BODY AND SOUL: Ricarrdo Valentine: Rest for freedom

Ricarrdo Valentine (photo: Orlando Zane Hunter Jr)

A Black man wearing a salmon-colored sweater is looking directly into the camera, wearing a gold ring on the left and a silver and blue ring on the right with a multicolored Kufi hat.

During the pandemic, dance artist and photographer Ricarrdo Valentine continued to work towards a graduate degree in Dance, keenly aware of academia's toll on body, mind, and spirit. Influenced by healing philosophies, such as the famed Nap Ministry of Tricia Hersey, Valentine shares what he has learned about self-compassion and rest, critical tools of liberation from capitalism and grind culture.

To listen to today's Body and Soul podcast with Ricarrdo Valentine, click here!

Bio: Ricarrdo Valentine is a second-generation Black, Jamaican American/estadounidense, Same-gender-loving photographer and dancer who finds value in collaboration, individuality, and intimacy. I move and take photos from intuition. Ricarrdo’s photographic work has been exhibited at Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Centro Universitario de las Artes (MX). He has presented his choreography at Bates Dance Festival, Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio, LaGuardia Community College, and more. Ricarrdo continues to collaborate and work with Christal Brown/INspirit, Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dance, Paloma McGregor, Dante Brown/Warehouse Dance, Malcolm Low/Formal Structure, Jill Sigman/Thinkdance, Sage Ni'Ja Whitson-Adebanjo/NWA project, Andre Zachary/RPG, Emily Berry/B3W, and Barak ade Soliel. Ricarrdo is also the co-founder of Brother(hood) Dance!, a Brooklyn-based dance collective and a 2020 Bessie Award honoree for Afro/Solo/Man.  He is working on an ethno-visual project, Where My People At?, as a 2020-2021 NorthStar Art Incubator Fellow in addition to pursuing an MFA in Dance integrating agriculture and technology at The Ohio State University.  To view Ricarrdo's images, you can visit www.ricarrdovalentine.com. Also visit www.bhooddance.com.

BODY AND SOUL: Samar Haddad King: on time

Samar Haddad King

Woman wearing sea foam green tank top with long brown eyes and dark brown hair draped over right shoulder staring into camera. She is sitting with left hand is in a fist resting on her sternum.

US-raised Palestinian artist Samar Haddad King (Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre) ruminates on what pregnancy, birth, and raising her daughter have taught her about time.

To listen to today's Body and Soul podcast with Samar Haddad King, click here!

And read The New York Times' review of the Spring 2022 Gibney presentation of YSDT's Last Ward ⁠here⁠.

⁠https://ysdt.org/

BIO: Samar Haddad King is a writer, choreographer, and composer and Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre; King graduated from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program (NYC). King’s work has been performed in 17 countries on 4 continents, with commissions throughout the US and abroad including The Shed (NYC); Hubbard Street 2 (Chicago); Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival (Ramallah); The Walk with Little Amal: Good Chance Theatre (Marseille) and St. Ann’s Warehouse/The Walk Productions (NYC); /si:n/ Festival (Ramallah), among others. Awards/Fellowships include: Creative Capital Wild Futures Awardee, Prix des Jeunes Créateurs Palestiniens pour la Diversité des Expressions Artistiques (Palest’In&Out Festival, Paris); La Fabrique Chaillot Residency (Chaillot - théâtre national de la Danse, Paris); The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and Toulmin Creator (CBA/ National Sawdust, NYC). Theater/musical theater credits include Dead Are My People (Noor Theatre, NYC), Hoota (Sard Theatre, Haifa) and We Live in Cairo (American Repertory Theater, Boston). www.ysdt.org

BODY AND SOUL: Megan Curet: in collective rhythm

Megan Curet (photo: Jonathan Maier)

Light skin black woman in a turtle neck sweater smiling with arms wrapped around neck. Dark short black hair brushed back. Backdrop of cliffs and a sandy beach. Image shot in black and white.

