Re-membering Black lives with Taja Lindley

This Ain’t A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering (9:58) is a stunning film by Brooklyn-based visual and performance artist Taja Lindley, based on her solo healing performance ritual This Ain't A Eulogy (premiere: La MaMa's SQUIRTS, 2015). Co-directed with and edited by Ellen Maynard, the film was premiered on February 16 at the 5th Annual Black Artstory Month (Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership).

The film draws "parallels between discarded materials and the violent treatment of Black people in the United States," Lindley writes. "People in the African Diaspora have a long history of repurposing, remixing, and transforming oppressive systems into valuable cultural practices." Through the surreal, eye-catching artistry of her film, Lindley invites the viewer to "imagine how we can recycle the energy of protest, rage, and grief into creating a world where, indeed, Black Lives Matter."

Taja Lindley

Taja Lindley is a writer and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the founder and Managing Member of Colored Girls Hustle, and a member of Echoing Ida and Harriet's Apothecary. Lindley considers herself a healer and an activist, creating socially engaged work that reflects and transforms audiences, shifts culture and moves people to action. She uses movement, text, installation, props, ritual, burlesque, and multi-media to create performances that are concerned with freedom, healing and pleasure. She is currently developing a body of work recycling and repurposing discarded materials. Her artwork has been featured at the Movement Research at Judson Church series, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), the Gallatin Arts Festival at New York University, WOW Café Theater, La Mama Theater, in living rooms, classrooms, conferences and public spaces. In 2014 she was a Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project and a participant in EMERGENYC, an artist activist program of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University. In 2015 she was a Fall space grantee at BAX. This summer (May-August 2017) she is an Artist in Residence at Dixon Place. Her writing has appeared in Rewire, EBONY, Feministe, Yes! Magazine and Salon. www.TajaLindley.com

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APAP SEASON CHOICES: Dana Michel

Dana Michel performs Mercurial George
in this year's American Realness festival.

The Black Canadian dance artist Dana Michel--who made a big splash at home and here in New York in 2014 with her solo Yellow Towel--is back with a new solo, Mercurial George, at Abrons Arts Center for American Realness.

She has described the hour-long piece as an act of “wading through the hairy rubble of a preliminary anthropological dig” asking “What is the smell of a plethora of someones that you have been avoiding your whole life? What do you do with the body?” A seeming extension of Yellow Towel, with its genesis in racial stereotypes, Mercurial George implies the release of an authentic identity not imposed by others.

This is pertinent for exploration. Identity and marginal otherness--from immigration status to religion to gender--are battlegrounds with renewed real life-or-death stakes in the current moment. And Michel is a curious, fearless explorer, eccentric and mercurial indeed in her body language, fascination with the odd prop oddly used, and tendency to randomly mumble or declaim. She opens dimensions of mind and body that we usually declare unseemly and diseased and seems to say, "Look what else is here."

It's an interesting task and an interesting approach, requiring a performer who can submerge her calm, charming persona and grab hold of a viewer, no matter how resistant, for the space of an hour. Not easy. Go take a look and see what else is there.

Mercurial George
(photos: Ian Douglas)

Here's a mini-interview with Dana Michel

on the occasion of her January 2014 presentation of Yellow Towel

for American Realness.

(And here is my review of that show.)

Mercurial George will be presented again on Monday, January 9 at 4pm and Tuesday, January 10 at 7pm. Run Time: 55 minutes. For information on this and other American Realness events, now through January 12, click here.

