Events – Danspace Project
Amber Sloan. Photo: Sally Cohn.
Lily Bo Shapiro. Photo by Scott Shaw.

DraftWork: Lily Bo Shapiro/Amber Sloan

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 during which artists and audiences share perspectives about the works-in-progress.

Platform 2016: Readings from Lost & Found: A Preview of Platform 2016 (New Museum)

An evening in partnership with The New Museum to preview the release of the Lost & Found catalogue, edited by Ishmael Houston-JonesWill Rawls, and Jaime Shearn Coan. Contributors Houston-Jones,Theodore KerrLinda Simpson, and Julie Tolentino will read selections from the catalogue and engage in a conversation moderated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of the Danspace Project publication series.

Danspace Project members receive free admission to this preview event.  Contact Michael DiPietro at michael@danspaceproject.org to reserve member tickets.

The Lost and Found catalogue is the 11th published by Danspace Project since 2010. Contributors include: niv Acosta, Penny Arcade, Marc Arthur, Tyler Ashley, AUNTS, Arthur Avíles, John Bernd, Archie Burnett, C.Carr, Travis Chamberlain, Jaime Shearn Coan, Peter Cramer, Douglas Crimp, Eduardo C. Corral, DarkMatter, Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Talya Epstein, Karen Finley, Dan Fishback, Nan Goldin, Neil Greenberg, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Denise Roberts Hurlin, Bill T. Jones, Niall Noel Jones, Deborah Jowitt, John Kelly, Theodore Kerr, Kia Labeija, Joshua Lubin-Levy, Tim Miller, Eileen Myles, Willi Ninja, Eiko Otake, iele paloumpis, Nicky Paraiso, Marissa Perel, Stephen Petronio, Will Rawls, Joan Retallack, Jen Rosenblit, Sarah Schulman, Lucy Sexton, Linda Simpson, Danez Smith, Pamela Sneed, Sally Sommer, Muna Tseng, David Thomson, Julie Tolentino, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Jack Waters, Jeff Weinstein, Reggie Wilson, and Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

New York Theatre Ballet. Photo: Rachel Neville.

Community ACCESS: New York Theatre Ballet: Legends & Visionaries

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

New York Theatre Ballet presents a new installment of its highly acclaimed Legends & Visionaries series at Danspace Project. The program features Song Before Spring, choreographed by Zhong-Jing Fang of American Ballet Theatre, and NYTB’s own Steven Melendez.

This explorative collaboration is set to Philip Glass’ riveting Piano Etudes, transposed to steel drums and played live by NYU Steel. Made for 8 dancers, the piece is a journey for each individual finding their way in and out of the group. After seeing the world premiere last February at New York Live Arts, Jack Anderson wrote in London’s Dancing Times: “…This was not the gambol one might expect, but an emotional outburst that plunged young people into unruly and unpredictable passions…” and Carla Escoda of the Huffington Post said, “The evening closed with a tumultuous 48 minute account of Philip Glass’ etudes arranged for steel drums. The 12-member NYU Steel ensemble took no prisoners. Neither did co-choreographers Steven Melendez, of New York Theatre Ballet and Zhong-Jing Fang of American Ballet Theatre.”

This weekend will also be in celebration of Founder & Artistic Director Diana Byer’s 70th Birthday!  Friday evening’s Byer Legacy Celebration will be devoted to honoring Diana with a special performance by NYTB & guests, followed by a party full of birthday festivities and dancing into the night. For more information about The Byer Legacy Celebration on Friday, October 7th, please call (212) 679.0401 or visit NYTB’s website.

