Laurie Carlos, 67

Laurie Carlos, performer, director and poet, dies at 67
by Sharyn Jackson, Star Tribune, December 31, 2016

My year in the arts: 2016

Eva Yaa Asantewaa's List:

Most Memorable 

Arts and Cultural Experiences of 2016

Performers who ruled my 2016 include
Alan Cumming in Max and Alan
(photo: Stephanie Berger)
and, below,
Staceyann Chin in Meshell Ndegeocello's
Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin
(photo: Marc Millman)

And not to be outdone,
Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer
in Hidden Figures

As every year, YMMV, but this is simply a list of what I enjoyed most in 2016. Here we go!!

@Making a Murderer, filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos (a Netflix Original documentary), released via streaming December 18, 2015, watched late December through January 1, 2016

@Antigona, Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at West Park Presbyterian Church, December 11, 2015 through January 23, 2016

@Sticky Majesty, Donna Uchizono and the Professionals at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, January 6-9, 13-16

@DISCOTROPIC, niv acosta at Westbeth Artists Community, January 6-10

@A Ride on The Irish Cream, Erin Markey at American Realness 2016, Abrons Arts Center, January 13-17. Performances by Erin Markey and Becca Blackwell

@Oktobre, Company Oktobre, Circus Now: International Contemporary Circus Exposure 2016 at NYU Skirball Performing Arts Center, January 14-16

@Star Crap Method, Larissa Velez-Jackson at American Realness 2016 at Abrons Arts Center, January 9-10, 13-15, 17. With performances by Velez-Jackson, Tyler Ashley and Talya Epstein; lighting by Kathy Kaufmann

@members of Vim Vigor Dance Company (Jason Cianciulli, Martin Durov, Laja Field, Lavinia Vago and Emma Whiteley) in Separati by artistic director/choeographer Shannon Gillen at Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center, January 28-30

@NOW. by Pat Catterson and Paul Galando, NYU Tisch Dance and New Media, January 30-31

@Dado Masilo's Swan Lake by Dado Masilo at The Joyce Theater, February 2-7

@work-in-progress showing of Afro/Solo/Man by Brother(hood) Dance! (Orlando Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine) at DraftWork, Danspace Project, February 6

@Lear, by Valda Setterfield and John Scott (John Scott Dance) at New York Live Arts, February 17-20

@Ed Harris and Taissa Farmiga in Buried Child by Sam Shepard, production by The New Group at The Pershing Square Signature Center

@Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 15-May 15

@Mei Yamanaka and Erick Montes-Chavero in Speakeasy by Malcolm Low, Malcolm Low/Formal Structure at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, February 24-27

@Performances by Split Britches, Five Lesbian Brothers, Holly Hughes and Eileen Myles at Memories of The Revolution: Celebrating the first ten years of the WOW Café at Dixon Place, February 28-29

@Eiko Otake's A Body in Places platform at Danspace Project, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor and Lydia Bell, February 17-March 23

@Adult Documentary by Juliana F. May, performances by Lindsay Clark, Talya Epstein, Rennie McDougall, Kayvon Pourazar and Connor Voss, at The Chocolate Factory, March 1-12

@Performances by Philippe Beau and Yann Frisch in Cabaret de Magie Nouvelle at Tilt Kids Festival at FIAF Florence Gould Hall, March 4-5

@Nasreen Mohamedi at The Met Breuer, March 18-June 5

@Are we a Fossil, and Of Facings by Molly Poerstel at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, March 9-12

@Photographs of Eiko by William Johnston at Conversation Without Walls: Bearing Witness, part of Eiko Otake's A Body in Places platform at Danspace Project, March 11

@There Might Be Others by Rebecca Lazier and Dan Trueman (with Mobius Percussion, Sō Percussion and Mantra Percussion) at New York Live Arts, March 16-19

Alexeya Eyma-Manderson (left) with Nigel Campbell
in a duet from Gina Gibney's Time Remaining (2003)
(photo: Scott Shaw)

@Duet by Gina Gibney; performances by Natsuki Arai, Amy Miller, Brandon Welch, Nigel Campbell, Alexeya Eyma-Manderson, Devin Oshiro, at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, March 23-26

@Relation: A Performance Residency by Vijay Iyer; March 24 performance by Thums Up: Heems (Himanshu Suri), Rafiq Bhatia, Vijay Iyer and Kassa Overall, at The Met Breuer, March 1-March 31

@FRED HOLLAND: SSAPMOC at Tilton Gallery, February 25-April 9

@2056 BC by Adham Hafez Company and HaRaKa platform at New York Live Arts, performances by Mona Gamil, Alaa Abdellateef, Salma Abdel Salam and Charlene Ibrahim, March 30-April 2

@to warring states, a useless tool by Enrico D. Wey, Danspace Project, March 31-April 2

@Going The Miles... by Jason Samuels Smith, performing with Derick K. Grant, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Igmar Thomas and Alex Hernandez at E-Moves, Harlem Stage Gatehouse, April 7-9

@Dancers Chyrstyn Fentroy and Anthony Javier Savoy of Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Center, April 6-9

@Filibuster by Alicia Grullón, BRIC Arts, April 13

@Pergamon and The Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 18-July 17

@Another Spell by Vicky Shick and Dancers, Danspace Project, April 14-16

@Rasa in the Round by Malini Srinivasan at Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, April 15

@Antimony (51) by Ben Munisteri at BAM Fisher, April 21-23

@Erin Markey and Kristen C. Sieh performing in Ghost Rings by Tina Satter, New York Live Arts, April 22-24

@Étroits son les Vaisseaux by Kimberly Bartosik/daela, danced by Joanna Kotze and Lance Gries at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, April 27-30

