Nejman reveals

A dance film choreographed by Regina Nejman and performed by her company, Reveal is a meditation on privacy in the modern age, exploring the ways we interact with one another and how it might effect our psyche (directed and edited by Alan McIntyre Smith).

Salsa all over town!

So You Think You Can’t Salsa?
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, August 28, 2008

While I'm happily reading

Another winning thing about summer--at least, theoretically--is that with a less intense dance calendar, there's more time for reading. (I wrote "theoretically" because frankly I'm still trying to find unclaimed and undisturbed time to concentrate on what I want to read for pleasure, let alone what I've promised to review.) Most recently, I was sent a galley copy of Jane Goldberg's memoir, Shoot Me While I'm Happy: Memories from The Tap Goddess of the Lower East Side. I knew that Jane had been working on this little number for...what has it been? seven decades now? whatever... Well, I'm far from being able to give you a straightforward review, but I'm so excited by what I've already read that I wanted to let you know about it right away!

From its foreword by the late Gregory Hines--one of Goldberg's staunchest friends--to the wealth of personal and historical images from the author's archives, this memoir both entertains and informs about how the great art and artists of tap dance were brought out of undeserved obscurity by Goldberg and her colleagues. This is a charming page-turner, not an academic History of Tap, and I'm sure others will have their own take on things, as Jane Goldberg--a former investigative journalist for an alternative weekly in Boston--has never been anything but forthright about her point of view and her quirks. But it's the book I want to read now. The writing is generous, funny, honest and insightful--full of good stories in which you will meet a slew of unforgettable characters, the Down-to-Earth Goddess Goldberg chief among them.

A DVD of Goldberg's By Word of Foot: Tap Masters Pass on Their Tradition, an excerpt from Rhythm & Schmooze and "other Tapperabilia" round out the goodies. This extra is included only when either the hardback or the paperback edition is purchased directly from Goldberg's site, not from Amazon.com.

Don't worry. Get reading. Be happy.

Jillian Peña update

According to family and friends of Jillian Peña, the promising young dance artist--who was struck by a car, suffering severe head trauma --has been showing signs of good recovery, steadily coming out of a medically-induced coma, communicating with her caregivers and visitors.

Previous IB blog entries on Jillian Peña's accident and hospitalization:

• Dancer struck by unlicensed driver

• Friends of Jillian Peña blog

Donations to the Jillian Peña Family Fund are requested, and contributing through PayPal is simple, quick and secure. To contribute, click here, click on the "Send Money" link and enter this email address: donations4jillian@gmail.com.

And don't forget to sign up for the Friends of Jillian Pena blog to stay posted on Jillian's progress!

Help launch BurtSupree.com

[As one of those once-young dance writers mentored by the wonderful and much-missed Burt Supree, I look forward to this new Web site and hope you will lend your time to the effort to get it up and running. Thank you!]

*****************************************

Bring-Your-Own Laptop and Rescue History!

A website celebrating the writing of Burt Supree is nearing completion.

Burt wrote dance reviews for The Village Voice from 1976 until his death in 1992, also covering children's theater, and editing/mentoring many writers who continue to work as reviewers of dance.

Please come help us finish transcribing his Voice reviews in preparation for the launch of BURTSUPREE.COM in early October. You'll get a chance to gather with other artists, writers and friends while celebrating the wonderful voice of a writer whose humor, insight and warmth were an integral part of the dance community for two decades.

Spend a few hours, or just stop by and transcribe a review or two.

Tuesday September 16, 3pm - 7pm

Dance Theater Workshop Lobby
219 West 19th Street, Manhattan

RSVP to Kesa Huey at Kesa@dtw.org or 212-691-6500 ext. 377 or to Marta Renzi at marta.renzi@gmail.com or 845.353.0854.

What else is on my mind lately...

I've been so grateful to find time this summer to attend to photography--a hobby abandoned years ago. I still love it, and returning to it is teaching me so much.

If you're curious, visit my photoblog, starlight-sensitive. Your comments are most welcome!

A BIGLovely evening at Lincoln Center

Okay, you dance folks! I know you flocked to Lincoln Center Out of Doors last Thursday to see David Dorfman Dance--and dance those kids (and David) did; they were a tremendous force and incredibly moving in their repeat performance of 2006's underground--but you also got a hefty helping of Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely, a band most of you probably never heard of before, let alone heard. So, welcome to the rest of my world!

I've been a fan of Toshi Reagon, Toshi's mom Bernice Johnson Reagon (and her acclaimed women's acapella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock) and Judith Casselberry (formerly of Casselberry and DuPree) for many years. In fact, I recall with pleasure interviewing Toshi on WBAI, back in the day, when she was just getting notice, and I love everything about these women and their big, generous (BIGLovely) music. Their mellifluous voices and valiant, rocking rhythms got the crowd worked up, and their serious roots in social justice activism dovetailed with Dorfman's project (which is to say it resonated with underground's ultimate affirmation and images of renewal, rather than its ambivalence). All in all, it was a strong program and an unforgettable evening at Damrosch Park, and even the weather blessed it real good.

