Danspace
Project

St. Mark’s Church
131 East 10th St.
New York, NY 10003
Phone (212) 674-8112
info@danspaceproject.org
Events – Danspace Project

Sep 2018

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Photo courtesy of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University; image by Brendan Plake.

A Celebration of the Life of Sam Miller (1952-2018)

The dance community will honor the life of Sam Miller who passed away on May 1, 2018. Miller’s profound care for, and passion for, dance drove his life’s work. He was the founder of the National Dance Project and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University among many other impactful cultural initiatives across the United States over the past 30 years. Organized by Ralph Lemon, Judy Hussie-Taylor, and the Danspace Project team, the day will begin with remarks by Miller’s friends and family followed by performances through the afternoon and evening.

Program of Events (Please note all times are approximate.)

11-12:30pm Remarks and Offerings

Chankethya Chey
Ralph Lemon
Anne Miller
Adam Miller
Cynthia Mayeda
Judilee Reed
Okwui Okpokwasili
Philip Bither
Jill Medvedow
Kristy Edmunds
Grisha Coleman

12:30-2pm Reception
Please join us in the Parish Hall for a reception. Refreshments will be available there throughout the remainder of the day.

2-9pm Further Remarks and Offerings

Part 1 (2-4:30pm)
Wally Cardona/Megan Schubert (please note this offering will be ongoing from 1:45pm in the sanctuary)
David Gordon (Performed by Amanda Treiber, Ambika Raina, Caitlin Marz, Carmella Lauer, Cliff Gabriel, Colin Gee, Elena Zahlmann, Karen Graham, Lauren Ferguson, Lydia Chrisman, Steven Melendez, Wally Cardona, and Valda Setterfield)
Dana Reitz
Michelle Boulé
Tere O’Connor (Performed by Heather Olson)
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Performed by I-Ling Liu and Nick Hallett)
Grisha Coleman (Performers Anitra Brooks, Jonathan González, David Thomson, Nicolas Woloschuck)
Cathy Edwards
Helen Warwick
Liz Lerman
Pat Graney
Kaneza Schaal (Performed by Justin Hicks)
John Jasperse
Jimena Paz
Trisha Brown Dance Company (Performed by Cecily Campbell and Marc Crousillat)

Part 2 (4:30-7pm)
Harry Philbrick
Hannah Durack
Ralph Samuelson
Molly Davies
Polly Motley, Kota Yamazaki, and Sumie Yonei
Bebe Miller
Ralph Lemon
Okwui Okpokwasili
Ain Gordon
Melissa Levin
Lili Chopra
Noemie Solomon
Rachel Cooper
Moriah Evans (with David Watson, João dos Santos Martins, Nicole Marie Mannarino)
Daria Fain/Commons Choir
John Kelly
Jodi Melnick

Part 3 (7-9:30pm)
Faye Driscoll
Beth Gill & Netta Yerushalmy
Lydia Bell & Ali Rosa-Salas
Maurine Knighton
Eiko & Koma
Chankethya Chey
luciana achugar
Claudia La Rocco
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Kyle Abraham
Will Rawls
Sarah Michelson
Reggie Wilson (please note for this work we will ask the audience to move to the east side of the space)

 

The following artists will be offering private dances to Sam in various parts of the world:
1pm (EST) / 7pm (CET): Maria Hassabi (from Warsaw, Poland)
2pm (EST)/ 8pm (CET): Ann Carlson (from Tallahassee, Florida)
3pm (EST) / 2pm (CST): Darrell Jones (from Chicago, Illinois)
3pm (EST) / 9pm (CET): Brenda Way (from Puglia, Italy)
5pm (EST) / 11pm (CET): Margaret Jenkins (from Stockholm, Sweden)
5pm (EST): Trajal Harrell (from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

 

 

Artforum, Passages: Sam Miller (1952-2018) by Judy Hussie-Taylor

 

 

 

 

luciana achugar, Ana “Rokafella” Garcia, Gabriel “Kwikstep” Dionisio, Laurie Berg. Photo: Ian Douglas for Times Square Arts.

Danspace Project at Times Square: luciana achugar, Laurie Berg, Full Circle Souljahs

6pm: Laurie Berg (Duffy Square)
7pm: luciana achugar (Broadway Plaza at 44th Street, concludes at Duffy Square)
8pm: Full Circle Souljahs (Duffy Square)

Danspace Project is thrilled to partner with Times Square Arts to present three site-specific commissions by luciana achugar, Laurie Berg, and Full Circle Souljahs (Ana “Rokafella” Garcia & Gabriel “Kwikstep” Dionisio) in Times Square. Danspace has invited these artists to consider Times Square’s history as a home to Broadway musicals, vaudeville, dance halls, and vernacular dance forms, including modern dance, tap, and hip hop, that emerged throughout the 20th century. The artists will explore perception, amplification, and activism within the cacophonous landscape of Times Square.