Song Before Spring
Choreography by Zhong-Jing Fang & Steven Melendez
Music by Philip Glass, arranged by Josh Quillen
Piano Etudes, Nos. 1-10
Costume Design by Sylvia Taalson Nolan
NYU Steel, Josh Quillen, Director

Now entering its 38th Season, and invigorated by a recent move to St. Marks’ Church in-the-Bowery, NYTB has reinvented itself as New York’s downtown ballet company. With its ever-expanding repertory, NYTB’s cutting edge programming brings fresh insight to classic revivals paired with the modern sensibilities of both established and up and coming choreographers. The diversity in repertory explores the past while boldly taking risks on the future. Performing in more intimate spaces, often to all live music, brings the audience and the dance together for a more personal experience. When reflecting on NYTB’s first season at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery in 2015, The New York Times said, “The members of Theater Ballet are not only refined dancers but also unaffected actors… they draw you in. The intimacy of the space only helped; the amplitude and honesty of their dancing has found its match in St. Mark’s Church.” NYTB will present a new installment of its highly acclaimed Legends & Visionaries series at Danspace Project in October 2016.

Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane by Lois Greenfield.

Platform 2016: An Evening with Bill T. Jones

Bill T. Jones, Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and choreographer/co-founder of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, joins ​Platform 2016: ​Lost & Found curators Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls in conversation.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Bill T. Jones (Artistic Director/Co-Founder/Choreographer: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Artistic Director: New York Live Arts) is the recipient of the 2014 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award; the 2013 National Medal of Arts; the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography of the critically acclaimed FELA!; a 2007 Tony Award, 2007 Obie Award, and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation CALLAWAY Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award; the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and the 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2010, Mr. Jones was recognized as Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.” Mr. Jones choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. He has created more than 140 works for his company. Mr. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, an organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. For more information visit www.newyorklivearts.org.

Neil Greenberg in “Not-About-AIDS-Dance,” 1994. Photo: Johan Elbers.

Platform 2016: An Evening with Neil Greenberg

In 1994, Neil Greenberg created Not-About-AIDS-Dance in response to the loss of his brother, AIDS activist Jon Greenberg, and nine other friends to AIDS. Alongside live performance and a conversation with Jaime Shearn Coan, Greenberg will screen excerpts of the work, which features Greenberg and performers Ellen Barnaby, Christopher Batenhorst, Justine Lynch, Jo McKendry, music fragments by Zeena Parkins, and lighting by Michael Stiller.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Neil Greenberg came to New York from Minnesota in 1976 and danced with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1979-1986. He is known especially for his Not-About-AIDS-Dance, which employs his signature use of projected words as a layering strategy that provides doors into “meanings” in the dance, while also raising questions about the nature of meaning-making. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Bessie Awards, repeated fellowships from the NEA and NYFA, a fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a NDP Production grant, a Doris Duke Creative Exploration Award, and repeated support from the MAP Fund and NYSCA. He has created two works for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. Greenberg is currently a Professor of Choreography at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School, and has previously taught at Purchase College, Sarah Lawrence College, and UC Riverside. He served as dance curator at The Kitchen from 1995-1999. His most recent project, This, continues his interest in the move away from representation toward an experience of the performance moment in and of itself.

Ethyl Eichelberger in a Fashion Pose, 1981. Photo by Peter Hujar. © 1987 The Peter Hujar Archive LLC; Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel.

Platform 2016: Conversation Without Walls: One of Two

In the first of two long-form conversations contextualizing​ Platform 2016:​ Lost & Found, curators Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls host a discussion of the Platform’s origins in an afternoon interspersed with performa​nce. In search of an intergenerational discussion around artistic influence, portraiture, and performed history, Lost ​& Found has provided four performers with “dossiers” consisting of images, flyers, biographies, documentation, and other ephemera​ to explore the act of reconstructing, or responding to, the life, work, and mythology of​​ artists who have passed away.

1:30-2:30pm: LOST: Curating Absence​:​ an overview of Platform 2016: Lost & Found with Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls moderated by Judy Hussie-Taylor. Curators discuss the late John Bernd and his work as the original impetus for the Platform, and address the evolving curatorial process of the last three years.

2:45pm: “Life Drawing” Response #1: Mariana Valencia responding to the work of Assotto Saint (1957-1994)​.