If you're craving more of Toshi's sound--or want to check it out for the first time-- you can catch the band at Highline Ballroom (431 West 16th Street, Manhattan) on Thursday, September 25. Click here for more information.

Cedar Lake: Copy this

In ‘The Copier,’ Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet Moves and Invites the Audience to Follow
by Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times, August 21, 2008

Risk and the purpose of nudity

Review of Elke Rindfleisch’s Not Without You and Eight Years
by Ryan Tracy (Counter Critic), guest blogging at Mount Tremper Arts Blog

Daniel Gwirtzman: Body and Soul podcast

Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest info at www.gwirtzmandance.org. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

Podcast Notes: Upcoming on "Body and Soul"

Daniel Gwirtzman: He's a respected dancer, choreographer and dance educator with tons of experience bringing the joy of dance to the New York City school system. Call him a cockeyed optimist, but he's upbeat about the outlook for dance in America if dance artists get smart and creative about making the right kind of connection with their audiences. His essay--"Future of Modern Dance: Fan the Flame"--can be found in the Spring 2008 issue of Dance/USA Journal.

My upcoming Body and Soul podcast features a conversation I had with Daniel prior to his company's rehearsal of a new work at Joyce SoHo. You'll find his bio and more about his company here.

Event

Wednesday, August 20 and 27, 6:30pm. The Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company continues its series of informal showings open to the public. Come see excerpts from the troupe's revival of Encore (premiered at Joyce SoHo in 2007) and Gwirtzman's work-in-progress, Timebomb, at the City Center Studios (Studio 5), 130 West 56th Street. Space is limited and an RSVP is required: info@gwirtzmandance.org or 212-543-1367.

Taualuga: The Last Dance

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents Taualuga: The Last Dance, featuring Samoan-born visual and performance artist Shigeyuki Kihara, as part of its Sunday at the Met series, on October 19, 3pm.

"In a traditional Samoan context, the taualuga is a dance of celebration. Kihara utilizes the principles of the taualuga as a form of storytelling to reference history and mirror what is happening globally today."

Free with museum admission.

For further information about this program, click here.

Touring Dancers

Check out Daniel Madoff's Touring Dancers, a new Web site dedicated to compiling suggestions of a world of resources for dancers on tour. Post your company's tour schedule. Join a discussion forum. Recommend your favorite restaurant in Rio or hostel in Berlin. This site's success is up to you!

The Turning World (48)

Malcontents Need Not Apply
by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, August 1, 2008

HOT! HOT! HOT!

Quickie notes on more Dixon Place HOT! Festival doings (from last night's show):

Saul Ulerio (Rapt--Extinction of the Self): Described by Ulerio as "an impressionistic exploration of truth, freedom & death," which sounds like something out of teenage poetry and sometimes looks that way, too. However, Ulerio is a disciplined mover and a serious imagist. I trust that his ambition will move him towards increasing clarity of purpose and execution. He's already got the courage.

Mathew Heggem (Compelled to Inhale): Oddly enough, this is perhaps the first time I've actually said to myself, "Whoa! This dance is way too big for Dixon Place!" And I don't mean just because a couple of propulsive dancers kept slamming into the clip lights. I mean because deliciously gender-bent testosterone--or something--made everything about the performances seem magnified and propelled. Every time I hear someone talk about Heggem--or I talk about him myself--words like "one to watch" come out. And let's hope he keeps Wendell Cooper in his orbit. Cooper performed the slammin' vogue number that brought the house down. Another "one to keep an eye on."

Victoria Libertore (My Journey of Decay): Since this is My Summer of Dental Work (notice the braces, everyone? :-#), and I'm intent on making braces sexy, I'm totally in step with Libertore. Her work as a performance artist is new to me. She came highly recommended by a dance friend who said, "I don't know if she's doing burlesque in this new piece, but she does really intelligent burlesque." Well, My Journey of Decay is decidely not burlesque--although Libertore does, at one point, face temptation to take it off, take it all off. However, it is a striptease of the soul, revealing things that any woman in this youth-and-looks-and-normalcy-obsessed culture would normally shudder to divulge. Good on her. Performance art as a collage of experience, thoughts and complex feelings with a sense of hardwon knowingness and comfort within one's body and within one's space--that's Libertore's My Journey of Decay. And her slouch-hatted easing into Citizen Cope's "Sideways" --"These feelings won't go away/They've been knockin' me sideways"--knocked me sideways.

Tragic injury at Beijing Olympics

Behind the Opening Ceremony, a Paralyzing Fall
by David Barboza, The New York Times, August 14, 2008

Show your love and have your say!

If you enjoy InfiniteBody blog and Body and Soul podcast, here are some ways in which you can show your love:

• Write a comment: Just click on the "0 comments" link at the bottom of the post you've read, and you'll be taken to a page where you can leave your thoughts. Comments are moderated and must be approved before they are posted.

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• Sharing is caring: Sharing InfiniteBody and Body and Soul with your social networks is cool, too. Facebook (I love Facebook!), MySpace, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg or what have you. Let your 2,571 closest friends know about what you're enjoying here. Just remember that original material posted here (e.g., reviews, commentary, my own photos) is under my copyright. That means, if you want to reprint or repost anything, ask permission first and, if granted permission, don't neglect to give proper credit, source and copyright information. However, simply posting a link back to the original material, with a note of recommendation, is always, always welcome!
  