Abrons Arts Center
(Experimental Theater)
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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12th Annual Barnard/Columbia Dances at New York Live Arts

No, these Barnard and Columbia dance students do not play. In several performances this weekend at New York Live Arts, they stepped up and nailed four demanding works--Sasha Waltz's Fantasie (2006), staged by Kevin Quinaou, and three world premieres by David Thomson, Joanna Kotze and Jennifer Archibald. And if yesterday's matinee left me absolutely sure I've seen enough of dancers running--Waltz, I'm looking at you in particular, though not exclusively--it also underscored the strengths of the Barnard College dance training. The quicksilver versatility, commitment and stamina of these young performers are impressive. As for the new works, I can say--again, with utmost certainty--that Archibald's Shades ruled the day. Dramatically lit by Tricia Toliver, it's the perfect hip hop video gone live at New York Live Arts, and some movement looks compelling simply because it's danced in unison, spread over and magnified by a mass of fourteen bodies. But the dancers bring everything into lasar-sharp focus. This one's worth a repeat. Presenters, I hope you're reading this! Worth a repeat.

Congratulations to all the dancers, all the choreographers and everyone at Barnard College Department of Dance.

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Schumacher's BalletCollective opens at Skirball in November

Here's a taste of Invisible Divide by BalletCollective, 

shot during BalletCollective's Summer 2015 residency in Telluride.

Choreography and direction: Troy Schumacher

Music: Ellis Ludwig-Leone performed by Indie vocalist Violetness

World Premiere: 

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

November 4-5

 For information and tickets, click here.

Legendary dance artist Blondell Cummings passes

RIP, Blondell Cummings

This morning, our dance community is reeling from the news that a beloved veteran artist and advocate for social justice, Blondell Cummings, has died. Few people were aware that Blondell had pancreatic cancer.

I hope to have more information for you later today. For now, here is a recording of her most recent appearance as moderator of a roundtable discussion at 92Y's Fridays at Noon program. The event opened with a performance of Manufacturing Consent by Edisa Weeks.

Blondell Cummings--Point of Reference

March 27, 2015

Joe Cocker, 70 [UPDATE]

Joe Cocker, Raspy-Voiced Rock Star With Distinctive Moves, Is Dead at 70
by Ben Sisario, The New York Times, December 22, 2014

Singer Joe Cocker dies aged 70 after cancer battle

BBC News, December 22, 2014

Paulus Berensohn on the art of making a life

Paulus Berensohn

Do something. Start with pleasure.

So says Paulus Berensohn, author of Finding One's Way with Clay (1973), in a graceful documentary portrait by Neil Lawrence, To Spring from The Hand: The life and work of Paulus Berensohn (TOTM Film, 2013; 73 min).

Berensohn--whose wizard-like, generous life has embraced the art of dance as well as visual arts and crafts--loves to recite lengthy poems by heart and tell stories. In the short clip below, not included in the film, the artist recalls the pleasure of snaring a true thrift-shop find--a black leather jacket with a perfect fit--for $2 and wearing it while doing the most mundane things.

Everything is Art from TOTM Film on Vimeo.

To Spring from The Hand offers a colorful, laid-back visit with a resourceful man happily out of step with the contemporary art industry and completely at peace with himself at age 80. He talks about and illustrates his contemplative approach to creativity and living, moment to moment, in what he calls "radical presence."

"Everyone should put their hands on clay as a way of awakening their fingertips," Berensohn says, and this sounds like the wisdom of a Graham and Cunningham student who, as he professes, never left dance and continues to practice Qi Gong and The Alexander Technique. "We devour the Earth and don't pause to praise it, to thank and to sing up the Earth," he tells the filmmaker. The deep ecology of his practice as an artist and educator rests in a stubborn moral imperative: "It's the function of the artist to sing up the Earth."

Supporting interviewees--including a few of Berensohn's so-called "fairy godchildren," a status that sounds like more fun than simply having a mentor or creativity guru--attest to the power of this man's example. Lawrence's project--and Berensohn's--might just move you to pick up a pen or brush or lift your voice in affirmation.

To learn more about To Spring from the Hand and watch a clip from the film, click here.

