DANSPACE PROJECT PRESENTS
OO-GA-LA Reimagined (The Fred Holland and Ishmael Houston-Jones 1983 Duet Danced into the 21st Century)
Thursday, January 8 | 7PM
Friday, January 9 | 7PM
Saturday, January 10 | 7PM
Co-presented with Live Artery | New York Live Arts
Improvised in performance by
Stephanie Hewett, Kris Lee, and AJ Wilmore
Based on the score of Fred Holland (1951–2016) and Ishmael Houston-Jones’ 1983 Untitled Duet
Costume Consultant
Malcolm-x Betts
Archival Video taped by
Cathy Weis and Lisa Nelson
Archival Sound Score by
Mark Larson
OO-GA-LA Reimagined was originally commissioned by and premiered at Danspace Project’s DSP@50 Festival, 2025
Special Thank You to
Cathy Weis, Lisa Nelson, Niall Jones, Jesse Zaritt, Jacobi Holland, Oscar Halles, Lauren Bakst, Movement Research, and the staff of Danspace Project.
“Wrong” Contact Manifesto (1983) by Fred Holland and Ishmael Houston-Jones
The New “Wrong” Contact Manifesto (2025) by Stephanie Hewett, Kris Lee, and AJ Wilmore
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ishmael Houston-Jones is an award-winning choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed world-wide. 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 presented by Danspace Project. 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. His work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts.The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Emily Harvey Foundation. In 2024 Ishmael Houston-Jones was awarded the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Dance Festival.
Fred Holland, (1951 – 2016,) received a 1973 Bachelor of Fine Arts from Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio. After that, he had a one-man exhibition of his paintings at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia where he met dancers Terry Fox and Ishmael Houston-Jones who were performing there. Intrigued by their improvisations he took his first dance classes with them. Houston-Jones introduced him to the emerging practice of Contact Improvisation and they both became members of the Philadelphia Contact Collective. Upon moving to New York, Holland began combining his dance practice with his visual arts working alongside Houston-Jones, with whom he shared their 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders. Holland performed in the work of Meredith Monk, and he created his own performances at Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Franklin Furnace and The Ohio Theater. He continued to exhibit his paintings and sculptures at the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1, the Newark Museum, and the Drawing Center. His last solo show in New York opened at Jack Tilton Gallery on February 25, 2016, where he’d been showing since 2009. Due to his illness, Holland was unable to attend the opening in person but called in during the event via FaceTime.
Stephanie Hewett is a queer Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary artist from Munsee Lenape land (Bronx, New York). She is a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts in New York City and has studied at the Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She holds an MFA in Dance Studies and works with movement and electronic music production to decode ancestral wisdom and knowledge stored in the body. Hewett DJs and produces electronic music under the moniker Madre Guía, and experiments with sound to explore polyrhythmic potentialities of intergenerational healing. She is a member of RUPTURE, a bicoastal performance collective examining Black gatherings that center collective rest, folk games, somatic experimentation, and the creation of communal dance spaces as spiritual technologies and practices of resistance and refusal.
Kris Lee (she/they) is a New York based dance artist, performer, and DJ. Most recently they have performed in works by Julie Tolentino, Kevin Beasley, Moriah Evans, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Ralph Lemon, Isabel Lewis, Miguel Gutierrez, Andros Zins-Browne, Jonathan González, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Shamel Pitts (TRIBE). Kris has been recently named Dance Magazines’ 2026 “Top 25 to Watch”. They have shown work at Judson Memorial Church as part of Black Aesthetics, Cathy Weis Projects’ Sundays on Broadway, and Draftwork at Danspace Project. Kris received their BFA in Dance from University of the Arts in 2019. “Lee’s fearless artistry is grounded in community. ‘I see my practice as a social dialogue,’ they say. ‘I feel like I’m just getting started, and I want to keep digging deeper.’” —Sarah Cecilia Bukowski (Dance Magazine)
Born and raised in Philadelphia, on the land known as Lenapehoking, the ancestral home of the Lenni-Lenape people, AJ Wilmore is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer whose practice is shaped by questions of storytelling, identity, and the complexities of Black familial relationships. A 2020 graduate of The University of the Arts, AJ has performed in works by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Ralph Lemon, Joan Jonas, Isabel Lewis, and MBDance. Their performances have been presented at venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Abrons Arts Center, MoMA and MoMA PS1, Danspace Project, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Judson Memorial Church, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center. A 2025 Dancing While Black Fellow, AJ recently premiered their first experimental film, Untitled (434). Their practice—driven by making love to their fears—investigates the stakes, texture, and vulnerability of their social and sexual life.
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 LIVE ARTERY | NEW YORK LIVE ARTS
The dynamic Live Artery festival at New York Live Arts is one of NYC's most attended dance-specific platforms during the annual presenter conference season, featuring resident commissioned artists and curated guests. New York Live Arts, guided by the leadership of visionary artist Bill T. Jones, collaborates with boundary pushing artists, advocates for their vision, and fortifies a creative 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 over 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.
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