• Link back from your own Web site or blog (add IB and B&S to your blog roll): 'Nuff said. Just do it. And recommend InfiniteBody and Body and Soul to other folks who have relevant sites and blogs.

For these efforts and for all the generous compliments and pats on the back I've been getting from dance artists, advocates and fans for this blog and for the podcast, I thank you with all my heart!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The Turning World (47)

In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, August 14, 2008

Dunning on Berkshires dance oasis

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Residencies - In Berkshires Oasis, Fresh Talents Still Flourish
by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, August 14, 2008

Eleo Pomare: NY Times obit

Eleo Pomare, Modern Dance Choreographer, Dies at 70
by Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, August 13, 2008

Friends of Jillian Peña set up community blog

Join the dance community in wishing dancer-choreographer Jillian Peña a good recovery from her injuries. Her friends have set up a new blog to keep the community posted. To read and subscribe, click here.

The return of DraftWork

Danspace Project announces the return of DraftWork

This free, low-tech, afternoon series curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones is designed to give artists an opportunity to show work-in-progress. Following the performance there is an informal discussion and reception.

Applications deadlines:

August 22 for Winter 2009 (January-March)
November 21 for Spring 2009 (April-June)

Click here for further information and the application form (PDF file).

Workshop in dances of Armenia (update!)

The Anahid Sofian Studio will present a special one-day workshop in Armenian dance with Gagik Karapetian, August 30, 10am to 4:30pm.

We are honored to present Mr. Gagik Karapetian, Artistic Director and Choreographer of the State Dance Ensemble of Armenia in a rare one-day workshop in New York City devoted to Armenian women’s dances.

Mr. Karapetian will teach technique in the morning session, and in the afternoon, a solo dance choreography from the repertory of the State Dance Ensemble.

Want more? The Anahid Sofia Studio has got it going on this month with its Annual Dance Intensive (August 27-31) and Gala Dance Party (August 29, 9pm-11pm) at Lafayette Grill & Bar.

For information on all of these events, contact Anahid Sofian at 212-741-2848 or sofiana@tiac.net.

Lemi Ponifasio: a ritual of respect and sorrow

I am thankful for the gift of dance. It is a miraculous spirit that activates our kinship with the world, the living, the dead, the river, stone, sky, and all sentient beings.

--Lemi Ponifasio, "Note from the Artist," program notes for Requiem

Presented in Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival 2008, Lemi Ponifasio's Requiem--inspired by Mozart's Requiem but infused, instead, with movement and music, chant and natural sound invoking the South Pacific--was a work of curiously subconscious effect.

Ponifasio's New Zealand-based company MAU boasts a cast of 24 Pacific Islanders of diverse backgrounds. The full-evening production unfolded like a sacred ceremony with processions, gestures, offerings and blood sacrifice in acknowledgment of the impending loss of a land, a way of life, the precious history of a people. To put it plainly, global warming, unchecked, will ultimately drown the islands of the nation of Kiribati (home to several of the performers). Ponifasio, born in a Samoan village, set this work before an affluent American audience--the audience for Lincoln Center and Mostly Mozart--people who benefit from the advances of a nation whose carbon footprint on this planet is comparable to Sasquatch's furry foot.

Much of Requiem, in its specifics, remains unknown to me, at least on a conscious level, and I believe that was a deliberate strategy. This strategy includes Helen Todd's dim lighting, suggestive of secrecy and disappearance; the chant (rendered in English only in the program notes), suggestive of traditions and holy secrets to which we might feel we bear only remote connection; the uncommon slowness of pace which effectively moves us out of our typical, technologically-enhanced relationship to time and to thought as Westerners and as sophisticated consumers of art.

Ponifasio addresses the tenderness within us rather than our defended ego selves. The risk taken: that those among us who identify most strongly with those ego selves would not get it, would resist it. Was the risk worth it? In his New York Times review, chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay reports his observation of "the surreptitious, apologetic exits of one member of the audience after another." I have sat among audiences where the fleeing of unhappy patrons--one by one or in clumps--was quite noticeable. But perhaps I was too rivetted by what was happening onstage to notice any "apologetic exits" or they were indeed sufficiently "surreptitious."

Yes, the slowness of Requiem challenged me, but it also made all the sense in the world, in time with the gradual disappearance of Kiribati. And it whispered to and opened up another part of my head.

Let us mourn together. Let us exchange our sorrows. (Lemi Ponifasio)

Ponifasio--in his writing and his interviews--is engaging, and his purpose, as I grasp it, is crystal clear. I encourage you to take a look at this feature by Valerie Gladstone in The New York Sun--'Requiem' for a 'Requiem'--and to get a copy of the production's Playbill, if you can.

In good kilter

I've admired Janessa Clark and Courtney Jo Drasner's vibrant and smart performances with Gina Gibney Dance but had never seen Clark's own choreography prior to last night's presentation by Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX, part of the queer-forward HOT! Festival at Dixon Place.