Cirque Éloize's "Cirkopolis" rises at Skirball

Members of Cirque Éloize
perform a banquine act in Cirkopolis
photo (c)2012 Productions Neuvart/Valérie Remise

Right before the curtain rises on Montreal's Cirque Éloize--now at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts through January 5--discordant music starts grinding and growling. Houselights flash; the curtain swirls with blobs of light, and whatever lies behind that veil could be radioactive. A startled audience gives up its first flurry of applause. And when that curtain lifts, watch out!

Cirkopolis, featuring a gifted, versatile troupe from Montreal, is what Fritz Lang (of Metropolis fame) might whip up from a big heap of contemporary circus acts, a dollop of music-theater choreography and a dash of Magritte. Instead of Lang, though, we have Cirque Éloize's Jeannot Painchaud and co-director/ choreographer Dave St-Pierre mischief-making with Robert Massicotte (sets/video), Alexis Laurence (video), Nicolas Descoteaux (lighting) and Stefan Boucher (music), just to name a few of the numerous co-conspirators responsible for this spectacle. Together, they have constructed an impressive, if also menacing, vision of urban life with views of towering, zooming architecture, a mass of mechanical gears that endlessly churn, and business men and women as soulless in their workaday existence as their yard-high stacks of paperwork. But that's not all.

Somewhere beneath this city of driving energy lies a more magical, more seductive one, no less driven. A city of expressive freedom, of romance, where men and women of cultivated power and skill display not only physical daring but also sensitivity and whimsy. In other words, a city of circus.

Cirque Éloize in the juggling pins scene of Cirkopolis
photos (c)2012 Productions Neuvart/Valérie Remise

Over the course of 80 minutes, Painchaud and St-Pierre offer no straightforward narrative but utilize "big number" stagings--like a wildy imaginative ensemble dance with juggling pins--as context and lightbox for circus acts like trapeze work, banquine, contortion and clowning. The pace is variable but mostly lively, with only Lauren Herley's scarily-good but overextended corde lisse (aerial rope act) dragging out longer than necessary. From the sheer poetry of Angelica Bongiovonni's intricate twirling with and within a life-like Cyr wheel--I believe she can fly!--to the more macho posturing of a male sextet slipping around inside the German wheel, Cirkopolis is a nearly overwhelming thrill. Make time for Cirque Éloize this season!

Performed by Maude Arseneault, Angelica Bongiovonni, Dominique Bouchard, Mikael Bruyere-L’Abbe, Ashley Carr, Samuel Charlton, Myriam Deraiche, Lauren Herley, Reuben Hosler, Ugo Laffolay, Yann LeBlanc, Frederic Lemieux-Cormier and Francois Saussus (alternating with Carr in the clown act)

Through January 5. For complete schedule details and tickets, click here.

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Kimmel Center for University Life

New York University (at Washington Square)

566 LaGuardia Place, Manhattan

(map/directions)

InfiniteBody preview: New project due from Bessie-winning Emily Johnson

Emily Johnson
(photo by Cameron Wittig)

In this video, Emily Johnson--Minneapolis-based Bessie Award winner and 2013 Creative Capital grantee--looks ahead to her intriguing new project, Shore, set to premiere in June 2014. Shore is a work about "gathering to create connections" and warmly invites participants to forge community in numerous ways.

from Creative Capital on Vimeo

Shore is a multi-day performance/installation of dance, volunteerism, feasting and storytelling. It is a place audiences choose to visit once or many times, as participants or observers. The project develops in each venue over an extended period of time, requiring conversation and collaboration among organizations. Shore begins with a feast, followed by a night of curated storytelling. During the day, participants propose and carry out volunteer activities needed in their home communities. Staged performances that move from outdoors to the stage take place at night.

Learn more about Shore here.

Catalyst, Dances by Emily Johnson Web site

Explore videos from other Creative Capital artists here.

Tap--and a dancer's quest--explored in "Tap or Die"

"Tap is always 'coming back.' When's it going to get here?"
--Derick K. Grant

"There are a lot of our critics who would like to keep it on the corner. 
They'd like to keep it as folk art."
--Brenda Bufalino

"We've had too many people who we consider heroes die broke."

