Study of fiscally sponsored NYC dancemakers announced [AUDIO]

State of NYC Dance: Discovering Fiscally Sponsored NYC Dancemakers

presented by Dance/NYC

September 7, 2012

at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center

We are in discovery mode, and this is a call to action."
--Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC

 Do you know it's Friday, and we're all here talking about research?"
--Anne Coates, VP, Arts and Cultural Development, Municipal Arts Society

As dance journalist Pia Catton noted in her recent article, "More Dance Companies Scrapping the Old Funding Model" (Wall Street Journal), independent artists without nonprofit status are increasingly turning to fiscal sponsors as a sustainable means of managing the legal and technical requirements for fundraising and accounting. The following audio provides data and follow-up discussion around Dance/NYC's study conducted in partnership with five New York City fiscal sponsors serving movement-based art:

Foundation for Independent Artists 
Fractured Atlas
New  York Foundation for the Arts 
New York Live Arts 
The Field

This community forum was presented at the 92nd Street Y's Buttenweiser Hall. The recording includes presentations and remarks by, among others, John-Mario Sevilla (92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center), Lane Harwell (Dance/NYC), Ian David Moss (Fractured Atlas), Anne Coates (Municipal Arts Society), Jennifer Wright Cook (The Field), Alexander Thompson (New York Live Arts), Eleanor Whitney (New York Foundation for the Arts), Mara Greenberg (Pentacle), Dianne Debicella (Fractured Atlas) and Victoria Smith (Dance/USA).

Click here to download audio file [1:32:43]

Up by their bootstraps!

You go to omnibus dance shows featuring emerging choreographers with hopes that you'll catch someone worth following. Last night, The Bootstrap Festival--a multidisciplinary showcase created by the New York Foundation on the Arts--devoted an hour to short pieces by five up-and-coming dancemakers, all women, at Joyce SoHo.

Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie, whose solo Brothers I enjoyed at Dixon Place last year, led the evening with Sonatina (in three movements), a title offering no hint of what would come. The Israeli-born dancer, steeped in the ways of hip hop and club dancing, is compact and forceful. In Sonatina, she flings and splatters angular movement against space but manages to do so with wit, musicality and the kind of upfront, audience-snaring presentation I associate more with jazz dance than contemporary dance. Bounce is, I think, working on being a star and should get there in due time. I also liked Cristina Jasen's Mouth for String, a quintet that displays a sensibility that's intriguingly off-centered and roomy. Discover this artist.

Caitlin Trainor's (un)Square dance is a refined modern-ballet hybrid for a quartet of women--Alison Cook Beatty, Aditi Dhruv, Julia Lindpaintner and Leslie Ziff, all lovely performers. Trainor has a fresh eye for picturesque lyricism and unusual transition but deserves a conclusion that doesn't look pat, like a quick snip and tuck.

Sydnie L. Mosley showed an excerpt from The Window Sex Project which raised a bunch of questions for me, including: Who are the four women in this piece? Are they sex workers (sort of judging by their costumes and the title)? Or are they everyday Black women who, as can happen, get showered with all kinds of verbal harrassment, like the ones litanized here, from Black men just for simply walking down the street? I ask because not only the costuming but the flow of the dance blurs these identities. The overall loopy chorus line vibe and neutrally energetic dancing also makes me wonder: What's Mosley's point of view? That doesn't really become clear until the very end when actress Leah King delivers her final line, "Is this the kind of culture we want to see?"

Throughout Shandoah Goldman's vivid ensemble piece, 23 skiddoo, I kept thinking of Pina Bausch (wacky doings among women in evening gowns and their dashing dans) and wondering if I should be tickled or alarmed by the clever resemblance. I still haven't decided. But if Goldman can marry an original vision to the kind of brazenness on display in 23 skiddoo, I'll certainly want to see more.

The Bootstrap Festival continues through February 18, culminating with a "Celebration of Movement and Interdisciplinary Art" at Brooklyn's new Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance. For complete schedule and venue information for all festival events, click here.

A creative head for business

In New York, a Business Course Geared to Artists

by Kate Taylor, The New York Times, June 18, 2010

2008 NYFA Choreography Fellows

New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), New York’s leading provider of unrestricted funding to individual artists, has awarded 136 Fellowships to 144 New York artists representing eight artistic disciplines that cover the visual, performing and literary arts. Reflected in the total are eight artistic collaborations. A NYFA Fellowship comes with an unrestricted grant in the amount of $7000.

This year’s 144 NYFA Fellows–who were chosen among over 4,500 applicants–includes
architects, choreographers, composers, fiction writers, painters, photographers, playwrights, screenwriters and video artists. The Fellows were selected by peer panels, which were assembled according to each artistic discipline.

Choreographers:

Luciana Achugar
Roxane Butterfly
Shemy Deganit
Miguel Gutierrez
Saar Harari and Lee Sher
Michel Kouakou
Nicholas Leichter
Jennifer Monson
Erick Montes – Gregory Millard Fellow
Max Pollak
Sally Silvers
Donna Uchizono

For additional information about NYFA, its fellowship program and a complete ist of 2008 NYFA Fellows, click here.