Flex and Lite Feet dancers say there's "No Such Thing as Neutral"

BARNARD CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN

presents

NO SUCH THING AS NEUTRAL

NYC STREET DANCE SYMPOSIUM

Leaders from the Flex and Lite Feet urban dance
communities gather for a lecture-demonstration and dance battle

Ali Rosa-Salas 
lectures on
No Such Thing as Neutral

Saturday, November 8, 3pm-8pm

Event Oval, The Diana Center
Barnard College

A day-long symposium about two distinctive New York City street dance forms (Lite Feet, founded in Harlem, and Flex, started in Brooklyn) will explore how these urban dance forms—known for improvisation, informal teaching methods, and the central role of marginalized communities of color in their production—are often figured in opposition to more traditional dance forms, but are making significant contributions to the contemporary dance world.

Countless forms of dance created and performed in public spaces are bundled under the umbrella of “vernacular” or “street,” which are recognized for their emphasis on improvisation, informal teaching methods, and the central role
 of communities of color in their production. Yet they are often figured primarily in opposition 
to traditionally valorized forms
 of dance such as ballet and modern dance. With this project, Ali Rosa-Salas highlights the contributions of women who participate in movement-based styles that engage notions of subjectivity and the body in their work while utilizing the technical formalities of abstraction. These New York City-founded dance forms speak directly to the centrality of gender, racial, and community identity in art-making and how such inquiries propel local art forms into international cultural movements.

Symposium schedule:

3pm-5pm: Join pioneers of the Flex and Lite Feet communities for a lecture-demonstration and discussion moderated by Ali Rosa-Salas. Panelists include Chrybaby Cozie, Tatianna "Tati B" Butler, Alora "Gaia" Martinez, Reggie "Regg Roc" Gray, Diedra Braz, Shelby "Shellz" Felton, and Andre "Dre" Redman.

6pm-8pm: Rep Your Style co-founder Melanie Aguirre will host the first-ever all-women Lite Feet and Flex exhibition showcase. Featured dancers include renowned female Flex and Lite Feet dancers Shellz, KitKat, Android, Betty Spaghetti, Lil Spank, Tootie, Cleo, and Gaia.

Information: bcrw.barnard.edu

Event Oval, The Diana Center

Barnard College

3009 Broadway (entrance at 117th Street), Manhattan
(directions)

Happy Samhain!

Happy Samhain, dear ones. The veil is thin. Use that opportunity well. And have a magickal New Year!

New film traces dance career of Ze'eva Cohen, November 10

Ze'eva Cohen in Anna Sokolow's Rooms (photo: Jack Mitchell)

I think Anna Sokolow saw in me a certain naïveté, a certain rawness. She saw that I could give myself completely to a role and become the role, and she could see that I would go with her all the way.

--Ze'eva Cohen

Award-winning television/video editor Sharon Kaufman makes her directorial debut with the documentary, Ze’eva Cohen: Creating A Life In Dance, to be screened next month at Downtown Community Television Center.

photo: Jack Mitchell

A half-hour portrait of the Yemeni-Israeli modern dancer and educator, the film traces the development of Cohen's distinct sensibility and career with many vintage samples of her lyrical, elemental performances and choreography. A gorgeous dancer with--as dance historian Elizabeth Kendall calls it--a "touch of the raucous," Cohen serves as a model of surviving and thriving as an independent artist.

Free screening: 
November 10, 6:30pm

RSVP: bkwright4@gmail.com

Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV)

87 Lafayette Street, Manhattan

(map/direction)

Susan Sollins, 7

Susan Sollins, a Creator of PBS’s Art21 Series, Dies at 75
by Paul Vitello, The New York Times, October 29, 2014

Getting uncomfortable with Young Jean Lee

I’ve found that the only way to make theatre that gets the audience thinking is when I feel uncomfortable making it.

--playwright Young Jean Lee

Read more:

Real Gone Girl
Young Jean Lee’s identity plays.
by Hilton Als, The New Yorker, November 4, 2014

Galway Kinnell, 87

Galway Kinnell, Poet Who Went His Own Way, Dies at 87
by Daniel Lewis, The New York Times, October 29, 2014

L. M. Kit Carson, 73

L. M. Kit Carson, Actor and Writer, Dies at 73
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, October 28, 2014

Politics at the very center of opera

Over and over, these works present fictionalized people in real historical contexts, trapped in the machinery of actual geopolitics. This naturalism was new and shocking.

It still is.

--Michael Friedman

Read more:

Grand Opera’s War with Itself
by Michael Friedman, The Paris Review, October 28, 2014

Art and social justice: MacArthur winner Rick Lowe in Dallas

MacArthur Grantee Rick Lowe on Art as Community
by Laura Mallonee, Hyperallergic, October 28, 2014

Three questions for Monstah Black

Monstah Black in the dance film, Cotton
(photo by Charles Meacham)

November 6-9, choreographer, musician and club hero Monstah Black brings to JACK the first installment of his dance film Cotton, featuring original songs and choreography, and filmed over nine months in various locations between New York City and Virginia. The 45-minute presentation features Black performing the soundtrack live (which the artist describes as "a meeting of Erykah Badu and Björk with Prince and Grace Jones, in the living room of Parliament Funkadelic"). In the film, Black employs images from slavery and the plantation as a point of departure, modifying the images into positive iconography meant to inspire, empower and rejuvenate those that have suffered its ugly legacy.

Monstah Black
(photo by Charles Meachem)

Three questions for Monstah Black

EYA: When you think back to your childhood, can you point to any strong influence on the artist you are today?

MB: As a child I was heavily influenced by television, my family and the sounds coming out of the stereo. I grew up surrounded by an eclectic mix of music which included soul, folk, rock, funk, the sounds of Catholic church and Southern Baptist church. The most memorable moments, of course, were people saying "Show us how you do that dance." It began as soon as I could hold my balance on two feet. There is also my mom's sense of style/fashion influence and her love for making clothes. Until 6th grade, she made a lot of what I wore. My dad was also great with his hands, particularly food but also enjoyed building projects. So the two of them are very evident in my work.