3-4pm: FOUND: Feminism, AIDS, and History​: Heidi Dorow, Muna Tseng, Lucy Sexton, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, moderated by Ali Rosa-Salas. In her article “Doing Queer Love,” Lisa Deidrich writes about the relationship between feminism and AIDS activism, trying “to think through the ways that the coming together of these two struggles in a particular place and time—New York City in the 1980s—created particular practices that might be effective in other times and places.” This conversation brings together four artists who will discuss their relationships to feminism, queer activism and AIDS activism from the 1980s to the present.

4:15pm: “Life Drawing” Response #2: Raja Feather Kelly responding to the work of Ethyl Eichelberger (1945-1990)​.

4:30-5pm: Lecture/performance by Darrell Jones.

5:30-6pm: Wrap-Up with Mariana Valencia, Darrell Jones, Raja Feather Kelly, and all panelists.

“Life Drawings” Responses propose an intergenerational discussion around artistic influence, portraiture, and performed history, Lost and Found has provided four performers with “dossiers” consisting of images, flyers, biographies, documentation, and other ephemera. Responding to these dossiers, Raja Feather KellyMariana ValenciaNarcissister, and Katy Pyle explore the act of reconstructing, or responding to, the life, work, and mythology of Ethyl Eichelberger (1945-1990), Assotto Saint (1957-1994), Alvin Ailey (1931-1989), and Greer Lankton (1958-1996). Considering these live events as a cross between performance and presentation, the Platform encourages these artists to approach the embodiment of widely-known or unsung artists through an exploration of their own artistic questions.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Other performances

Archie Burnett by Andrew Eccles

Platform 2016: Archie Burnett Workshop

A major force in the underground dance scene of the past 30 years, Archie Burnett was a close friend of Willi Ninja (1961-2006) and co-originator of freestyle forms Voguing and Waacking. This class is an introduction to Waacking and Voguing. Waacking is a style of dance that was birthed in the early 1970’s underground dance scene and surfaced on the ever ground-breaking Soul Train, along with Voguing, a dance popularized in the underground gay scene. This workshop is applicable and accessible to all.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Javier Ninja and Archie Burnett, “Elements of Vogue,” originally presented in “voix de ville,” an evening created by Cori Olinghouse (February 3-5, 2011) as part of Platform 2011: Body Madness.

Platform 2016: An Evening with Archie Burnett: Celebrating the Legacy of Willi Ninja

Voguing icons Archie Burnett and the late Willi Ninja (1961-2006) were the original fathers of the legendary House of Ninja.

Burnett will discuss Willi’s life, movement innovations, and singular contributions to the Voguing form. He will show rare archival footage of their work – including an excerpt from Sally Sommer’s documentary Check Your Body at the Door – and will be joined by a younger generation of Ninjas who will perform an homage to Willi, including two works: East of Red and Willi’s Dream.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

As we all know The ICONIC Legendary House of Ninja, was established by Old Way/New Way Legendary, Willi Leak Ninja in New York City in the late 90s. Willi founded the House of NINJA on principles of the Asian culture in which his mother raised him on. Willi Ninja displayed his technique of voguing worldwide through the award winning documentary, “Paris is Burning,” Documentary Pill Award “How Do I Look,” Madonna’s Music Video “Vogue,” and Malcolm MacLaren’s music video “Deep in Vogue.” As well as being a dancer, Willi Ninja was renowned for his presence and his ferocity in the world of fashion. He played muse and model to many variety of fashion designers such as Mugler and Gaultier, but he himself gave early lessons on the art of strutting to the likes of Naomi Campbell and Paris Hilton.

Originally the house was opened with only five members in NYC, who proposed to make a difference in the field of Vogue, Runway, Fashion, and Education in the youth dance community. With the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Legendary House of Ninja devoted itself to educating all of its members and ensure all members have an education and professional background within the dance community.