@Sleeping Beauty & The Beast by Katy Pyle with Jules Skloot and Ballez at La MaMa, April 29-May 8

@DanceAfrica 2016: Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures at BAM Gilman Opera House, May 27-30

@the feath3r theory presents: Andy Warhol's TROPICO or Zeitgeist - the fall of man, the age of desire, Adam and Steve in the Rite of Spring, Lana Del Rey's 'It's Always Everything' staring Allen Ginsberg as William Shakespeare or the greatest story (of survival) ever told. by Raja Feather Kelly and The Feath3r Theory at Danspace Project, June 2-4

Scene from To Begin The World Over Again
by Edisa Weeks and Joseph C. Phillips Jr.
(photo: Julie Lemberger)

@To Begin The World Over Again by Edisa Weeks and Joseph C. Phillips Jr. at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, June 30-July 2

@Patti Smith and Band and Mariachi Flor de Toloache at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, July 20

@Takarazuka Encore in Takarazuka CHICAGO by Takarazuka Revue at Lincoln Center Festival 2016, July 20-24

@Richard III (a one-woman show) by Brite Theater, starring Emily Carding at FringeNYC, August 15-20

@Ben Hagari (Potter's Will, film) and Jessica Pretty (the third., choreography and performance) in Volume VI, Issue II: Movement Currency, curated by the CURRENT SESSIONS at wild project, August 19-21

@Procession at Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter at New Museum, September 1

@Michael Richards: Winged, presented by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Arts Center at Governors Island, May 28-September 25

@Weed Heart by jill sigman/thinkdance at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, September 7-10 (plus Sigman's Community Action artist residency)

nora chipaumire's portrait of myself as my father
(photo: Gennadi Novash)

@portrait of myself as my father by nora chipaumire at BAM Next Wave 2016, BAM Fisher (Fishman Space), September 14-17

@HATCHED by Mamela Nyamza, presented by NY Queer International Arts Festival and 651 Arts at Abrons Arts Center, September 20

@Remains by John Jasperse at BAM Next Wave 2016, BAM Harvey, September 21-24

@X by RoseAnne Spradlin at NY Quadrille, The Joyce Theater, September 29-October 2

@Words and Images: Trebien Pollard, A Future Vision with works by Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine; Aimee Rials; Johnnie Cruise Mercer; and Trebien Pollard at 92nd Street Y, September 30

@13th by Ava DuVernay, Netflix, released October 7

@Agnes Martin at The Guggenheim Museum, October 7-January 11, 2017

Visual artist Kerry James Marshall
at Met Breuer press conference
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

@Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, The Met Breuer, October 25-January 29, 2017

@Max Beckmann at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 19 -February 20, 2017

@Lost and Found platform, curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls at Danspace Project, October 6-November 19

@Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross by Abdel R. Salaam, Forces of Nature, Aaron Davis Hall, October 27-29

@Speak with Your Feet: Tap Dancer Kazu Kumagi and Guests Soliloquize, including Gabe Winn, Sabrina Clery, Masa Shimizu and Alex Blake at 92Y, October 28

@Notes from The Field by Anna Deveare Smith at Second Stage Theatre/Tony Kiser Theatre, October 15-December 11

@Moonlight by Barry Jenkins, with cinematography by James Laxton and performances by Mahershala Ali, Trevante Rhodes and André Holland, released October 21

@Marksman by Kate Weare Company at The Joyce Theater, November 9-13

@Shutters Shut by Nederlands Dans Theater at The Met Breuer, November 12

@Thank You for Coming: Play by Faye Driscoll with performances by Sean Donovan, Alicia Ohs, Paul Singh, Laurel Snyder, Brandon Washington and Faye Driscoll at BAM Fisher, November 16-19

@Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction at Museum of Modern Art, through March 17, 2017

@Sweet Charity, starring Sutton Foster, at The New Group at The Pershing Square Signature Theater

@Eiko Otake residency in The Christa Project at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, October 2016-March 11, 2017

@William Johnston photographs of Eiko Otake, Fukushima: A Body in Places, in The Christa Project at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, October 2016-March 12, 2017

Lucinda Childs Dance Company at The Joyce Theater

@Lucinda Childs Dance Company at The Joyce Theater, November 29-December 11

@Meet Ella, choreographed and performed by Caleb Teicher and Nathan Bugh at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, December 1-3

@Shades by Jennifer Archibald at Barnard/Columbia Dances at New York Live Arts, December 1-3

@Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin by Meshell Ndegeocello at Harlem Stage Gatehouse, December 7-11

@Max and Alan by Alan Cumming at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 10

@CITIZEN by Reggie Wilson, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group at BAM Harvey, December 14-17

Patricia Peaches Jones
in Plight Release & the Diasporic Body: Jesus & Egunby Lela Aisha Jones
(photo: Scott Shaw)

@Plight Release & the Diasporic Body: Jesus & Egun by Lela Aisha Jones at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, December 15-17

@L'Amour de Loin by Kaija Saariaho at The Metropolitan Opera, December 1-29

@Fences, directed by Denzel Washington from the play by August Wilson, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, released in December

@Hidden Figures, directed by Theodore Melfi based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe and Kevin Costner

@Terrific books I caught up with this year: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald,  The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander, Stories of Your Life and Others (also published as Arrival) by Ted Chiang

@Terrific movies and tv I caught up with on Netflix or Amazon this year: Meet the Patels, Learning to Drive, Room, The Martian, Spotlight, Creed, Everest, Meru, The Wildest Dream, The Big Short, Grace and Frankie (Season 2), Argentina, The Salt of The Earth, Transparent

@And a special thank you to the extraordinarily generous Judy Hussie-Taylor, Lydia Bell, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Will Rawls, Kathy Kaufmann and all the Danspace Project staff as well as to Angie Pittman, Charmaine Warren, Davalois Fearon, Edisa Weeks, Grace Osborne, Jasmine Hearn, Kayla Hamilton, Leslie Parker, Marguerite Hemmings, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Maria Bauman, Marýa Wethers, Melanie Greene, Nia Love, Ni'Ja Whitson, Paloma McGregor, Rakiya Orange, Samantha Speis, Sydnie L. Mosley, Sidra Bell and Tara Aisha Willis, performers in the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds, Lost and Found platform, October 22

Okay, that's my list! What's on yours?