Those are the more positive moments. I do believe that being bullied is what turned me into Monstah Black. My desire to flip the negative into something empowering is what lead me to reach deeper in an unapologetic way with my expression in movement, music and style. Recognizing at an early age that words like punk, sissy and faggot could work to my benefit if I thought of them as words of endearment. As I grew older my belief in this grew stronger.

EYA: What challenges you most as an artist? And how do you engage with that challenge?

MB: My biggest challenge as an artist is the budget not matching the elaborate visions I have in my head. I've built a career on shaping my dreams by turning mundane objects into something opposite from what it is "suppose to be" used for and applying it to my project. The joke, back in the day, is that I was able to perform at the drop of a hat, and all I needed was dental floss and safety pins to make an elaborate costume. Every project that I do is a step toward aligning the budget with my dreams rather than the other way around. When that alignment happens? Stay tuned.

EYA: How do ideas arrive for you? And what do you first do with them when they do?

MB: I'm a dreamer. In grade school, it was seen as a downfall, a slow downfall. Parent-Teacher meetings occurred to discuss my daydreaming in class, and I still enjoy a good nap where I can drift off into never never land.

These are the places where my projects are revealed to me. I write them down or I record them. Sometimes they come in the form of a bass line, a melody, a sensation, a quality of movement or a look. Usually the sound and look are put into place first. When those two things inspire me as a whole, I close me eyes to feel how they should move, or I investigate my reflection.

There are also those moments when my movement is out of my control, the alignment of the rhythms, bass lines and melodies are harmoniously working together and film/video saves the day, to help me re-visit that place for stage.

I'm proud of being a daydreamer and I'm also proud of slowing things down, taking my time. I think it keeps you looking and feeling young. Besides, it's not as expensive as Botox or plastic surgery.

Virginia native Reginald Ellis Crump, aka Monstah Black, has been creating and presenting work in New York from since 1999 as a performance artist, dancer, choreographer, musician and composer. Known for his cultural grab-bag approach, he enjoys mixing influences and allusions from many sources and traditions. In choreography, he infuses modern dance with shades of disco and funk and the comic, hyper-performative and sometimes confrontational style of address of burlesque, adding a dash of various martial arts and the expressive slow-motion acrobatics of Japanese Butoh. He has choreographed for nightclubs, art galleries, black box theaters, and warehouses throughout Washington D.C., New York City, and Europe. His work has been seen and heard at The National Theater, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, Dixon Place, Movement Research, and many other venues. Monstah is also the front man for his band The Sonic Leroy as well as vocalist for the electro pop duo The Blakz. He performs frequently as a guest vocalist for the electro dance band Girls Like Bass.

See Monstah Black's dance film, Cotton, Thursday-Saturday, November 6-8 at 8pm or Sunday, November 9 at 3pm. Get more information and tickets here.

JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Ave (between Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Bronx Museum welcomes dance artists in December

Among its many lively public programs in late fall, The Bronx Museum of the Arts will present three special dance-related events:

Anabella Lenzu
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Wednesday, December 3

5:30-7:30pm

Choreographer Anabella Lenzu reads from her book, Unveiling Motion and Emotion, exploring the importance of dance, community, choreography and pedagogy. FREE*

Christal Brown
(photo by Kimara Dixon)

Friday, December 5

6pm-10pm

First Fridays! presents Artful Health: Christal Brown and Bombazo Dance Co.

A night of dance at the Bronx Museum includes performances by contemporary dancer Christal Brown (recently reviewed here on InfiniteBody) and Bombazo Dance Co., a group fusing traditional Afro-Puerto Rican dance bomba with ballet and modern dance. The evening ends with a dance class taught by Bombazo's founder and artistic director, Milteri Tucker. FREE*

Wednesday, December 10

6:30-9pm

The museum's holiday party features Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana II's Navidad Flamenca with music, carols and dance. FREE*

*Bronx Museum admission is free every day!

For more information on these and all Bronx Museum public programs through December 12, click here.

Bronx Museum
1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx
(map/directions)

T. O. Molefe on the racist context of Brett Bailey's "Exhibit B"

Racism and the Barbican's 'Exhibit B'
by T. O. Molefe, The New York Times, October 27, 2014

Doris Hering, 94

Doris Hering, Dance Critic and Champion, Dies at 94
by Jack Anderson, The New York Times, October 26, 2014

Jack Bruce, 71

Jack Bruce, Cream’s Adventurous Bassist, Dies at 71
by Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, October 25, 2014

Lost in space: Julian Barnett presents "Bluemarble"

Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias in Bluemarble
(photos by Ian Douglas)

If I recall, it was Olatunji, famed Nigerian drummer, who once advised clueless people to imagine the map of Africa stripped of the artifice of national borders, a continent not carved up and served up to outsiders. In their own way, Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias might be attempting something faintly similar--on a planetary level--with their short duet, Bluemarble.

Barnett's promotional material tells us:

Bluemarble reflects on a phenomenon referred to as the “overview effect,” which is said to be experienced when astronauts travel into space and see firsthand the reality of the whole Earth from afar. Bluemarble imagines a voyage where Barnett and co-performer Jocelyn Tobias tap into a field of persistence that relentlessly circulates physical and vocal information. Elevated glimpses are created that challenge perceptions of community and autonomy in both intimate and global ways.

Bluemarble, which received its US premiere at Danspace Project last evening, is not a complex production with a host of genres and media coming at you from every direction. It's basically two dancers. They do have simple props, a little later in the story. And they do have some sound that starts almost below awareness and builds to a grating, grinding aggression. That's about it.

I can't avoid the impression of a couple of artsy grade school teachers using their own bodies, and maybe a few toys from the back of the closet, to demonstrate the Creation of the World and the violent play of its elemental forces--air, fire, water, earth.

