Events – Danspace Project
iele has short brown curls and wears rectangular framed glasses, they are in a garden and are holding an orange flower in front of their nose with a squinting grin. Alice is a light-skinned, multi-racial Black woman with blonde, copper, and red striped curly hair and gazes towards the camera. She wears a black shirt; her face rests in the palm of her face, her elbow sits on her thigh, and a gold necklace gleams at her neck.
iele paloumpis (photo by Adrien Weibgen); Alice Sheppard (photo by Beverlie Lord)

Conversations Without Walls: iele paloumpis and Alice Sheppard

WATCH ON OUR JOURNAL HERE

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This conversation will take place online. A link to view the conversation will be sent to registrants via email 30 minutes prior to the stream. 

In Fall 2020, Danspace Project invited six Artist Research Fellows, devynn emory, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, iele paloumpis, Angie Pittman, and Alice Sheppard to gather virtually with Danspace’s curatorial team. They responded to Danspace’s digital programming, the shifting landscape of dance, making and presenting, pedagogy, and programming. These sprawling and intimate conversations led to critical reflection, dreaming, and deep connection. Each of the Artist Research Fellows will return in our Winter 2021 digital Conversations Without Walls (CWW) series.

In this CWW, dance artist and choreographer, iele paloumpis, and choreographer and founder & artistic lead of Kinetic Light, Alice Sheppard, find ways to connect virtually, across time zones, for a verbal and embodied exchange. These two artists are new friends who share a mutual curiosity and affinity for each other’s work. In this conversation, facilitated by Danspace’s Associate Curator, Public Engagement, Seta Morton, Sheppard and paloumpis plan to take a figurative walk together. Where will they go? They might tread a path toward a deeper sharing of both their divergent dance-making practices and journeys and also along their common threads in which disability aesthetics are fundamental, disabled audiences are centered, and accessibility practices are generative and inextricable from the process of making dance for audiences.

The CWW digital series are pre-recorded and will be streamed online and archived on Danspace Project’s online Journal at danspaceproject.org/journal.

More about the Conversations Without Walls series


Accessibility: this program will be captioned. Other facilities TBD.

iele paloumpis is a dance artist, herbalist, astrologer and end of life doula living in Canarsie/Munsee territory in Lenapehoking. As one of only a handful of visually impaired choreographers creating contemporary dance in NYC, iele is conducting vital research into effective methods of providing quality audio description for dance – especially as it relates to improvised movement. they have a particular interest in making dances that offer multiple points of access and participation – by enlivening all the senses and allowing ample room for collective consensual choice-making between collaborators and audiences during performance, but also within the rehearsal process itself. All of iele’s work is rooted in kinesthetic awareness, trauma-informed griefwork, and ancestral re-membrance practices that reflect fragmented lineages across queer, trans and crip aural histories, alongside their Greek, Anatolian and Irish-American diasporic bloodlines.

iele comes from a long line of mystics, and is grateful to have studied with many teachers who have influenced their path. Under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield and Jeffery Bullock, iele received a BA in Dance from Hollins University in 2006. As an end of life doula, they have received certifications from Valley Hospice, Mount Sinai’s Palliative Care Institute, and Deanna Flores Cochran’s Accompanying the Dying program between 2014-16. iele has practiced Tarot since 1995, most recently with the mentorship of Eva Yaa Asantewaa. In summer 2014, iele studied herbology with Rosemary Gladstar, and more recently iele has deepened their connection to ancestral plant medicine across the Mediterranean & SWANA regions with guidance from Layla K. Feghali & SWANA Ancestral. Following in the footsteps of their Anatolian ancestors, iele is mostly a self-taught astrologer, though studying the teachings of Demetra George on Traditional Astrology has been particularly impactful. iele will always be a student of the more-than-human world, and is in endless gratitude to the forests, mountains, rivers, stars and animal-kin who offer so much wisdom.