--Derick K. Grant

On Friday, January 31, meet filmmaker Jackie Paré at the 2014 Dance on Camera festival screening of Tap or Die, an hour-long documentary inspired by Boston-born tap artist Derick K. Grant and his still-unfulfilled mission to bring his celebrated 2006 show, Imagine Tap!, to Broadway.

Warm, vivacious and chock-full of interviews with numerous dance artists and experts, as well as vintage and contemporary performance footage, Tap or Die addresses both the undeniable triumphs and ongoing controversies within the tap dance field. It also makes a lot of fundamental insider stuff accessible and appealing to a broad audience--for instance, how the various parts of tap shoes are used to vary sound and how math is an essential part of the tap equation.

For more information on this screening and the full schedule for the Dance on Camera festival (January 31-February 4), click here.

Tap or Die 

(2013; 62 minutes)

Presented by 

Film Society of Lincoln Center and Dance Films Association

Friday, January 31 (3:30pm)

Walter Reade Theater
Lincoln Center

165 West 65th Street (near Broadway), Manhattan

(map/directions)

Dance on Camera tickets go on sale:

December 10: Pre-sale for DFA and FSLC Members
December 17: General Public
Purchase tickets on FilmLinc.com

Jazz artist Esperanza Spalding calls for action on Guantanamo

Esperanza Spalding
(photo by Johann Sauty)

Esperanza Spalding: Guantanamo Doesn't Represent 'Our America'
by TELL ME MORE STAFF, NPR, November 22, 2013

Bill T. Jones and Susan Rethorst in conversation

Bill T. Jones and Susan Rethorst: A Conversation in Five Parts

from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Recently, two seminal figures of the New York downtown dance world—Bill T. Jones and Susan Rethorst—sat down with Lois Welk, director of Dance/USA Philadelphia, to talk about their distinct practices and the evolution of the field. Though they share a birth year (both were 61 at the time of the interview), the dancer-choreographers represent two archetypal models or attitudes for how to live as an artist in society. During the interview, Jones refers to the French notion of l’artiste engagé, and talks about developing a thick armor to do battle with not only critics but audiences as well. Rethorst speaks of an openness to the world around her, of staying fluid and letting daily experience find a way into the work.

A video tribute to dance artist Jennifer Monson

Jennifer Monson Tribute Video, Movement Research Gala 2013 from movement research on Vimeo.
2013 Movement Research Honoree Jennifer Monson

Audio interviews: DD Dorvillier, Pooh Kaye, Alejandra Martorell, Cathy Weis, Jeremy Nelson

Written Quote: Yvonne Meier

Photos by Tom Brazil and Henry Hills; and courtesy of Pooh Kaye, Jennifer Monson and Jeremy Nelson

Video footage: "Zeena Parkins and Jennifer Monson at the Clocktower, July 2011" with videography by Ryutaro Ishikane and courtesy of Jennifer Monson and iLAND - interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance; "Jennifer Solo - Cape Cod" from Live Dancing Archive and "14 Street Migration" (2001 and 2002) from the BIRD BRAIN project, courtesy of Robin Vachal; "Trash Can Study" (1983) courtesy of Pooh Kaye; "Mad Heidi" (2005) courtesy of Yvonne Meier; "String of Lies" (1995) courtesy of Cathy Weis; and "RMW(a)" (2007) and "Yvonne Meier and Jennifer Monson" (2010) courtesy of Movement Research

Music: Zeena Parkins, Orra

Video Production: Catherine Galasso and Rosalie Elkinton

Love brings surprises: "The White Piece" by John Scott Dance at La MaMa

Members of John Scott Dance in The White Piece (Photos by Chris Nash)

top photo: Philip Connaughton and Rebecca Reilly; bottom photo: John Scott and Haile Takabo

