Robert Glasper on collaborating with choreographer Kyle Abraham

Jazz composer/musician Robert Glasper discusses his latest collaboration with dance artist Kyle Abraham on When the Wolves Came In which will premiere at New York Live Arts on September 25.

For information on When the Wolves Came In, click here.

Abraham will also present The Watershed in a separate program. For information, click here.

Smith + Tinker writers group presents new plays at HERE

So, what do you want to do this weekend? Catch a Ladder to the Moon?

Smith + Tinker launched Ladder to the Moon on the eve of Halloween at HERE Arts Center, the fruit of a five-month process of collaboration within its group of playwrights. Wikipedia, in its entry on Smith & Tinker--the electronic game company, that is--cites "the fictional characters Smith & Tinker, an artist and an inventor who are briefly mentioned in the Land of Oz series of books as the creators of Tik-Tok the machine man."

And, actually, here's what the theater-oriented Smith + Tinker's Sarah Rose Leonard had to say about that in an interview with blogger Kippy Winston:

In the Land of Oz, Smith, an inventor, and Tinker, an artist, created many fantastical inventions. But they are only referenced in the books; these two characters don’t actually appear. That’s because, long before you, the reader, showed up Tinker painted a river so real he fell in and drowned and Smith created a ladder to the moon and never came back down.

Yes, that certainly is some serious artist juju.

With that thought in mind, the purveyors of Ladder to the Moon promised: "Amid the mystic revelry of Halloween week, two entrancing bills will feature pieces related to fear, reinvention, and how we tell stories."

Above and below:
cakeface in Harold, I Hate You
(photos by Trevor James Martin)

Amanda Szeglowski's Harold, I Hate You, created with her skillful all-female dance/theater troupe, cakeface, gets Program B off with a trio of tick-tock-machine-like scouts--the choreographer, Elle Chyun and Jeso O'Neill--heading off on a camping trip. These squeaky-clean automatons, crisp and uniform in gesture, distract and entertain themselves around the campfire with chatter about things that supposedly scare them--"I contracted flesh-eating bacteria once. I’m pretty sure," "I think I have Mad Cow disease"--in a firm but expressionless way that, perhaps, suggests how we rehearse and ritualize our fears until they truly rule us. And who is the hated Harold? Oh, that's a great story, and I will leave you to discover that one for yourself.

Program B also includes an excerpt from Ghost Stories, created by Tiny Little Band (Jerry Lieblich and Stefanie Abel Horowitz), and an excerpt from The Dinosaur Play by Ryann Weir, directed by Annie Tippe. In fairness, I can't say much about these works-in-progress, but I can tell you that the cozy environment of the first--and its eerie stories--took me back to childhood in a curiously pleasant way. (Caribbean folk love all kinds of ghost tales, and some of these types of stories are quite familiar to me from my early study of the paranormal.) Weir's nutty dialogue with co-star Dylan Lamb in The Dinosaur Play is hilarious and leads, near the end, to a marvelous and touching twist. Both of these projects show signs of something interesting cooking below the surface, and perhaps those elements will strengthen over time.

Ladder to the Moon's Program B repeats today at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Program A--featuring works by Andrew Farmer and Francis Weiss Rabkin--will have its final performance tonight at 8:30pm; click here.

HERE Arts Center

145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan

Enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring Street.

map/directions

Start the Car: DUMBO series for multimedia storytelling

Start the Car

Multimedia Storytelling Series

presents

Getting Lost

October 10, 2013

 Galapagos Art Space

Getting Lost features storytelling from Zefrey Throwell (Whitney, MoMa), Hollis Witherspoon (Comedy Central, The PIT, WBAI), Elena Megalos (The Moth), Jenny Zhang (LMCC, Rookie Mag), Chris Stackhouse (Poet, Art in America), Benaifer Bhadha (Narativ), and Nathaniel Sullivan (Flux Factory, This Red Door).

Start The Car is a multimedia storytelling series featuring a diverse panel of writer/artist/performers at Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn. The event brings together artists, writers, and performers that may utilize various creative multimedia to support an "alternative presentation" of a narrative structure. A rotating line-up of storytellers offer up diverse essays, non-fiction and fictionalized stories based around a loose theme and are encouraged to use sound, pictures, written and spoken word, video, music, images, collaboration and any other modes to creatively enhance the narrative.