(photo: D. Feller)

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

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Tyrus Wong, 106

Tyrus Wong, ‘Bambi’ Artist Thwarted by Racial Bias, Dies at 106
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, December 30, 2016

"Who's cutting the grass?" Karen Stokes on challenges of site-specific dance

For my Montclair State University course, Performance Perspectives, Dance MFA student Elisa De La Rosa interviewed Karen Stokes, Artistic Director of Houston-based Karen Stokes Dance.

Dance artist and educator Karen Stokes
(photos: Les Campbell)

Elisa De La Rosa
Artistic Director of De La Rosa Dance Company
(photo: Jeanne S. Mam-Luft)

Karen Stokes Dance
(photo: Lynn Lane)

Video interview with Karen Stokes 
by guest contributor 
Elisa De La Rosa 
(21:45)

Karen Stokes is a choreographer and educator. As a choreographer, Stokes has premiered eight evening length projects, and over 40 repertory works that have performed in Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, Toronto, and Sweden. Stokes is the Artistic Director of the non-profit company Karen Stokes Dance. In January 2013, Stokes’ company was the first dance company to receive a Masterminds award by Houston Press. In both 2014 and 2015 the Houston Press named Stokes “Best Choreographer in Houston.”  In 2011, Stokes received a commission from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts for her collaboration The Secondary Colors with composer Bill Ryan. More recently she received an Innovation Grant from the Mitchell Center for the Arts for her 2015 project Sunset at White Oak Bayou. Stokes is a ten-time recipient of Houston Arts Alliance grants, including a 2013-2016 capacity building grant for her company.  In 2008, she was co-recipient for the 2008 Buffy Award in Best Evening Length work category (Hometown) for 2003-2008. Stokes dance for camera project Gallery Construction 1 received “Editor’s Choice” for best video from Dance Magazine in March 2012.  Stokes’ choreography has been recognized by grants from the Houston Endowment, the Hamman Foundation, the Anchorage Foundation, the Clayton Fund, various corporate matching grants, and numerous individual donors.  As a dancer, she has performed with David Gordon, Larry Clark, and Stephan Koplowitz. As an educator, Stokes is a Professor at the University of Houston.  Stokes has won the Distance Education Teaching Award at University of Houston, the ACHE Teaching Award, and the Ross M. Lence Teaching Award. In 2016, her company premiered DEEP: Seaspace, at the Hobby Center for Performing Arts in Houston.

Go to www.karenstokesdance.org for more information.
Karen Stokes Dance on Facebook
Karen Stokes on Facebook

  

Elisa De La Rosa
(photo: Jeanne S. Mam-Luft)

Elisa De La Rosa is a dance artist, choreographer, and dance educator hailing from a small border town in the southern tip of Texas, currently she teaches full time at a thriving public high school fine arts dance program located in Houston Texas. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with Secondary Teacher Certification from Texas Woman’s University, where she received the Excellence in Choreography Scholarship Award. Elisa is the artistic director of De La Rosa Dance Company, which recently premiered a new dance work titled improvisado and streamed live on Facebook. Elisa is currently pursuing a Masters in Fine Arts Dance at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

De La Rosa Dance Company on Facebook

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George S. Irving, 94

George S. Irving, Tony Winner and Voice of Heat Miser, Dies at 94
by Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, December 29, 2016

Global Rhythms's Yesenia Fernandez Selier on presenting Afro-Cuban dance in public space

Dance artist, educator and MFA student Beatrice Capote
(photo: Russell Hayden)

For my Montclair State University course, Performance Perspectives, Dance MFA student Beatrice Capote interviewed Yesenia Fernandez Selier, Executive Director of the performing arts troupe Global Rhythms.

Global Rhythms is a cultural enterprise devoted to enriching society and empowering individuals and communities through Cuban dance, music, and cultural education. Founded in 2012 by Cuban scholar, activist, and folkloric dancer Yesenia Selier and Hunter Houde, US born Latin dancer and entertainer, Global Rhythms uses these elements to create bonds between people and cultures and to promote a more diverse and tolerant society. With exciting dance performances, live Latin music shows, and interactive academic conferences on the history of popular and religious music and dance from Cuba, our experienced staff blends the talents of traditional artists, scholars, and award winning entertainers to provide an unforgettable cultural experience. Global Rhythms has worked with and alongside world renowned artists such Pedrito Martinez, Roman Diaz, Maykel Fonts, Septeto Nacional de Cuba, Ivan Acosta, Jose Conde, Jane Bunnett, Cita Rodriguez, Grupo Irek, Miguelo Valdes, Mauricio Herrera Tamayo, Gerardo Contino, Venissa Santi, among others. 

