beat Drops," showcase the complexity, playfulness and creativity within this dynamic choreographer’s mind.
What have you had to overcome to chase your dreams? Today’s guest overcame severe anxiety, explored what he wanted to accomplish in his life, and found the support to make it happen. His journey wasn’t an easy one, but it’s been fulfilling and rewarding, and----the best is yet to come! He’s here as part of our celebration of June as Pride Month, and I’m beyond excited to share his inspiring story with you. Juel D. Lane is an American dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” Most recently, Juel was a featured dancer in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert, which starred John Legend, Brandon Victor Dixon, and Sara Bareilles. From October 2017 through March 2018, Alvin Alley American Dance Theater’s second company, Alley II, toured Juel’s piece, “Touch and Agree” around the world. Currently dancing with Bessie Award-winning Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Juel D. Lane’s dance films, Just Another Day, How to Kill A Ghost, and When the Beat Drops, showcase this multi-talented choreographer’s dynamism. Find what drives you How does a kid get through anxiety? For young Juel, he was anxious, nervous, and didn’t know WHO he really was. It was his involvement in the arts that broke the hold of anxiety in his life. He says when you figure out what really drives you, then the anxiety evaporates. It was his high school years that revealed his love for the arts and set the path that his storied career would take. With unwavering support from his parents, he found that being on the stage and performing began to “feel like home.” TWEET: Figure out what really drives you and the anxiety will evaporate. @jueldlane #chasingdreams Where the inspiration comes from Can you be real and raw? Juel takes seriously his responsibility to create choreography that “strips labels and shows humanity.” His sources of inspiration bring the rawness and authenticity to his work. He explains that his work, How to Kill a Ghost, came out of a doomed relationship that he was reluctant to let go of. He used the dance as therapy for the healing that needed to take place. Juel produces “honest choreography that comes from an honest state.” He knows that people are looking for dance to “feed their souls.” TWEET: People are looking for dance to “feed their souls.” @jueldlane #chasingdreams Fighting the fear How do you handle fear in your life? Juel says that he takes fear by the hand and says, “Not today!” When you find your zone and can stay there, then everything else goes away. Juel knows that amazing feeling when the lights dim and the curtains go up and he’s proud to have been a part of such monumental experiences in his career. The success is what pushes him to work hard and want more. When you push yourself, it gives you inspiration to lead into the next project. Juel shares how important it is to do things that scare you and help you conquer your fear. TWEET: Do things that scare you and help you conquer your fear. @jueldlane #chasingdreams OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE: [:11] Juel’s recovery from performing in Jesus Christ Superstar [:51] Young Juel who was full of anxiety [3:25] Support, community, and his love for dance [5:35] His college degree and his love for choreography [9:23] How his work resonates with others [10:10] Why people can relate to dance [11:21] Bringing his work to the Alvin Alley American Dance Theater [14:05] How his work has inspired people to become comfortable with themselves [16:20] How Jesus Christ Superstar came about [17:40] What it takes to perform for live TV [19:18] Fighting the fear [21:42] Juel’s goals regarding TV performances [24:29] What’s next for Juel? [26:21] Being in Atlanta vs. NYC [29:15] Juel’s advice for wannabe dancers’ [30:34] Juel’s journey of ups and downs and where he’d like to be five years from now RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE: Juel on Instagram Juel on Twitter Juel on YouTube Juel’s Website This episode is sponsored by our patreon campaign supporters. Thanks to all of you for supporting my mission to inspire, equip, and empower people to chase their dreams. For more information on our Patreon campaign, or if you’d like to donate a dollar a month to help keep the show going, you can learn more at aimeej21.com/patreon TWEETS YOU CAN USE: TWEET: You have to do things that scare you as an artist to implement more growth. @jueldlane #chasingdreams TWEET: A vision board works. It forces you to say what you want EVERY day. @jueldlane #chasingdreams TWEET: My parents supported me on everything, even if they didn’t really understand. @jueldlane #chasingdreams TWEET: I wanted to make people uncomfortable and celebrate who I am as an LGBTQIA person. @jueldlane #chasingdreams.