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Showing posts with label Dancing in the Streets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dancing in the Streets. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Simon Dove will succeed Davidson at Dancing in the Streets

Simon Dove
(photo: Simon Dove)

Aviva Davidson, outgoing Executive and Artistic Director of Dancing in the Streets, has announced her successor--Simon Dove, former Director of the School of Dance at Arizona State University. Dove will take the helm of the South Bronx-based organization on January 1, 2016.

Davidson calls Dove "a visionary arts leader," one well-positioned to continue and build upon the relationships and collaborative projects she has established--such as the South Bronx Culture Trail with Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education--while forging new local and international collaborations.

Founded in 1984 by Elise Bernhardt and noted for site-specific and community-oriented projects, Dancing in the Streets moved its headquarters to the South Bronx in 2011.

“The organization has an impeccable history of creating compelling performance work in vibrant community settings around New York City, as well as providing important platforms for many of the city’s own Urban art forms," says Dove. "I look forward to broadening and deepening this work; developing new projects that can engage the diversity of New York’s communities, further artists’ creative practices in community contexts, and showcase the power, vitality and importance of urban cultures.”
Simon Dove is an experienced arts leader, curator and educator, and currently co-curator of Crossing the Line, the annual trans-disciplinary fall festival in New York City. He was Professor of Practice and Director of the School of Dance at Arizona State University from 2007 to 2012. Simon Dove was Artistic and Executive Director of Springdance, the international festival of new developments in dance and performance in the Netherlands from 2000 to 2007. Prior to that he ran one of the first National Dance Agencies in the U.K, the Yorkshire Dance Centre in Leeds, was the founder and Artistic Director of Vivarta – the first contemporary South Asian performance festival in the U.K. He contributed
to national dance policy development with the Arts Council of Great Britain, and programmed an innovative arts centre in London. He has also written for the Performance and South Asian press, devised and presented a series for BBC Radio 3 on Dance and Music, and extensively mentored students and professional artists from many countries in developing their creative practice.
For more information on Dancing in the Streets, click here.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Dancing the park: Avilés and Thomson get Bronx-specific

photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Roses don't really grow this way, like wildflowers. 

But, if we want, we can place markers for beauty where we envision it or need it to be. 

For Ritual Dance, Arthur Avilés turned the several green stretches of Owen Dolen Park (East Bronx) into sanctified spaces for white-clad celebrants reflecting the late-day sun in their formal handsomeness and pleasure.

Arthur Avilés Typical Theatre performers
approach their ritual site at Owen Dolen Park.
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Ritual Dance, featuring thirty dancers, was part of Dancing in the Streets' two-evening site-specific festival Dancing Through the Bronx.

Audience members could move about and watch from any number of vantage points, all good. With perfect weather and a convivial atmosphere, Ritual Dance drew many curious onlookers from the neighborhood--a dance placed on the green and in the open air, like unexpected blossoms.

Please enjoy these images from Ritual Dance.

photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Ni'Ja Whitson
photo 
©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Ni'Ja Whitson
photo 
©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Ni'Ja Whitson
photo 
©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Arthur Avilés
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Arthur Avilés
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In contrast to Avilés's playful, purifying light, David Thomson brought intimations of night's veil in his enigmatic short stories, a trio of diffuse but affiliated solos for women dancers--Emmanuélle Phuon, Jodi Bender and Omagbitse Omagbemi. The dancers migrated to various patches of green, carrying the mystery of their identity, intentions and interior engagements.

Emmanuélle Phuon,
above and below, in David Thomson's short stories

photos ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Jodi Bender, this and next two photos
in short stories
©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Omagbitse Omagbemi,
above and below, in short stories
photos ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Acclaimed site-specific choreographer Joanna Haigood, a longtime associate of Dancing in the Streets, served as artistic advisor for Dancing through the Bronx.

The second event in this series will be held tomorrow, Sunday, at 3pm at the Gaudí-inspired Hayden Lord Park. This program includes works by dance artists Marsi Burns, Shizu Homma, Monifa Kincaid and Rebecca Lloyd-Jones.

For directions to Hayden Lord Park, click here.