Cuban born performer and researcher, Yesenia Fernandez Selier is currently a media, culture and communication PhD candidate at New York University-Steinhart. Yesenia is the recipient of fellowships from CLACSO and the CUNY Caribbean Exchange Program of Hunter College and recognized for her work preserving Latino heritage by the “Save Latin America Organization.” Her work on Afro-Cuban culture, encompassing dance, music and race identity has been published in Cuba, United States and Brazil. Yesenia has developed several projects, like Tambo! and Ibiono Project for the preservation of Afro- Cuban legacy in NYC. She produced, the theater play Women Orishas for Miami Cuban Museum (2013) and the show Cuba en Clave for the Cuban Cultural Center in Miami (2014). She is currently Executive Director of Global Rhythms.

To listen to this audio clip from today's guest contributor, Beatrice Capote, click here (20:51).

Beatrice Capote is a soloist dancer, choreographer and teacher. She started her pre-professional training at PPAS/The Ailey School, and then graduated from University of North Carolina School of the Arts as a dance major. In addition, she continued her college journey at Montclair State University where she received her BA in Dance Education. Professionally, she has worked with INSPIRIT, a dance company, Mavericks dance company, The Wells Performance Project, Areytos Performance Works, Earl Mosley, Matthew Rushing, Darrell Moultrie, Antonio Brown and Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In. Motion. Ms. Capote choreographed and performed her solo work as a guest artist for ASHA Dance Company, the Eric Dolphy Jazz Festival, and recently performed her Newest Solo at the Martha Graham Studios for WestFest Dance, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD), Pepatian Dance Concert at Pregones Theater, and Battery Dance Festival. She received a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to choreograph and show new works at the Pier 17 South Street Seaport. She has, also, set work at the Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts Summer Intensive Program, Fort Wayne Ballet Summer Intensive Program, and Steffi Nossen School of Dance. In her work, she gravitates towards the individual artistry/ experience. She asks questions like what, when, where, and who…. Within those questions, she uses gestures to tell her story/ experience. The gestures evolve to expansive movements within the body that reflect to deeper meaning. The movement quality is known to be very energetic and vibrant contemporary modern aesthetic infused with African, ballet, modern, and jazz. Her goal in the work is for the audience to experience and relate to the work. In addition, She is currently faculty at the Ailey School, Joffrey Ballet, Montclair State University and a dancer with Camille A. Brown and Dancers. Website: beatricecapote.com

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Alphonse Mouzon, 68

Alphonse Mouzon, Jazz and Fusion Drummer, Dies at 68
by Nate Chinen, The New York Times, December 28, 2016

Debbie Reynolds, 84

Debbie Reynolds, Wholesome Ingénue in 1950s Films, Dies at 84
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, December 28, 2016

Carrie Fisher, 60

Carrie Fisher, Child of Hollywood and ‘Star Wars’ Royalty, Dies at 60
by David Itzkoff, The New York Times, December 27, 2016

Richard Adams, 96

Watership Down author Richard Adams dies aged 96
by BBC News, December 27, 2016

Richard Adams, Whose Novel ‘Watership Down’ Became a Phenomenon, Dies at 96
by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, December 27, 2016

George Michael, 53

George Michael: Pop superstar dies at 53
by BBC News, December 26, 2016

George Michael, Pop Superstar, Has Died at 53
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, December 25, 2016

Dick Latessa, 87

Dick Latessa, Winner of a Tony for ‘Hairspray,’ Dies at 87
by Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, December 20, 2016

Coming in January: free Writers Circle for POC arts writers

Sign up for my free dance and performance WRITERS CIRCLE sponsored by FABnyc, starting in January!

Are you dissatisfied with the state of critical writing about dance and performance? Writers Circle supports artists of color, across the spectrum of movement-based performing arts, as they practice and share clear, effective writing in response to performance. Previous writing on the arts is not required, but you should have basic facility with written expression.

East Village locations. For complete schedule and location details and to sign up, click here.

This workshop is part of FAB’s year-long series, The Sustainable Artist Toolkit.

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Dance solos for Troy Ogilvie, Laura Careless at Alchemical

If you can manage to get a ticket, you'll likely enjoy PRISM: Facets of the Feminine, a suite of five solos for dancers Laura Careless and Troy Ogilvie at Alchemical Theatre Laboratory, a small West Village venue for the arts.

The two-hour program features works by choreographers Roy Assaf, Jonathan Watkins, Itzik Galili, Idan Sharabi and Careless that deliver surprise gifts of the season designed to keep you unfolding more and more aspects of the archetypal feminine. The British-born Careless brings consummate theatrical presence to her own piece informed by Neruda love sonnets, and Ogilvie is at her most vital--rubbery and restless, a wild woman--in Sharabi's Troy's Feet, Joni.

The final performance of PRISM: Facets of the Feminine runs this afternoon at 3pm. Seating is very limited and may be sold out, but it's worth checking. Click here for information.

Alchemical Theatre Laboratory
104 West 14th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Tap talks back: Jane Goldberg responds to Acocella review

Tap dancer and writer Jane Goldberg
(photo courtesy of the artist)

InfiniteBody welcomes tap's great champion Jane Goldberg for her response to a review of Dorrance Dance in The New Yorker by critic Joan Acocella.

*****

Joan Acocella’s December 5 review of Dorrance Dance (click here) offers up an unfortunate contradiction. After a generally complimentary review of the company’s recent season at The Joyce Theater, Acocella ends with the complaint that Michelle Dorrance choreographed only four full-length shows between 2013-2014 (only? really?) and hasn’t created enough new work. She points to Dorrance’s busy schedule as a dancer to explain this supposed deficit. She concludes, “Dorrance doesn’t look tired, but chances are she will, and so will her work, if she doesn’t sit down for a while.” Despite her evident love of dance, as a critic, Acocella either has no interest, or little, if any, understanding of what it means to be living the dance life. As someone who is both a dancer and a writer, I do.