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa (2017 Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance) is a writer, curator and community educator. Since 1976, she has contributed writing on dance to Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, SoHo Weekly News, Gay City News, The Dance Enthusiast, Time Out New York and other publications and interviewed dance artists and advocates as host of two podcasts, Body and Soul and Serious Moonlight. She blogs on the arts, with dance as a specialty, for InfiniteBody and served as Editor in Chief of Dancer's Turn, a blog devoted to longform profiles of dance artists, created by students of her "Writing on Dance" workshop series at New York Live Arts. Ms. Yaa Asantewaa joined the curatorial team for Danspace Project’s Platform 2016: Lost and Found and created the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds, featuring 21 Black women and gender-nonconforming performers for an evening of group improvisation. Her cast was awarded a 2017 Bessie for Outstanding Performer. As EYA Projects, she has begun partnerships with organizations such as Gibney Dance Center, Abrons Arts Center, Dance/NYC, BAX and Dancing While Black to curate and facilitate Long Table conversations on topics of concern in the dance/performance community. She was a member of the inaugural faculty of Montclair State University’s MFA in Dance program. She has also served on the faculty for New England Foundation for the Arts' Regional Dance Development Initiative Dance Lab 2016 for emerging Chicago-area dance artists. In May 2017, she served on the faculty for the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography's inaugural Moving Forward Dialogues Dance Lab for Emerging Choreographers. Ms. Yaa Asantewaa served as a member of the New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards committee for three years and as a consultant or panelist for numerous arts funding or awards organizations including the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. A native New Yorker of Black Caribbean heritage, Eva makes her home in the East Village with her wife, Deborah, and cat, Crystal. https://infinitebody.blogspot.com
This week we are joined by Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles: Jookin dancer and ambassador. Originally from Memphis, Ron is a dancer, choreographer, and an ambassador for his dance form called “Jookin.” He is now based in Los Angeles, is a Bessie Award winner, and has appeared in numerous commercials including some for Pepsi and […] The post (56) Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles, Jookin Dancer and Ambassador appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
This week we are joined by Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles: Jookin dancer and ambassador. Originally from Memphis, Ron is a dancer, choreographer, and an ambassador for his dance form called “Jookin.” He is now based in Los Angeles, is a Bessie Award winner, and has appeared in numerous commercials including some for Pepsi and […] The post (56) Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles, Jookin Dancer and Ambassador appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.
Lucy Guerin is one of the powerhouses of Australian Contemporary dance, known for her work in Australia and abroad. An Adelaide native, Lucy fell in love with contemporary dance and pursued this love to New York in 1989, dancing there for seven years. During this time, she worked with leading dance mentors including Bebe Miller, Tere O’Connor and Sara Rudner. In 2002, Lucy Guerin Inc was established in Melbourne, providing a space for exploring and expanding upon ideas about contemporary dance. Through its noted Pieces for Small Spaces & First Run programs, the company have provided a platform for emerging choreographers to experiment and explore choreographic approaches. Lucy has increasingly been working across forms, working in the UK with Carrie Cracknell first on Medea (2014) and then Macbeth (2015). Following the success of Macbeth, Lucy was commissioned by Rambert to make the work Tomorrow. “I like working with the dancers, I like working on the detail of the choreography and the structure of the work.” In terms of acclaim across her career, Lucy won the prestigious Bessie Award for her work Two Lies in 1996 and later in 2005, for outstanding choreography and creation for Chunky Move’s production of Tense Dave, with Gideon Obarzanek and Michael Kantor. A selection of works: Two Lies (1996) Heavy (1998) The Ends of Things (2000) Living with Surfaces (2001) Melt (2002) Tell Me (2003) with Michael Lenz Tense Dave (2003) with Gideon Obarzanek and Michael Kantor The Firebird (2003) Baroque Masterworks for the Australian Opera (2004) Aether (2005) Structure and Sadness (2006) Corridor (2008) Untrained (2009) Human Interest Story (2010) Conversation Piece (2012) Weather (2012) Motion Picture (2015) Macbeth with Carrie Cracknell for Young Vic (2016) Tomorrow (2016) Dark Chorus (2016) Attractor (2017) with Gideon Obarzanek & music duo Senyawa for Dance North Split (2017) I spoke with Lucy before going into rehearsal for Split, recently opened as part of Dance Massive, and in the same week Lucy travelled to her hometown Adelaide with Attractor. This conversation covers everything from current works, working with actors, dance and gender, Australian dance identity, and Lucy’s journey in contemporary dance. “It’s very exposing when you first have an audience.”