Along with soundman, Tian Rotteveel, the dancers brew a sense of chaos out of two bodies thrusting, twitching, thrashing, jutting, and retracting, flinging heads and limbs into St. Mark's looming and somewhat daunting space. Tobias looks stretchier than the more compact, jerky Barnett. Tobias can't escape looking like the lovely woman she is, a beautiful dancer slumming a little with these offbeat, quirky moves. On Barnett, the movements are more crunchy and have a childlike naïveté. He also looks like a guy trying to fight its way out of something--a bag, a dilemma, something. It's a little hard to see beyond all that, and I admit I kept hoping to discern a shape, a frame, a greater context.

Rotteveel's music intensifies then recedes into something gentler as the dancers begin a slow, affectless drift. Then, without warning, they freeze, one foot cocked behind each of them. Looking down, the dancers hunch forward. Barnett disturbs the silence, vomiting vocal noises; Tobias gazes at him with an expression of mild concern before he storms away towards a carton in a far corner. He yanks a child's beach ball out of the box, punching the ball out into the space. And he does this again and again until, the floor is littered with about twenty of these balls, and the dancers, with no clear interest or energy, push at a few of them with their feet.

Next, they tread a broad circle, round and round and round at a fairly fast clip, locking eye contact, continuously making firm shapes and gestures with their arms and hands. They speak, too, in little musical and metallic blips of one or two words that grow into a recitation of the countries of Latin America, the South Pacific, and all around the globe. An-goh-lah! An-goh-lah!  Tobias, who shares choreography credit with Barnett, is also a singer, and I think this section must bear her stamp.

The form looks, and the energy feels, like an abstraction of human communication--that relentless circulation of physical and verbal information alluded to in Barnett's publicity. It seemed deadly serious to me, though it drew a few titters from the opening night audience, a likely signal of uncertainty of tone and intent.

Bluemarble continues through Saturday with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(directions)

Raphael Ravenscroft, 60

Raphael Ravenscroft, Saxophonist on ‘Baker Street,’ Dies at 60
The Associated Press, October 22, 2014

René Burri, 81

René Burri, Photographer of Picasso and Che, Dies at 81
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, October 22, 2014

Oscar de la Renta, 82

Oscar de la Renta, Who Clothed Stars and Became One, Dies at 82
by Cathy Horyn and Enid Nemy, The New York Times, October 20, 2014

The 2014 Bessie Awards...and Chirlane McCray! And Jessye Norman!

The 2014 Bessie Awards
returned to Harlem's Apollo Theater last evening
for a 30th Anniversary celebration.
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I know there are some folks out there who don't quite get the Bessies or feel completely comfortable about any kind of awards thing. But that's not me.

I'm the one with the tear in my eye when I look at Arthur Mitchell.

And a smile on my face when I see Baba Chuck Davis. 

And nearly leaping out of my seat when I hear presenters read out names like Camille A. Brown and Nora Chipaumire and Aakash Odedra and Okwui Okpokwasili--all of whom won the Bessies I knew they'd win. 

It's for moments like these that I will always want to be at the Bessies. It just feels good.

Having said that, I've gotta add: Last night's award show was one of the feeling-goodest Bessie shows on record.

Chirlane McCray and Wendy Whelan
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r: Faye Driscoll, Chirlane McCray and Omagbemi Omagbitse
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Let's start with Chirlane McCray. Thank you, First Lady of New York City, for gracing us with your presence and paying tribute to Frank Hatchett, who was your dance teacher in Springfield, MA, and who passed last winter. What a treat to learn how much you value your own experiences with dance.

I believe dancing is the most beautiful of all the arts. Not a translation or an abstraction of life, it is life itself.

--Chirlane McCray

Lisa Kron, thank you for being a really, really funny host visiting from "the land of theater." You only think you're not a dancer. (Talk to Baba Chuck. He'll fix you right up.) And I hope you and Crazy Legs have finally managed to work things out.

Crazy Legs and Joselle Yokogawa
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r. Pau Atela, Aki Sasamoto, Sam Ekwurtzel,
Jessica Weinstein and John Bollingen
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r, Mickey Mahar, Maggie Cloud and Gillian Walsh
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Jessye Norman, listening to you talk about Arthur Mitchell was almost as good as the time I was sitting in my aisle seat at the theater when someone came up and touched me on my knee to get my attention so they could get over to their seat, and I looked up, and it was...YOU.

BTW, I think someone's cellphone was ringing while Jessye Norman was speaking. Let's take a moment to pause and reflect.

This is the Bessies' 30th anniversary. I'm buying pearls for everybody.

Thanks for the fun!

Love,
Eva

2014 Bessie Award winners

Arthur Mitchell
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Lifetime Achievement in Dance: 

Arthur Mitchell

Dr. Chuck Davis (center) with (l-r) Dr. B. Angeloe Sr., Karen Thorto,
DeBorah Davis Gray and McDaniel Roberts
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Service to the Field of Dance: 

Dr. Chuck Davis

Juried Bessie Award: Gerard and Kelly, for the inspired use of a simple score of movement and text to create mesmerizing and moving duets in Timelining, and for bringing a fierce and rigorous intelligence to their work that never loses touch with the heart at its center.

Jen Rosenblit with Rebecca Serrell Cyr and Addys Gonzalez
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (previously announced): Jessica Lang for the formation of her own company and its inaugural season The Joyce

Also for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (previously announced): Jen Rosenblit for a Natural dance at The Kitchen

John Jasperse
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Outstanding Production: John Jasperse’s Within between at New York Live Arts, for a feast of unpredictable kinetic imagination shaped by a sequence of dazzling light and soundscapes.

Also for Outstanding Production: Okwui Okpokwasili in collaboration with Peter Born for Bronx Gothic at Danspace Project, for creating a world within a world in which she embodied the fear, clarity and intelligence of a young girl; using text and movement to make public that which is intensely private.