Tickets are $8 in advance ($12 at the door) and can be purchased at ticketweb.com. Doors open at 7pm, and stories will begin at 8pm. This event is 21 and over; seasonal drink specials will be available for purchase.

Galapagos Art Space

16 Main Street, Brooklyn

(map/directions) 

Call for applications: Fall Movement at Center For Performance Research

Applications for 

CPR Presents: Fall Movement 

(November 7-9)

Center For Performance Research (CPR) invites applications from artists working within the various aspects of dance and performance as well as unique collaborations with the technological and visual art world to apply to present their work at CPR Presents: Fall Movement November 7-9, 2013.

DEADLINE: Monday, September 9, 6pm

For more information, click here.

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.

DUMBO fest wants your site-specific dance

  Young Soon Kim

2010 DUMBO DANCE FESTIVAL - CALL FOR ARTISTS

Call for site-specific works

Application Deadline: Postmarked August 15, 2010

In celebration of our 10th anniversary WHITE WAVE is proposing a series of site-specific dance works to be performed in seven outdoor spaces throughout DUMBO during the 2010 DUMBO DANCE FESTIVAL. The seven sites are situated within two designated areas: the Brooklyn Bridge Park (near the entrance at Washington and Plymouth Streets), and along the Pier 1 waterfront (entrance at Old Fulton and Water Streets) in DUMBO Brooklyn.

There is no application fee to apply.

Ideally we would like these pieces to be collaborations between dancers, movement artists and multimedia artists of all kinds: musicians, composers, fashion/costume designers, video artists, photographers etc. You may apply as collaborators or as individual artists who we will match together. We are primarily a dance festival but are open to creative applications from artists in different media who can make a strong case for the way their work would fit in a dance context.

Be imaginative. Your proposals will be reviewed, selected and curated by a committee headed by Young Soon Kim, Artistic Director of WHITE WAVE. The sites are presented raw—i.e. no built stages, sound systems, lights, electricity: All production value for the site specific pieces will be self-generated. Successful applications will propose flexible performances that are adaptable to shifting circumstances and enthusiastic about the creative potential of collaboration with other artists. Applicants are encouraged to present new work.

Before you submit your application, we strongly suggest that you visit the site – specific designated areas in person.

We are excited to offer this opportunity and to see your submissions!

See more details and RSVP on DNA World.

Dancemakers Meet The Composer

Meet The Composer announces the collaborations awarded for the 2008 COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA program. They are a diverse group of 15 composers and 17 choreographers, theater artists, filmmakers, and visual artists. This year, MTC awards $180,000 to 21 organizations to commission 15 new works. Composers at the leading edge of contemporary classical, jazz, and theater music will join with a wide variety of artists to combine music with dance, theater, film, and puppetry. (For a complete lists of artists and organizations, see below.)

Meet The Composer president Ed Harsh says of this year’s selections, “We are thrilled by the creative energy that MTC is able to unleash from this excitingly varied group of artistic collaborations. Audiences across the country are going to find these new works fresh and engaging.”

Some highlights from the 2008 Commissioning Music/USA projects:

· Jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran and choreographer Alonzo King will create a new ballet for King’s LINES Ballet to premiere at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in October 2009.

· Broadway composer Michael John LaChiusa and writer Sybille Pearson will create a new musical theater piece Giant, based on the novel by Edna Ferber about a Texas ranch-farming family and the sacrifices demanded by life in the ever-changing American landscape.

· Composer and trumpeter Dave Douglas will partner with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison for The History of Gadgetry, a music and film exploration of how technology and invention influence our lives and revolutionize the way we see the world. The project will incorporate film with acoustic as well as electronic instrumentation.

· Composer Nico Muhly and choreographer Stephen Petronio will develop an evening-length dance piece, I Drink the Air Before Me, exploring the power and drama of weather. The work will feature Petronio’s New York dance company and the Young People’s Chorus of New York.

· Indian classical music master Dr. L. Subramaniam and choreographer Ranee Ramaswamy will create Sthree (Women), a contemporary interpretation of Cilappatikaram, the national epic of the Tamil people of southeastern India.

· Composer David Van Tieghem and choreographer Doug Varone will create a new repertory dance piece, Broken Visual Novel, based on the motif of a single lamp hanging over the stage and the different scenes that can be played out beneath it.