Now, with over 100 members worldwide, The Legendary House of Ninja has continued to pass on Willi’s Legacy since his passing on September 2, 2006. We have contributed in today’s worldwide vogue, fashion, runway, performances, and professional dance workshops venues such as Millennium Dance Complex in Japan, the Gay life Expo, Harlem Stage, Sybarite Productions, Dancing In the Street sponsored by Mayor Bloomberg in NYC, Walt Disney’s writer Deborah Gregory “CatWalk,” Justa DeBout in Paris, Street Dance Festival “Street Star,” and HDI – House Dance International. The House of Ninja also displayed Vogue in a sold out off broadway show “East Is Red” at BADD in the Bronx and at the Dance Theater Workshop in 2007. Recently, the Legendary House of Ninja has been inducted into the Hall of Fame

We, The Legendary House of Ninja strive to achieve excellence in all areas, within all of our members, and within the house. We walk in the shoes of those before us and we have all pledged to uphold the great legacy set. We take the name NINJA into the next generation setting as a new standard and precedence in all communities alike.

Peter Cramer & Jack Waters. Photo by Jackie Rudin.

Platform 2016: The Zine Project: Allied Productions (Arts on Site)

A conversation with Allied Productions on the second and final evening of their zine residency.

Founded in 1980 by Jack Waters and Peter Cramer, Allied Productions helped give a start to pioneering non-profits like ABC No Rio on the Lower East Side in 1983. Recently, Allied Productions’ main project has been the development and maintenance of Le Petit Versailles Community Garden, a formerly abandoned lot in the East Village, which has been home to art exhibitions, performances, readings, and film screenings.

During this “mini residency” Waters and Cramer will assemble a zine project, offer a dance workshop to reconstruct a dance by Brian Taylor (1957 -1992) as well as host a night of live performances, film screenings, and dialogue. The goal of the collective is to help facilitate a platform for building a new language for current and future generations; a vocabulary specific to gender queer post corporate pharma experiences born of the epidemic that are independent of, yet informed by, currently dominant narratives of AIDS/HIV.

Contributors to zine and night of performance include:
(list in formation) – *Live presentation 10/18
Bizzy BarefootPeter Cramer*, Darnell DavisWalter DundervillDouglas Dunn* – Excerpt from Aubade (2014) – Duet danced by Paul Singh and Chris Williams, Robert FlyntCarl George* – Screening film excerpt from “6 Feet: Dancers I Know and Love,” Stephan GeorgiouMimi GrossGeoffrey Hendricks* – Talk about artist performer Brian Buczak, Andre HerefordDerek JacksonStephen Kent Jusick*, Esther KaplanRyan LawrenceRicardo NelsonRobert Vazquez-PachecoVasilios PapapitsiosCarlo QuispeSusan SalingerEthan Shoshan, Sur Rodney (Sur)Brad TaylorBrian TaylorJack Waters*, Melissa Wynn

In trying to “fill out the gap” left by deaths from AIDS, the zine, as a handmade, grassroots object, will serve as a central metaphor for addressing the ephemeral, fragmentary, and affective documents of a generation of artists. Two artist collectives, Allied Productions (October 18) and AUNTS (November 8) will develop zines and related live presentations addressing how each collective’s artistic practices might be in conversation with the reality and aftermath of the AIDS epidemic in the NYC dance and performance community.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Other performances

AUNTS was founded by James Kidd and Rebecca Brooks in 2005 and is currently organized by Laurie Berg and Liliana Dirks-Goodman. Guided by core principles of collectivity, cooperation, and sharing, AUNTS generates a constantly shifting environment where artists negotiate the simultaneous production and/or presentation of their work in relationship to one another. Often taking the form of a live event, AUNTS allows audiences to freely move about the spaces it inhabits, choosing their own path and creating their own experiences through chance encounters.

Charles Atlas. “Son of Sam and Delilah,” 1991. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.

Platform 2016: Charles Atlas: Son of Sam and Delilah (Howl! Happening)

Son of Sam and Delilah (Dir. Charles Atlas, 1991, 26:59 min, video, color, sound)

Created by pioneering multimedia artist Charles AtlasSon of Sam and Delilah is “a dark vision of an America where life is cheap and even the moments of tenderness have a life threatening edge.” An amalgam of cross-cut scenes, Son of Sam and Delilah features New York performance luminaries John Kelly (as Delilah), Hapi PhaceAlmon GrimstedBrian ButterickAnna Levine-ThompsonCasey MacDonaldLucy Sexton & Anne Iobst (DANCENOISE), and Sunny in the late 1980s through 1991. Atlas explained in 2012: “[Son of Sam and Delilah] was unusual because I had people to help, and I didn’t know where it was going at first. I only realized after I made it what it was about – all my friends who were dying of AIDS.”

