Photo by Timon Benson

Off-Season: New York Theatre Ballet presents Legends & Visionaries: The Next Era

Friday, September 25 | 7PM
Saturday, September 26 | 7:30PM

LEGENDS & VISIONARIES: THE NEXT ERA

In 2016, Antonia Franceschi — a former New York City Ballet dancer — world-premiered a new work for Danspace Project’s 40th anniversary. This season, she returns as NYTB’s artistic director. Full circle.

New York Theatre Ballet and Danspace Project mark a decade of collaboration with a mixed program of intimate classics and daring new commissions: Homage by Mark Baldwin former director of the Rambert Dance Company, along with pieces by Melissa Toogood and Annie-B Parson, and the premiere of Uncaged+, created by Franceschi, music by Claire Van Kampen, inspired by Lee Krasner’s Umber Series.

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Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
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Founded by Diana Byer in 1978, NYTB performs traditional works by choreographers such as Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, and Jerome Robbins; is sought after by the heirs of modern dance such as José Limón and Merce Cunningham to recreate their original works; and commissions significant, emerging choreographers such Pam Tanowitz, Marco Pelle, Antonia Franceschi, Amanda Treiber, Julian Donohue, and more. NYTB has self-produced at venues including Florence Gould Hall, Danspace Project, and New York Live Arts; and appeared at Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, Brookfield Place, 92NY, and Schimmel Center. Touring venues have included Jacob’s Pillow, MA; Kaatsbaan, NY; Kirkland Performing Arts Center, WA; Johnny Carson Theatre, NE; Dixie Carter Theatre, TN; and Colonial Theatre, NH.

nytb.org/

Photo by Rachel Keane

Anh Vo: a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance

Thursday, October 8 | 7:30PM
Friday, October 9 | 7:30PM
Saturday, October 10 | 7:30PM

Open Dress Rehearsal*
Tuesday, October 6 | 7:30PM

To RSVP for Open Dress Rehearsal, Click Here

“The purpose of the Fascist formula, the ritual discipline, the uniform, and the whole apparatus, which is at first sight irrational, is to allow mimetic behavior. The carefully thought out symbols (which are proper to every counterrevolutionary movement), the skulls and disguises, the barbaric drum beats, the monotonous repetition of words and gestures, are simply the organized imitation of magic practices, the mimesis of mimesis”

–Horkheimer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment

If fascism, as “the mimesis of mimesis,” appropriates the apparatus of magic, this performance attempts at a mimesis of this mimesis of mimesis: stealing these ritualistic techniques back for magic again. a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance revisits Anh Vo’s upbringing in Vietnam to channel the strange poetics of living under the spell of authoritarianism. There will be fabulous and sexy uniforms. There will be drum beats, though they might or might not sound barbaric. There will be words and gestures repeated monotonously, looping and looping at the edge of the voice’s breaking point. What happens when mechanisms designed to manufacture submission are pushed past their intended function and toward another kind of surrender: to the immanent unknowability of the body and the transcendent omnipotence of God?

Supported by three improvisational exercises in channeling, each performance begins with an opening act by a different interdisciplinary artist: C. Spencer Yeh (Oct. 8), yuchen chang (Oct. 9), and Alex Tatarsky (Oct. 10).

*About Open Dress Rehearsal: Tuesday evening’s dress rehearsal will be free with RSVP and open to the public at limited-capacity. Open dress rehearsals are a mask-required, community-minded program prioritizing our immunocompromised and low-income audiences. Staff and audiences will be required to wear masks (N95 or KN95) and performing artists (if unmasked) will be required to test for COVID-19 (rapid tests provided by Danspace Project). This is a first-come-first-served event. Danspace will not hold late seating or a waitlist during Open Dress Rehearsals. Thank you for your understanding.

This performance is made possible, in part, through a grant from the Jerome Foundation.

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Before you visit:

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Anh Vo (They/He) is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in New York City, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, queer and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA).

An Evening with Sreelakshmy Govardhanan

Thursday, October 15 | 7:30PM

Danspace Project and FourOneOne present an evening with Sreelakshmy Govardhanan in performance and conversation with Marina Harss.

To watch Sreelaksmy Govardhanan perform is to experience her complete “surrender, unlearning and absorption” in the controlled abandon of kuchipudi, a classical Indian dance form that traces its origins to the 15th century.

Govardhanan will present a solo performance followed by a conversation with dance critic and writer Marina Harss and the audience.