Camille A. Brown
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Production: Camille A. Brown’s Mr. Tol E. RAncE produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, for using the American vernacular dance forms of jazz, tap, and hip hop mixed with pop culture references and African-American stereotypes to question herself and her audience.

Also for Outstanding Production: Akram Khan’s Desh at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, for bringing a swath of Bangladeshi culture to life with a shape-shifting performance danced within a magical set that conjured a world of flora and fauna from muslin, movement, and light.

Outstanding Revival: Nora Chipaumire’s Dark Swan performed by Urban Bush Women at The Joyce, for re-imagining a severe and beautiful solo into an expanded emotional force field performed by nine powerful women.

Outstanding Performance: Stuart Singer in John Jasperse’s Within between at New York Live Arts, for a forceful grace capable of both commanding space and rendering delicate physical details with astonishing dynamic clarity.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Rebecca Serrell Cyr in Donna Uchizono’s Fire Underground at New York Live Arts, for a mesmerizing performance demanding precision, control, and a remarkable range of intense emotions and providing the strong quiet center around which the narrative of the piece revolves.

Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Sims
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Performance: Linda Celeste Sims, a major contributor for nearly two decades to the work of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for being an expert interpreter of a vast range of styles who goes to the heart of chorographers’ visions and crafts countless tour-de-force performances.

Aakash Odedra
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Performance: Aakash Odedra in James Brown: Get on the Good Foot – a Celebration in Dance at the Apollo Theater, for a dynamically fluid translation of James Brown’s rhythms into kathak and bharata natyam expressions, turning traditional styles into original, contemporary, and captivating performance.

Outstanding Music Composition: Simphiwe Dana with Giuliano Modarelli, and Complete Quartet for Exit/Exist, choreographed by Gregory Maqoma and produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Art, for a tightly woven musical score, combining subtle guitar and traditional South African a capella choir singing, which movingly portrayed the struggle to maintain tradition in the face of colonialism.

Nicholas Young and Carson Murphy
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Music Composition: Nicholas Young at American Tap Dance Foundation’s Rhythm in Motion, for inventive percussion platforms integrating the tap dancer’s traditional hardwood floor with electronic sound technology to allow for a deeply layered, live composition.

Outstanding Visual Design: Peter Ksander, Olivera Gajic, Ryan Holsopple, Chris Kuhl, and Keith Skretch, for a theater set seamlessly doubled by video projections, echoing the role of memory with its odd tricks and resurrections in the profoundly unified and moving production of This Was the End by Mallory Catlett.

This week, Cynthia Oliver goes BOOM!

R-l: Leslie Cuyjet and Cynthia Oliver in Boom!
(photos by Julieta Cervantes)

Acclaimed dancer, choreographer and educator Cynthia Oliver presents the world premiere of Boom!--a duet with Leslie Cuyjet--at New York Live Arts this Thursday evening. Yesterday, she put up with some of my "really provocative questions," as she called them.

EYA: Who are you? What elements make up who you are as a dancemaker?

CO: That's a question I've been asking myself since I was a teenager. For many years, I worked hard to think about it outside of what I do. In some ways, I am what I do in terms of how I move in the world. But first: a person, a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an artist. Not that the order of it shows any priority, but it's a humble mix.

EYA: What do you most value? What do you find non-negotiable?

CO: Being honest with myself, my relationships--my family, my friends--and being human and humane. Those guideposts in my work have never, ever led me wrong. They helped me steer the course of each piece clearly.

EYA: What challenges you?

CO: Fear. I feel like I push through fear every day. It's there. I acknowledge it. But I know that I'm not going to accomplish anything by buckling to it. I have to do what it is that's inspiring me anyway, and once I get on the other side of it, it's like a whole other world opens up.

I feel like fear has always been my biggest challenge. I'm not a very outward person, although I love people. I have some wonderful friends and enjoy social situations, but my husband is the real social butterfly. I am not at all. I push through that and see what happens. I feel that I have done okay with that.

EYA: Through what perceptual channels do you best perceive things?

CO: I think of my intuition as my strongest perceptual channel. I've learned how to trust it, listen to it and act on it. Because when I don't, I pay. I remember early on in my tenure [at University of Illinois], I created a piece with a large gospel group with the Black Chorus out there. I had never worked with more than five people in a piece. This was a chorus of forty-five. I was choreographing them and eight dancers.

The piece was called Whisper to Shout, and it addressed this very thing: I had started to realize that if I don't listen to the whisper, the shout was going to be a humdinger. The shout was going to kick my behind. So I had to attune my ear to the whisper and be much more sensitive and much more aware of the whisper. And that's just a matter of trust and not saying, Oh, no, I couldn't possibly be right with that feeling that I should act on. That's my strongest perceptual channel.

EYA: What audience would you most like to reach?

Honestly, I just want humans there. On so many different levels, I feel that the work can speak to a lot of different people. On the obvious level, yes, women audiences, Caribbean audiences, people of color. But at the same time, all of the concerns that I address--those that are both obvious and blatant and those that are layered and more subtle--are universal concerns that we all, as humans, negotiate. I want as many kinds of folks in the room as possible sitting right next to each other.

I think my audience is a reflection of my own life. I have always had a very diverse group of people around me. I grew up in an international community in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. When I moved to the states to be a professional dancer, that is something I continued. When I went to college, I found that the African American community in the states tended to be more segregated than where I came from. Not that there is not segregation there. But it's one of those things where you'd still see a lot of mixing, especially in those heady days of the '70s, when I was in high school. Less so now. It's much more polarized now [due to economic disparity, changes wrought by disasters such as Hurricane Hugo and other factors.] But at that time, it was very different. That's how I got exposed to a certain kind of experimental dance there, that breadth of experience across communities.

EYA: Do you need an outside eye on your work? Or are you able to be objective about what you do?