In our second installation of "Offstage and Unbound," The Music Center's President and CEO Rachel Moore chats with Jessica Lang, choreographer and artistic director of Jessica Lang Dance. She is a graduate of the Juilliard School and a former dancer with Twyla Tharp’s company THARP! She began her prolific choreographic career in 1999, creating more than 90 works on companies worldwide. Her work has been performed by American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan and Joffrey Ballet, among many others. In 2011, she formed Jessica Lang Dance, a New York City-based dance company dedicated to the immersive music and movement of her work. Since the company’s debut, Jessica has received international acclaim for her articulate blend of ballet and modern dance, punctuated by visually stunning design elements. She is a recipient of a prestigious Bessie Award in 2014 and is a 2017 Arison Award honoree. The Music Center features Jessica Lang Dance as part of the 2016/2017 dance season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center. The company, which is making its Music Center debut, is on stage at The Music Center’s Ahmanson Theatre from February 17 through 19.
A collaboration between Wright State University and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company is exposing the country to both dance programs. Select Wright State dancers perform with DCDC2, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s repertory-training ensemble. Those students receive scholarship support to train with both Wright State’s dance program and DCDC2. DCDC2 also regularly performs in the Wright State Dance Ensemble’s spring concert. “The partnership between Wright State and DCDC has helped me grow as an artist because I’m able to pull from two separate organizations,” said Alexis Brtiford, a Wright State alumna who performed with DCDC. Britford was the female lead in DCDC’s Bessie Award-winning performance of “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder,” which the company performed at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. 2016 Wright State graduate Elizabeth Ramsey recently joined DCDC’s first company in July. “It’s my dream and I’m so happy every day,” she said. “It’s a wonderful thing to see the dance majors being successful, whether they enter DCDC or Broadway. We have a lot of people working musical theatre, yet they take the same ballet and modern classes that train those DCDC dancers. It’s very humbling,” said Teressa Wylie, professor of dance at Wright State.
Gideon Obarzanek is best known for establishing Chunky Move in 1995 in Sydney, subsequently moving to Melbourne in 1997 after winning a tender from the Kennett State Government. Obarzanek hoped that Chunky Move would last at least a year in Melbourne, “so it wouldn’t be so embarrassing”. His desire was to create a space for dancers and choreographers to apply for funding and make work at a time when independent dance was very fringe. “I didn’t have a great interest in having a dance company or directing a dance company, it came out of necessity. […] My interest has always been about making work.” Obarzanek remained the artistic director of Chunky Move until 2012. Obarzanek’s work is diverse, with a focus on collaborations, technology, large-scale events, film and site specific works. His work has toured Europe, Asia, U.K., USA and South America. He has been presented at the Joyce Theatre, BAM Next Wave Festival NY, Dance Theatre Workshop, Venice Biennale, Territoria Festival Moscow as well as all of Australia’s major performing arts festivals. Obarzanek has choreographed works for Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Dance North, Queensland Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre and Opera Australia. Obarzanek has a long list of awards to his name, including winning the prestigious Bessie Award with Lucy Guerin and Michael Kantor for Tense Dave (2005) and Helpmann Awards for Glow and Mortal Engine (2008), Since leaving Chunky Move Obarzanek wrote and directed his first play ‘I Want to Dance Better at Parties’ for Sydney Theatre Company, followed by the screen version in 2013. Obarzanek is currently the Chair of the Melbourne Fringe Festival and an Artistic Associate for Melbourne Festival. In this conversation we discussed dance leadership, gender, inspiration, arts funding, the future of festivals and the vision of Melbourne for being a creative hub. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes including interviews with Alexandre Hamel from Le Patin Libre.
