For Gina Gibney, Space Is the Place

For Gina Gibney, Space Is the Place
Long-time Choreographer, Entrepreneur, and Visionary Receives Dance/USA’s 2017 Ernie Award

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, From the Green Room, Dance/USA, May 23, 2017

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Got GRIT? What's new and what's reworked at Gibney

Nigel Campbell (left) and Brandon Welch
perform in Joanna Kotze's world premiere, Already Ready.
(photo: Scott Shaw)

Invent, reinvent. Configure, reconfigure.

Since forming her Gibney Dance Company in 1991, Gina Gibney has continually re-imagined who and what it could be--from its demographics to the degree of its performers' engagement with the world outside of studios and theaters. And, this week, comes the second round of another programming structure out of the Gibney organization--GRIT (Gibney Repertory Initiative for Tomorrow) which, in effect, gives her five-member ensemble the challenge of working with choreographers other than herself.

The organization describes the program as follows:

Gibney Dance Company’s GRIT series “makes space for the future of dance” by commissioning new works and reimagining signature works by contemporary dance artists. GRIT posits the possibility that the present generation’s work will be recognized and celebrated in live performance by future audiences.

So, if I got this right, part of the mission of the troupe will be to embody and preserve works by other select dance makers. What GRIT mainly sounds like, though, is a way to expand on what Gibney dancers are exposed to and what they can be prepared to tackle in the future--an interesting development.

The opening last night at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center showed GRIT to be very much a work in progress. You wish well for these dancers but, with the distinct exception of Gibney stalwart and Associate Artistic Director Amy Miller, they have not yet opened into the depth of the work--in the case of Joanna Kotze's new Already Ready, potential depth; in the case of Reggie Wilson’s collaged config. Khoum-baye Heah, near-bottomless depths.

They risk looking far more callow and untried than they actually are. And even a secure veteran like Miller--whose every appearance is a master class in how to think about performance, how to perform and how to see performance--often seems to be just keeping up with the surface, basic requirements of the Wilson work.

Devin Oshiro, Brandon Welch, Amy Miller,
Nigel Campbell and Kasandra Cruz
in Reggie Wilson's config. Khoum-baye Heah

Wilson has made many dances for his exciting Fist and Heel Performance Group largely informed by his research into the arts and spiritual cultures and ritual practices of the broad African diaspora and infused with his wit and contemporary, formal inventiveness. (Long ago, he named this wondrous melange "post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dance.”)  It is to be hoped that Wilson's valuable repertory will indeed be available to future makers, scholars, performers and audiences.

Veteran FHPG dancer Paul Hamilton assisted Wilson in setting a medly of elements of PANG (2000), The DEW WET (1997) and Big Brick – A Man’s Piece (2002) on the Gibney troupe. By Hamilton's account, the experience was a generous one on both sides with the Gibney dancers bringing their strength of community, willing to embrace the Wilson aesthetic's formidable physical demands. Physically, those demands are ones of speed and a furious multiplicity of isolations, directions, levels, uses of weight and deployments of the pelvis. So much going on at once, often at full force. Their bodies hit it, but I don't see the whole of each person living it, being in it. I don't get why they're doing what they're doing.

Kotze's Already Ready, she tells us, comes out of desire to meet the demands of the current moment for stepping up--as citizens, as activists, as creative people who care. Are we ready? She believes we are, and that fits in with everything I've ever known about what Gina Gibney wants for her dance artists and for dancers in general. So, here, a good match--at least in terms of aspiration.

What I appreciate about Already Ready is that is does, indeed, seem to be about people ready to play. They bring their noisy feet into the space, and they boldly doodle and squiggle themselves all over it as if they were big, fat crayons. Diverse in racial background and motley in costuming, they're just a bunch of folks making their particular marks in time, bringing what they bring. I don't see a whole lot more going on here, but I do see that, if this is Kotze's ultimate point, it got across.

Performers: Nigel Campbell, Kasandra Cruz, Amy Miller, Devin Oshiro, Brandon Welch

GRIT continues through Saturday with performances tonight at 8pm and Saturday at 5pm and 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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Gibney company premieres "Folding In" at home

Scenes from Gina Gibney's Folding In
Above, left to right: Kassandra Cruz, Devin Oshiro and Amy Miller
Below: Nigel Campbell and Kassandra Cruz
(photos: Scott Shaw)

Gina Gibney lists her five dancers--Amy Miller, Brandon Welch, Nigel Campbell, Kassandra Cruz and Devin Oshiro--as collaborators, and dance outsiders might think that role stops when a work's first performance begins. But it continues through the last movement of the work, and Gibney's artistry foregrounds performers in a way calls to mind Yeats musing, "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

The Gibney Dance Company celebrates its 25th anniversary this season with the world premiere of Folding In, Gibney's first evening-length piece since opening her organization's second home, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center.  Set to an atmospheric score by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, the dance bears the distinct Gibney stamp in its imagistic poetry, picturesque sculpture and sensitive relationships that initiate and flow between and among dancers. This choreographer, I suspect, continuously tinkers and crafts a world she'd like to live in.