CO: I do both. I trust my own eye and my own sensibilities about what needs to happen--what kinds of sequence, what kinds of material, what kinds of language. And because I do a lot of research in the work, I trust that. I also strongly believe that none of us can be objective, and it helps to have a trusted eye in the room. The key word there is trusted. I make sure that the person I ask to come and watch, while the work is in that delicate state, is someone who can put aside their own aesthetic, their own agenda, and look at what I'm trying to do and ask me questions that will help me clarify what I'm trying to do, not what they want. I find that that combination--knowing when to bring people in, going back and revising, and then bringing folks in again--that's been really helpful to me.

EYA: What do you consider to be the most important qualities of a serious or professional artist?

CO: Openness. Sensitivity. A willingness to see beyond where you are and what your work is, to see the broader relationship to your field, to the world, to folks around you. Mostly, openness.

EYA: Why is dance your focus?

CO: The full embodiment. I actually didn't start out as a dancer. My sisters danced and, I think since I was the last of six kids, my parents just said, Go on with your sisters!, to get me out of the house.

I was a visual artist. My parents let me try a lot of things. I tried music. I was terrible at music. But painting, drawing, was my arena. I thought I'd make my living as an architect. I took courses in physics and calculus in high school thinking I was going to go in that direction. Dance was really a hobby early on.

And then I had this mentor who fell in love with me and I with her. She was from Kurt Jooss [the German choreographer] and had been in the Caribbean for decades and had a dance school. I would go there and study Afro-Caribbean dance during the week, and she invited me to start taking ballet and improvisation with her. Then she kept putting me onstage, and she encouraged me to move in this direction. And I loved it! I loved the physicality of dance. I'm a swimmer. So, moving on land was really nice too! She would bring dance companies to the island to expose young people to these companies. So, I saw George Faison's Universal Dance Experience; that really blew my mind. I saw a lot of different companies from Europe, South America, the Caribbean.

Recruiters came at the end of high school, and I thought, I really should do this! This feels like something I could really sink my teeth into. A big concern for my dad was, "How're you going to afford to live?" My mom--a brilliant artist and a seamstress--was different. She was like, "Take your wings and fly, girl. Do that art."

See the world premiere of Cynthia Oliver's BOOM! 

at New York Live Arts, Oct 23-25. 

Click here for details and tickets.

Related events:

October 23 at 6:30pm: Come Early Conversation: Sequencing Non-Linear Narratives, choreographer and educator Nia Love discusses the creative practice of Cynthia Oliver

October 24: Stay Late Discussion: Her History - Her Present - Her Future, Cynthia Oliver and Leslie Cuyjet in conversation with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

Cynthia Oliver’s work is the visceral evidence of an incongruous mixture of aesthetics. Steeped in the everyday sounds of black voices and bodies moving in time and space in the Caribbean of her youth, Ms. Oliver was encouraged to explore ballet, dance dramas and site specific improvisational experiments led by Atti van den Berg - a former Kurt Jooss dance drama company member/performer. All the while she absorbed both the informal and formal of the Afro-Caribbean dance canons in the US Virgin Islands and elsewhere in the region. These vastly differing experiences defined her childhood coming into art. Moving in this way led her to an eclectic career in New York City and abroad in the world of performance art and experimental dancing with folks as diverse as The Caribbean Dance Company, Theatre Dance Inc., the David Gordon/Pick Up Company, Ronald Kevin Brown/EVIDENCE and Bebe Miller. She currently performs in Tere O’Connor’s Sister and BLEED dance works. Oliver has studied and been a part of the black avant garde theatre world, performing in the works of numerous playwrights, most notably, Laurie Carlos’ White Chocolate for my Father, and Vanquished by Voodoo, and Ntozake Shange’s A Photograph Lover’s In Motion, also directed by Ms. Carlos; Greg Tate’s My Darling Gremlin; and choreographing for theatrical productions like The University of Illinois’ theatre company production of George C. Wolff’s Colored Museum directed by Lisa Gaye Dixon. Her choreography for theater has been performed at Minnesota’s Penumbra and Pillsbury House Theaters, New York’s La MaMa Etc., Syncronicity Space and Aaron Davis Hall.

Oliver has been creating dance works since 1991. A mélange of dance, theatre and the spoken word, her pieces reflect her background and interests, incorporating the textures of Caribbean performance with African and American sensibilities. Named “Outstanding Young Choreographer” by reviewer Frank Werner in German Magazine Ballet Tanz early in her career, Oliver has since received numerous grants and awards including most notably, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, two Illinois Arts Council Choreography Fellowships, a Creative Capital award, a Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production grant, NEFA Touring support, NPN Creation Funds, a CalArts Alpert Award nomination and a prestigious University Scholar Award from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is a Professor of dance. In addition to her performance credits, Oliver holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University. She has published widely and is the author of Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the Caribbean (University Press of Mississippi. 2009).

You can't throw an unloved e-book across a room, but....

33 thoughts on reading
(A manifesto of sorts.)
by Austin Kleon, Medium, October 17, 2014

"Straight to the heart of weirdness..." with Degas in DC

Review: Degas' Little Dancer at National Gallery
by Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post, October 16, 2014

Israel disputes designation of Arraf film as Palestinian

The Hand That Feeds Bites Back
Israel and Suha Arraf Differ on Nationality of ‘Villa Touma’
by John Anderson, The New York Times, October 16, 2014

Triple Consciousness: Black + American + Female

On Saturday, October 18,
Brooklyn Museum hosted
Body Rock: The Politics of Black Female Identity on "Stage,"
the first in a series of three conversations
co-sponsored with 651 Arts and MAPP International Productions.
photo (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Shay Wafer (l) of 651 Arts
and Lisa Yancey of MAPP International
welcome the audience to Body Rock.
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Panel moderator, Toni Blackman
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I'm not sure what I expected from an event entitled Body Rock: The Politics of Black Female Identity on "Stage." But what I took away was nourishment to keep me going in the daily struggle as a Black woman surviving and making my contributions. So, thank you to 651 Arts, MAPP International Productions, Brooklyn Museum, Rasu Jilani (MAPP Director of Community Programs), Ebony Noelle Golden (series curator), Toni Blackman (panel moderator) and panelists Pastor Desiree Allen, Charlotte Brathwaite, Karma Mayet Johnson and Shannon Washington.