Clark and Drasner--two stunningly beautiful women--performed part of a 2006 duet called (inner)views I–IV, in which they prowled DP's living room space dressed and preening like go-go girls, wriggling their tongues at us, toying with themselves and each other, and embodying the straight-male fantasy of what it means to be a lesbian. Why, they were close enough for a lap dance and, at one point, Clark bent down and gave one woman in a front seat a lingering smooch.

With bodies espressly for display, the two supercharged Barbie dolls engaged in rapidfire sensual interactions that were the rough equivalent of stuffing your mouth with as much candy as possible and downing it in one gulp. While they were at it, a video showed real-life dykes talking about their real lives. (One of them so real, I know her--an old friend I haven't seen in what must be years.) Their remarks about experiences of coming out or being targeted by homophobes, of self-determined identity and assured self-regard are intimate and reveal humanity and vulnerability. Clark's on to something, I think, since she diverts our attention from the hotties with this video and, often--at least for me--the video won.

Ask yourself: What would you rather watch? Yes, the dancers are hot. (And how often does most contemporary dance let itself get away with that without politely covering up the fact that watching any dancer express him/herself via the body is...um...inherently voyeuristic?) But the women in the video are appealing. They're probably more like yourself, even if you're not female. Maybe even if you're a straight male...an honest one. So that's where your eyes go. Funny, isn't it?

The Turning World (46)

An Empty Promise
by Bob Herbert, The New York Times, August 11, 2008

Dancer struck by unlicensed driver

Promising Dancer Hit by Auto
Dance Theater Workshop blog

My heart goes out to Jillian and her family. She's in my prayers for a steady, thorough recovery.

Ana Maria Alvarez: Body and Soul podcast

An interview with dancer-choreographer Ana Maria Alvarez, founder and artistic director of Contra-Tiempo, a Latin activist dance troupe based in Los Angeles.

Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest info at www.contra-tiempo.org. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

Podcast Notes: Upcoming on "Body and Soul"

Dancer-choreographer Ana Maria Alvarez founded and directs the well-regarded Contra-Tiempo, a Latin activist dance troupe based in Los Angeles that first came to my attention at the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival. They're back in New York City this summer, touring a new dance suite--I Dream of America--inspired by the poetry of Langston Hughes and of young students as well as the entwined histories of Black and Latino Americans. Alvarez and I spoke of the company's origins, mission and upcoming plans as well as a bit of unexpected drama that happened at its first performance last evening at St. Mark's Church.

Ana Maria Alvarez (director/dancer/arts educator) has been sharing her joy, love and obsession for moving in rhythm with others for over fifteen years. As a teacher, choreographer, and community arts activist, originally from the east coast, she moved to Los Angeles from NYC in 2002. Since then she has taught, choreographed and performed around the city including at UCLA, Highways Performing Arts Space, The KING KING, Summer Sounds at the Hollywood Bowl, Fowler Museum, REDCAT Disney Hall, Grand Performances, Carnival at The Key Club, and The Forum to name a few. While living in NY, Alvarez performed and taught all over the city, including Dixon Place, The Tribeca Performing Arts Center, The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Red Hook Waterfront Festival, and Middle School 136, PS 1, PS 314 and the HEREArts Center. Before moving to Los Angeles, Alvarez worked for three years with the Center for Family Life in Brooklyn as their Dance Specialist.

In March 2005, Alvarez received her MFA in Choreography at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. Currently Alvarez is the Artistic and Executive Director of CONTRA-TIEMPO. She also works with students and faculty of Seeds University Elementary School where she created an Interdisciplinary Dance Program for ages 4-12. This is the program that members of the company are currently implementing in schools all over Los Angeles County. She also teaches weekly classes every Tuesday at the KING KING in Hollywood and on Wednesdays in Venice. Her life long commitment is that all people have access to their bodies as instruments - expressive tools - voices - to communicate and create their hopes, desires and demands for this world! Visit http://www.contra-tiempo.org/anamaria/ for more information about her work.

Tickets for Contra-Tiempo's final performance tonight at St. Mark's Church (131 East 10th Street and Second Avenue, East Village) might still be available at the box office. Come early!

Find out more in my upcoming episode of Body and Soul podcast and on Contra-Tiempo's site.

Jill Johnson: Body and Soul podcast

Choreographer Jill Johnson talks with Eva about her residency with Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and her new dance installation, The Copier. Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet info at www.cedarlakedance.com. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

Podcast Notes: Upcoming on "Body and Soul"

My next guest on Body and Soul podcast will be dancer-choreographer Jill Johnson, a protégé of Ballet Frankfurt's William Forsythe. Johnson will soon conclude a residency with New York's acclaimed Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. The 15-member troupe, led by Artistic Director Benoit-Swan Pouffer, is preparing to perform Johnson's dance installation, The Copier, next week (Wednesday, August 20 through Saturday, August 23) at the company's spacious headquarters in Chelsea. We met after a rehearsal to chat about the development of this piece and the excitement of dancers performing at close quarters with their audience.