She describes the piece as "a meditation on the cycle of extension, resolution, and return" that exposes "the natural state of the body and how it seeks inevitable but unknowable endings." The dancing fills a looming white studio space tinted with lighting designer Asami Morita's muted, shifting chroma. Intriguingly, as the audience seating is arranged, the studio also features a deep area perpendicular to the scene and out of our view--what we can't see, can't know. That recessed area has a definite presence.

What we do see--and quite clearly, as is the Gibney way--might be hard to define. A corps of white-clad dancers spread themselves across the back wall like sticky scraps of paper torn from some once-unified whole--an image reflected in the projection on the wall. They initially use the wall as a medium in which to grow, to explore the strength of their hands and the reach of their limbs, to eventually and crucially render themselves distinct from their beginnings and from one another. Felicity Sargent's interestingly different costumes suggest that they were always meant to strike out in individual ways.

They emerge--agile, spiky Miller, "rubberband man" Welch and all--in a whirlpool of motion generating solitudes and interconnections. The work requires--and receives from its performer--both remarkable plasticity and exactitude. Although the makeup of her company has changed over these many years, Gibney has always had an eye for a dancer's dancer, some of the best collaborators an artist can hope for.

Folding In continues through Wednesday, November 12. For information and tickets, click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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Gibney Dance celebrates an anniversary...and its home

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

Duets mean everything to choreographer Gina Gibney: evolving moments of human drama compressed, anchored, revealed and displayed in her work like new gems. This season, with a program entitled Duet, Gibney celebrates 25 years of dancemaking by overlapping and interweaving duets from her evening-length dances--from 1992's Landings to a preview of coming attractions.

The unique presentation takes advantage of Gibney's command of a sprawl of redesigned space at 280 Broadway, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, opened in 2014 at the site of the former Dance New Amsterdam.

Amy Miller (above) with Natsuki Arai
in a duet from Coming From Quiet (1998)
(photo: Scott Shaw)

The hour-long suite of dances moves performers and audience from a tiny downstairs studio lab to two larger studios and two transitional spaces--Gibney's gallery and a long corridor connecting the familiar Gibney floor plan to the rest of the building and a bank of elevators. Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of a rather fraught ensemble derived from 2013's Dividing Line, a chime suddenly sounded, and an elevator door opened onto the floor. Watching from the far end of the corridor, the audience could clearly see the leading edge of a plastic bag swing out and quickly draw back. Someone inside, spying several barefooted, black-clad bodies scattered around the floor, thought twice about venturing out!

Gibney's scheme for Duets has the flexibility to both allow for and recover from a possibly mood-shattering, if amusing, incident like that. Even the shuttling of audience from place to place can't diffuse the focused atmosphere created by seasoned veterans Natsuki Arai and Amy Miller along with impressive newcomers Nigel Campbell, Alexeya Eyma-Manderson, Devin Oshiro and Brandon Welch. I most enjoyed anything involving Campbell and Eyma-Manderson, two well-matched deities with lightning and intelligence crackling between them. Gibney's intricate, never less than human interactions--whether assertive, volatile, sexy, tender or contemplative--reward men and women with physical strength, range and genuine, one-to-one responsiveness. Duet offers ample opportunity to watch a promising, well-chosen team go to work.

Amy Miller (left) with Brandon Welch
in a preview from a work-in-progress, Folding In
(photo: Scott Shaw)

Duets continues through Saturday, March 26 with performances at 8pm each evening plus a 5pm matinee on Saturday. But don't delay, because ticketing is limited. The availability of chair seating varies from location to location. Dress comfortably for possible standing-room-only or cushion seating and cool temperatures. A complimentary coat check is provided. For information and tickets, click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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New spaces to open at Gibney 280: Take the survey!

Gina Gibney (CEO/Artistic Director) and Craig Peterson (Director of Programs and Presentation) hosted a town hall meeting last evening at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center to address the organization's goal of developing an additional 10,000 square feet of raw space at its 280 Broadway location.

The key issues we face are how to raise funds for the renovation, how to create a sustainable operating model, and how to deploy the space to best advantage [for] the NYC dance community.

Preliminary plans show the potential for as much as seven new rental spaces in an area currently rented from Gibney Dance by Pace University on a short-term basis. Gibney and Peterson describe this area as perfect for dance with less column obstruction and beautiful windows providing lots of natural light.

The town hall drew a small attendance, but Gibney Dance hopes to extend its engagement and dialogue with the community via an online survey to determine space needs, priorities and preferences.