"Stage," for these multi-talented sisters, means anything from an actual theater (Brathwaite acts and directs) to the pulpit (where Pastor Allen, typically sporting a pair of killer shoes, affirms rebellious personal style) to Shannon Washington's high-tech digital world. "Stage," in the title is all about space, visibility and agency--how Black women occupy environments and possibilities, how we choose to shape space for ourselves and for those around us and coming after us.

It started beautifully with Johnson's song heralding "a new day comin'" when everything would turn over and Golden declaring it "a good day to be a Black feminist." And I'm sure Golden wasn't just talking about this particular Saturday afternoon in the museum's fairly chilly auditorium. She was talking about the intense times we're in and how needed we are. "We are at a crossroads, culturally, politically and socially," said Blackman, hip hop artist and actress.

Charlotte Brathwaite
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Pastor Desiree Allen
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Shannon Washington
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Karma Mayet Johnson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The conversation, always grounded in the personal, turned to the very fact of presence as power.

"Our showing up, being here, changes everything, changes the rooms we're in," said singer-composer Johnson who regularly listens and responds to the frequencies within any environment. "There's a gift inside my being incarnated as a woman that makes my listening exponentially [heightened]," she said.

Washington, with her pioneering work as a creative director in advertising and online platforms, takes pleasure in the popularity of the selfie. "Nothing gives me more joy than a good selfie, she said. "We are not used to seeing ourselves happy on a mass media stage. There is so much power in that, so much permission." With her video storytelling project, I'm Feminist Enough, Washington takes that idea to the next level.*

Pastor Allen focuses on making "more space for Black women and girls to find themselves in relation with God" by being authentically themselves. "All of our experiences are Bibles."

The way of feminism--by that or any other name or no name--is not at all foreign to Black women, and the panelists offered up examples from their own families and colleagues. They also acknowledged the many personal and societal barriers that continue to challenge Black women--capitalist institutions, a culture of competition pitting one woman against another, a fear of facing and seeking help for hurt and trauma, and the trap of being the pulled-together, selfless one constantly available for everyone else's needs. There were calls for daily spiritual practice, no matter what form that might take, and many sighs of assent and relief when Washington wisely declared, "By any means necessary, REST!"

Watch Body Rock here.

*Visit Shannon Washington's
I'm Feminist Enough video project here.

About the Triple Consciousness series

Derived from W.E.B. Dubois’s concept of “Double Consciousness”, “Triple Consciousness” speaks more acutely to the experience of black women as both black and American and also female. Through a series of three public dialogs, Triple Consciousness delves into and looks beyond the current representations of Black female identity in mainstream media and culture. Each conversation features a different theme to explore black women on “stage” and in pop-culture, and to reframe black feminism(s) in the 21st Century. Formats and discussants vary for a dynamic conversation with audience participation.

Upcoming Triple Consciousness discussions at Brooklyn Museum:

Triple Consciousness: "Mythologies of the Diva"

Saturday, November 8, 2pm

Triple Consciousness: "Beyond Binaries and Boxes"

Saturday, November 15, 2pm

Click here for information and tickets.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

No seat belt: Christal Brown's "The Opulence of Integrity"

Fight scene from The Opulence of Integrity
(photo by Sophie Bufton)

Superman don't need no seat belt.

--Muhammad Ali

This weekend, choreographer Christal Brown presents The Opulence of Integrity, a multimedia ensemble work inspired by the public life and inner searching of boxing's outspoken superstar, Muhammad Ali. And, yes, you will see some fiery dancing here--most notably, Brown's solo for Timothy Edwards. Brown's rigorous choreography for her male cast--she does make a few superb, if brief appearances--gets the most out of every body. Farai Malianga's soundscape exerts its own unrelenting pressure, giving a sense of what it must feel like to be a complex, thoughtful man caught in the media spotlight, in the vise of multiple external expectations, and in the unholy muck of American racism and politics. Far from didactic, The Opulence of Integrity is an entertaining and stimulating hour of performance, not only, as Brown intends, a tribute to Black men but an excellent showcase for dancers like Edwards, Danté Brown and Ricarrdo Valentine.

Text: Patrick Washington

Lighting: Yu-Chen (Nick) Hung

Costumes: Aya Shibahara

See The Opulence of Integrity tonight at 8pm or tomorrow at 3pm at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts on the LIU Brooklyn campus. For details and tickets, click here.

Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts
One University Plaza
Flatbush Avenue (between Dekalb Avenue and Willoughby Street), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Tim Hauser, 72

Tim Hauser, the Founder of the Manhattan Transfer, Dies at 72
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, October 17, 2014

"johnbrown," a work by Dean Moss, premieres at The Kitchen

Scenes from johnbrown by Dean Moss, seen above
(photos by Mark Simpson)

johnbrown.

The title of this interesting new work is rendered, in a teasingly familiar way, as one word in lowercase letters. All it would need, to be completely up to the minute, would be a Twitter hashtag. Not slapping that hashtag on looks a bit like something has been held back, and I think johnbrown's creator, Dean Moss, does hold something in reserve for the group of teenagers he employs here as "production assistants" to rearrange the set and work the media equipment.

johnbrown, presented this weekend and the next at The Kitchen, is a work made by a 60-year-old Black man and includes a (marvelous and often funny) recording of that man's 85-year-old dad, a civil rights activist and former mayor (first Black mayor) of Tacoma, WA. It's also haunted by the shade of white militant abolitionist John Brown--memorably embodied by dancer Asher Woodworth as a man given to stupefaction and sputtering impulses--as well as by sounds of combat and sounds of sentimental hope. That's a lot of time, a lot of history, a lot of feeling pressing around and complicating the present moment.

