Raja Feather Kelly | The Feath3r Theory: Andy Warhol’s Tropico

Please note: Advance tickets for all 3 performances are sold out. A wait list will begin at the door at 7:15pm each evening.

Andy Warhol’s Tropico is choreographed and directed by Raja Feather Kelly and performed by Kelly his dance theater company, The Feath3r Theory.

Andy Warhol said, “It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.” In Tropico, Kelly questions if this is true.

Loosely-inspired by Lana Del Rey’s short film of a similar name, Tropico explores Kelly’s relationship to pop-culture as he attempts to demystify pop-culture’s relationship to humanity. The performers find themselves lost in a surreal, cartoonist landscape. The characters, each constellations of archetypes from television, movies, and children’s stories, seek refuge from the same Warhol-inspired pop-art-world they created.

Catherine Gallant/DANCE and Dances by Isadora: Retrograde Universe

Community ACCESS provides subsidized off-season rental opportunities for Danspace Project community members.

Click here to watch a trailer for Retrograde Universe

Retrograde Universe is the title of a new world premiere and this special evening by Catherine Gallant/DANCE and Dances by Isadora, both led by Artistic Director and Choreographer Catherine Gallant. Retrograde Universe includes four pieces by Gallant and three Isadora Duncan works. Duncan works include a historical re-animation of Duncan’s Beethoven No. 7, which has not been performed since 1979, Three Scriabin Etudes, danced by Kristen Foote of the Limón Company on opening night, and Valse Brillante. Gallant’s Retrograde Universe, Finally, The Secret and Meeting #12 complement these works with an evening of dance that is both inspired and collaborative.

This program opens with Gallant’s very first work, The Secret, a duet created in 1980 under the guidance of then-teacher, 20th century dance master, Anna Sokolow, which is accompanied by pianist Yegor Shetsov. Gallant’s world premiere work Retrograde Universe, a contemporary work for an ensemble of four, uses indeterminate structures to investigate the fragility and uncertainty of the material world. Video projection by Nadia Lesy provides a sound and visual score of crumpling paper and images of flight to personify a world of imagined reality and a seemingly fraught future.

As films or notation of Isadora Duncan’s dances were not made until long after her death in 1927, Duncan’s choreography has been preserved through the teaching of one generation of Duncan dancers to the next, with the interpretation of phrases and physicality. In 2011, Gallant began to explore Duncan’s work to the Beethoven No. 7 (Allegretto and Presto movements), and has now re-imagined this 108-year old work for the stage. Gallant and an ensemble of 10 dancers have spent the last year enlivening this piece for contemporary audiences. This re-staging features seasoned dancers as well as the company’s next generation of Isadora dancers.

The Oracle Dance via Eleanor Bauer

**For this event, please enter the Church via the side entrance on 11th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue**

The Oracle Dance is a score for a dance that answers questions, or tells the future. The dance follows a simple set of rules and roles, whereby a handful of dancers act as an Oracle answering an audience member or visitor’s question. Their danced answer to the question is interpreted and orated by an external reader of the dance. The roles of reader and dancer can shift from question to question, or over a duration of performing several question-answers. Come by and have your questions answered by a dance!

The Oracle Dance plays with meaning production in movement, the “usefulness” of a dance to serve a specific purpose, the contemporary invention of rituals, the use of improvisation to address unknowns, and a practice of receptivity to unexpected insights from anywhere.

The Oracle Dance originated in the TTT sessions (Teachers Teaching Teachers) at Impulstanz festival in Vienna in 2014 with and by Jennifer Lacey, Alice Chauchat, Valentina Desideri, Alix Eyunaudi, Keith Hennessy, Anne Juren, Mark Lorimer, Raimundas Malašauskas, Philippe Riéra and Mårten Spångberg. It has been passed on to others since then, and belongs to nobody and anybody.

Gun Violence Awareness Vigil

​Join the St. Mark’s community as we mourn for Orlando,​ ​remember all lives lost to gun violence, and build a safer community together.

Wednesday, June 29, 6:30 PM
St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue)

Co sponsored by Danspace Project​, ​The Poetry Project​, ​New York Theatre Ballet, and ​St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery

with performances by Ricardo Maldonado, Julia Guez, Ballez​ (Artistic Director, Katy Pyle)​, Jeannine Otis, New York Theatre Ballet, and more​.​

Summer at Danspace Project!

This year Danspace Project had the privilege of partnering with seven of our East Village neighbors along with 100+ artists. Our 10th Platform, Eiko Otake’s Platform 2016: A Body in Places held this winter lives on at danspaceproject.org/journal. We were thrilled and honored that you came to visit, watch, engage and share with us. THANK YOU for being our community!

Summer means we’re hard at work on our Fall season which opens in September. Upcoming highlights include:

· a 2-week run of in tow, a brand new commission by the brilliant Jennifer Monson

· our 11th Platform, Platform 2016: Lost & Found (October 12 – November 19, 2016), curated by choreographers Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls. Lost & Found originates from Houston-Jones’ rediscovery of a pamphlet of collected writings remembering the choreographer John Bernd who died of AIDS in 1988. With over 50 artists, we’ll look back at the plague years of mass AIDS hysteria, specifically 1981-1996, to try to recover the loss of a generation of mentors, role models, and muses.

· and much, much more!

Tickets for our fall season will be on sale in July! Join our email list and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for fun photos, videos, and the latest updates and announcements this summer.

Until September…Thank you!

Love,
Danspace Project