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Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
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Sreelakshmy Govardhanan is a renowned Kuchipudi dancer, choreographer, and researcher from Kerala, India. While deeply rooted in the robust sampradaya of her Guru Pasumarthy Rattaiah Sarma, a doyen of Kuchipudi Yakshagana, Sreelakshmy has evolved as an individualistic and reflective dancing body who envisions her art as a medium to engage with contemporary society.

Her repertoire is a unique yet harmonious amalgam of tradition and innovation—often philosophical, thought-provoking, and rooted in deep aesthetic inquiry. She is widely admired for her grace, intricate footwork, and expressive abhinaya, which come vividly alive in her performances.

Sreelakshmy is the Founder and Artistic Director of Avanthika Space for Dance, a centre dedicated to learning, performance, and research in Indian classical dance.

She has received numerous prestigious honours including the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi (National Award), Kalashree from the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi (Kerala State Award), Aditya Vikram Birla Kalakiran Puraskar, the Silver Conch Award from Keli, Best Dancer Award from the Madras Music Academy, and the Biennial Endowment Award from Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai, among others.

Sreelakshmy is a graded artiste of Doordarshan and an empanelled artiste in the Established category of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). She is also a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

In addition to her artistic pursuits, Sreelakshmy is a trained professional psychologist. She integrates her understanding of psychology with her practice of dance, using both as tools to nurture artistic sensitivity and support the emotional and creative development of young minds.

Marina Harss is a writer, journalist, and critic based in New York City, writing on all aspects of dance and occasionally on opera. Her features, profiles, reviews and interviews have appeared in: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Ballet Review, Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Playbill, BAMBill, Dancetabs.com, and the Fjord Review, among others. Her book on the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, The Boy from Kyiv: Alexei Ratmansky’s Life in Ballet, was published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in October 2023.

FourOneOne is a non-profit organization supporting historically aware and rooted performance practices across genres, enabling New York’s many audiences to engage with multiplicity and alternative approaches to time and space.

Photo of Victoria Lynn Awkward by Maria J Hackett | Photo of JOYBOY by Whitney Browne

DraftWork: Victoria Lynn Awkward + JOYBOY

Saturday, October 24 | 3PM

Facilitated by Ishmael Houston-Jones since the ’90s and currently co-curated by Houston-Jones with Danspace curators, DraftWork presents work-in-development showings by artists at all stages of their career. This afternoon features performances by Victoria Lynn Awkward and JOYBOY.

DraftWork is free, open to all, and followed by questions and conversation between the artists, curator, and audience.

RSVP HERE

Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project

Victoria Lynn Awkward is a multidisciplinary creator, educator, producer, and the Director of VLA DANCE. She pursued her multiple interests at Goucher College and graduated with high honors in Dance, Visual Art and Secondary Education. As the Director of VLA DANCE she is currently directing projects: “For Nina” – a multidisciplinary show celebrating the lineage of Nina Simone, “In The Space Between” – a production where dance, textile, and audio brings audiences into a world of queer imagination, and “Harnessing our Gardens” – a book celebrating the stories of Black femme movement artists. Notably, Victoria is a Brother Thomas Fellow as well as a recipient of the Queer (Re)public Theater Offensive Residency. Additionally, Victoria is a producer of Performance and Live Art for MoMA.

JOYBOY, also known as Joy-Marie Thompson, is a Bessie Award nominated performing artist, writer, and educator from a small town in Western Pennsylvania. Melding physical theater, clowning, and comedy together, they aim to create stories that explore themes surrounding identity and power dynamics. By blending comedy, physical theater, and surreal imagery, JoyBoy transcends and challenges narrative norms while offering a more imaginative and emergent future.

As a performer, they have worked with choreographers such as Sidra Bell, Staycee Pearl, Shamel Pitts, Stephanie Batten Bland, Maxine Doyle, and Damani Pompey. They have appeared in The Mckittrick Hotel’s Sleep No More, The Public Theater for Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s shadow/land, The Metropolitan Opera’s El Niño and Aida and Geoff Sobelle’s HOME. Their commercial credits include performing in music videos for Chloe Flower and The Kills. JOYBOY has performed dance comedy shows in night life venues throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan, NY.

As a choreographer and creative director, they have presented work for PRISMA Festival, Derida Stage, PearlDiving Movement Residency, Arts on Site, The Brick Theater, Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The August Wilson Center for African-American Culture, and The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College. As an educator, JOYBOY teaches improvisation and contemporary dance as an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance. Their writing has been published by thINKingDANCE and Imagining: A Gibney Journal. Awards include the 2018 Vert Terborgh Award presented by the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase and the 2019 Investing in Professional Artist Grant presented by The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Danspace
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September

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