We dancers need to make a living. This is a constant struggle, particularly for tap dancers. It is relevant that Michelle Dorrance, more than anyone, has employed more tap dancers of varying styles, as far as I can remember (and my memory is long). Dorrance does a lot of other choreography besides Dorrance Dance, and maintains this company with a seeming core, that changes often, and usually employs the talents of as many dancers as can deliver her complex and challenging work. Her full-length shows, featuring these dancers, require rehearsals and refreshing so that the shows are in tip-top shape when they arrive at the next venue. No doubt Acocella has seen the same Balanchine and Baryshnikov dances a zillion times.   If she loved tap dancing more she might not have practically rattled the death of tap after reviewing Brian Seibert’s tap history book. Acocella might get bored with only four shows in two years, but I saw The Blues Project three times and it just got deeper for me, with things I hadn’t noticed before, the way one discovers newness in a painting or in any of the lively arts.

Michelle Dorrance at Writing on Tap workshop (2012) above
and below with tap colleagues Derick K. Grant and Brenda Bufalino
(photos: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Dorrance’s work is diverse, collaborative, and far-reaching (amazing kathak/tap work; an interpretation of Martha Graham’s Lamentation; to name just two of many). Moreover, what is wrong with accepting every offer she gets while she’s “hot?”  Tap dancers don’t get the kind of venues ballet and even modern dancers get. We need to capitalize on offers when they arrive. Jacob’s Pillow certainly isn’t tired of Dorrance’s work, having hired her three years in a row, with two of the years presenting versions of the same work. The Blues Project when first presented at the Joyce lasted just a few nights – and it sold out. Because it is such a good piece, why not have it again and benefit both the 475- seat dance theater, as well as a blossoming choreographer and tap company? Consistent touring, which Acocella also complains about, gives Dorrance more access to more audiences, who might be inspired to go see more dance, enlarging the entire dance field. And, of course, frequent performing, usually a high, joyful, fulfilling, and giving experience for choreographer/dancers, keeps dancers working!

Dorrance is known for her generosity towards her dancers, paying them well and even before paying herself. She is also consistently generous in her recognition of her mentors and collaborators. If Acocella had seen Dorrance more than a couple of times, she would know that Dorrance has credited her North Carolina teacher Gene Medler in almost every panel discussion, concert program or public talk in which she was involved (including her recent appearance on Stephen Colbert). In the world of dance, rarely do I see anyone like Michelle Dorrance, who consistently goes back to her roots, to profusely credit others, and to celebrate her own good fortune. And her attributions are not done for reasons involving race, as Acocella implies. Her dancers are a diverse group brought together because they have the feet and attitude Dorrance clearly admires. In a world of schadenfreude, it is telling that I have heard no envious talk about Dorrance winning the prized MacArthur Genius Award. Only delight and pride from her fellow tappers.

--Jane Goldberg

Jane Goldberg
(photo: Jamie Laworitz Sherman)

Jane Goldberg is a “rara avis”: a dancer who is also a writer. She has been one of the most prolific voices in the field of tap dancing for the past three decades.

In 1972, after graduating as a political science major from Boston University, she saw the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and was soon studying tap dancing. She began ferreting out many of the remaining entertainment greats of the 20th century. She became good friends with the late Gregory Hines, the actor/singer/tap dancer, as well as his chronicler.

By the 1980s, Goldberg had apprenticed herself to many of the old hoofers, while at the same time, interviewing and documenting their work. These classic jazz men were at the time living virtually “underground,” considered practitioners of a “dying,” or at best, “lost” art form. At least, that was the official lore Goldberg heard about this uniquely American art.

Determined to prove the two myths wrong, Goldberg began teaching and was only a few steps ahead of her students in her Bleecker Street basement. The experimental choreographer/singer/writer, Meredith Monk, was in her first class, and Monk sent many apostate modern dancers Goldberg’s way. Tap’s universal appeal attracted Japanese scholars, doctors, lawyers and “closet hoofers” to Goldberg’s underground quarters as well. She employed her newly developed “talking feet”, to pass down great steps and secret recipes from the originators.

As artistic director of Changing Times Tap, a non-profit preservation, promotion, and performing entity, begun in 1979, Goldberg began teaching at New York University, and giving workshops and master classes to college and serious dance students. Her company produced the first international festival, By Word of Foot in 1980, at the renowned NYC Village Gate. Her acclaimed memoir, “Shoot Me While I’m Happy: Memories from the Tap Goddess of The Lower East Side” with introduction by Gregory Hines, comes with a bonus DVD which highlights this celebration of teaching.

Some of her archives reside at The New York Public Library’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, as part of the Gregory Hines Collection. Her personal archives, “Jane Goldberg’s Wandering Shoes, Tap (h) istory, Tip Top Tapes, Tapalogues, Tapology and Tapperabilia” is living testament to the future of tap.

Known as “the hoofer with angst”, Goldberg has performed her comedy/tap act, Rhythm & Schmooze, "topical tap with running commentary over the feet,” in countless jazz, contemporary, and experimental venues throughout The United States, such as The Village Vanguard in NYC, The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and Harvard University in Boston. She is the recipient of two Fulbright Scholarships to India where she performed her highly idiosyncratic program throughout the subcontinent.

A Washington D.C. native, Goldberg spent her formative years as an investigative reporter and studying modern dance in D.C., Maryland, and Boston. She lives with the painter Owen Gray in New York City.