Friday Reading Series Sarah Rodigari creates performances that address economies of exchange pertaining to socio-political engagement, shared authorship and new institutional critique. Her projects take the form of lecture, text, video and collaborations. She recently published a chapter on performance art, and sympathetic magic for the publication Travel and Transformation and co-edited the book Going Down, an anthology of contemporary Sydney performance. Rodigari has presented work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Melbourne International Arts Festival (Australia), South Project (Indonesia), PACT Zollverein (Germany), Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow, The National Review of Live Art (UK), Anti-Contemporary Arts Festival (Finland), and SOMA (Mexico). She is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Art at the University of Wollongong and a founding member of the collective Field Theory. In an ongoing fascination with form, choreographer Annie-B Parson decided to “choreograph” the language of the naturalistic film script: Terms of Endearment. To do this she studied poetic forms, and then attacked the screenplay with such weaponry as trochees, spondees, tetrameters and pantouns. This became the stylistic hub of the text for Big Dance Theater's 2014 piece, Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature. On May 1, Parson will attempt to reconstruct the poetics she applied to the text, and read some of the results. Parson is the co-artistic director of Big Dance. She also makes dance for pop music (David Byrne; St. Vincent); opera (Nico Muhly), film and theater. She has a work in the repertory of The Martha Graham Co., and is creating a solo for ballerina Wendy Whelan. Her awards include: Olivier nomination, Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Artist Award; USA Artist Award/Ford Fellow; Foundation for Contemporary Art Award; The Jacob's Pillow Award; Lucille Lortel nominations; Bessie Award; OBIE Award.
Lisa Kron has been writing and performing award-winning theatre since the mid-1980s. Most recently, Lisa wrote the lyrics and book to the musical "Fun Home," based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Lisa, and composer Jeanine Tesori, were the first writing team of women to win a Tony for Best Original Score. Fun Home also took home Tony awards for Best Book of a Musical, Best Musical, Best Direction and Best Actor. Lisa's other plays include The Ver**zon Play, In The Wake, Well, 2.5 Minute Ride, 101 Humiliating Stories, which have all received recognition and awards nationally and internationally. She is a founding member of the legendary OBIE and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers. In this episode, Lisa talks about the role of theatre as an artform, the challenges of adapting a graphic novel into a musical, how to make live performance resonate with audiences, the representation of women--and lesbians--in theatre, and the morals of personal storytelling.
Cathy Levy chats with dancer-choreographer Kyle Abraham who was at Canada's National Arts Centre in February 2014 to perform The Radio Show with his company Abraham.In.Motion. Kyle talks about his childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and how his passion for music led him to dance. With the support and guidance of his parents and teachers he pursued dance studies and eventually joined David Dorfman Dance and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Kyle explains how The Radio Show, originally conceived as an homage to his father, also became a tribute to the Pittsburgh radio station WAMO. He then reflects on the accolades and awards he and his work received in late 2000 in the form of a Bessie Award and an important mention in Dance Magazine, as he and his company were struggling. Kyle Abraham also talks about his collaboration with world-class ballerina Wendy Whelan as well as the significance of receiving a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, being named the 2012-2014 New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist, and being labeled the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama”. Finally, he gives us a sneak peak at his works in development.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Bessie Award-winning choreographer, playwright, instigator – and new parent, Karinne Keithley Syers, about crossing disciplines, changing names, and genuinely embracing experiment as a part of living and making work.
