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.
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.