You are invited to participate in the survey and to share it widely with your friends and colleagues in the dance community so that more voices can be heard.

Please click here to begin.

Kate Peila: In "lessons learned" post, Harwell ignores DNA's efforts

Two respected leaders of New York's dance community differ in their accounts of the recent history of The Sun Building at 280 Broadway, the former home of Dance New Amsterdam (DNA), a dance education, development and presenting organization which went bankrupt and shut down last year after a long struggle to renegotiate its lease and pursue a new business plan.

[Read more here: Curtain Closes On Dance New Amsterdam: Beloved NYC Studio And Simonson Technique Hub Bankrupt, To Close Doors by Nadine DeNinno, International Business Times, August 29, 2013]

280 Broadway, located across Chambers Street from City Hall, was recently annexed by Gibney Dance Center, an organization that administers Gina Gibney's dance troupe and several rental studios developed at 890 Broadway, a Flatiron District building owned by ballet choreographer/director Eliot Feld. GDC has reconfigured the Lower Manhattan extension for a slate of dance classes and plans to create new spaces for performance at the site. In addition, the organization's well-regarded Community Action program for survivors of domestic violence will be relocated to 280.

On May 14, Lane Harwell, Executive Director of Dance/NYC, contributed a blog post to The Huffington Post about "lessons learned" in the effort to save 280 Broadway for New York's dance community. The essay, which makes no mention of DNA's accomplishments or struggles, begins,

There are lessons for the creative sector in the story of 280 Broadway, whose new tenant, Gibney Dance, opens its doors to the community to shape the future. In a real estate climate where too many are losing space and reporting escalating costs -- real threats to creative life -- some, like Gibney Dance, are making solutions.

[Read more here: Making Space Solutions for Making Arts and Culture]

Catherine A. Peila, who served as Executive and Artistic Director of DNA from 2007 to 2014, asserts that that organization's "30 years of community building has been disappeared." In her initial response, posted yesterday on Facebook and forwarded to this writer among others, Peila wrote,

Having received phone calls from the cultural community regarding Lane’s blog “Making Space Solutions for Making Arts and Culture,” I must respond. It is imperative that a deeper investigation regarding the 280 Broadway transition from DNA to Gibney Dance be initiated before any attempt of a qualified statement regarding “lessons learned” be made. As the executive and artistic director of DNA, 2007-2013, Lane’s post is devoid of information that sets the stage for the DNA to Gibney transition. DNA’s original renovations, partnership negotiations, efficiency practices and financial modeling, legal battles, bankruptcy filing and its unnecessary dissolution enabled Gibney Dance to “reengage” the 280 Broadway dance space.

DNA successfully saved a space in NYC for dance, which represented nine years of unflagging work by its staff and board, thousands of artists, pro-bono lawyers and financial analysts, foundations and individual donors, elected officials, city cultural representatives, and Fram Realty. Gibney’s team received all the benefits without the burden of DNA's renovation debt, which proved to be its ultimate unraveling. Lane omits vital information that shows the cultural, funding and government sectors colluded to transfer the assets of DNA's/Dance Space Center’s 30 years of community building and program development to what they considered to be a healthier business. 280 Broadway is reengaged. I recognize Gina Gibney's commitment, but it is important to publicly analyze 280 Broadway’s transition so a proper list of “lessons learned” will aid in strengthening the non-profit field and this city’s cultural policy.

Yesterday, I reached out to Lane Harwell for a response to Peila's concerns, and he agreed to forward a written reply by 10am this morning. I have not received his response in time to include it in this post. Business travel over the next few days will delay my ability to post a follow-up, but I still hope to receive and append anything that Harwell would like to share with the readers of InfiniteBody.

Your comments on this issue are also welcome.

Gibney Dance Center welcomes community to its new downtown branch

Gina Gibney
(photo: Christopher Duggan © Gina Gibney Dance, Inc.) 

This is our space. It’s a safe space. And here is our opportunity to share our stories and look forward to what may be.

With those words, Lane Harwell (Executive Director, Dance/NYC) welcomed members of New York’s dance community and its supporters to an open discussion about Gibney Dance’s successful campaign to rescue 280 Broadway--former home of Dance New Amsterdam–and preserve it for the field of dance.  The SRO crowd, gathered in the 130-seat theater space, erupted in applause as Gibney Dance Artistic Director and CEO Gina Gibney announced the organization’s 20-year lease for 280 Broadway and its receipt of a $3 million grant from the Agnes Varis Trust.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and State Senator Daniel Squadron offered congratulatory remarks. GDC staff members were introduced, and panelists Adair Smith (Gibney Dance Executive Director), Gus Solomons, Jr. (Gibney advisor), and Kathleen Hughes (Assistant Commissioner for Program Services, Department of Cultural Affairs) spoke of their hopes and visions for the project.

