DANSPACE PROJECT PRESENTS Samita Sinha Tremor Thursday, November 9 | 7:30PM Friday, November 10 | 7:30PM Saturday, November 11 | 7:30PM
Tremor is created by Samita Sinha in collaboration with Sunil Bald, Ash Fure, and Okwui Okpokwasili. Additional collaborators include lighting designers James Proudfoot (Vancouver) and Kathy Kaufmann (NYC), with Darrell Jones as a partner in practice, and Daniel Neumann as Sound Engineer. Tremor is co-commissioned by Danspace Project (New York, NY) and Western Front (Vancouver, BC).
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Artist and composer Samita Sinha creates multidisciplinary performance works that unravel Indian vocal traditions through the body to create a decolonized, multivalent language of voice and vibration. Sinha’s works have been commissioned by Performance Space, Asia Society, Danspace Project, Rubin Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Queens Museum, Gibney Dance, and Western Front, and presented by The Kitchen, Wexner Center for the Arts, REDCAT, PICA, National Sawdust and others. She has received awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright Foundation, National Performance Network, and New York State Council on the Arts. Sunil Bald is an architect and educator. He is Professor and Associate Dean at the Yale School of Architecture where he teaches architectural design, theory, and visualization. For over twenty years he was a partner of the New York-based Studio SUMO, which in 2015 was recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with its Annual Prize in Architecture. Sunil works at a range of scales from site-specific installations to designs for institutional and cultural buildings, domestically and abroad. His work has been exhibited in venues including the National Building Museum, MoMA, The Field Museum, and the Venice Biennale; and has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Graham Foundation, NYSCA, and NYFA. Ash Fure is a sonic artist who blends installation and performance. Called “purely visceral” and “staggeringly original” by The New Yorker, Fure’s full-bodied sonic experiences work on the senses in startling ways. The recipient of two Lincoln Center Emerging Artists Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rome Prize in Music Composition, a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Prize, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant for Artists, a Fulbright Fellowship to France, a Stuttgart Composition Prize, a Darmstadt Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship from Columbia University, Fure holds a PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University, is associate professor of music at Dartmouth College and was named co-artistic director of The Industry LA in 2021. Okwui Okpokwasili is a Brooklyn-based performer, choreographer and writer creating multidisciplinary performance pieces. The child of immigrants from Nigeria, Okpokwasili was born and raised in the Bronx, and the histories of these places and the girls and women who inhabit them feature prominently in much of her work. Her highly experimental productions include “Bessie” Award-winning pent-up: a revenge dance, “Bessie” Award-winning Bronx Gothic, as well as poor people’s TV room, poor people’s TV room (SOLO), when I return who will receive me, Adaku’s revolt, and the participatory performance installation Sitting on a Man’s Head. In 2022, she was the inaugural artist for the Kravis Studio Residency program at MoMA. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a 2018 Princeton University Hodder Fellowship, a 2018 Herb Alpert Award in Dance, a 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship. Kathy Kaufmann is a New York City native, and two time Bessie recipient. Tremor is Kathy’s second collaboration with Samita. It has been a pleasure. She designs regularly for Dorrance Dance, Joanna Kotze, The Bang Group, Mariana Valencia, Rebecca Stenn, Ephrat Asherie Dance, Vicky Shick, Mina Nishimura, and Music From The Sole.
THANK YOU FROM SAMITA SINHA
Thank you Western Front and Danspace Project--Susan Gibb, Ben Wilson, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Seta Morton, Niko Tsocanos, Lily Cohen, and Rosaly Ruiz--for realizing this work with unequivocal support and care. Thank you Ralph Lemon and Parvathy Baul for your teachings. Thank you Tara Aisha Willis for thought partnership. Thank you Darrell Jones, Daniel Neumann, James Proudfoot, and Kathy Kaufmann for adding your gifts to the work. Thank you Ash, Sunil, and Okwui for being infinite and generous collaborators, and to Sunil, for being my home.
SUPPORT FOR TREMOR
Tremor is co-commissioned by Danspace Project (New York, NY) and Western Front (Vancouver, BC). Samita Sinha was a 2021-2023 Danspace Project Research Fellow and Research Residency Artist supported, in part, by the Mellon Foundation.
Danspace Project pays respect to Lenape peoples. We acknowledge that this work is situated on the Lenape island of Manhattan (Mannahatta) in Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland. We pay respect to Lenape land, water, and ancestors past, present and future.
ABOUT DANSPACE PROJECT
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 almost 50 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. More about our staff, our mission, and values For information on our funders, visit danspaceproject.org/support FOLLOW US @danspaceproject danspaceproject.org