Dancer Jill Johnson’s fusion of classical purity with modern physical grace has brought her to stages around the globe. A graduate of the National Ballet School, Ms. Johnson was a soloist with The National Ballet of Canada and principal dancer with Ballet Frankfurt. She has staged William Forsythe’s ballets for companies worldwide, including The Norwegian National Ballet, State Opera Ballet Munich, Paris Opera Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Italy's Alterballetto, Netherlands Dans Theater, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, The National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre. Recently commissioned to design and lead a dance workshop series at the Baryshnikov Center, Ms. Johnson has a residency teaching monthly master workshops at Cedar Lake in New York City. Ms. Johnson is adjunct faculty at the Juilliard School, has taught master classes at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and The Alvin Ailey School and choreographs for television and film. She lives in New York City.

Schedule and ticketing for CLCB's The Copier: SmartTix.com

More about CLCB's installation series

Find out more in my upcoming episode of Body and Soul podcast and on Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet's site.

The Turning World (45)

Arts, Briefly - Georgian Musicians Stranded
compiled by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, August 11, 2008

Eleo Pomare, 70

"The international dance community mourns the death of Master Choreographer Eleo Pomare who passed on Friday, August 8, 2008 after an extended illness. Mr. Pomare was 70 years old.

"Mr. Pomare’s choreographic works were a reflection of his international experiences, a broad humanistic perspective, and a commitment to social change. In a review written in The New York Times on August 4, 1991, Jennifer Dunning wrote that Mr. Pomare “carved a niche for himself over his 30 years in modern dance as a choreographer and performer with a singular gift for taut, intensely focused work.”

"In March 1996 Mr. Pomare’s Raft, a work featuring three female figures symbolizing the rape of Haiti’s refugees, was performed at the Museum of Modern Art—the first time dance was shown there. Also in the nineties, Mr. Pomare choreographed Post Card From Soweto after a trip to South Africa.

"Three of Mr. Pomare’s outstanding works were reconstructed to document them as classics of “The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance,” a project of the American Dance Festival. These pieces are: Las Desenamoradas, a work inspired by Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba; Blues for the Jungle, Mr. Pomare’s classic exploration of the black rebellions in the sixties; and Missa Luba, a dance pageant set to a Congolese version of the Catholic Mass. All three works were performed at the American Dance Festival at Duke University—Blues for the Jungle in 1989 and Missa Luba in 1990. Las Desenamoradas was performed in 1988 and most recently in June 2008 when the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company performed this powerful work to critical acclaim.

"In addition to maintaining his own company, the Eleo Pomare Dance Company, Mr. Pomare choreographed works for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, the Maryland Ballet Company, the Cleo Parker-Robinson Dance Company (Denver), the Alpha and Omega Dance Company, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the Cincinnati Ballet, Philadanco, the National Ballet of Holland, Balletinstituttet (Oslo, Norway), the Australian Contemporary Dance Company, the Ballet Palacio das Artes (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), and the Grace Hsiao Dance Theatre of Taipei, Taiwan.

"Mr. Pomare was invited to Adelaide, Australia as guest choreographer for the 1994 spring term at Adelaide’s Centre for the Performing Arts. There he choreographed a major work entitled A Horse Named Dancer. He returned to Australia in the fall of 1995 as the featured teacher and choreographer at the Mirramu Dance Festival near Canberra.

"In the fall of 2004 Mr. Pomare was commissioned to create a work honoring Taiwan’s national hero, Nylon Cheng, on the Grace Hsiao Dance Theatre. The company then toured Taiwan presenting the new work as well as other Pomare works. In 2005 Mr. Pomare worked with young dancers at Dance Immersion of Toronto, Canada on a new work about Carribbean immigration to North American cities.

"Mr. Pomare was a frequent lecturer on modern dance, black artists and their artistic heritage, presenting at the Tisch School for the Arts (New York University), the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Brooklyn Museum, the International Conference of Blacks in Dance and at numerous colleges and universities. He was invited to lecture at a symposium sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture in Paris in 2008. He has also been invited to present and tour two of his solo works, Hex and Roots throughout France.

"Mr. Pomare’s life and works have been written about in numerous publications including: Black Dance from 1619 to Today by Lynne Fauley Emery, Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk edited by Susanna Sloat, African-American Concert Dance by John O. Perpener, III, and Masters of Movement: Portraits of America’s Great Choreographers by Rose Eichenbaum. In addition, Mr. Pomare’s artistry was featured on the three-part PBS Dance in America documentary film, Free to Dance.

"His numerous awards included the Kennedy Center Masters of African-American Choreography (2005), the James Baldwin Award (2004), the New Voices of Harlem Award for Artistic Achievement (1988), the International Conference of Blacks in Dance Outstanding Achievements in Dance Award (1994), and the Key to the City of Messina, Italy (1986). David Dinkins declared January 7, 1987 “Eleo Pomare Day” for New York City in honor of Mr. Pomare’s contributions to the cultural life of New York City. In 2007, Mr. Pomare was added to the archives of The History Makers.