Harwell opened the floor for questions and ideas from the audience. Four main questions or themes emerged from this segment of the evening:

● How can Gibney Dance Center 280 interact with its Tribeca neighborhood as a responsive, useful, creative participant in the downtown ecosystem? How can GDC 280's presence matter, not only in Tribeca, but in this diverse city as a whole?

● How can GDC 280 provide support and resources for the process of developing individual creative voices and original aesthetics in dance?

● How can GDC 280 provide consistent access to space for tech sessions, enhancing the quality of the presentation of work?

● How can GDC 280 provide physical space and opportunities for artists to interact more--especially in informal, social ways--fostering an atmosphere of creative cross-pollination and potential collaboration?

Gibney Dance welcomes you to share your thoughts, bring new ideas or offer your assistance at a series of small group discussions at GDC 890 Broadway, Fifth Floor, Studio 6:

Monday, February 3

4-5pm: Open Discussion/ Welcome Session Follow-up (Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

5-6pm: Rehearsal Space Needs (Adair Smith)

6-7pm: Class, Training and Education Needs (Hilary Easton)

Click to RSVP for February 3 at Eventbrite 

Tuesday, February 18

4-5pm: Performance Space Needs (Sara Juli)

5-6pm: Community Action and Advocacy (Amy Miller, Yasemin Ozumerzifon)

6-7pm: Open Discussion and Thoughts on Next Steps (Sydney Skybetter)

Click to RSVP for February 18 at Eventbrite

All are welcome to come to any and all sessions!

For further information on the expansion, click here.

Gina Gibney acquires former Dance New Amsterdam space

Lease Is Fresh Step for New York's Dance World
Gibney Dance to Take Space Formerly Held by Dance New Amsterdam in Lower Manhattan
by Pia Catton, The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2014

Gina Gibney premieres "Dividing Line"

Two Gibney dancers: Amy Miller (l) and Natsuki Arai
(photo by Julieta Cervantes)

In the dance world, we're now so used to thinking of Gina Gibney as the force behind the Union Square's bustling, multi-studio Gibney Dance Center, that it's possible to forget how carefully she tends her own art. Dividing Line--her first new piece in a few years, now at Florence Gould Hall--serves as a reminder of her appetite for making. Her long-running collaboration with two distinguished artists--composer Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott) and lighting designer Kathy Kaufmann--continues to be intuitive and fruitful. And Gibney Dance, her evolving ensemble--now a sextet with equal numbers of women and men--renders her formal ideas with discipline and stamina.

Dividing Line, therefore, makes its mark. With this hour-plus work, Gibney roars back onto her stage, and her claim and ferver are best represented by one dancer in particular--Amy Miller. To acknowledge Miller as soloist, duet partner or the fire-starter within any group moment is not to deny anyone else's contribution to the work. Instead, I want to recognize Miller now for embodying the place towards which Gibney Dance is heading.

Amy Miller
(photo courtesy of Amy Miller)

The line initially established at the front of the stage by all six dancers (Natsuki Arai, Javier Baca, Jake Bone, Zachary Leigh Denison, Jennifer McQuiston Lott and Miller), and re-established at work's end, tells us to pay attention. Something special and heightened will happen here in the space between two clear marks in time. And it does. The line gives way to a space churning with the transformative energy of wind, water and human pulse. Son Lux's string quartet, performed live by the thrilling American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), contains lots and lots of lines that divide like blades swooshing and slashing through air. Gibney and her dancers, with precision of form and timing, meet the composer and his musicians edge for edge.




None edgier than Miller, though. When this dancer moves, she's positively multidimensional, her effort and her boyish pixy persona making the eccentricities of the movement pop. That's what Gibney needs and may one day lead her team to achieve: dancing that brings out the mix of confidence, strangeness and rigor in her aesthetic.

With costumes by David C. Woolard

American Contemporary Music Ensemble includes artistic director Clarice Jensen (cello), Caleb Burhans (viola, substituting for Caitlin Lynch on opening night), Ben Russell (violin) and Caroline Shaw (violin).

Dividing Line continues tonight and tomorrow evening with performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Florence Gould Hall
French Institute Alliance Française
55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Gibney Dance Center takes action for domestic violence awareness

GIBNEY DANCE COMMUNITY ACTION

OCTOBER IS 
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH!

In observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Gibney Dance Community Action will host a roster of public events throughout this month, beginning next Monday, October 7. See the schedule at the bottom of this post.

Amy Miller

Yasemin Ozumerzifon

Amy Miller (Gibney Dance Associate Artistic Director and company member) and Yasemin Ozumerzifon (Gibney Dance Community Action Manager) recently chatted with me about the Gibney Dance Community Action, a program initiated in 1999 by Executive/Artistic Director and choreographer Gina Gibney. Miller and Ozumerzifon spoke about the program's mission and methods as well as sharing their personal experiences of working with women and children survivors in New York City’s domestic violence shelters.