As a disabled, trans, queer survivor from a working class background, iele empathizes across multiple axes of oppression and brings this awareness to their work as an artist, educator, doula and intuitive healer. www.ielepaloumpis.com 

 

Alice Sheppard, A USA Artist, Creative Capital grantee and Bessie Award winner, Alice trained with Kitty Lunn and Infinity Dance Theater. She then became a core company member with AXIS Dance Company. Alice creates movement that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies.  Engaging with disability arts, culture and history, Alice’s commissioned work attends to the complex intersections of disability, gender, and race. Alice was a 2018 AXIS Dance Company Choreo-Lab Participant made possible with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Her choreography has been commissioned by producers from KQED and UCLA as well as physically integrated companies such as CRIPSiE, Full Radius Dance, and MOMENTA Dance Company.

Alice is the founder and artistic lead for Kinetic Light, a project based ensemble, working at the intersections of disability, dance, design, identity, and technology to create transformative art and advance the intersectional disability arts movement.

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and such journals as Catalyst and Movement Research and Performance Journal.

Samita smiles while looking into the camera and holding a small wooden string instrument in one hand. She wears a cozy grey sweater and white earphones. Another string instrument sits in the background.
Samita Sinha, Breathing Room session, 2020.

Samita Sinha: Breathing Room

*This session is now fullCLICK HERE TO JOIN THE WAITLIST and a Danspace staff member will be in touch with you if a spot becomes available. We will try our best to accommodate as many people as possible!*

This month’s invited guest is Ash Fure.

Admission: Sliding scale of $0-$20 per session. Participants are invited to choose what to pay based on your circumstances. We ask that you be honest with yourself and your financial situation. You are welcome to attend for FREE if that makes the most sense for you.

In this series, artist and composer Samita Sinha will lead participants in vocal practice, rooted in Indian tradition, that invites the wilderness of the body and opens connective channels of vibration. Each practice session will be followed by an in-depth conversation with participants and an invited guest artist.

This event will take place online via Zoom. A link will be sent to registrants approximately 30 minutes in advance of each session.


Accessibility: Please email seta@danspaceproject.org to request CART live captioning or any other access requests. Requests should be submitted at least three weeks ahead of any one session.

Artist and composer Samita Sinha investigates origins of voice: quantum entanglement of listening and sounding, how voice emerges from body and consciousness, and how voice is claimed and rescued from voicelessness. She synthesizes training in Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, Bengali Baul tradition, and embodied energetic practices to create a decolonized, bodily, multivalent language of vibration and transformation. 

Sinha’s sound and performance works have been commissioned by Asia Society, Performance Space 122 and Invisible Dog Art Center, Danspace, Rubin Museum, Queens Museum, and Gibney Dance, and presented by The Kitchen, Wexner Center for the Arts, REDCAT, PICA, National Sawdust and others. She has received awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright Foundation, National Performance Network, New York State Council on the Arts and the Ucross/Alpert Residency Prize, and collaborated across disciplines with artists including Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Ralph Lemon, Sunny Jain and Grey Mcmurray, Fiona Templeton, Daria Fain, Julia Ulehla, Robert Ashley, Dani Restack, Sunil Bald, and Aki Onda. Sinha teaches voice through many channels—in addition to private lessons and workshops, she has in recent years taught at Princeton University, Swarthmore College, Movement Research, Rubin Museum, Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) in Mexico City, and New York Asian Women’s Center.

J Bouey is photographed from the side, holding their bottom lip open. They are wearing a navy colored bandana on their head, a navy tank top, and red checkered pajama pants. Jordan Lloyd wears an orange hoodie and light wash denim jeans. He stands tall in a field of snowwith several baseball caps on his head.
J. Bouey by Phil Mahabeer. Jordan Lloyd by Nikolai Mishler.

DraftWork: J. Bouey & Jordan Demetrius Lloyd

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This event will take place online via Zoom. A link will be sent to registrants via email 30 minutes prior to the stream.

Registration closes 30 minutes prior to the program.

DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM HERE

Danspace Project’s DraftWork series hosts informal showings of new works in varying stages of development. They are followed by a conversation and Q&A between the artists and DraftWork curator Ishmael Houston-Jones.

This season, Danspace has re-envisioned DraftWork as a series of virtual engagement.

Accessibility: This program will be captioned.

J. Bouey is out here doing their best, damnit! Currently moving on pandemic timing and prioritizing rest, J. is finding their way back to joy while studying grief and suicidal ideation for the creation of a new project. Determined to manifest the dreams dreamt in their youth, J. is assuming this responsibility because these dreams sustained them when the sun didn’t shine or shined too bright to see. JBouey.com

Jordan Demetrius Lloyd is a dance artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He studied at The College at Brockport after leaving his hometown Albany, NY. He has collaborated with and performed for Karl Rogers, Netta Yerushalmy, Tammy Carrasco, Monica Bill Barnes, Catherine Galasso, Laura Peterson, Ambika Raina and David Dorfman Dance. He is currently teaching at Rutgers University and his work has been produced by: New York Live Arts, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, The Center for Performance Research and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Most recently he received the 2021-23 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship.

DraftWork is presented, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

A teal background, in thick orange font are the words: Save the date! The evening of April 26, 2021 Danspace Project Gala 2021 A virtual gathering Honoring Rebel Angels Bebe Miller, Annie-B Parson, Pat Steir For their fierce commitment to singular visions and transformative impact across artistic disciplines Questions: peggy@danspaceproject.org | (212) 674-3838

Danspace Project Gala 2021

A virtual gathering

The evening of April 26, 2021

Danspace Project will honor Rebel Angels Bebe Miller, Annie-B Parson, and Pat Steir for their fierce commitment to singular visions and transformative impact across artistic disciplines.

CO-CHAIRS: Suzanne Bocanegra and David Lang

HONORARY CHAIRS: Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon

HOST: Jodi Melnick

SPEAKERS: Philip Bither, Maurine Knighton, Elizabeth Streb

Festive Dress #HalfGown

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GALA PROGRAM

 


 

Paid tickets for the Main Event, Honoree Toast & Rebel Angels Cookbook available for purchase here.

Gold Table of 10 $10,000

Silver Table of 10 $5,000

Gold Single Ticket $500

Silver Single Ticket $300

Bronze Single Ticket $150

Ticket payments made online will reflect an administrative fee.

To purchase tables, please contact Peggy Cheng – peggy@danspaceproject.org or call (212) 674-3838.

 


 

Reserve tickets to attend for free here

Free tickets will grant guests access to the 7pm main event only.

 


 

Can’t make it to the virtual event?

Make a donation in honor of Rebel Angels Bebe Miller, Annie-B Parson, and Pat Steir here.

Please RSVP by April 12, 2021.


2021 Rebel Angels Gala Benefit Committee

As of April 22, 2021
Kyle Abraham, Marina Abramovic, Yona Backer*, Elise Bernhardt, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli, Suzanne Bocanegra*, Carol Bryce-Buchanan, Anthony Calnek*, Molly Davies and Polly Motley, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Anne Delaney, Hilary Easton*, David L. Fanger*, Chris Giarmo, Ain Gordon, Frances Craig Guillemot, Agnes Gund, Meg Harper, Angie Hauser, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Bree Jeppson, Darrell Jones, Kathy Kaufmann, Tendayi Kuumba, Thomas Lax*, Paul Lazar, Young Jean Lee, Ralph Lemon, Melissa Levin*, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Cynthia Mayeda, Jodi Melnick, Virginia and Timothy Milhiser, Rashaun Mitchell*, Carol Mullins, Sarah Needham*, David Neumann, Tere O’Connor, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Eiko Otake*, David Parker*, Craig Peterson, Yvonne Rainer, Judilee Reed*, Ken Tabachnick, David Thomson, Laurie Uprichard, Anne Waldman, Helen and Peter Warwick*, David R. White, Nina Winthrop*, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Abby Zbikowski
*Danspace Project Board of Directors
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