This evening will conclude with a post-screening discussion with Atlas and Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, Museum of Modern Art.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Pamela Sneed by Patricia Silva

Platform 2016: All Black/An Invitation: An evening of poetry

World-renowned poet, writer, teacher, and actress, Pamela Sneed curates a spoken word and performance tribute to artists who died of AIDS. “For me, for one moment, on one evening…I/we will get to go home again. It’s been so long. I will get to see all the artists who shaped me and a generation. The AIDS crisis is still not over,” says Sneed, who will present along with a stellar line-up of intergenerational poets and performers including Timothy DuWhite, Kia LaBeija, YaYa Mckoy, Terence Taylor, and Carmelita Tropicana. She writes, “On the occasion of All Black/An Invitation we will get to shout our Queer selves and brothers lost to AIDS into history.”

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Pamela Sneed is a New York based poet, writer and actress. She has been featured in the New York Times MagazineThe New YorkerTime OutBombVIBE, and on the cover of New York Magazine. In 2015, she appeared in Art ForumBlack Book and The Huffington Post. She hosted Queer Art Film at the IFC in New York City. She is author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, published by Henry Holt in April 1998, KONG & other works, published by Vintage Entity Press (2009) and a chapbook Lincoln (2014). In 2015, she published the Chaplet Gift with Belladonna. She has performed for sold out houses at Lincoln Center, P.S. 122, Ex-Teresa in Mexico City, The ICA London, The CCA in Glasgow Scotland, The Green Room in Manchester England, BAM Cafe, Joes Pub, The Public Theater, Central Park Summer Stage, Bronx Summer Stage and recently Columbia University’s Tribute to James Baldwin, The Whitney Museum and BRIC. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s, The One Hundred Best African American Poems. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence as a guest faculty member and is an online Professor at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute teaching Human Rights and Writing Art. She is a mentor/consultant for the poet-Linc program at Lincoln Center and will direct a final upcoming show at Lincoln Center Atrium. She has recently presented at a symposium at NYU on Humor, Politics and the AIDs crisis. In summer 2016, she has received a residency at Denniston Hill and is an SAIC visiting artist in the MFA low residency program. She is completing a collection of short stories and has a forthcoming chapbook Sweet Dreams with Belladonna 2017.

l-r: Ni’Ja Whitson, Jaamil Kosoko (photos courtesy of the artists), Jonathan Gonzalez (photo still courtesy of New York Live Arts), Jasmine Hearn (by Mark Simpson).

Platform 2016: An Evening with Ni’Ja Whitson, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Jonathan Gonzalez, and Jasmine Hearn

Platform curators Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls invite a new generation of queer artists of color to share new commissions over a shared evening.

This evening originates the curators’ wish to see these artists present works adjacently. “I am thinking about these artists’ work as “queer” in a broad sense,” Houston-Jones writes, “I am interested in the impact of AIDS on queer artists of a new generation.”

Native New Yorker Jonathan Gonzalez is preoccupied with wildness and illustration as they relate to performance in the theater. He has most recently been a NYLA Fresh Tracks artist, BAX/Dancing While Black Fellow, and Diebold Award recipient in Choreography & Performance.

Jasmine Hearn, originally from Houston, is a 2016 Movement Research Van Lier Fellow and collaborator and performer with Marjani Forté, David Dorfman Dance, Helen Simoneau Danse, and Tara Aisha Willis.

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, co-director of anonymous bodies, is a Nigerian American performance and humanities curator, cultural strategist, and artist interested in healing practices.

Ni’Ja Whitson is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, performer and writer. They have been referred to as “majestic” and “powerful” by the New York Times.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Photo: Melanie Greene courtesy of EmergeNYC.