*****

Yaa Asantewaa: Why does a dance organization care about domestic violence and domestic violence awareness?

Miller: Gina talks a lot about what domestic violence survivors need. They've had their sense of choice robbed from them. Oftentimes, a sense of self-expression has been buried away. Dancers and dancing bring that all together: it's all about self-expression, creativity, working with others and making choices. The two fit together very beautifully. We're bringing tools and prompts and asking them to creatively problem-solve--which is how a lot of choreographers work these days, with physical tasks, using more creative input as a way of developing movement. That's very similar to the model that we're using with the women, where they have a sense of ownership. Everyone is facilitating the workshop. It's not a leader and followers.

Yaa Asantewaa: Before self-expression, there must be self-knowledge. How does dance help restore a healthy sense of self?

Ozumerzifon: One of the reasons that Gina started this program is that dancers have been trained for a long time to listen to the body-mind connection. They have skills and techniques that they have practiced that should be shared with others to help everyone. Dance is a truly different outlet and leads to self-knowledge. You might be tense and not know that you are; you're not aware of it. But then you breathe and relax.

Yaa Asantewaa: That tension can be held or stored information about experiences and feelings. Do you, workshop facilitators, work with anyone with extensive knowledge about issues that can arise when a person begins to work with the body?

Miller: Yes. Each of the dancers goes through a training session brought together from the Gibney Dance model but also spearheaded by Beth Silverman-Yam, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families [a non-profit agency serving survivors of domestic violence]. What is domestic violence? What have the women experienced? What will their reactions be? How can we try to circumvent those reactions through various exercises? What to be aware of. Certain things to steer away from. Certain areas to stay sensitive with, and other areas where we can push forward.

We're not counselors. We're not trained to be therapists or dance therapists in any way. We're given a framework where we can use what we already know, which asks the women to look inside and take a second to focus on how they really feel, and then find ways to express that outward working together in groups. And then we always finish each workshop with a Take Care Card with exercises that the women can take away.

Yaa Asantewaa: Are these one-off workshops? Do you ever do a series with the same group of people?

Miller: We’ve started to work with the women in two-month segments so we would have them over a period of time. But women in the shelters are always shifting. Sometimes the turnover of clients will affect how long we get to work with them. Each workshop lives independently but can also live in an arc of diving in deeper if you have the same women.

Ozumerzifon: We’re currently doing 500 workshops a year. We usually go to each shelter once a week. It gives us an opportunity to build on things.

Yaa Asantewaa: Have you seen women experience breakthroughs as a result of your work?

Miller: I know that when I walk into a workshop, there are usually arms crossed. The body language is definitely slightly closed. They have no idea of what to expect or what's expected of them. Many times, they don't know the other women in the shelter. There's a sense of resistance in the beginning but, by the end of it, there's a lot of laughter and eye contact. They've opened themselves up a little bit, and there's a huge shift in the dynamic feeling of the group. They're in these shelters trying to find a job, find housing, trying to figure out what's next, and there's a lot of stress around that. This is an hour to do a little yoga, laugh, find out the name of the person who lives besides you.

Yaa Asantewaa: In a time when dance artists are struggling just to survive and make work, how does the Gibney organization--which is engaged in making and presenting dance, maintaining a large rehearsal and education center, and doing serious, sustained community work--juggle the formidable demands of each of its various components?

Ozumerzifon: All the three components of Gibney Dance--community work, space, the company--are all strongly bound together. It's bringing the possibility of movement to where it doesn't exist. Having a very strong mission makes it easier, because there's a cohesiveness about it. It comes together very organically.

Yaa Asantewaa: How does it work for you as individuals--as instructors, not just administrators?

Ozumerzifon: For my first experience, I went with Sandra, a survivor and mentor at Sanctuary for Families, who had taken our workshops. She really enjoyed movement and created a dance piece, under Gina's direction, called Here to Tell. We did a workshop in a shelter, and she performed it there. That was my introduction, and it was incredible.

Going into a shelter is interesting. Everything is confidential, anonymous. You have to sign things. It's not like going to a dance studios. But the women loved what we did. We giggled and laughed a lot--not what you would picture. Sandra performed, and the women talked with her about her experience. Very different from any workshop that I've taught in my life. [The methodology] is very firm but flexible and relies on your skills. There's room for growth. Actually doing the workshops complements what I do as an administrator. I should know what it is, particularly when I have to write about it.