In New Mass Dance, achugar creates a site-specific procession inspired by the New Dance Group, a 1930s modern dance collective that taught classes near Times Square promoting social change through movement. In scape, Berg overlays a landscape of information over live performance via 3-D glasses, exploring Times Square as not just a place of spectacle and traffic but of visual messaging. Full Circle Souljahs’ Behind the Groove – Times Square Edition is an homage to street and club dance trends from the ’70s to today, giving visibility to an underground dance community long associated with Times Square.

These three new works will be presented back-to-back so that audience can experience all three works on one evening or over the course of the weekend.

More information on the work and Times Square Arts

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, collaborates with contemporary artists and cultural institutions to experiment and engage with one of the world’s most iconic urban places. Through the Square’s electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas and popular venues, and the Alliance’s own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators to help the public see Times Square in new ways.  Times Square has always been a place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the Arts Program ensures these qualities remain central to the district’s unique identity. Generous support of Times Square Arts is provided by ArtPlace America and ArtWorks. Visit TSq.org/Arts for more information. Follow on Twitter and Instagram at @TSqArts.

Melanie Greene + Brianna Taylor. Photo: Melanie Greene.
Meira Goldberg. Photo: David Whitmer.

DraftWork: Meira Goldberg / Melanie Greene & Brianna Taylor

There is no late seating for this edition of DraftWork. Please arrive on time!

Curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones, the DraftWork series hosts informal Saturday afternoon performances that offer choreographers an opportunity to show their work in various stages of development.

Performances are followed by discussion and a reception with the artists and curator.

Meira Goldberg danced in Spain with many of the flamenco greats, and in the US was first dancer with Flamenco Vivo, Fred Darsow, and Pasión y Arte. She choreographed several award-winning opera productions and has performed RAÍZ, with director Rafael Abolafia and flamenco artist José Moreno, at La Nacional, the Instituto Cervantes, and Dixon Place. Originally from Venezuela, Bárbara Martínez comes from a lineage of Argentinian tango singers, including her grandmother Morenita Rey and great-aunt Libertad Lamarque. As a vocalist, she explores an eclectic repertoire of flamenco, Latin and world music, and jazz.

Melanie Greene and Brianna Taylor are based movement based mess-makers, curators, and provocateurs. Together they create work that tackles female escapades and empowerment. Greene, a 2017 Bessie Recipient for Outstanding Performance with Skeleton Architecture, has presented solo and group work around NYC and is currently a Bogliasco Fellow and Movement Research Artist in Residence. Taylor, a space changer and world traveler, has presented work around NYC, the San Francisco Bay area; Greensboro, NC; Boulder, CO; Portland, OR; Washington, DC; Paris, France; and Lausanne, Switzerland.

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

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Claudia Rankine and Will Rawls: What Remains (NYC Premiere)

**NOTE: All 4 performances of What Remains are now sold out. A wait list will begin at the door each night at 7:15pm.**

Co-presented by Danspace Project and French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) as part of the Crossing The Line Festival.

*Please arrive on time! There is no late seating for this performance!*

What Remains is a collaboration between poet and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine and choreographer Will Rawls (recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer).

Through movement and language What Remains invites us across the threshold of a historical void, creating an immersive environment from the idea of an entombed imagination, and responding to violence and disappearance with a resonant, ghostly chorus.

“One thing about being black in America—you have to curtail your movements, to live in such a way that what the white gaze projects upon blackness will not end your life,” says Rankine to the New York Times. “So you’re always thinking, can I walk at night?…Can I have my cell phone out? If it glitters, will someone think it’s a gun? At what point can I just be?”

Adds Rawls, “One never just happens to be black, even in the most abstract dance…Whiteness in our society — and this is something Claudia talks about, too — is the space that produces the conditions and terms against which all other lives are measured and enabled or disabled. Dance doesn’t escape those power dynamics.”

The performance on Tuesday, Sept 25 will be followed by a discussion with Claudia Rankine and Will Rawls, moderated by Malik Gaines.

Direction and choreography by Will Rawls
Text by Claudia Rankine
Creative Consultant John Lucas
Production design by David Szlasa
Costume design by Eleanor O’Connell
Sound Design by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
Music by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, with Will Rawls
Created in collaboration with and performed by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Leslie Cuyjet, Jessica Pretty, and Tara Aisha Willis

Crossing The Line is an annual international arts festival for New York City produced by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institutions. France has a long history of supporting national and international cultural practices, welcoming and nurturing new ideas and influential perspectives from around the world. FIAF, as the leading French cultural institution in the US, critically maintains that practice through the Crossing The Line Festival, presenting leading-edge artists from France and the US alongside their peers from around the world. Since its inauguration in 2007, Crossing the Line has cultivated an increasingly large and diverse following, and received numerous accolades in the press including “Best of” in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze. Festival performances have earned multiple Obie and Bessie awards. crossingthelinefestival.org

"What Remains" was commissioned, developed, and premiered by Live Arts Bard, the commissioning and residency program of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. What Remains was developed with additional commissioning support from the French Institute Alliance Française’s (FIAF) Crossing the Line Festival, the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, Yale Repertory Theater, and SummerStages at the ICA/Boston.

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