Dancer-choreographer John Scott--who has offered dance workshops for Dublin's Centre for Care for Survivors of Torture and also dealt with his performers' knotty, desperate immigration asylum cases--does not make art that speaks directly to the pain he has witnessed and internalized. With a field of trained dancers as well as survivors of injustice whose bodies carry concealed stories, he makes bighearted, absurd rituals of healing. The White Piece--its title referencing the symbolic color of purification, sanctity and, for some cultures, mourning--is one such work. Presented at La MaMa now through March 24, in association with the Irish Arts Center, The White Piece can have a curious effect on audiences, daring to be deceptively uncool in its methods and borderline corny in its optimistic appeal to humanity.

Before the audience can even settle in, Scott subjects everyone to a cacophony of voices as thirteen racially- and culturally-diverse performers mill about and speak, each man or woman on his or her own trajectory or sometimes pairing off to trail and mirror a momentary partner. I would imagine those voices and bodies represent the situation Scott found himself in with so many people--from Eastern Europe, from African nations--and so many troubling histories thrown his way. But pretty soon the mess shifts to a follow-the-leader game of word-and-movement phrases, and the talk is all about love. "Love is a piece of paper written but left unread," one dancer says, tossing a sheet of paper over her shoulder. The others follow suit. "Love is an escape from self," says another, burying his head in the arm of a partner. The rest repeat these words and actions. "Love brings surprises" leads to the initial surprise of one man grabbing a partner by the foot and dragging him halfway around the floor. This love talk goes on for quite a while, through many variations, during which some actual dancey-dance breaks out only to be cheekily undercut by the Broadway razzmatazz its dancers momentarily give it. Scott and company seem to be aware of the inherent disruptive weirdness of mixing privileged dance and theater specialists with folks new to the pleasure and power of movement as a means of artistic expression. They pack the self-consciousness of all of this into the piece, and they don't care if some of the raggedy ends of that hang outside the luggage. It's more fun (and more disruptive) that way.

There's nothing new about "breaking the fourth wall"--and certainly not at La MaMa--but it's cute how John Scott Dance does it in The White Piece where your footwear might get removed to become a flamboyantly admired prop. And not just one time. Then again, if you're fortunate enough to actually be the great Sara Rudner--a Scott colleague--the choreographer might trot over to you and say, "Thank you for coming. I'm giving the rest of this performance for you, and if you need anything, let me know."

But you probably don't have to be Sara Rudner to receive the gift of The White Piece, if willing. After the company's post-show Q&A, guided by La MaMa curator Nicky Paraiso, I left the theater feeling a touch giddy and with a noticeable pep in my step. It's true that, in most times, I am a lighthearted soul and that most dance nourishes me. Even so, this was an unexpected sensation.


The White Piece--performed by Joanna Banks, Ashley Chen, Philip Connaughton, Crinela, James Hosty, Kiribu, Sarah Patience, Florence Welalo Poudima, Rebecca Reilly, John Scott, Daniel Squire, Cheryl Therrien and Mufutau (Junior) Kehinde Yusuf--runs through Sunday, March 24. For schedule and ticket details, click here.

La MaMa (Ellen Stewart Theatre)
66 East 4th Street (2nd Floor), Manhattan
(map/directions)

"Interface" -- Rashaun Mitchell puts a face to that emotion

The cast of Interface: l-r, Silas Riener, Cori Kresge, Rashaun Mitchell and Melissa Toogood (Photo by Stephanie Berger)

I was pretty sure I didn't need to see dancers behaving like artists' posable mannequins--even fabulous, razor-sharp ones like choreographer Rashaun Mitchell and his colleagues, Silas Riener, Melissa Toogood and Cori Kresge. I was fairly sure I'd seen this idea played out any number of times in dance. Thomas Arsenault (Mas Ysa)'s music for Mitchell's quartet Interface--given its world premiere last night at Baryshnikov Arts Center--sounded like the protracted, labored breathing of an android. Then, suddenly, dancers' tongues began to press hard against the inside of their cheeks. Later, crude expressions would bulge out the skin of formerly placid faces from Cunningham-land, distorting the message of their bodies' clean assertions. Interesting.