"Mr. Pomare was born in Colombia, South America on October 20, 1937 and arrived in New York at the age of 10. After graduating from New York City’s High School of the Performing Arts in 1953, he formed his first dance company. A John Hay Whitney Fellowship took him to Europe in 1962 where he studied, danced, choreographed and formed a second company which toured Germany, Holland, Sweden and Norway. In 1964 he returned to the United States, revived and expanded his original American dance company which has since toured throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the West Indies, Australia, Spain, and Italy. His company performed at numerous venues including: Broadway’s ANTA Theatre, Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, New York’s City Center, Florence Gould Hall, and the Joyce Theater, Montreal’s Theatre Maisonneuve, the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia.

"The Board of Directors of the Eleo Pomare Dance Company requests that donations be made to the Eleo Pomare Dance Company, Inc. at 325 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 to support the documentation of the on-going legacy of Mr. Pomare’s artistic achievement."

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Couple Reunited in North Korea After 47 Years
by Choe San-Hun, The New York Times, August 10, 2008

Some musings on a life in dance

A little too personal perhaps...
by Brittany Fridenstine-Keefe, Empowering thoughts for Dancers., August 9, 2008

Evidence and the United Colors of Armitage

Every year, dance events at Lincoln Center Out of Doors bridge the gap between dance artists and New Yorkers who aren't necessarily dance aficionados but who like that certain sexy combination of summer + free + outdoor + entertainment. It's one of the perks of having the endurance to stay in (or visit) New York during the heat stroke season, and this year's lineup shimmers with great opportunities. You can catch up with Fraulein Maria, Doug Elkins's deliciously bite-sized and lovingly-wacky version of The Sound of Music (August 16). And, if you were elsewhere last night, perhaps devastated by John Edwards's revelation, you could instead have witnessed a West African musical phenom--electronica band Burkina Electric, fronted by the dynamic, Angelique Kidjo-reminiscent Maï Lingani--that features some pretty hot dancing of their own.

I haven't yet mentioned Armitage Gone! Dance, with its own stellar and fierce performers, who collaborated with Burkina Electric on Karole Armitage's Summer of Love, previewed last evening at LC's Damrosch Park. This dancemaker is on a natural high, having recently made her Broadway choreography debut with Passing Strange and choreographed the Public Theater's critically-acclaimed revival of Hair. Teaming up with the Burkina Faso troupe is a very smart move. Not only do Lingani and her comrades provide irresistible beats, they also provide the glue that Armitage's loosey-goosey hour requires. Not enough though. In bits and pieces, Summer of Love can be fun--with its aura of a kind of upscale, deliberately multiculti '60s dance party--but its patched-together, song-related sections don't congeal and keep teasing us with potential endings that aren't. It feels shallow and as self-indulgent as neo-cons accuse the '60s counterculture of being. Despite the dancers' technical perfection and their obvious sense of play, AGD in Summer of Love comes off like the United Colors of Armitage. On the other hand, Burkina Electric is the real deal, and I'm glad to have made their acquaintance.

As for Evidence, A Dance Company, second on the Damrosch bill, Ronald K. Brown's troupe lit up the stage just as we knew it would. Brown presented a couple of works from repertory: Upside Down (excerpted from Destiny, a 1998 collaboration with Jeune Ballet d'Afrique Noire) and High Life (2002). Upside Down? Call the FDNY! These people are on fire! Top marks to Shani Nwando Ikerioha Collins and Tiffany Quinn, dancers who go from strength to strength. But it was especially wonderful to see Brown himself dancing with renewed vigor, openness and acuity--evidence of what inspires all his dancers to give their all.

Dancing at Dead Horse Bay

iLAND--interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance invites you to public engagements for the iLAB 2008 Artist in Residence Program:

Dead Horse Bay

Collaborators:
Sarah White, Choreographer
Angel Ayón, Architect
Gerald Marks, Visual Artist

Saturday, August 16, 2008, 2:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2008, 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Sunday, October 12, 2008 12:30 PM to 7:00 PM

For up-to-date on the Dead Horse Bay project, click here.

For more information contact: info@ilandart.org or 212-375-8283.

Located at Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn

Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine.
Light refreshments will be served

Details on Saturday, August 16 event

“The experience will begin at low tide, around 2:15 PM. There will be dance performance on the tidal flat and a very remarkable bay beach to explore. Sunset, moonrise, and high tide all happen right around 8:00 PM. The alignment of sun, moon & earth is special this month and the full moon will rise in a state of partial eclipse. Our location was chosen as a perfect spot to view the sunset behind Coney Island and the NY skyline and the moonrise/eclipse out of Jamaica Bay.”

Directions and Transportation

Take the #2 Train to the last stop, Brooklyn College/Flatbush Avenue.
Transfer to the Q35 bus. Ask the driver to let you off at the "last stop before the bridge".
Signs will lead you down to our site on the water.
There is a parking lot where Aviation Road meets Flatbush Avenue. Across the street from the parking lot is a path that will lead you down to the site area.

Click here for GoogleMap of the area surrounding Dead Horse Bay.

The experience will begin at low tide, around 2:15 PM and there will be dance performance on the tidal flat and a very remarkable bay beach to explore. Sunset, moonrise, and high tide will all happen right around 8:00 PM. The alignment of sun, moon & earth is super precise this month and the full moon will rise in a state of partial eclipse. (Days ago, our August new moon eclipsed the sun, though you needed to be around Western China to see it!) Our location was chosen a a perfect spot to view the sunset behind Coney Island and the NY skyline and the moonrise/eclipse out of Jamaica Bay.

