DraftWork: Nicole Mannarino + Taylor Stanley + ms. z tye Saturday, September 23, 2023 | 3pm
Join us after the performances for food & drinks and a conversation between the artists and DraftWork curator Ishmael Houston-Jones.
Nicole Mannarino The Dance Part 2 Artistic direction, choreography, performance: Nicole Mannarino Sound, Choreography, Performance: Samira Mendoza Choreography, Performance: Reché Nelson, Laura Witsken Taylor Stanley How do you control the pivot? Be slow. Be sloppy. Or not. Don’t force it, but, sense it. As long as there is flow, Support will show up. The root? Yes, my darling, this pathway is going to look a little different. Is that not the point? Is that not the pivot? Obsession runs deep. Examining the truth behind__underneath__along-side__the accolades Where the magic of moonlight begins. Drop the weight, and see where you land. The water in the bathtub, It’s hot__hot__hot; Pleasurable. Sensational. Sink in To what it’s all about. And, yet, I am forever an outsider, am I not? Widespread, felt early on, Susceptible to retraction from the roots At dinner tables encased in laughs and hidden woes. Deconstruct. Piece back together To pull back apart. Might, As well. Music by Orion Sun A special thank you to Danspace Project and Jodi Melnick ms. z tye American idoll This work is supported by Movement Research, Dance Advancement Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
Nicole Mannarino is a choreographer, performer, and holistic fitness coach based in New York City. She has presented her collaborative work at The Jam Handy (Detroit, Michigan), The Invisible Dog Art Center (NYC), and Lincoln Center’s Hearst Plaza for REUNIONS, curated by Kyle Abraham (NYC). She produced her first and second choreographic works at Central Park, Squibb Park, Washington Hall Park, and Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 (NYC). Her latest in-process work, -The Dance-, was presented by Movement Research at the Judson Church in April 2023. Nicole received a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award for her performance in Sarah Michelson’s Devotion Study #1—The American Dancer, honored with the Bucksbaum Award at the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Nicole also received a “Full Production Bessie” award for Kyle Abraham’s The Radio Show in 2010. Through her work with Kyle Abraham, Moriah Evans, Beth Gill, Juliana F. May, Sarah Michelson, and others, she has performed at The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, MOMA, MOMA PS1, On the Boards, PS122, PICA, The Walker Arts Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale Union; and internationally at Rockbund Museum (Shanghai, China) and Dance Umbrella (London, United Kingdom). Taylor Stanley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began their dance training at the age of three at The Rock School in Pennsylvania. They attended summer programs at Miami City Ballet in 2006 and 2007 and at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, during the summer of 2008 before enrolling full-time at SAB in the fall of that same year. In September 2009, Taylor became an Apprentice with New York City Ballet, and joined the Company as a member of the Corps de Ballet in September 2010. They were promoted to Soloist in February 2013 and to Principal Dancer in May 2016. Taylor received the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise in 2009 and was the 2011-2012 recipient of the Janice Levin Award. Since joining New York City Ballet, Taylor has originated roles in multiple works by Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon, along with having danced featured roles in classic works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Outside of the company, Taylor has danced with New York City Ballet Soloist Troy Schumacher’s BalletCollective, and has collaborated with various choreographers including Jodi Melnick, Andrea Miller, Kyle Abraham, Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa, Liz Gerring, Pam Tanowitz, Kim Brandstrup, Christopher Williams, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Reiner, and Omar Roman de Jesus. Nurturing their own movement interests outside of the classical realm, Taylor has participated in workshops with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Batsheva Dance Company. They received a Bessie Award for “Outstanding Performance” in Kyle Abraham’s The Runaway choreographed at New York City Ballet, and have performed in several works as a guest artist with Andrea Miller’s company GALLIM. In July 2022, Taylor performed in an evening-length program of their own curation titled Dichotomous Being: An Evening of Taylor Stanley as part of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s 90th anniversary season. Taylor currently serves on the SAB Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity & Inclusion. They have also been a guest teaching artist at various dance schools nationwide including The Rock School in Philadelphia, PA, Coupe Dance Theatre in Nanuet, NY, Willow Dance Center in Poughkeepsie, NY, and Neighborhood Ballet in Atlanta, GA. ms. z tye is a Brooklyn based artist who explores concepts through ancestral praise. She is intrigued with somatic relations and how they associate with emotional connectivity. These works are intended to serve as queer offerings to LGBTQIA-BIPOC communities. ms. z continues to research the kinesthetic body with instinctual energy to fulfill her curiosity. She has been included in exhibitions with Bronx Museum of Arts, Volta/Armory Art Fair, The Living Gallery, Long Gallery Harlem, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Postmasters Gallery, Fridman Gallery, Art in Buildings, and Participant INC. Choreographic work has been commissioned by The Shed, BMW, BOFFO, Lotto Royale, Papi Juice, Jack, Gibney, Movement Research, and Dance Canvas ATL. Ishmael Houston-Jones is an award winning choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, across the US, and in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. Drawn to collaborations as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation. Houston-Jones and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. In 2020 he received a fourth "Bessie" for Service to the Field of Dance. Houston-Jones is the DraftWork curator for works-in-progress at Danspace Project in New York. He has curated Platform 2012: Parallels which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, Then and Now both at Danspace Project. As an author Houston-Jones' essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies and in numerous journals and magazines. His FAT and Other Stories: Some Writing About Sex was published in June 2018 by Yonkers International Press. Ishmael Houston-Jones sits on the Board of Directors of Movement Research and Performance Space New York and is a member of Middle Collegiate Church and Dias y Flores Community Garden. He has received awards from The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. In 2022 he received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Ishmael Houston-Jones received the 2019 Edwin Booth Award, given annually by the Doctoral Theatre Students’ Association of City University of New York which honors “an individual or organization that has had a significant impact on theatre and performance in New York.”
FUNDING FOR DRAFTWORK DraftWork is presented, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. For more information on our funders, visit danspaceproject.org/support
ABOUT US Danspace Project presents new work in dance, supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences. For over 45 years, Danspace Project has supported a vital community of contemporary dance artists in an environment unlike any other in the United States. Located in the historic St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Danspace shares its facility with the Church, The Poetry Project, and New York Theatre Ballet. Danspace Project’s Commissioning Initiative has commissioned nearly 600 new works since its inception in 1994. FOLLOW US @danspaceproject danspaceproject.org