Movement Research Festival Fall 2017: invisible material
Movement Research, one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms, returns to Danspace Project with its annual Fall Festival.
Artist-curators Jonathan Gonzalez, Zavé Martohardjono, and EmmaGrace Skove-Epes approach Movement Research’s Fall Festival by considering collective practices and the workings of collectivity amidst economies of individualism in this current moment. Comprised of performances, workshops, and gatherings led by collectives, invisible material ponders interventions of unfolding in the fold, meandering and mess-making, and coordinating in the in-between. Read the full curatorial statement here.
THURSDAY, November 30, 8pm
The Commons Choir
mayday heyday parfait
mayday heyday parfait is a choral, choreographed, fiscal epic performed by The Commons Choir. The backstory is The Age of Discovery da Gama and Columbus sailing in opposite directions in search of the same spice (nutmeg) setting into motion a global interchange of peoples, plants and communicable diseases under the most exploitive terms imaginable; although this ongoing momentum is coextensive with our extinction, we still haven’t put in place a counteractive Age of Undiscovery. For MR Festival Fall 2017: invisible material we’ll open our process to the public, asking questions such as: Is divisive speech ever free speech? How could something or someone possibly be out of place? Is peopling of the planet potentially out of place? Is identifying with identity the problem? What happens when words aren’t more than what words can say? If 70% of domestic terrorist attacks are committed by individuals-acting-alone, isn’t our greatest threat singularity? I’m more different from my group than yours. Shall we all meet all over again, free of arrogation?
FRIDAY, December 1, 8pm
Feminist Art Group + Collective States
temporal translations
Building and dismantling structures. Translating across linguistic barriers. When artists are labourers, viewers become audience. When artists are foreigners, allies default to translators. Feminist Art Group and Collective States will offer performances, each interactive in their own way.
SATURDAY, December 2, 8pm
Wildcat! + Social Health Performance Club
solo precarity
Collectives, Wildcat! and Social Health Performance Club share an evening of performances.
Please visit www.movementresearch.org/festival for info on other invisible material events taking place at Danspace Project and various locations Monday November 27 – Sunday December 3.
Jonathan Gonzalez is an interdisciplinary artist and “Bessie” nominated performer based in his native New York City. He has been a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist in collaboration with EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, BAX/Dancing While Black Fellow under the direction of Paloma McGregor, Diebold Award recipient for Distinction in Choreography & Performance, Rema Hort Mann Foundation nominee, BAX/SUBMERGE! artist, curator with Sunday Service at Knockdown Center, as well as a POSSE Leadership and Bessie Schonberg Scholar. He has performed in the works of Ligia Lewis, Cynthia Oliver, Alex Baczyinski-Jenkins, Isabel Lewis, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Ni’Ja Whitson, Marjani Forté, and Jomama Jones, among others. He is a graduate of Trinity College, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.
Zavé Martohardjono is an interdisciplinary artist interested in geopolitics, social justice, queer glam, and embodied healing. Among many venues, they’ve performed at BAAD!, Boston Center for the Arts, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Issue Project Room, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Recess, Storm King Art Center, and the Wild Project. Zavé is in LMCC’s 2017-2018 Workspace Residency program and has been in residence at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Gibney Dance Work Up 3.0, Shandaken: Storm King, La MaMa, and Chez Bushwick. They have danced in the works of Mariangela Lopez and J. Dellecave. They organize with artists of color and work at the ACLU to end mass incarceration. They received their BA from Brown University and their MFA in Media Arts Production from the City College of New York.
EmmaGrace Skove-Epes is a movement-based artist, teacher, and organizer. Her work has lived at venues including Theater for the New City, Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Center for Performance Research. She has been the recipient of a residency at Gowanus Arts, a space grant at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and has been a Fresh Tracks Artist in collaboration with Jonathan Gonzalez at New York Live Arts (NYLA). She has danced with Kathy Westwater, Edisa Weeks, Jon Kinzel, Jodi Melnick, Peniel Guerrier, Jesse Phillips-Fein, and Nadia Tykulsker, among others. EmmaGrace has taught at James Baldwin High School, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Bard College and NYU Tisch, and is currently teaching at Third Root Community Health Center and is a teaching artist through NYLA. She organizes with Artists Co-Creating Real Equity and Breaking White Silence.