· Composer Steve Mackey, actor/singer Rinde Eckert, and the new music ensemble eighth blackbird will collaborate to create Slide, a multidisciplinary work about human perception of images and the seduction and manipulation of the American psyche through imagery.

· Composers Cornelius Boots and Nils Frykdahl will work with visual artist/designer Claire Mack on The American Faust, a multidisciplinary retelling of the Faust legend staged at the Oakland Opera. The piece will use puppetry, set design, and rock artists to create an innovative multi-roomed stage in which the audience will literally follow Faust on his journey to redemption.

Full list of COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA 2008 Awards

Composer/Collaborators: Lead Commissioner:

Jason Moran, Alonzo King: Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet

Michael Friedman, Steven Cosson: The Civilians

David Van Tieghem, Doug Varone: DOVA, Inc.

Evan Flory-Barnes, Dufon Smith: Earshot Jazz Society

Sven Abow, Helanius J. Wilkins: Edgeworks Dance Theater

Steve Mackey, Rinde Eckert: eighth blackbird

Dan Moses Schreier, Dan Hurlin: Mapp International Productions

Du Yun, Ryan Kelly, Brennan Gerard: Moving Theater

Cornelius Boots, Nils Frykdahl, Claire Mack: Oakland Opera

Dr. L. Subramaniam, Ranee Ramaswamy: Ragamala Music and Dance Theater

Pete Drungle, Sarah Michelson: Sarah Michelson

Michael John LaChiusa, Sybille Pearson: Signature Theatre

Dave Douglas, Bill Morrison: Stanford Lively Arts

Nico Muhly, Stephen Petronio: Stephen Petronio Dance Company

Hahn Rowe, John Jasperse: Thin Man Dance

For two decades, Meet The Composer’s commissioning programs have facilitated the creation and multiple performances of over 1,300 works by many of America’s most exciting contemporary composers. Examples of celebrated works that MTC has commissioned include: John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer and Andre Previn’s opera A Streetcar Named Desire; orchestral works such as John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, Philip Glass’s Concerto Fantasy, and William Bolcolm’s Symphony No. 6; multimedia pieces such as Meredith Monk’s Mercy and Paul Dresher’s Sound Stage; dance collaborations such as Lou Harrison’s Rhymes with Silver (Mark Morris Dance Group) and Zakir Hussain’s Flammable Contents; and ensemble works such as Tan Dun’s Concerto for Six Players, John Harbison’s Flashes and Illuminations, and Julia Wolfe’s Early That Summer.

ABOUT COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA

COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA is a landmark commissioning program developed by Meet The Composer in response to a critical need on the part of the music community. COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA provides national support for the commissioning and multiple performances of new works representing all styles of music. The program provides support for emerging and established composers, promotes wider knowledge and appreciation of contemporary works, and encourages organizations to work together to build the repertoire for new music. Commissioning Music/USA is made possible by generous support from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Francis Goelet Trust, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, Target, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The submission deadline and guidelines for the 2009 round of COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA will be posted on MTC’s website in the fall of 2008: www.meetthecomposer.org. For further information, contact MTC’s Program Department at (212) 645-6949.

ABOUT MEET THE COMPOSER

Meet The Composer is a national organization founded in 1974 that has revolutionized the environment for composers in this country. Its mission is to increase opportunities for composers of every style of music by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of their work. In so doing, Meet The Composer has radically expanded the repertoire of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, creating a legacy for the music of our time—over 1,300 new works have been added since MTC's first commissioning program was launched in 1988. Meet The Composer's core programs include Commissioning Music/USA; JP Morgan Chase Regrant Program for Small Ensembles; Global Connections; Music Alive; New Music, New Donors; and MetLife Creative Connections (formerly the Meet The Composer Fund). The impact of these programs is felt in all 50 states and involves approximately 300 composers annually, representing the full spectrum of contemporary American culture and such idioms as classical, opera, jazz, folk, ethnic, electronic, and more. Meet The Composer is currently engaged in a number of special projects designed to further its vision—that composers should become an integral part of the cultural life and creative output of their communities, and that their music find broad, new audiences and benefit communities across the country.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PROJECT summaries for commissioning music/usa 2008:

http://www.meetthecomposer.org/CommUSA08awards.pdf

More info is available at: www.meetthecomposer.org