Moss establishes johnbrown as nonlinear complication from the first, sending dancer Cassie Mey out in silence to the foreground of a display of oblique, tightly interlocked black and white bands. There she appears to hover and float with extravagant effort. When that stark, abstract backdrop shifts to a distant expanse of generic bucolic landscape--and, later, a soundscape erupts with the turbulence of battle--it is as if a resolute, unchanging angel has spiraled down to Earth to pull back the veil on something we'd rather not witness. We're not really all that close to it--Moss avoids being direct in that way--but close enough to recognize it for the mess it is and that it is ours.

The imagery throughout johnbrown seems to reference disorienting illusion of all kinds--the almost-comic fake hair on Okwui Okpokwasili, a woman dancer who, here, speaks the role of Frederick Douglass in the work's video; deflated balls that fail to bounce and people who flail and fail to connect; the extended play of reflective panels held aloft, flipped, tilted and twirled by Kacie Chang and Moss with the manner of desultory, if still spellbinding, stage magicians. Projections of stereotypical cartoon images make me think back to Kyle Abraham's recent season at New York Live Arts. Abraham, too, worked with stereotypes in a nonlinear, multi-layered approach to the narrative of race relations and social activism in America.

Moss brings it all around to quiet conversation, a perfect, inescapably moving ending...and a perfect beginning.

Live performances: Kacie Chang, Julia Cumming, Cassie Mey, Sari Nordman, Asher Woodworth and Dean Moss

Video performances (original script commissioned from Thomas Bradshaw): Tymberly Canale, Aaron Hodges, Okwui Okpokwasili and Pete Simpson

Sound/music: Stephen Vitiello

Original song: Julia Cumming

Lighting: Vincent Vigilante

johnbrown continues through Saturday and again October 23-25 with performances at 8pm. For details and tickets, click here.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Dancing down the years: Karen Bernard's Triskelion weekend

Choreography by Karen Bernard
Dancers: Stacy Lynn Smith, above; Karen Bernard, below
(photos by Tim Fujioka)

KAREN BERNARD/SOLO 

presented by Triskelion Arts

1993-1996 It Could Have Been Different

and

Suspending and Other Tricks

This weekend, dancer-choreographer Karen Bernard, whose work addresses conventional ideas of beauty and age, will show excerpts from four seminal pieces created between 1993 and 1996 with original costumes by Liz Prince and performances by Donna Costello, Jil Guyon, Ryan Migge, Lisa Parra and Stacy Lynn Smith. In her world premiere, Suspending and Other Tricks, the choreographer "grapples with the limitations of aging and mortality."

Performance schedule:

Friday, October 17, 8pm (Opening night honors costume designer Liz Prince.)
Sunday, October 19, 8pm

For ticket reservations: info@triskelionarts.org

Triskelion Arts
118 North 11th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Backlash against feminist critique of misogynist gaming

Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign
by Nick Wingfield, The New York Times, October 15, 2014

Elizabeth Peña, 55

Elizabeth Peña dies at 55; actress in 'The Incredibles,' 'La Bamba'
by Lauren Rabb and Claire Noland, The Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2014

What is fair compensation for an artist's work? Ask W.A.G.E.

HV: How do you respond to arts organizations that say that this might put an unfair financial burden on their work?

W.A.G.E.: Our response is that the practice of non-payment, partial payment, and overall inadequate compensation has placed an unfair financial burden on artists for far too long. What might at first seem unfair may in fact be the beginning of a challenging process of reordering institutional priorities — it is within and because of this process that the paradigm will begin to shift.

Read more:

How Much Will Artists Be Paid Under the New W.A.G.E. Certification Program?
by Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, October 14, 2014

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay and artist Kara Walker in conversation

Filmmaker Ava Duvernay and Artist Kara Walker In Conversation
by Michelle Denise Jackson, Shine at ForHarriet.com, October 12, 2014

On Saturday, October 11, The Broad Museum brought together director Ava Duvernay with artist Kara Walker, for an hour-long conversation on creating artistic work based on the experiences of women of color—focusing on Walker's artwork, including her recent installation "A Subtlety…", and the complexities of telling Black women's narratives.

Walter Rutledge talks with Joan Myers Brown and Brenda Dixon Gottschild

a video conversation (22:49) moderated by Walter Rutledge

with Joan Myers Brown, founder, Philadanco

author and dance historian, Brenda Dixon Gottschild, author of Joan Myers Brown and The Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina, a Biohistory of American

On the craft of magick in social activism

Christopher Penczak, author and
co-founder of New Hampshire-based Temple of Witchcraft

I have learned so much this morning from these leaders in the neopagan movement--including Christopher Penczak, whose work I've long admired, and Gwion Raven, a West Coast witch and priestess who is new to me. So many smart, talented, committed people are speaking out in this way, thinking globally, locally and, most of all, forward about magick as an awareness, orientation and philosophy that can and must infuse social justice action.

Please visit the link below at Intersections. Read, enjoy and work with the questions posed and wisdom offered.

Bright blessings,
Eva
                                                                                                                                                                  
Twelve Healing Stars, Part 1: Pagans Speak Out on Magick and Social Justice
by Tim, Intersections, October 12, 2014

For Marjani Forté-Saunders, dance and activism are one

Portrait of dance artist Marjani Forté-Saunders
by Ian Douglas

The following statement, written by dancer-choreographer Marjani Forté-Saunders, was presented for conversation at the most recent Movement Research town hall meeting, held at Eden's Expressway on October 6. Saunders was in California to receive a 2014 Princess Grace Foundation-USA fellowship award in choreography and could not attend the meeting. Her statement was read for her, and a brief--and, in my opinion, tentative--discussion ensued. Saunders has graciously granted permission for me to post her words here in hope of inspiring further exploration and dialogue.

*****

“The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.”

-- James Baldwin

“Looks like what drives me crazy
Don’t have no effect on you–
But I’m gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.”