Miller: In one workhop, I gave a yoga lunge: front leg bent, the other straight, the Warrior II pose. [She demonstrates this lunging pose with hands strongly jutting out in opposing directions as if pushing things away from the body.] The first time I did it, a few women sat back down: "I don't want to do this!" And they say that, too: "I'm not doing that. It looks too hard." The second time I did it, I said, "Well, why don't we, when we push away, think about something we don't want in our lives anymore?" And this woman jumped up and said, "I'm in this!" And she went into the biggest lunge I've ever seen! Pushed her arms really, really tight and had this awesome look on her face. And I said, "And now, let's come back and pull something toward us that we really want in our lives." In every one of them, you could see that the imagery of it became meaningful. That encapsulates the great part of this work.

One of my favorite parts about it is how grounding this work is for me as an artist. It gets me out of the mirror. It gets me to appreciate embodiment of movement, putting imagery to things, creating a narrative for myself in Gina's work. Even that story I just told--incorporating that idea into my own dancing. That's huge. The focus of this is helping me to direct my own choreography away from aesthetics and towards embodiment and meaning in real ways.

I also enjoy how it brings the Gibney company members together in a real way, too.

Yaa Asantewaa: How so?

I think, in the studio, ego becomes much more a facet of what's happening than we want it to, for different reasons, technical reasons, and to think out of the box in a certain way. This focus helps to let some of that settle down, and we can just see one another as people with different backgrounds and aesthetics--and all the differences are great! All of the different layers are accepted, and you don't have to keep pushing against them as much.

Ozumerzifon: I love the advocacy of this work. One in four women in the US experiences domestic violence. The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend, and I told him the statistics. He said, "That cannot be right," and we looked up a lot of the research. It's interesting how little we talk about it as a society, and how it's seen as more of a personal issue or that it's not our problem. So, I love going out there, doing advocacy and educational events.

We did a Bridal March where we walked from the Bronx to Manhattan [with Sanctuary for Families and various organizations]. People shout back at you: "Oh, yeah!" And you can see something changes. I really enjoy that part of it.

Yaa Asantewaa: In addition to your new workshops for children, how is the program growing?

Ozumerzifon: We have started to train others--dancers, social service providers--in the Gibney model. Last year, we started the intensive Institute for Community Action Training where you bring your own skills and learn about how getting them to where you want to take it next. Also, we're going global. We've done a residency in Montreal, but now we've also done a residency in Istanbul.

Yaa Asantewaa: What message does your special week of wellness events--the yoga and meditation sessions--have for the dance community?

Ozumerzifon: It's important to stop and take care of yourself, take that time for yourself. As dancers, we go, go, go, go, go all the time.

Miller: Taking care of yourself has repercussions for how you treat other people. Valuing your health and your well-being translates to how you interact in the world. We're reminded that, yes, taking care of yourself is not extravagant. It's necessary--for you and for everyone you touch in your life.

Ozumerzifon: A lot of what we do is in the shelters, out of the public eye. So I would encourage anyone who's interested and would like to see a little more of the work to attend one of the Open Studios we have on October 16 and October 21 (see schedule below) where we talk about our program, its history, and hear from a clinical staff member from Sanctuary for Families. We do a demonstration of our workshop. It's all open to the public and free.

Miller: And I'd just add that we're taking it out to Union Square Park with Joe Mangrum, the fabulous artist who does sand mandala installations there. We approached him, and he's going to make one with statistics about domestic violence. We're asking the public to join us, doing a brief call-and-response, improvised activity around that. So, if you're in Union Square Park on October 24, feel free to join in!

OCTOBER EVENTS

All Domestic Violence Awareness Month activities are free and open to the public. All--except the October 24 Union Square event--will take place at:

Gibney Dance Center
890 Broadway, Fifth Floor (between 19th and 20th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Participants can register for and learn more about October’s events by emailing community@gibneydance.org.

October 7-11: Body & Wellness Week

6pm-7pm (Gibney Dance Center, Studio 2)

A series of free wellness activities 

including yoga, meditation and conditioning

October 8: Guess Who's in the Greenroom

11am-2pm (Gibney Dance Center Greenroom)

Maria Bauman, Urban Bush Women

Art, Action, and Equity

Sign up for a 30-minute advice session*

October 16: Open Studio/Community Action

6:30-8:30pm (Gibney Dance Studio 5-2)

Open Studio highlighting 

GDC's ground-breaking Community Action program

October 21: Open Studio/Community Action

6:30-8:30pm (Gibney Dance Studio 5-2)

Open Studio highlighting 

GDC's ground-breaking Community Action program

October 22: Guess Who's in the Greenroom

11am-2pm (Gibney Dance Center Greenroom)

Adrienne Glasser, Experience Wellness Group

Understanding Trauma and the Body 

through Neuroscience, Movement, and Role Play

Sign up for a 30-minute advice session*

October 24: Union Square Advocacy Campaign

2pm-6pm in Union Square Park

Gibney Dance Company interactive public dance

in collaboration with artist Joe Mangrum

*To reserve Greenroom sessions or for further information on these and other Gibney Dance Center programs and resources, click here.