Platform 2016: the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds

Curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

Sparked by Audre Lorde’s essay, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” writer Eva Yaa Asantewaa presents an evening highlighting the power of Black women within community. This evening imagines and activates Danspace Project as a site of InterSections – like crossroads, places of high-stakes risk, as well as magic. Over two hours, 20 Black women and gender nonconforming dancers from different generations and dance genres channel and manifest InterSections, crossroads sites within Danspace’s sanctuary, responding, in improvisation, to the following prompts: the walk, the sermon, the flood, the haunt, and the planting.

Participating artists include Angie Pittman, Charmaine Warren, Davalois Fearon, Edisa Weeks, Jasmine Hearn, Kayla Hamilton, Leslie Parker, Marguerite Hemmings, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Maria Bauman, Marýa Wethers, Melanie Greene, Nia Love, Ni’Ja Whitson, Paloma McGregor, Rakiya Orange, Samantha Speis, Sydnie L. Mosley, Sidra Bell, and Tara Aisha Willis.

Music performed live by Grace Osborne.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Eva Yaa Asantewaa (Bajan-American, born and raised in New York City) was​ ​first published as a dance writer in 1976. Her work has appeared in Dance​ ​Magazine, The Village Voice, SoHo Weekly News, Gay City News, The Dance​ ​Enthusiast, Time Out New York and other print and online venues. In 2007,​ ​Ms. Yaa Asantewaa founded InfiniteBody, her popular arts blog​ ​(infinitebody.blogspot.com). She is a member of the inaugural faculty​ ​of Montclair State University’s new MFA in Dance program. As a WBAI radio​ ​broadcaster (1987-89), Ms. Yaa Asantewaa worked with the Women’s Radio​ ​Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters Collective,​ ​co-hosted the Tuesday Afternoon Arts Magazine, and produced her own​ ​specials. Since the 1980s, she has also been active in service to numerous​ ​LGBTQ, feminist, POC and arts organizations and initiatives as a workshop​ ​facilitator in alternative practices of meditation, divination, ritual and​ ​wellness. She makes her home, with her wife and cat, in the East Village.

Hilton Als © Dominique Nabokov

Platform 2016: I Don’t Remember – A Reading by Hilton Als (MoMA)

A reading by Hilton Als, followed by a conversation with Thomas Beard.

Hilton Als is a writer, editor, and curator. Thomas Beard is Co-founder and Director, Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art; and Programmer at Large, Film Society of Lincoln Center. Als will give a reading of his work and will be joined by Beard in conversation for the first of two collaborations between Danspace Project and Museum of Modern Art.

Admission: Free. Reservations required – RSVP here.

Organized by Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art, in conjunction with Danspace Project’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found.

Part of PLATFORM 2016: Lost and Found
#platform2016 #lostandfound

Courtesy of Lucy Sexton.

Platform 2016: Interventions in the Narrativization of the AIDS Crisis (CUNY)

Focusing on the period of 1981-1996, this conversation proposes to undo and to disrupt dominant and static narratives of the AIDS Crisis in favor of producing new approaches, through convening senior and junior scholars and archivists including Tara Burk (Art Historian, Rutgers University), Lesley Farlow (Performer, Choreographer, and Associate Professor of Theater and Dance, Trinity College), Thomas F. DeFrantz (Professor and Chair of African and African American Studies, Duke University), David Román (Professor of English and American Studies, USC), and Janet Werther (Dance Artist and PhD Student in Theatre, CUNY GC). Moderated by Jaime Shearn Coan (PhD Candidate in English, CUNY GC).

This is the first of two events produced in partnership with the Mediating the Archive Seminar, part of the Center for the Humanities’ Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research, to take place at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Organized by Jaime Shearn Coan, Danspace Curatorial Fellow and Janet Werther, CFH Research Fellow, with the assistance of faculty co-leaders Amy Herzog and Edward D. Miller.

Join the Center for Humanities, CUNY, for New Approaches to Narratives of the AIDS Crisis, a follow-up conversation on Friday, October 28 at 2pm.

Other performances

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