Annie-B Parson--co-founder and choreographer of the Bessie Award-winning Big Dance Theater--joins forces with the exciting post-classical string quartet ETHEL and dancer Elizabeth DeMent for a site-specific production in the Winter Garden at World Financial Center. "Wait for Green"--ETHEL's third Winter Solstice concert at WFC--premieres on Friday, December 19, in two free performances--12:30pm and 7pm. "Wait for Green" has been commissioned by arts>World Financial Center for its 20th Anniversary celebration. Program notes: http://infinitebody.blogspot.com Guest and venue information: http://www.bigdancetheater.org; http://www.ETHELcentral.com; http://www.ArtsWorldFinancialCenter.com (c)2008,Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Bessie Award winner Layard Thompson joins me for a wide-ranging discussion of the interrelatedness of dance and watcher, art and the world in which we live. This week, Thompson will share an evening of new work with choreographer Kyle Abraham of Abraham.In.Motion at Dance Theater Workshop (Wednesday-Saturday, December 3-6, 7:30pm). My interview with Abraham will follow shortly. Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest information at http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Bessie Award-winning choreographer Luciana Achugar brings a new work--"The Sublime is Us"--to a studio space at Dance Theater Workshop, beginning October 21. Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest info at http://www.lachugar.org and http://www.dtw.org. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Bessie Award-winning choreographer Jane Comfort talks about "An American Rendition"--her new dance-theater work that addresses American addiction to Reality TV and avoidance of political realities such as our government's policy of rendition--the secret kidnapping, interrogation and torture of detainees in overseas prisons. Jane Comfort and Company will premiere this piece at the Duke on 42nd Street (September 24-28). Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest info at www.janecomfortandcompany.org. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
La MaMa Moves! again! Ellen Stewart's legendary East Village theater presents its big annual dance festival, starting this weekend with a presentation of Ivy Baldwin Dance. I spoke with co-curators Nicky Paraiso and Mia B. Yoo about all of their sensational events, including the "Dancing for Micki" benefit in honor of Micki Wesson, the great supporter and champion of New York dance. In Part 2 of our conversation--a separate podcast--Nicky and Mia discuss a new addition to their festival schedule--a forum for choreographers. Nicky Paraiso is currently Performance Curator at The Club at La MaMa Experimental Theatre, and co-curates (with Mia B. Yoo) La MaMa Moves!, La MaMa’s annual spring dance festival. He has been a prolific actor at La MaMa, and the New York downtown theater and performance scene, since 1979. Paraiso has been a member of Meredith Monk/The House and Vocal Ensemble (1981-1990), touring extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He has worked as an actor and musical director with playwright/actor/director Jeff Weiss and his partner Carlos Ricardo Martinez since 1979, and has performed with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks since 1988. Nicky is also a critically-acclaimed solo performance artist, whose one-man shows Asian Boys, Houses and Jewels and House/Boy have been presented at La MaMa ETC, Dixon Place, PS122, Dance Theater Workshop and on tour. House/Boy, originally presented by La MaMa ETC in association with Ma-Yi Theater Company, written & performed by Paraiso and directed by Ralph B. Pena, has been presented as part of the KO Performance Festival’s 15th Anniversary season at Amherst College, at Pillsbury House Theater’s Late-Night Series in Minneapolis (November 2005) and also at the 4th Festival Internacional de Cabaret in Mexico City (June 2006), among other venues. House/Boy was recently presented as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in October 2007 and also in November at the Initiation International Festival 2007 in Singapore. Paraiso's awards include a 1987 BESSIE Award for Performance, a 2004 Spencer Cherashore Fund grant for mid-career actors and a 2005 NY Innovative Theater Award. He was a finalist for the prestigious Cal Arts/Alpert Award in 1998. Nicky is a graduate of Oberlin College and Conservatory, and holds an M.F.A. from New York University's Graduate Acting Program. Mia B. Yoo is an actress and director who earned her BA in Theatre at Brown University and her MFA in Acting at Columbia University. She has appeared with the Great Jones Repertory Company, the American Repertory Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is an Artistic Associate at La MaMa e.t.c. and co-curates La MaMa Moves! with Nicky Paraiso. EVENTS La MaMa Moves! -- May 2-June 1 Ivy Baldwin Dance at The Club at La MaMa e.t.c., May 2-11, Friday-Saturday, 10pm; Sunday, 5:30pm For up-to-the-minute calendar and ticketing