*****

Interviewee bios

Yasemin Ozumerzifon

After completing her primary education at the Royal Academy of Ballet, Yasemin moved to the US where she studied Dance and Psychology at Connecticut College. In order to combine her two passions, she pursued an M.A. at Columbia University in Developmental Psychology with focuses in creativity and human development. Yasemin was a research assistant for a study that evaluated the Guggenheim Museum’s “Learning Through Art” program and apprenticed at the New Victory Theater, where she created School Tool™. Yasemin is proud to be part of Community Action.

Amy Miller

Amy Miller, originally from Ohio, is thrilled to step into her new role as the associate artistic director of Gibney Dance. She is a former member of Heinz Poll’s Ohio Ballet, where she had the privilege of dancing leading roles in works by José Limón, Paul Taylor, Kurt Jooss, Antony Tudor, as well as Lucinda Childs, Laura Dean, Donald Byrd and Alonzo King among many others. She is a founding member and guest choreographer of Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater. Miller holds a BFA in dance and is also the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her choreography. In addition to numerous university residencies, her creative work has been seen at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, Mark Morris Dance Center, and Scandinavia House and has been produced at Spoke the Hub, West Fest Dance Festival, the West End Theater’s Soaking WET series, and Women in Motion. In keeping with her artistic priority of constantly developing new collaborations, such composers as the genre-defying Ryan Lott (aka Son Lux), guitarist James Marron, Oberlin College graduate Alex Christie, and Oberlin College professor Peter Swendsen have all worked with Miller on a wide range of musical scoring for dance. An avid teacher as well, Miller has been involved in integrated educational residencies within the Cleveland Public Schools sponsored by Young Audiences, an NEA sponsored intergenerational residency at Cleveland’s Fairhill Center for Aging, as well as summer residencies at Cleveland State University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Recent performance credits include David Parker and The Bang Group, Collective Body Dance Lab, and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Train for anti-violence with Gibney's Institute for Community Action

For more than a decade, Gibney Dance Community Action has pioneered movement workshops that help women in domestic violence shelters to find their voices and move towards healthier futures. Now, you too can be part of the groundbreaking work that positions movement and creativity at the forefront of positive social change.

Institute for Community Action is open to dance and social service professionals and students. Participants will gain the tools and skills to initiate, build, and sustain arts outreach projects targeting specific populations.

Friday, January 25 / 6pm – 9pm: Building Awareness
Saturday, January 26 / 10am – 6pm: Building a Workshop
Sunday, January 27 / 10am – 2pm: Building a Program

Tuition: $500

Learn more about this important program here.

Applications for ICAT are now open through January 4th and can be accessed here. 

Yasemin Ozumerzifon

Community Action Manager

Gibney Dance Center

Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Gibney Dance takes action

Gibney Dance to lead community action

for Domestic Violence Awareness Month 

All through October, Gibney Dance will host events designed to provide information and increase awareness around the issue of domestic violence. These events, held at Gibney Dance Center will be free and open to the public. This initiative includes:

-- "I Am Against Violence" photo campaign, in which members of the public can volunteer to be featured.

--  Community Action (CA), a first-of-its-kind program centered on dancer-led workshops using the power of movement and creativity to empower domestic violence survivors living in shelters in New York City and beyond.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month is a time not only to recognize the significant efforts that have been made to reduce domestic violence but also to recommit ourselves to serving the critical needs of survivors and their families. Through our Community Action work, we have learned that there is a powerful synergy between domestic violence and dance that helps survivors take their whole self forward—both body and mind. We look forward to sharing with the broader community the knowledge and expertise we have gained through 12 years of work around the issue of domestic violence.

--Gina Gibney, Artistic and Executive Director of Gibney Dance

--  a discussion with Beth Silverman-Yam, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families

--  free yoga classes

--  coaching opportunities on work/life balance

--  a CA Open Studio featuring Gibney Dance Company

All activities will take place at Gibney Dance Center, 890 Broadway, Fifth Floor.

Participants can register for and learn more about October’s events by emailing community@gibneydance.org.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month Schedule of Events

Domestic Violence Informational Session
Wednesday, October 3, 2:30–3:30pm (Studio 3)

Dr. Beth Silverman-Yam, Clinical Director of Sanctuary for Families, will lead a discussion on domestic violence and healthy versus unhealthy relationships.


Community Action Open Studio
Wednesday, October 10, 6:30–8:30pm (Studio 5–2)

Artistic and Executive Director Gina Gibney presents an overview of the Community Action model while the Company demonstrates workshop content and performs an excerpt from its repertory.


