DANSPACE PROJECT PRESENTS Jordan Demetrius Lloyd & Mina Nishimura a shared evening of duets Friday, January 12 | 7:30PM Saturday, January 13 | 7:30PM
Visit Danspace Project's Online Journal Issue 13 & Issue 15 for relevant contributions from Jordan and Mina, as well as a conversation between Mina and Christopher Unpezverde Núñez and photos of Jordan's work by Malcolm x-Betts!
Mina Nishimura Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist [空kuu version] Performed by Mina Nishimura and Glenn Potter-Takata Original Sound Scores by Kenta Nagai Projection Design and Video Editing by Amanda Hamline Lighting Design by Niko Tsocanos (with original lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann) Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist premiered at Danspace Project in 2022, was performed by Emma Rose Brown, David Guzman, Sabrina Leira, Stuart B Meyers, Mina Nishimura, Evan Ray Suzuki, Glenn Potter-Takata, and Jace Wayant, with special guest appearance by Angelina Hoffman. The development of this work was supported, in part, by Danspace Project’s Renewal Residency program, residency programs at Topaz Arts and Bennington College, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and Creation Grants from Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This project is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, made possible through support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks: to collaborators for contributing their expertise and creativity to the project, and for their patience and open-heartedness and curious spirit!; and to Emma Rose Brown, David Guzman, Sabrina Leira, Stuart B Meyers, Evan Ray Suzuki, Jace Wayant, Angelina Hoffman, Zo Williams, Kathy Kaufmann, and Kota Yamazaki for their creative contributions in the original creative process!! And thank you so much to the team of Danspace Project for creating this special opportunity for us to revisit and reframe the essence of the original work in a new set up, and for your generous support and hard work to make this evening happen! Its In-Forest version was premiered at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2022. And the film experimentation using the footage of its Public Space version is available for viewing on Danspace Project’s Online Journal Issue 15 A conversation between Mina Nishimura and Glenn Potter-Takata around the concepts of emptiness [空] and no-mind [無心] is on Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence (Edited by Willow Green).
Jordan Demetrius Lloyd The Basement Performed by Jordan Demetrius Lloyd and Owen Prum Lighting Design by Niko Tsocanos (with original lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann) Soundscore by Jordan Demetrius Lloyd Sound credits include: Self by Cleo Sol, 2023 Forever Living Original Space by Ryan Wolfe, 2023 Buffaloes by Ryan Wolfe, 2023 สวรรค์ and Earth by Teresa Winter, 2017 The Death of Rave That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn't Control ... Sh¥t Was Wild by Andre 3000, 2023 Epic Records Adagiati by Biosphere, 2012 Biophin Records Grandiflora by Biosphere, 2000 Touch Heartbeat by Ryan Wolfe, 2023 Thanking the Earth by Carlos Niño and friends, Carlos Niño, San Gendel, Nate Mercereau Spacious by Ryan Wolfe, 2023 This work is a dramaturgical spin off of the 2023 Bessie-nominated work Blackbare in the Basement, an eight person work including performances by Bree Breeden, Wendell Gray II, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Mia Martelli, Mykel Marai Nairne, Owen Prum, José Lapaz Rodriguez, Kennedy Thomas This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island Residency Program, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and Danspace Project’s Renewal Residency Program.
Jordan Demetrius Lloyd and Mina Nishimura were 2021 inaugural Danspace Project Renewal Residency artists along with Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez and Gillian Walsh, generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Mina Nishimura (Choreographer/Performer) is a dance artist from Tokyo, Japan. Buddhism-influenced concepts such as emptying, forgetting and inter-being-ness are reflected across her butoh-grounded somatic, performance and choreographic practices. After graduating from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, she was introduced to butoh and improvisational dance through Kota Yamazaki’s teaching while attending an international program at Merce Cunningham Studio in New York. Since 2004, she has been performing and collaborating with ground breaking choreographers such as John Jasperse, Neil Greenburg, Vicky Shick, Yasuko Yokoshi, Dean Moss, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Kota Yamazaki, Trajal Harrel, Moriah Evans, Nami Yamamoto, Ursula Eagly, RoseAnne Spradlin, David Gordon, DD Dorvillier, Daria Fain, Yoshiko Chuma, Mårten Spångberg, Cori Olinghouse, Ellen Fisher, Chantal Yzermans, Satoshi Haga amongst many others. Her other performance credits include: Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s Filling Station (2023), After Yang (2021) – a feature film directed by Kogonada; Saturday Night Live with SIA for her “Alive” and “Bird Set Free”; Miu Miu Woman’s Tales (The [End) of History Illusion] directed by Celia Rowlson-Hall; Late Sea’s MV- Hunter directed by Noka Productions, Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle directed by Stephen Earnhart; and Harry Partch’s opera Delusion of Fury directed by John Jesurun. Upon her return from Senegal (2003-04) assisting cultural exchange dance project, FAGAALA, choreographed by Germaine Acogny and Kota Yamazaki, Nishimura started making her own work with commissions by NYU Skirball Center, Danspace Project, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Black Mountain College Museum +Arts Center, Gibney Dance, Sarah Lawrence College, Mount Tremper Arts Center, UC Davis (CA), Dance Theater Workshop, Whitman College, Center for Remembering and Sharing (CRS) among other dance organizations. Her creative practice has been nourished by participating various AIR and exchange programs through; The Kitchen/Dance and Process, Impulse Tanz’s dance WEB (Vienna), Camargo Foundation (France), Movement Research AIR, Brooklyn Arts Exchange AIR, Chez Bushwick AIR, Topaz Arts, whenever wherever festival (Tokyo) and most currently Danspace Project’s Renewal Residency. Nishimura has been teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, UC Davis (CA), Emerson College, Movement Research, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, and other national and international festivals and schools. She currently teaches at Bennington College after completing her MFA Teaching Fellowship in 2022. Nishimura was named as Best Performance of 2017 in Dance Magazine, and received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (FCA Award) of 2019. (www.minanishimuradance.com/ ISG @minanekobubble) Glenn Potter-Takata (Performer) is a Bronx-based artist of Japanese-descent working in dance and performance. He creates works of art around the body as a historical site, oftentimes connecting fragments of a Japanese-American identity to narratives of internment. Born into a Buddhist family in Los Angeles, Glenn grew up in the Shingon and Jodo Shin traditions of Japanese Buddhism, and has since become a practitioner of the Koyasan-style of Shingon Buddhism. He incorporates aspects of Buddhist philosophy and pedagogy into his work, but also sometimes performs wearing a giant Pikachu costume. Glenn has presented work in a variety of dance and gallery contexts around NYC, and had his first solo gallery exhibition in January of 2023 at Rogers Studio Gallery in Las Vegas. He is a 2023 Bronx Cultural Visions Award recipient, a 2022 MAP Fund Award recipient, a 2022 Bronx Dance Fund Award recipient, and has been awarded residencies through Movement Research, Rogers Art Loft, Gibney Dance Center, and CUNY Dance Initiative/Lehman College. Glenn received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied butoh under Kota Yamazaki and Mina Nishimura. He is currently a teacher of sound and video design for live performance at Sarah Lawrence College. Kenta Nagai (Composer) originally from Niigata, Japan is a Japanese sound artist who has resided in the United States since 1990. After graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1996, Nagai relocated to NYC in following year and started playing his fretless guitar on the streets, subway platforms, and public spaces of the city, as well as in countless clubs, galleries and "downtown" music venues such as venues Roulette and The Kitting Factory. Since Nagai created a sound score for DD Dorvillier’s solo dance performance in 2000, he has collaborated with numerous choreographers and performance artists, including Jennifer Monson, Daria Fain, Boaz Barkan, Zack Fuller, Hisako Horikawa, and others. Nagai maintains an ongoing collaboration with Austrian-born, NY-based choreographer Melanie Maar. From 1997 to 2002, Nagai was a core member of the 'Cave' - a gallery and performance space in Willamsburg, Brooklyn. He collaborated with numerous visual and performing artists during his tenure as a resident artist there. In recent years, Nagai composed original scores for Kota Yamazaki’s Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I or Hallucination (presented at Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2017), and for I, Ghost, The Other(self), or You, which Yamazaki created with Mina Nishimura (presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2022) Amanda Hameline (Projection Design) is a choreographer, producer, dancer, and designer. In her work, she places the mundane in conversation with the strange and uses technology–from live sound design to video projection to stacks of cardboard boxes–to augment, expand and complicate the human form and experience. She has presented work in venues across New York City including CPR-Center for Performance Research, National Sawdust, Coffey Street Studio, Christie’s New York, the Chelsea Hotel, Pace Gallery, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, and Martha Graham Studio Theater; and in Berlin at Lake Studios and Cordillera. Her film work has been featured in the Triskelion Dance Film Festival, ScreenDance Miami, and Exquisite Frame (Dance Place in DC). Amanda is also the co-founder of the non-profit production company Amanda + James, which presents and develops dance, opera, performance art, theater, music and everything in between. Amanda’s work for A+J focuses on curating and developing new programs to support experimental and interdisciplinary movement artists. MFA Sarah Lawrence ’20; BA Harvard University ’12. www.amandahameline / www.amandaplusjames.com / IG @ahameline Jordan Demetrius Lloyd is a dance artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from The College at Brockport and grew up in Albany, NY. He has collaborated with and performed for Beth Gill, Netta Yerushalmy, Tere O’Connor, Karl Rogers, David Dorfman Dance, Joanna Kotze, Catherine Galasso, Monica Bill Barnes, Tammy Carrasco, and Ambika Raina. His teaching practice has brought him to The American Dance Festival, Rutgers University, New York University, University of the Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Pageant, Gibney, and Mark Morris Dance Center. His work has been produced by: New York Live Arts, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Danspace Project's Draftwork Series, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church and The Center for Performance Research. He received the 2021-23 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, was selected as a 2019 Center for Performance Research Artist in Residence, and was a 2019-21 New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Performance & Residency Program recipient. Most recently, he was listed on Dance Magazine’s ‘25 to Watch’ list for 2023. For more, head to jordandlloyd.com Owen Prum (Performer) is a New York-based dancer and co-founder of the artist-run performance space PAGEANT. He has danced for Neil Greenberg, Yoshiko Chuma and Elizabeth Dishman, among others. He holds a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Kathy Kaufmann (Lighting Designer) is a New York City native, and two time Bessie recipient. 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.
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