Dance artist and BAAD! artistic director Arthur Aviles (r)
with his partner and BAAD! executive director Charles Rice-Gonzalez
at 2008 Bessie Awards party at South Street Seaport
(photo ©2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Dancing Through the Bronx series launches in August

Dancing Through the Bronx is a Bronx-positive traveling festival of free, public site-specific dance performances by Larry Keigwin, James “Cricket” Colter and Bronx-based choreographers Arthur Aviles, Toni Renee Johnson, and Ni’Ja Whitson Adebanjo.

Venues include:


Wednesday, August 13 through Saturday August 16

For a complete schedule of shows
and additional information, click here.

Friday, February 22, 2013

New South Bronx group seeks performers


Join a new South Bronx community performance group led by Alejandra Duque at Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD). Weekly sessions begin on March 2, and Jonzi D will lead a special community dance theater workshop on March 5.
Performance group 2-23-13

Sunday, October 7, 2012

This road is officially opened: Paseo

This road is officially opened...
There is no road to nowhere, only to what is still here. 
-- La Bruja

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/photos/2008/bobbysanabria2008_2.jpg
Bobby Sanabria
"As this has never been done before, we have no idea what we're doing today," Joanna Haigood half-joked at the launch of Paseo, less a walking tour than a movable, danceable feast, a peripatetic block party that, for one delightful hour, would twist through the South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Longwood. Haigood, a site-specific choreographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, had teamed up with musical director Bobby Sanabria (multiple Grammy winner) and Dancing in the Streets executive and artistic director Aviva Davidson to create this public celebration.

http://objects.sonicbids.com/image/1/1753/image_635753.jpg
La Bruja (photo by Rosalia Rivera)

With hip hop poet La Bruja's blessings, the procession stepped off from Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education on Simpson Street. Threatening clouds hung low, but spirits flew as we followed the lead of the ebullient Sanabria and his musicians, passing dancers on fire escapes and brownstone stoops. Cries of "Que vivo, Puerto Rico" went up as we passed balconies flying the island's flag.

Haigood had warned of the temptation to stop along the way: "Paseo is best enjoyed as a stroll, a promenade," she said. Indeed, it was hard not to linger with the guitarists and dancing couple in front of Nico Laundromat, or the curbside conga players, or the four doo wop singers, or the chorus in their smart white suits and skirts or even to stop to comfort a couple of unnerved cats who scampered away from our surging procession.

Yes, my lower back and feet talked to me long after I returned home, but still....

Rumbas in the park till past midnight in the canyons of da’ projects in the summer. 
Couldn’t sleep? Who cares, you didn’t want to.
--Bobby Sanabria

To read an excerpt from Bobby Sanabria's Nuyorican Memories, about his youth in the historic, still vibrant South Bronx, click here.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Get with hip hop on August 15


Charlene "Chi Chi" Smith 
(photo by Montana)

presents


HIP HOP GENERATION NEXT ‘10

SUNDAY, AUGUST 15 -- Two Big Events!

5pm-6:30pm -- free public performance of the world premiere of CENTRIFUGAL FORCE: Hip Hop Generations at Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival

Four generations of dancers converging on Lincoln Center’s plazas, dancers and audience traveling together through the grounds of Lincoln Center

Choreographers: Emilio “Buddha Stretch” Austin Jr, Adesola Osakalumi and Gus Solomons jr

Music Director: DJ Doc

Location: LC's Josie Robertson Plaza, Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street, Manhattan (Subway: 1 to Broadway/65th Street or A, B, C, D to Columbus Circle)

AFTER-PARTY TO SUPPORT
DANCING IN THE STREETS' 
FREE SHOWS

7:30pm-11:30pm--benefit after-party with CENTRIFUGAL FORCE choreographers and dancers

Two-hour open bar and dinner buffet.

Music: DJ Jaze Art Remote

7:30-9:30: open bar and dinner buffet
9:30-11:30: cash bar

Location: BRANCH, 226 East 54th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue), Manhattan. Bus from Lincoln Center: M57 from West 57th Street/Broadway to East 57th Street/2nd Avenue. Or M31 from West 57th Street and 9th Avenue to East 57th Street/2nd Avenue

After-party ticket information/purchasing (until 8/14) here
Tickets at door by cash or check only

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