Body and Wellness Week
October 15–19, 8-10am (Studio 2)

A week of free wellness events

    Monday/Wednesday: Mind Body Dancer
    Led by Liz Montgomery

    90-minute Yoga class followed by 30 minutes of optional guided meditation


    Tuesday/Thursday: Tools for Managing Stress
    Led by Jennifer Edwards, jened.com

    The coaching sessions will guide participants through practical approaches to (1) creating a holistic model for how to manage life, work and their personal brands; and (2) using tools for sleeping better, reducing anxiety and managing stress symptoms.


    Friday: Chi Kung/Qi Gong
    Led by Laura Shapiro

    Chi Kung/Qi Gong is often translated as “life force energy practice.” With roots in Chinese medicine, martial arts, and philosophy, its gentle movements over time restore balance and harmony to body, mind, and spirit.


“I am Against Violence” Campaign Open Photo Shoot
Tuesday, October 23, 12:00 – 4:00 pm / Studio 5

Members of the public are invited to join the Gibney Dance community in taking a stand against domestic violence by having their photos taken for our online and Center-wide advocacy campaign.

DiP: New residency program at Gibney Dance

Gibney Dance Center launches another innovative program for New York's dance comunity--DiP, a new residency designed to provide continuous access to a studio space and production office to mid-career NYC-based dance makers. Artists will be selected for residencies of 2-4 weeks at Gibney Dance Center beginning in September 2012.

DiP DEADLINE:  Wednesday, May 16, 6pm

Get complete information and apply here.

Gibney Dance Center develops residency program

Center Line: Choreographic Residences II

at Gibney Dance Center

Wednesday, March 14, 6:30pm 

Free admission

Based on previous feedback from our first Center Line: Choreographic Residencies town hall and extended research, Gibney Dance has created a plan for Dance in Process (DIP). As we lay the groundwork for this new residency program, we want feedback from the dance field on the elements that contribute to a great creative experience. Those present at Center Line will have an opportunity to learn about the program plans and offer suggestions. New and returning attendees are welcome to share their perspectives. This edition of Center Line will be moderated by Dana Whitco.

Gibney Dance Center (Studio 3)
890 Broadway, 5th Floor (between 19th and 20th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

RSVP at rsvp@gibneydance.org or 212-677-8560.

Choreographic Residencies: What do you need?

Gibney Dance Center's Center Line town hall series continues with a community discussion on choreographic residencies, moderated by Sara Juli. GDC wants your feedback and direction on the elements that contribute to a great creative experience.

GDC Director Gina Gibney writes,

"We are currently developing a pilot residency program that will unfold in 2012 and (with any luck) develop into a full-fledged program next fall.  As part of this, we are conducting some informal research and would like to open up the conversation to the community. We are interested in gathering impressions on what is needed, what is not being offered elsewhere and how our particular facility can best be utilized for this purpose."

SARA JULI is the Founder/Director of Surala Consulting, a NYC-based fundraising consultancy specializing in strategic fundraising solutions. She has also been creating and performing innovative solo work in New York City for the past ten years and has toured her work in New York City, nationally and internationally to Holland, Australia, New Zealand, London, and Russia.
                                               
You are welcome to join this important community event on Wednesday, January 25 at 6pm.

Admission is free, but space is limited. Please RSVP with your name, email address and organization/job title to rsvp@gibneydance.org.

Gibney Dance Center
Studio 3, 5th Floor
890 Broadway (between 19th and 20th Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Gibney Dance Center celebrates community in dance

Gibney Dance Center Launch Party tonight
by Maura Nguyen Donohue, Culturebot, September 21, 2011

Making space work for New York's dancers

Gibney Dance Center Pioneers a New Financial Model While Providing Much Needed Dance-Work Space
by Jennifer Edwards, The Huffington Post

Gibney: Space needs consideration!

Space Needs Considered

Gibney Dance, November 23, 2010

A report on TIME TO TALK: SPACE NEEDS OF NYC DANCE ARTISTS, the November 22 open community discussion on space rental needs, hosted by Gibney Dance Center

We need to talk...about space!

On premises
(c)2010, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Please join choreographer Gina Gibney and me on Monday, November 22, for a dance community discussion about rehearsal space needs and how the new Gibney Dance Center can be responsive and innovative.

Here are the details:

TIME TO TALK: Space Needs of NYC Dance Artists

by Gina Gibney, Gibney Dance, November 14, 2010

Gibney Dance Center
Monday, November 22, 6:30pm-8pm*
890 Broadway, Fifth Floor - Studio 1

*No building entry after 7 pm + no elevator service after 7:55 pm

Thank Gibney it's Friday...or Saturday

Gibney Dance Center is running a "special" from now through December 30, a "TGIF Special." Rent Studio 2 for $10/hour on Fridays and Saturdays.

Click here for general information on renting at GDC.

To book space, email michele@gibneydance.org or call (212) 677-8560.