Interface at Baryshnikov Arts Center (Photo by Stephanie Berger)

This happened within and around a large, white square of empty space and within the Howard Gilman Performance Space that, famously, looks out on the the lights and architecture of Hudson Yards, the theater's generous windows now interspersed with striking visual designs in black and white. (Of the four performers, only Riener--his usually lush, dark hair here tamed into a tight topknot--breaks the monochrome by wearing a childish-looking yellow romper.) Some of those windows come alive by video, so that movement may happen by chance--say, a passing jet streaking across the sky--or by design.

For me, this integration of handsome urban vista with an innerscape arranged by Mitchell and his collaborators proved more enchanting than the dance alone might have been.

Black/white, inside/outside, mechanical/animal, constrained and not so constrained, functional and (perhaps) not so functional, apart and together: Interface exists in a dynamic state of between, of flux, of uncomfortable becoming. Which is Mitchell's condition as a burgeoning dancemaker suddenly set loose in the world, is it not?

With visual design by Fraser Taylor, Davison Scandrett and Mitchell; video by Nicholas O'Brien; lighting design by Scandrett; textiles and prints by Taylor; and costumes by Mary Jo Mecca

Rashaun Mitchell's Interface concludes with two performances tonight: 7:30pm and 9:30pm. Click here for details and tickets.

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/direction)

The Black Arm Band: music of Australia's indigenous experience

"dirtsong" from The Black Arm Band on Vimeo.

NYU Skirball Center presents the U.S. premiere of dirtsong--traditional music and new songs from Australia's Black Arm Band.

Friday, February 22, 8pm 

The Black Arm Band brings together many of Australia’s premiere Aboriginal musicians. They hail from across the country and represent diverse musical, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Performed predominantly in Aboriginal languages, against a backdrop of evocative film imagery, the U.S. premiere of dirtsong comprises a series of musical “conversations” in which the artists reflect on their country. The result is a deeply moving show that conjures not only a sense of geographical place, but encounters, memories, obligations, community and nature. Combining traditional music and newly commissioned songs inspired by the beloved indigenous author Alexis Wright (Carpentaria), dirtsong offers a conceptual and emotional map of Australia's heartland.

For ticket information, click here or call 212-352-3101

NYU Skirball Center
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Memorial service tomorrow for Diane Wolkstein

Read: Why Travel to the Other Side of the World

by Diane Wolkstein, January 2013

The Most Incredible Thing of All at Central Park (2010)

Courtesy Rosegarden Television (CC BY–NC–ND)

 A message from Diane's daughter, Rachel: 

"It is with profound sadness that I tell you that my mother, Diane Wolkstein, passed away very early this morning in Taiwan. She had had emergency heart surgery but the procedure was not sufficient to allow her heart to work on its own. She was not conscious and she was not alone. She had several of her close friends from Taiwan there with her and at the very end she had a rabbi say kaddish and Buddhist prayers were said as well. Her death is a terrible shock. Her life overflowed with joy, intensity, friendship, love and spirit. Her love for each of us and the stories she told live inside of us forever." —Rachel Zucker

Obituary:

Diane Wolkstein, world-renowned storyteller, folklorist, mythologist and author of many books for children and adults, died following emergency heart surgery on January 31 while on a trip to Taiwan working on her most recent project, the Chinese epic story of Monkey King or Journey to the West.