In her work with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba traditions and contemporary dance, Megan Curet considers the relationship between movement, sound, and decolonization within communal practice in Black diaspora. She says, "I wanted to be a part of the conversation that shakes up the body, that shakes up the way we think, and I believe no other approach does so better than the act of moving, the act of repeating movement, and that act of coming into space together."

To listen to today's podcast with Megan Curet, click here!

And scroll down for more information!

 

Megan Curet in PULSATION (photo: Michelle Mor)

Dark skin black Latina female hovering over the floor of a dimly lit theater stage. In an all white long sleeve turtle neck with her long braids following over in front of her chest and her upstage left arm arched over.

Bio: Megan Curet is a Bronx Native Nuyorican dancer, choreographer and educator. Currently serving as Coordinator to the Artist of Color Council at Movement Research while completing a practice-led research PhD in decolonial methodology within dance at Plymouth University in the UK. Curet’s practice expands upon the elements of bomba through cultural syncretism of contemporary dance through her public En Ritmo workshops. Other public community programming efforts include the annual youth dance Symposium, Bronx Grows dance, which takes place at BAAD! and made possible through Pepatian South Bronx. Former founder and artistic director of Curet Performance Project, a contemporary dance company, and founder/editor of online dance magazine TiLLT Magazine. Currently based in San Diego, Curet’s work, choreography and practice has toured South America, The Middle East, The Caribbean, North America and Europe. http://megancuret.com/

BODY AND SOUL: Elena Demyanenko: The art of disobedience

Elena Demyanenko (photo: Charles Pace)

In this portrait set against a black background, Elena Demyanenko faces downward and at a diagonal. She is light-skinned with short, reddish hair and wears a thin necklace with a stone pendant.

Russian-born dance artist and educator Elena Demyanenko traveled from her adopted home in New York to Berlin to support the growing community of artists fleeing Russia's devastating war on Ukraine. In this moving talk, Demyanenko reflects on questions for herself and other artists making work in times of war, propaganda, censorship, and courageous disobedience.

 

Listen to Elena Demyanenko on Body and Soul podcast here. 

To learn more about her work, scroll down. 

 

Trio from Demyanenko's welter (photo: Wolfgang Daniel)

In this trio dance, Elena's right shoulder leans against the floor as her legs stretch up and her feet connect with and hold Chloë Engel’s head as Engel's body bends forward. Leah Morrison kneels nearby and observes.

Bio: Elena Demyanenko is a Russian/American dance artist, choreographer, improviser, maker of dance films, and educator who lives and works between New York City and Vermont. Elena has extensive professional performance and choreographic experience in a multicultural context from 30 years of touring around the world. She has been inventing “impossible” scores in order to un-censor the body as a source of information and a  primary site of healing and transformation. Elena is a former member of both Stephen Petronio Company (2003–2008), and Trisha Brown Dance Company (2009–2012). She has made dances with Dana Reitz, Susan Sgorbati, Joseph Poulson, Dai Jen, Pavel Zustiak, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Kota Yamazaki, and Jimena Paz. Elena’s live performance works have been shown at many US performance venues, including Baryshnikov Art Center, Danspace Project, Roulette Intermedium, EMPAC, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance New Amsterdam, and Dixon Place, and abroad at GARAGE (Moscow) and the Architecture of Movement Festival (Yaroslavl, Russia). As a maker of dance films, Demyanenko was the recipient of a Dance Movies Commission by EMPAC and was nominated for the Dance on Camera Jury Prize for her work on kino-eye.  www.elenademyanenko.com

BODY AND SOUL: Cory Nakasue: embracing complexity

Cory Nakasue

A woman with long, dark-brown hair and brown eyes sits at a desk in front of a computer and looks at the camera from the corner of her eye. A bright orange couch is in the background.

Nakasue in a performance still from Reframed, directed by Brent Felker (2011)

A woman with long, dark-brown hair stands on the grass, at the side of a barn holding the side of her head with one hand and reaching for the sky with the other. It’s like we’re spying on her from behind a tree. A shadow covers half of the barn and her head. The rest of the frame is in sunlight.