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Doubling up: Leslie Cuyjet and Lela Aisha Jones at Gibney

Patricia Peaches Jones
in Plight Release & the Diasporic Body: Jesus & Egun
(photo: Scott Shaw)

Choreographers create worlds for us to visit--visits sometimes good enough to make us to want to linger. But I don't recall ever wanting to just go live there. I mean permanently. Then came Lela Aisha Jones.

Jones--curated by Cynthia Oliver for a DoublePlus evening at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center--created a world so finely-crafted and nourishing that I could imagine not ever leaving. Really, this dance might be all I need for the rest of my life.

Her trio, Plight Release & the Diasporic Body: Jesus & Egun, takes off from the notion that Jesus, a figure dear to many people of African descent, is also way overworked. There are so many other ancestors and spiritual beings who could and should be asked to shoulder some of that burden. This is a concept Jones attributes to Nzinga Metzger, PhD, a scholar of African diasporic religious traditions.

Wow. Rather than rejecting Jesus as the ironically white icon of European colonizers, Jones both embraces and frees him. She doesn't so much lower him from his pedestal in Black church tradition as place him on a spectrum with others. And with her wonderful dancing mates--Zakiya L. Cornish and Patricia Peaches Jones--she demonstrates that Afro-Atlantic religious traditions, including those under the banner of Christianity, can exist to serve the nature and cultures and healing needs of the people who take part in them.

L-r: Patricia Peaches Jones, Zakiya L. Cornish and Lela Aisha Jones
(photo: Scott Shaw)

Everything in Plight Release is made or selected by Jones and her team with utmost care--set and props (which we encounter and interact with first), lighting and shadows, costuming, music and, finally, dancing of ritualistic rigor and beauty. There's nothing done by rote or imitation. Jones finds her own ways to employ symbols, gestures, dance steps. The effect is to be welcomed into a gracious home and sacred space, treated with respect and, at every moment, feel yourself to be in the presence of someone with clarity about what she's doing and why she's doing it. You simply relax.

So, it's decided. I need to look for more from Lela Aisha Jones | FlyGround, and you need to go see this piece tonight. Last chance!

Also curated by Oliver for this program: Alike, an intriguing duet by Leslie Cuyjet for herself and Darrin Wright. The big draw here is seeing two of New York's "dancers' dancers" explore magical, even mysterious approaches to space and their more obvious differences of gender, race, timing and expression.

Darren Wright and Leslie Cuyjet in Alike
(photo: Scott Shaw)

This DoublePlus program concludes with tonight's performance at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

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Ailey winds up the year, fresher than ever at City Center

Chalvar Monteiro of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
 in Kyle Abraham's Untitled America
(photo: Rosalie O'Connor)

A scene from Johan Inger's Walking Mad
(photo: Paul Kolnik)

I'd fully expect the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to look swell in Billy Wilson' The Winter in Lisbon (1992), celebrating the music of Dizzy Gillespie. High-polished ballet-modern moves, inspired by cool and sleek or hot-sauced social dancing, are a big part of the Ailey resumé. And following Walking Mad, Johan Inger's dark, frantic farce which appears to be about relationship anxieties, and Untitled America, Kyle Abraham's meditation on prison life and distressed families, the Wilson piece seems like luscious dessert for City Center audiences waiting to exhale and dancers eager to please.

On Thursday night, this current Ailey troupe addressed all three works with such freshness that even the Wilson romp delivered far more than the customary snap. And let's give the Ailey women their due. They're dancing with extraordinary investment, holding nothing back. You look at the entire ensemble in this program and notice them, this secret weapon inside the troupe, a young cadre you don't want to mess with--women like Danica Paulos and Jacquelin Harris. And on Thursday night in the Abraham and Wilson pieces, their royal Jacqueline Green made romantic lyricism and dignified stateliness look like something the company is showing off for the first time.

Abraham's Untitled America, a world premiere, draws poignancy from a soundscape featuring interview clips of people whose family lives have been disrupted by incarceration (and one searing song in particular, Laura Mvula's "Father Father"). Abraham honors these voices and real lives with accessible iconography--for instance, hands clasped behind as if manacled, or the gentle, solemn approach to hallowed ground where, we easily imagine, a fallen loved one has been laid to rest--inside impressionistic choreographic patterns. His work speaks of ruin but reflects hope. It relies on faith in a universal ability to understand common imagery and human gesture, to recognize woundedness and suffering in the Other as in ourselves, to care because life matters. It offers what we desperately need now, and the Ailey company, with its widespread popularity, is ideally suited to carry this example as far as possible.

The Ailey troupe dances Ronald K. Brown's Cuba-inspired Open Door
to music by Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra
(photo: Paul Kolnik)

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season runs through December 31 with its usual abundant and diverse programming. For complete schedule information and tickets, click here.

New York City Center
131 W 55th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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February US opening for film on Gaga's Naharin

Choreographer Ohad Naharin
(photo: Gadi Dagon)

Mr. Gaga, Tomer Heymann's 2015 documentary film, delves into the life and maverick work of Ohad Naharin, artistic director of Tel Aviv's Batsheva Dance Company. It will open in US theaters in February of next year.

Clips from an early film of young Naharin flipping and tumbling in the grass around his childhood home suggest the roots of his genius creation, Gaga dance. Son of a dancer, the youngster took obvious pleasure in physicality without fear or rules. The mature artist would come to offer students and dancers a pathway to the freedom he had always sought.

We see the contemporary Naharin in the studio urging dancers to "find a way to let go...just let it happen. The more you let go everywhere in your body at once, the softness of your flesh will protect you." Later, Heymann introduces archival footage of a callow-looking Naharin, serving in an army entertainment unit during the Yom Kippur War. We consider how being surrounded by danger and death might have influenced the intense, liberating aesthetic of Naharin's future work.