details, see the link below or call 212-475-7710. LINKS La MaMa e.t.c. http://www.lamama.org/ Click on Dance Festival 2008 Ivy Baldwin Dance http://www.ivybaldwindance.org Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Acclaimed dancer-choreographer Nora Chipaumire--recipient of a 2007 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award--joins me to discuss her vision and mission as a Zimbabwe-born contemporary dance artist of Shona heritage. She previews her April 30-May 1 solo season at Dance Theater Workshop. BIO Nora Chipaumire was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe during the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation. A self-exiled artist now based in New York, she investigates the collaborative process within cultural, political, economic, and technological identities of African contemporary life. Her work is transnational, unafraid, and eager to burn cultural, creative, and geographic boundaries. She creates provocative and politically relevant multimedia dance work, illuminating the struggles of human identity in an increasingly borderless world. Her work is inspired by art from her native country such as shona sculpture and chimurenga music--art that results from the often violent convergence of rural, urban, African, non-African, cultural, economic, colonial, and technological ideas. A visionary African contemporary dance artist, her work speaks to the human condition with power, authority, and urgency. Nora Chipaumire is a recipient of a 2007 New York Dance and Performance (aka "Bessie") Award. She is also a Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) 2007-08 Choreographic Fellow. She is a recipient of National Dance Project (NDP) Tour Support in 2007-08. She also received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant to participate in the JANT-BI Diaspora Project in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in May and August 2007. Nora was honored with the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts on March 10, 2007. She is featured in the documentary "Movement (R)evolution" and is the subject of the documentary-in-progress, "Nora Chipaumire: A Physical Biography," directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, supported by a 2007 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. A graduate of the law school of the University of Zimbabwe, Chipaumire received her MA in Dance and MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She has shown her work widely and danced with a variety companies in the US and abroad. Most notably, she is a member of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's world-renowned Urban Bush Women. UPCOMING EVENTS "Chimurenga" at Dance Theater Workshop, April 30-May 3 (7:30pm). Coffee and Pre-Show Talk, April 30 at 6:30, with Charmaine WaTalk, April 30, with Brian McCormick Student Matinee, May 2, at Noon LINK Dance Theater Workshop http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org Urban Bush Women http://www.urbanbushwomen.org/ Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Acclaimed dancer-choreographer Nora Chipaumire--recipient of a 2007 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award--joins me to discuss her vision and mission as a Zimbabwe-born contemporary dance artist of Shona heritage. She previews her April 30-May 1 solo season at Dance Theater Workshop. BIO Nora Chipaumire was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe during the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation. A self-exiled artist now based in New York, she investigates the collaborative process within cultural, political, economic, and technological identities of African contemporary life. Her work is transnational, unafraid, and eager to burn cultural, creative, and geographic boundaries. She creates provocative and politically relevant multimedia dance work, illuminating the struggles of human identity in an increasingly borderless world. Her work is inspired by art from her native country such as shona sculpture and chimurenga music--art that results from the often violent convergence of rural, urban, African, non-African, cultural, economic, colonial, and technological ideas. A visionary African contemporary dance artist, her work speaks to the human condition with power, authority, and urgency. Nora Chipaumire is a recipient of a 2007 New York Dance and Performance (aka "Bessie") Award. She is also a Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) 2007-08 Choreographic Fellow. She is a recipient of National Dance Project (NDP) Tour Support in 2007-08. She also received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant to participate in the JANT-BI Diaspora Project in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in May and August 2007. Nora was honored with the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts on March 10, 2007. She is featured in the documentary "Movement (R)evolution" and is the subject of the documentary-in-progress, "Nora Chipaumire: A Physical