Diane was the author of 23 books of folklore and performed to sold-out crowds throughout the world. What set Diane apart as a storyteller are her performing gifts as well as the depth of knowledge and research she devoted to the stories she told. Diane’s collection, The Magic Orange Tree, was the result of numerous visits to Haiti during which Diane recorded stories told on porches and in late-night gatherings. In Australia, Diane met Aboriginal storytellers who granted her special permission to tell their stories. Wolkstein spent years working with Samuel Noah Kramer, one of the world’s pre-eminent archeologists, to create the definitive telling of the great Sumerian epic, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, which she performed at the United Nations and the British Museum. Because of Diane’s work, Inanna has become an influential text in feminist studies and studies of ancient history.

Diane’s belief in story and its potential to transform people’s lives propelled her to the forefront of the modern storytelling movement as early as 1967, when she joined the New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation and started a year–round storytelling program for the city’s parks and schools. Diane initiated America’s first graduate storytelling program at Bank Street College of Education and was a regular visiting teacher of mythology at New York University for 18 years. She is a founding member of both America’s National Storytelling Conference and the Storytelling Center of New York City, and has held hundreds of workshops on the art of storytelling throughout her long career. For thirteen years Diane’s radio show, Stories from Many Lands, was broadcast on WNYC–AM/FM bi–weekly, and in 2007 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg named June 22nd of that year “Diane Wolkstein Day” in honor of Diane’s 40 years of storytelling for the people of New York City.

New York City’s children gathered at the foot of the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park to hear Diane tell stories every Saturday for more than forty summers. The culminating event of the storytelling season was her telling of Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep and the skip rope competition that followed.

Diane is survived by her daughter, Rachel Zucker, her son-in-law Josh Goren, her three grandsons Moses Goren, Abram Goren and Judah Goren, her mother Ruth Wolkstein, her brothers Martin Wolkstein and Gary Wolkstein, her sister-in-law Elizabeth Borsodi, nieces and nephews and a grandniece. She also leaves behind many dearly loved friends in New York and around the world.

In lieu of flowers please consider making a donation in Diane’s name to Partners in Health, or Tzu Chi Foundation.

A public memorial service will be held this Sunday, February 3rd, at 3PM at the New York Insight Meditation Center, located at 28 West 27th Street, 10th floor (b/w 5th and 6th Avenue). (A second memorial, celebrating Diane's life is being planned for the summer/fall).

Jeu d' Esprit...indeed!

I need a little break...and so do you!

So, I'm posting a link to a lovely dance film, Jeu d' Esprit, by Amelia Golden, shot live at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

soloist James A. Pierce III
choreography by Mitzi Adams of the Adams Company Dance

Click here.

My "Greenroom" sessions at Gibney Dance Center

Self-portrait (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In my second series of informal, 30-minute "Greenroom" consultations at Gibney Dance Center (Pitch Your Show to A Dance Writer: Does Your Promotion Work?), I met and worked with everyone from a mature choreographer who said that her projects are often marginalized because critics and presenters see her age before they recognize her innovation to an accomplished performer and producer deeply connected to a network of traditional and contemporary dance troupes from Africa. Not everyone had actual dance shows to pitch to critics; specific projects and needs varied widely.

As with my first series of sessions back in August, I drew upon not only my experience as a dance writer but also my almost equally long experience in intuitive counseling. I tapped into my listening skills and enjoyed the process of helping people to focus, stand up for themselves and their values, and effectively communicate with the world of media, presenters and the public. We discussed new strategies and new media tools as well as the central, perennial importance of putting yourself in the place of the recipients of your message: What do they most need to read, hear, see?

I look forward to future opportunities to offer this service.

After both of these three-hour events, the Gibney folks asked for an impromptu reflection on these sessions for a brief video, and I have just received the link to the August clip on Vimeo. I'll post the link to yesterday's video--which I much prefer to this one!--as soon as I get it from the GDC.

To find out more about Gibney Dance Center's Guess Who's in the Greenroom program or any of GDC's programs and events, click here.

Dancer Nora Chipaumire: exile and identity

Irene Borger, Director of the Alpert Award in the Arts, has posted a new interview with the brilliant, charismatic Nora Chipaumire, 2012 Alpert winner for Dance.