Dead Horse Bay
Collaborators: Choreographer Sarah White, Architect Angel Ayón, Visual Artist Gerald Marks

Dead Horse Bay, situated along Brooklyn's southernmost waterfront, appears today as a place wedged somewhere in time between an industrial past, return to natural shoreline and an undetermined future. The Collaborators will use this site as a context to explore, reflect and ultimately discourse on the environmental impact of site alterations engineered to meet human needs. Their collaborative project will stem from their combined interests in understanding and interpreting nature, ecology, causality, evolutionary change, structural integrity, assigning value to experience, and examining cultural behaviors both current and historic.

Throughout the three-month residency period, monthly public events, scheduled around the summer full moons, will take place at Dead Horse Bay. Events will include a combination of choreography and movement explorations, temporary site interventions and multimedia documentation and representation. Through environmental assessment, creative interplay, site interpretation and traditional man-nature rituals the collaborators intend to create a forum for understanding and experiencing the effects of use, misuse, isolation and neglect along New York City's coastline.

iLAB is a collaborative residency program between movement based artists and scientists, environmentalists, urban designers/landscape architects, architects and others that integrate creative practice within different fields/disciplines. The goals of iLAB are 1) to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and the urban environment through kinetic experience, 2) to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art, and the ecology of physical interrelationships such that we create and investigate innovative approaches to science, infrastructure, urbanisms, and architecture within a performative context, and 3) to support the development of process in engagement over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAB 2008 is supported in part by the Jerome Foundation and Brooklyn Arts Council, and Robison.

info@ilandart.org 212-375-8283

Focus on Kenn Duncan, photographer

A 20-year retrospective of work by celebrity photographer Kenn Duncan is running now through October 25 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, featuring approximately 400 photographs, including "iconic images of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Eartha Kitt, Angela Lansbury, Peter Martins, Bette Midler, the cast of Hair, as well as selections of his nudes, his fashion portfolios, and his work with hundreds of celebrities including shock rock legend Alice Cooper, Al Pacino, and Christopher Walken."

Hours are Monday, Thursday from 12 noon to 8pm.; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11am to 6pm.; and Saturday from 10am to 6pm. Admission is free.

For more information, call 212-592-7730 or click here.

Mr. Jones and the King of Afrobeat

Bill T. Jones Summons the Force That Was Fela to the Stage
by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, August 5, 2008

Running up that hill and hitting that wall

"Running Up That Hill"--Kate Bush's lush pop hit from 1985--was an exquisite muddle. Ah, but then Justin Bond (Kiki of Kiki and Herb) laid claim to it, and then it really became something...something with definition...something with percolating, near-projectile rage. And now dancer Levi Gonzalez has seized upon Kiki's performance, and the resulting solo made the night at Dixon Place which is celebrating its 17th annual HOT! festival of queer culture.

Hard to know exactly what Gonzalez was mining for as he crept around in the dark on his hands and knees with a bright, sometimes pulsating light attached to his forehead--illuminating the shins in the front couches--and a red bike light somewhere to the rear of his crouched body. But he eventually made his way offstage--if you can call DP's living room performance space a stage--to the makeshift dressing room where, thanks to the lifted curtain, we spied on him carefully applying glittery fake eyelashes in an old mirror and listening to the Kate Bush original.

Miriam Wolf (who presented a dance-and-video piece on the Brink program) painstakingly secured Gonzalez to DP's back wall with several long strips of duct tape until he looked like a modern-day St. Sebastian. When Wolf set the last strip in place, he said "Thank you" in such a quiet, sweet voice that it startled some of us into a chuckle. He barely endured his restraints while lipsynching Kiki and Herb's recording. Only his head and face moved.

It doesn't hurt him. (Really?) But he's prepared to make a deal with God to switch places--with whom? God? An angry lover? A person of the opposite sex (which Bush has said is the true meaning of her song)? Freeing himself of the tape, he went on to take the measure of that hill; test the limits of the audience/performer divide, privacy and propriety; adjust antennae-like arms in search of a clear signal. But there ain't no tits on the radio--or, anyway, so say the Scissor Sisters.

There are dancers who dance. And then there are dancers who, no matter what they do, are recognizably and profoundly human; whatever they do pulls us in. Levi Gonzalez is one of these special ones.

Sarah Johansson Locke and Mira Betz

Program notes--http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Guest info at www.alchemyperformance.com and www.miramania.com. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

Podcast Notes: Upcoming on "Body and Soul"

My next guests, Sarah Johansson Locke (based in New York City) and Mira Betz (based in Oakland, CA), describe themselves as dancers, first and foremost. After that, as you'll discover, things get a little complicated. Both are knowledgeable, highly-disciplined performers with eclectic backgrounds and widespread respect in their field. The shortcut way to identify what they do is to call it "tribal fusion dance" or "American tribal fusion dance." Find out more in my upcoming episode of Body and Soul podcast and on their sites:

Sarah Johansson Locke: Alchemy Performance

Mira Betz

MBB dancers put on their "Game Face"

Slideshow from Game Face by Monica Bill Barnes
All photos by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, (c)2008


(Click an image to see it larger.)