He began dance training late, at 22, he tells us as we glimpse clips of a sturdy young guy with confident presence and a sense of what was right or, more to the point, not right for him. Martha Graham was not. Maurice Béjart decidedly was not. At Juilliard, he got by, smartly imitating the technique he observed in ballet class. You clearly see his efforts did not go deep.

An injury led him to explore new strategies to heal his body and allow it more authentic expression. And it was something more, a connection to "feminine forces," as he describes them in the film, "delicacy and aggressiveness at once." Dance teacher Gina Buntz later speaks of Naharin's "Mediterranean spine...very womanly," and Heymann shows the dancer indeed working that glorious spine.

In one teaching moment, Naharin instructs a young man to dance "like you're going to save somebody's life and, if you don't, it's gone." In another scene, we watch a gorgeous, vigorous male duet as Naharin tells us, "Dance is the opposite of macho. Movement, in its purest source, is about gender." Regrettably, we do not hear more about this idea or really learn what makes Gaga work from the inside out. The movement often looks grotesque and mind-blowing. Heymann's sampling of it--lots of it--can make your heart race.

Filmmaker Tomer Heymann
(photo: Mari Laukkanen)

The filmmaker weaves in the story of Naharin's passionate life and partnership with his first wife, Mari Kajiwara, a beloved Alvin Ailey star who quit that company and followed him to Israel. He emphasizes that Kajiwara's grasp of Naharin's often elusive ideas and demanding methods was crucial to their effective transmission to dancers. Sadly, Kajiwara succumbed to cancer in Tel Aviv on Christmas 2001. The choreographer is now remarried and a father.

Celebrated worldwide, Naharin has not escaped controversy in his homeland. Ultra-religious parties took issue with the notion that his dancers, invited to perform in a gala celebration of Israel's 50th anniversary, would tear off their clothes to dance to a Passover Seder song in undershirts and shorts. Under pressure, the choreographer agreed to more modest costuming and then immediately resigned. When his dancers backed him up, refusing to perform at all, Naharin quickly resumed directorship of his company.

In a stunning moment in the film, he chides his nation as "a country infected by racism, hooliganism, widespread ignorance, abuse of power and fanaticism." He continues, "This influences the government we elect. This government has put at risk not only my work, but the actual survival of us all in this country, which I love so much.”

That's tough love, as his dancers would surely recognize it. As Heymann reveals, the choreographer thinks nothing of barking disapproval from the wings--and that's after reportedly sending performers onstage with this tender blessing:

Don't fuck with me. My life depends upon you.

Mr. Gaga (100 min./English/Hebrew) opens in US theaters on February 1, 2017. For further information on international theatrical release and festival screenings, click here.

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Joe Ligon, 80

Joe Ligon, Gospel Singer With the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Dies at 80
by William Grimes, The New York Times, December 14, 2016

BAM Next Wave: Reggie Wilson's NY premiere of "CITIZEN"

Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group
performs Wilson's CITIZEN at BAM Harvey Theater.
(photo: Sally Cohn)

Early on in CITIZEN--new to New York from Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group for BAM Next Wave at BAM Harvey--a striking French Romantic portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley momentarily appears on the backdrop behind one of Wilson's dancers. Belley, born in Senegal, was a slave, a rebel in Haiti's revolution and, during the French Revolution, was elected to the National Convention. If you knew none of those facts, you'd surely guess at the import of a Black man, in 18th Century dress, meriting such painstaking and forceful portraiture.

Belley's image remains visible for only a short time, long enough to impress but not long enough to get you thinking too much about his history. Wilson--ever the researcher and voyager--has taken care of all of that, including making the trip to Versailles to see the actual painting. He has also thought about race and what it means to find oneself in a society not perceived to be home. ("What does it mean to belong, and to not want to belong?") But he sets the viewer free to be with the work without necessarily having to puzzle out any of that.

While we cannot un-see Belley, and he might continue to haunt some of us, everything else we do see appears to atomize Wilson's research and musings. They spread out and form a texturous fabric of clear, repeated gestures and movement patterns sometimes assigned to specific performers and ultimately, beautifully, taken up by all. The work runs just a bit over an hour and, in that time, we're immersed in and transfixed by this living texture that signals individual portraiture without ever delivering big, obvious narrative details about characters, even in Altor Mendilibar's poetic cinematography. I got caught up in Anna Schön's sinuosity and toughness and wondered how Wilson picked that particular combination of traits to highlight in one body, but I would never expect to pinpoint their exact source or his reason.

It's as if Wilson beckons us close to a painting to look at the minute brush strokes and maybe even the chemical and molecular makeup of the paint because, after all, that's how the artist delivered the goods, how the artist told the story. That's how Wilson tells his story.

Along for Wilson's latest postmodern journey into the African diaspora are some adroit and interesting performers in addition to Schön--Yeman Brown, Raja Feather Kelly, Clement Mensah and Annie Wang.