Cory Nakasue sees complexity all around us and within us--from the cosmic realm above to the most intimate spaces below here on planet Earth. Self-described as "a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video," Nakasue likely inhabits far more than even those multiple identities and roles. In this talk for Body and Soul, she shares thoughts about how our tendency to avoid complexity denies us the pleasure of engaging with what's real.

Listen to this episode of Body and Soul here.

To learn more about Cory Nakasue, scroll down.

The Cosmic Event of the Body (Cosmic Doghouse Press, 2023)

A white book sits on a red rug. On the cover of the book is a bright red circle radiating black tendrils. The title of the book is at the top. The author’s name is at the bottom.

Bio: Cory Nakasue is a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video. Her original dance and theater pieces have been presented internationally, and she is currently in dramaturgical process with Elisabeth Motley and Aynsley Vandenbroucke. She is a published poet and dance critic whose first chapbook, The Cosmic Event of Body, is coming out in March 2023. She’s the astrologer-in-residence at The Poetry Barn, Chronogram Magazine, Opus 40, and The Cosmic Dispatch, a weekly radio show/podcast. She holds MA degrees in Choreography and Performance Studies from Middlesex University, London, with additional graduate work in theater from CalArts. She’s been a movement educator and somatic therapist under the moniker Body Intelligence for the past 20 years. Her obsessions include narrative medicine, expanded eroticisms, and the cultivation of metaphor as an embodied sense. www.corynakasue.com and www.astrologybycory.com

BODY AND SOUL: george emilio sanchez: Information is medicine

george emilio sanchez (photo: Dave Sanders)

george emilio sanchez, wearing a black winter coat with a wine-purple scarf wrapped and tucked around his neck, stands against a blurred background. With an intent gaze towards the camera, sanchez has salt-and-pepper hair, mustache, and beard.

Still from In the Court of the Conqueror of a home occupying the ancestral lands of Kaskaskia, Tamaroa and Piankishaw Nations among other Mississippian Cultures. Image by Patty Ortiz.

 

The photo shows one side of a long white house surrounded by trees. There's a flagpole bearing the United States flag. At the base of the slide's image, a line of bright red letters spell out NOTYOURLAND.

My guest today, george emilio sanchez, is a passionate and critical voice for our times. A skilled artist and activist, he brings a gift for blending factual historical and cultural knowledge, lived experience, and creative storytelling in solo performances that inform, captivate, and challenge audiences. In this episode of Body and Soul, sanchez discusses a 19th-century Supreme Court ruling that violated indigenous tribal sovereignty; In the Court of the Conqueror, a performance in collaboration with visual artist Patty Ortiz; and The Shed's great exhibition on Brazil's indigenous Yanomami people.

Please forgive the abrupt ending of this episode! Details I edited out--concerning The Yanomami Struggle exhibition at The Shed, a New York City arts space--can be found at https://theshed.org/program/262-the-yanomami-struggle. The exhibition runs through Sunday, April 16, and I do highly recommend it.

To listen to today's podcast with george emilio sanchez, click here!

And scroll down for more information!

Still from In the Court of the Conqueror (photo: Maria Baranova)

Wearing his long white hair loose and a white, long-sleeved cotton shirt, sanchez gazes directly into the camera. He holds his arms and hands outward, left arm crossing in front of his chest, in the middle of a storytelling gesture.

Bio: george emilio sanchez is a writer, performance artist and advocate for indigenous rights and sovereignty.  Currently, he is touring the US with his recent performance collaboration with visual artist, Patty Ortiz, titled In the Court of the Conqueror.  This piece focuses on the 200 year-old history of US Supreme Court rulings that have diminished the Tribal Sovereignty of Native Nations, while also interlacing his individual journey of acknowledging his own indigeneity while being raised in an Ecuadorian immigrant household.  In the Court of the Conqueror premiered at Abrons Arts Center in New York City in March 2022 and has since toured to five states.  george emilio is also the performance director for Emergenyc, a program that experiments with the intersection of arts and activism and is celebrating its 15th year anniversary in 2023.  He was named the inaugural recipient of the Keith Haring Fellow at The MacDowell in 2021. https://www.georgeemiliosanchez.com/