-- Langston Hughes

At the approach of MR’s Town Hall October 6, I ask the community of Movement Research what tensions are felt in the balance of Art, Activism, and living as an Artist.

Nothing’s Simple in September.

So much starts and ends.

The Autumnal Equinox, sitting directly at the Sun’s Center, at the precipice of an ending season into the beginning of another, there is simply no wonder why in this awe-filled happening, some believed earth was the center of the universe. Everything is changing, at least on this side of the country (says the California girl, where mostly everything stays the same), and when I say everything, I don’t just mean the trees. Really, everything is changing for me.

I’m anxious, unnerved, questioning, doubtful, indecisive, and turning 30. My calendar is all over the place, my dates are clashing, and at the end of the night I’m saying, “What the hell does dance have to do with any of it, anyway?!” So much putting out, I miss having time or energy to put in, to get engaged, in conversation, in exchange, in service, in ANYTHING beyond planning the next performance, residency, rehearsal, class, or grant application. And I feel guilty about complaining, because, as least I’m busy--right? I haven’t had time to fill up though, and I sense the void.

So my questions, at the end of the night, go like this:

Am I putting my energy in the right places? When is the next Community Board Meeting (can I make it--oh, it’s on my only day off of the week, shit). Should I vote in Cali or NYC? Sorry I missed your show? Where am I most needed, where am I most powerful? Is there a place I belong? What’s a downtown dance community, I live in Harlem?

On the other hand (on with my rant) I’m frustrated with racism that is as American as Modern Dance and Apple Pie; the normalizing of white cultural aesthetics at the expense of black cultural innovators and revolutionaries, such as the teenagers on the train with the boomboxes, the real twerkers of Nigeria, Jamaica, and New Orleans. I’m even more frustrated that these aren’t new conversations. That Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Dubois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and generations and generations of others have been singing the same song.

I’m as fascinated with aestheticism as much as the next artist, but I stagger in contemplation with what the hell it has to do with the stolen lives of Sam Hose, Emmett Till, Oscar Grant, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and so so so, many more.

I make art but I don’t feel like I have the freedom or the right to do so without reference to these crimes against humanity that continuously go, unchecked?

In this regard, reminded by my colleague and sister Paloma, I’m not alone in these questions or frustrations. I’m instead quickened by events such as Paloma McGregor’s Dancing While Black, Camille Brown’s The Gathering, UBW’s Convening, Jaamil Kosoko’s Black Male Revisited, The Requisite Mover’s Wellspring, all these intensives and gatherings that boldly discuss and strategize the galvanizing of resources to support black artists, voices, producers, writers, etc., to shift the lens and spaces in which our work is produced, reviewed, and heralded. Changing the tide, re-inventing, re-membering, re-cycling, re-birthing, and re-connecting.

It wasn’t until I joined Urban Bush Women in 2006 that I learned I could even do both, be an artist and activist. I had lived them as separate lives, under the umbrella of student-hood in college. Through UBW I learned about some of the intersections of Art and Activism, and later found those revelations echoed in the work of Nia Love’s BSD| Blacksmith’s Daughter, and Ebony Noelle Golden’s Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, and many many others. These folks rouse my questions as I live out the knotty narrative of artist/activist.

Lately, as everything changes around me, as I too, change with the shifting seasons, the looming whisper of cold weather, I throw on that sweater, pull out those scarves, and find that I’m in fact all bundled up with questions; the communities I’m apart of, the dance circles I traffic, the work I see and make, the artists I work with.

At the Convening we called upon the resources of our community as Black Female Choreographers. I now call upon the pool of information and resources in my MR Community: How are WE navigating Art and Activism? How does our work interact with our nation’s socio/ecological/economic/political contexts? At the approaching Town Hall October 6 at Eden’s Expressway, might I request this be among the conversation?

Forté-Saunders in performance
(photos: Ian Douglas)

Marjani Forté-Saunders is a Pasadena, CA native and Harlem resident.  She traveled as a performer with Urban Bush Women Dance Company for five years, and is now co-founder with Nia Love, of LOVE|FORTÉ A COLLECTIVE. Saunders is a 2014 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Awardee for new work commissioned by Los Angeles-based dance company CONTRA TIEMPO. For her work being Here…: a trilogy of works examining the intersections of mental illness, addiction, and systemic poverty, she’s received support from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts--Emergency Grant (2012), Puffin Foundation (2013), 651 Artists Development Initiative Artist (2013), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2014), and a New Music USA (2014) grant for a fifth collaboration with husband and composer Everett Saunders in the construction of a 3-D sound installation [www.being-here.org].   Saunders has also received support from the Jerome Foundation (2013, 2014), Mertz Gilmore Foundation with LOVE|FORTÉ (2013), Yellowhouse (2013), and the Harkness Foundation (2014).

Saunders’ work has been presented by Danspace Project, the Kelly Strayhorn Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA, Movement Research at Judson Church, New Orleans Mckenna Museum, Harlem Stage, Dance New Amsterdam, The Pillsbury Theatre in Minneapolis, Spelman College, Pomona College, and Hunter College (CUNY).   She has worked in residence at  Dance Theater Workshop (2010), Movement Research (2011-13), Brooklyn Arts Exchange with LOVE|FORTÉ (2012-2014), Dance Place (2013), Kelly Strayhorn Theatre (2014) and will begin a New York Live Arts Studio Series Residency in 2015.

Saunders is a passionate educator, having taught master classes and workshops across the US and beyond, including the American Dance Festival and ADF China.  She is also a member of Urban Bush Women’s BOLD Teaching Network, offering UBW’s unique approach to dance training and community engagement. Saunders is currently serving as Adjunct Lecturer, teaching Modern Contemporary Technique at Hunter College City University of New York and will be Guest Lecturer/Choreographer at Princeton University in the Fall 2014.  With deep gratitude, she moves onward in her work honoring that it stems from being born in and having engaged with culturally rich, vibrant, historic, and politically charged communities.