Lighting: Christopher Kuhl
Costumes: Enver Chakartash

CITIZEN runs through Saturday with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

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Rodney Smith, 68

Rodney Smith, Whimsical Photographer, Dies at 68
by Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, December 14, 2016

Alan Thicke, 69

Alan Thicke, Reassuring Father on ‘Growing Pains,’ Dies at 69
by Christopher Mele and Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times, December 13, 2016

Shirley Hazzard, 85

Shirley Hazzard, Novelist Who Charted Storm-Tossed Lives, Dies at 85
by Helen T. Verongos, The New York Times, December 13, 2016

E. R. Braithwaite,104

E. R. Braithwaite, Author of ‘To Sir, With Love,’ Dies at 104

by Sewell Chan, The New York Times, December 13, 2016

Esma Redzepova, 73

Esma Redzepova, Who Sang to Generations of Her Roma Heritage, Dies at 73
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, December 12, 2016

Rosy Simas reads Laâbissi’s "Self Portrait Camouflage"

Choreographer Rosy Simas
(photo courtesy of the artist)

On Sunday, January 8, MoMA PS1 and the American Realness festival will co-present Self Portrait Camouflage, an hour-long performance by France's Latifa Laâbissi, a dance artist raised in France by Moroccan immigrant parents. Curated by Jenny Schlenzka, the work is described on the festival's website as a use of

"tropes of caricature and the grotesque to conjure the silent aggressions and tensions at the heart of some immigrant experiences. Performing the piece naked, in bright spotlight against a sterile white backdrop, fully exposed to the world, Laâbissi becomes an object to be gazed at, studied, and scientifically dissected—evoking the imperialist custom of exhibiting indigenous people at World’s Fairs. Against the backdrop of recent anti-immigrant populism in the U.S. as well as the rest of the Western world, Laâbissi’s themes of 19th century representational politics and marginalization acquire new relevance."

Minneapolis-based choreographer Rosy Simas, who is Native American (Seneca, Heron Clan) addresses Laâbissi’s performance in the following statement posted last evening on Facebook. I have reached out to Ben Pryor, American Realness director and curator, for his response and will report back to you once I have heard from him.

*****

December 12, 2016

Dear MoMA PS1, American Realness, and Latifa Laâbissi:
I am writing to express my utter disbelief and outrage at the proposed production of Latifa Laâbissi’s Self Portrait Camouflage for the American Realness program. In the eyes of the Native American community, this production is an aggressive act of hate speech, cultural appropriation, and sacrilege.

My name is Rosy Simas. I am Seneca, Heron Clan. I am the fifth great-granddaughter of Cornplanter, the chief who negotiated with George Washington. My whole family line is of negotiators who have worked to create more understanding between our peoples.

I am a Minneapolis-based dance maker, a moving image maker, a performer, teacher, and an activist. I am a nationally known artist who has toured all over the U.S. and Canada. I am a Guggenheim fellow, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation fellow, a First People’s Fund fellow, and a McKnight fellow. My work is currently funded by NEFA National Dance Project and National Performance Network Creation Fund.

So I am speaking to you as an expert in the field of choreography and as a practicing cultural artist.
I want to explain as best I can why the production of Latifa Laâbissi’s Self Portrait Camouflage is traumatizing to Native women, disrespectful to Native peoples, and an act of white supremacy at MoMA PS1 and the American Realness Festival in NYC. 

I am also going to tell you what can be done on the part of the presenters and the artist to apologize for this atrocity and where you can begin to reconcile.

The description of this work says it is highly personal and that the performer is nude throughout the piece.

She is not Native American, yet the only thing she is wearing is something sacred to Native culture, a Native American headdress, the scared symbol of the Sioux Nations (the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples). Obviously the headdress is fake. Laâbissi would not be allowed to own sacred eagle feathers. Any artist of her stature SHOULD have taken the time to research the subject matter. The production has already been touring for some time now; in fact, this is the second presentation in New York City. The artist has had years to learn about Native people and sacred Sioux headdresses.

Second, the work cannot be highly personal when the weight of it is in the images. She wears the headdress through the whole piece. There is nothing highly personal in the appropriation of a sacred object of another people.

This is America. We are the First Americans. We are Native Americans. And there is nothing real in a non-Native choreographer pretending to be Native on stage. So this is not only offensive — but it is about as far from “American realness” as you can get.

Why would MoMA PS1 and American Realness want to add to the systematic genocide and erasure of Native people? Because that is what this production does.

Why doesn’t the artist draw from her own cultural experience if she is making a highly personal work?

European settlers, American culture and Hollywood has historically objectified, sexualized, and exotified Native women for hundreds of years. It is common to see the sexy mostly nude “squaw” sometimes with a headdress at Halloween, in pornography, in advertising and marketing. We have been and are still treated as if we are just a historic people of the past.

One really must be out of touch to not know that thousands of Native women have been missing in Canada and the U.S. The rape and murder of Native women has been devastating to our people over the past few hundred years -- and it continues today.

So when I see these images of Laâbissi, that is what I see. I see a non-Native woman in a fake headdress performing naked. I see a mockery of who Native women are. And I see a stage reserved for whiteness excusing itself from responsibility because it is an international person of color performing this mockery. 

These images are traumatizing to Native people. Imagine what it triggers for Native women who have been raped and the families of those women who have been murdered and/or are still missing?

Images like this remind those women, remind all of us Native Americans, that we don’t matter and we do not even exist in your eyes.

What needs to happen next:

1) A public apology from the presenters and the artist needs to be issued immediately.

2) This performance should not go on as planned. Laâbissi needs to take off the headdress minimally. A cancellation of the production would be better, and in its place, a public forum led by Native artists on our work should be held, in which stereotypes and cultural appropriation can be dismantled.

3) A commitment from MoMA PS1 and American Realness to present and support contemporary Native American artists.

If this production proceeds as planned and advertised, MoMA PS1 and American Realness can expect a loud, sustained, and highly visible protest. As demonstrated by the Standing Rock Water Protectors in recent months, Native Americans will not quietly tolerate and accept the theft of our territories, the violent rape of our land, the appropriation and profaning of our religious beliefs, and colonization of our bodies.

Please contact me directly so we can begin to correct this injustice and work toward authentic reconciliation.

Nya:weh Sgeno,

Rosy Simas 

Choreographer

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