Free performances of Game Face (about 20 minutes) run now through August 7 and again from August 11-14 at noon and 1pm, Robert Wagner Jr. Park, at the southern end of Battery Park City's Hudson esplanade (4 or 5 train to Bowling Green) as part of the Sitelines08 festival of site-specific dance.

Monica Bill Barnes’ Game Face uses everyday people who have passed through the Robert Wagner Jr. Park as inspiration, with the performers cast as sightseers, sunbathers and Park Rangers. This oddly matched group slowly begins to perform a show, using the entire area as their stage. Made entirely on site, the cast of die-hard dancers perform their hearts out in the midst of tour buses, passing summertime crowds and the heat.

Curated by Nolini Barretto, Sitelines is a presentation of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and is part of the River to River Festival. For more information on Game Face and other Sitelines presentations, click here.

The mirror and the chance to dance

L'Elevator
by Anne Cammon

Sizzlin' at SummerStage

On my way home from last night's SummerStage performance in Central Park, I looked up to the stars and thought, "You guys up there must really miss those dancers!" The latest incarnation of Jelon Vieira's Dance Brazil is a gathering of stars from the highest realm. The performance they set before an overflowing crowd--so overflowing and so headstrong, in fact, that one burly security guard quickly gave up on trying to shoo people out of the center aisle--might be the finest I've seen Vieira command, and I've been a fan of his from the early days when he partnered with the late, great Loremil Machado to popularize capoeira, Brazil's martial art dance, in New York.

Ritmos ("rhythms"), premiered this year, is an extended celebration of capoeira with Riverdance-like breadth and accessibility, grounded in modern dance and reminiscent, in the boldness of its composition and stagecraft, of the work of Alvin Ailey. Indeed, Ailey was one of Vieira's mentors and the man who, back in the '70s, encouraged him to found DanceBrazil.

Featuring an extraordinary live performance by music director Tote Gira's band, the work unfolds seductively, introducing hints and snippets of capoeira sparring into long, sometimes langourous passages of choral movement abstracted from capoeira's acrobatic warrior moves. It is like a dream of capoeira, one that teases, gradually taking on speed and intensity until we are finally given what we're longing for...and then, with Brazilian generosity, given a whole lot more than we could ever expect. Vieira's dancers--ten men and one woman, all handsome and magnificent--bring the rhythm to life with bodies that stretch, hurtle, spin, flip, and tumble in endless, inventive variations. But, to be truly suitable for the increasing sophistication of Vieira's choreography--they have to be more than just excellent athletes and capoeiristas; they also have to be fine contemporary dancers and have stage presence to burn. It's all there.

IMPORTANT: If you get a chance today--and if the weather holds--race out to East River Park (Montgomery Street to East 12th Street, FDR Drive), and you can see DanceBrazil on a bill with Kids Dance at 3pm. Take the F to East Broadway and head east to the Ampitheater. But try to get there early! It's free!

Max Pollak and Rumba Tap--with his RumbaTap musicians and the guesting, powerful Paul Carlon Octet--opened last night's SummerStage show on a charming note. Pollak, the Austrian-born tap dance/body percussion wiz, assembled a suite of numbers representing his cross-cultural blending--like Gankino Afrokan, Pollak's new tap, Bulgarian, Mozambican stew. That piece might sound complicated but it's a simple joy, a happy folk dance for a whole United Nations of folks.

The production featured longtime collaborators and new additions, like the wonderful Carson Murphy and Warren Craft. All of the dancers were in good form, but it was especially fun to see longtime Pollak partner Chikako Iwahori let loose and rock out to Tito Puente in Pa' Los Rumberos in a way that I've never seen her do, and to see her smile from the soul. Kudos to Iwahori, too, for this production's splendid and flattering designs for the women's elegant costumes.

Pollak is a jazzy Damballah with a scorching intensity, especially in his Afro-Cuban solos. (Have a little taste, but for a better experience, see him live.) But it would have been wonderful to hear more of what his feet had to say, which is, after all, the point of tap dancing. But at SummerStage, the music, although righteous in its own right, covered over a lot of the foot sound. Nevertheless, Pollak's show put us all in a chipper mood for the long (and rewarding) evening ahead with DanceBrazil. Let's look forward to where he'll take us next.

We're all bozos on this bus

Exploring the Bozo Mystique, and Defining Funny on Their Own Feminine Terms
by April Dembosky, The New York Times, July 29, 2008

UBW asks: Are We Democracy?

Are We Democracy? Saturday, August 2, 2008 at 3 PM and 6 PM The Kumble Theater at Long Island University, downtown Brooklyn

This culminating performance of Urban Bush Women's Summer Institute features a talented cast of 82 dancers, musicians, actors, singers and spoken word artists representing 20 states, Venezuela, Brazil, Canada and Kenya in a challenge to, and celebration of, democracy.

Click here for ticketing and directions.