Biography," directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, supported by a 2007 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission. A graduate of the law school of the University of Zimbabwe, Chipaumire received her MA in Dance and MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She has shown her work widely and danced with a variety companies in the US and abroad. Most notably, she is a member of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's world-renowned Urban Bush Women. UPCOMING EVENTS "Chimurenga" at Dance Theater Workshop, April 30-May 3 (7:30pm). Coffee and Pre-Show Talk, April 30 at 6:30, with Charmaine WaTalk, April 30, with Brian McCormick Student Matinee, May 2, at Noon LINK Dance Theater Workshop http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org Urban Bush Women http://www.urbanbushwomen.org/ Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Today, we’ll hear from Mary Cochran (Chair of the Dance Department, Barnard College of Columbia University) and Luciana Achugar (2007 Bessie Award-winning choreographer) about Sugar Salon, a program dedicated to mentoring, commissioning and presenting women at the forefront of contemporary choreography. GUEST BIOS: Luciana Achugar Luciana Achugar is a Brooklyn-based Uruguayan choreographer. After moving to New York upon graduation from Cal Arts in 1995, Achugar danced with several choreographers, including Chameckilerner and John Jasperse. From 1999 to 2003, she worked in a close collaborative relationship with choreographer Levi Gonzalez. Their work was presented in New York by Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Dance-in-Progress at The Kitchen, and at Dance Theater. Achugar has also worked collaboratively with visual artists Marcos Rosales and Michael Mahalchick. Mary Cochran Department of Dance Chair and Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University, Mary Cochran has performed and taught on every continent except Antarctica. A renowned soloist with Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1984-1996, Cochran continues her association with Taylor to this day having completed 19 restagings of his masterworks and as Director of the Paul Taylor School’s Summer and Winter Intensives. Cochran has taught at numerous colleges and conservatories including Mills College, the Juilliard School, University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the North Carolina School of the Arts. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee in May of 2005. UPCOMING EVENT: See Sugar Salon's performances at Abrons Arts Center (February 15-16), featuring works by the 2007-08 residents: Luciana Achugar ("Franny and Zooey"), Renée Archibald ("Curtain Wall") and Heather McArdle/BLUEPRINTVIOLATION (excerpt from "Ballad of Arrivals & Departures"). Choreographer mentor Donna Uchizono will moderate a post-performance discussion with the artists on Friday, February 15. For full schedule and ticketing details, call 212-352-3101 or visit http://www.theatermania.com. INFORMATION LINKS: Department of Dance, Barnard College: http://www.barnard.edu/dance Williamsburg Art NeXus (WAX): http://www.wax205.com Abrons Arts Center: http://www.henrystreet.org/arts Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People will reprise "Everyone" at Dance Theater Workshop, Jan 14 -15. Here's an interview I conducted with Bessie Award-winning choreographer Miguel Gutierrez last summer. Somewhere in the middle of my interview with Miguel, I realized that I could listen to him talk forever. (I've had that feeling about watching his dances, too!) Even after we wrapped up our recording, we kept talking, and he never ran out of interesting and vital things to say about art, community and the often sorry state of discourse on dance. I definitely want to talk with Miguel again, and I'm delighted to share with you today some insight into his life and work. For more information and tickets to the January performances at DTW, visit http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org/Gutierrez. Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.
Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People will reprise "Everyone" at Dance Theater Workshop, Jan 14 -15. Here's an interview I conducted with Bessie Award-winning choreographer Miguel Gutierrez last summer. Somewhere in the middle of my interview with Miguel, I realized that I could listen to him talk forever. (I've had that feeling about watching his dances, too!) Even after we wrapped up our recording, we kept talking, and he never ran out of interesting and vital things to say about art, community and the often sorry state of discourse on dance. I definitely want to talk with Miguel again, and I'm delighted to share with you today some insight into his life and work. For more information and tickets to the January performances at DTW, visit http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org/Gutierrez. Subscribe to Body and Soul podcast at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.
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