Artists Reach Out: Jennifer Monson

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Jennifer Monson

Jennifer Monson
(photo: LaTosha Pointer)

Jennifer Monson (Artistic director of iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance) uses choreographic practice as a means to discover connections between environmental, philosophical and aesthetic approaches to knowledge and understandings of our surroundings. She creates large-scale dance projects informed and inspired by phenomena of the natural and the built environment. Her projects include BIRD BRAIN (2000-2006), iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir (2007) Mahomet Aquifer Project (2009), SIP(sustained immersive process)/watershed (2010), Live Dancing Archive Vol. I & II (2012 and 2014), in tow (2015) and bend the even (2018). Monson has been on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign since 2008 and was a Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont (2010-16). In 2017 iLAND published A Field Guide to iLANDing:scores for researching urban ecologies. www.ilandart.org

Jennifer Monson's Live Dancing Archive
(photo: Valerie Oliveiro)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

My current project MOVE THING, comes as the 20th anniversary of BIRD BRAIN arrives. I am again thinking about mobility and migration but, this time, from the point of view of toxicity and human disturbances of natural systems--things like nuclear waste, toxic chemical and pollution disposal, extraction industries such as mining and forestry, and military sites such as ammunition plants and testing sites.

I am looking for the ways in which disturbed systems radically evolve towards new forms of survival and novel ecosystems--the unexpected and hard-to-perceive actions of life that adapt to what humans understand as drosscapes or perverted wastelands.

This work requires a quieting and deep listening. I am drawn to the abandonment of these places and the kinds of movement that happen there that is difficult to render, to endure or find comfort in. I am searching for  the echoing possibility in these places.

Dancing has become more and more a practice of disintegration and dissolving for me. I have been working with solubility--moving beyond the porous body to the material essence of presence that one can dissolve into, by becoming a part of while remaining a distinct yet morphing entity. It is a complicated idea as I read it through various cultural lenses. And it seems to be located in my interest in not doing harm, belonging with other entities, moving alongside with healthy friction and resistance when it is needed and sustaining movement and flow when it is not.

My own movement practice brings me to sensing vibration and frequency. Aligning with and strengthening patterns that I sense but don’t necessarily comprehend. Dancing lets me be with the animacies of the world without having to know and this unknowing seems particularly helpful in this moment.

This practice gives me a sense of belonging with the COVID 19 virus and others. I want to actually support it, be with it, as it mutates in our perception and then disappears. It is not the enemy. Our disastrous and ineffective health care system and economic system, rife with inequity, is the enemy.

So, sensing the mobility of this virus, attending to how it changes our behaviors and activates our sense of care for each other, is helping me to think through the larger issues of MOVE THING, and I am grateful for that.

Beyond that, all of my upcoming projects for the spring, summer and fall have been postponed indefinitely.

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

I spent a lot of time climbing rocks in the high desert in California as a child. For me this is dancing with animate partners of various scales and consciousness. I had two creative movement teachers from the time that I was 5 years, one in elementary school and one in afterschool. Those classes helped me find my way of being in the world and gave me a sense of knowing the world through improvisation and movement that set me on my path.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

Before this COVID-19 stuff started, I was so busy in my life as an artist, professor, and director of a non-profit, that I decided I had to find a way to dance in small windows of time in my life. I started dancing with the trees on my morning dog walk.

What I noticed and was reminded of is how dancing while observing the world--and, in this case, trees--helped me to observe and know things about the trees that I hadn’t before. Now, I am seeing the “habit” of trees, the ways stems and branches angle, the rate at which buds grow in relation to their proximity to other trees and access to light. Texture of bark, and imagining the root systems and their interaction with mycelium.... I sense the diastolic pressure of xylem and phloem as transpiration begins to happen more fully in the spring.

The trees are still bare here in Illinois, so the ‘habits’ are quite clear and evocative. I have been thinking about how, in this practice, I move between metaphoric, embodied, poetic, scientific and associative understanding. This is improvisation to me, the simultaneous awareness of multiple modes of understanding something--moving with multiple potentials at once.

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about?

At the moment, one of the things that comes up for me is the hubris of humans. There is something humbling about sensing how my body hosts other life--all of the bacteria and viruses, for that matter, that survive in my body, how my bodily and psychic secretions excretions are a part of the world. I’m no more important than the asphalt on the street, the woodpecker out my window. I have to listen to the part I need to play to keep things moving, thriving, living and dying.

How does your practice function within the world we have now?

I’ve been dancing over FaceTime with close friends that I have known for a long time. My embodied practices give me tools for connecting across distance. I find myself listening into their spaces with more dimensionality. I don’t just stare at the flat surface of the screen, I send my voice and my movement into their space. I let their movement and sound enter the entire space that I am in. It’s like watching the first person walk on the moon. There is an intense feeling of empathy, connection and humanity and at the same time that pixilated echo of distance.

My work has always addressed scales of knowledge and comprehension through dancing, and this is functioning in new and exciting ways for me. The moon-walking metaphor continues to resonate with me, especially that description that astronauts give of looking back at the marble of the earth. At some point the scale of that marble would have been the scale of my laptop screen. And I sense the whole world in those moments of dancing through the screen with my friends.

I’m someone who really would prefer not to look at a screen ever, so this acceptance and embracing of the connection it offers is teaching me something new.

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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Jennifer Monson's iLAND premieres "bend the even"

bend the even
danced by Mauriah Kraker (left) and Jennifer Monson
Below: Monson (left) and Kraker
(photos: Ryutaro Ishikane)

This work allows for the possibility that movement disappears and leaves only sensation, an emanation that is experienced through the skin and ears, not so much through the eyes. In bend the even this asks the viewer to release what might be tangible about the experience in preparation for what is newly emerging.
--from publicity for bend the even

Most of New York's dancemakers struggle to secure space to develop their work. But, for Jennifer Monson's latest piece, nature has provided...provided a place for research and exploration...provided motivation, inspiration, even, in its way, partnership.

bend the even--now in its premiere run at The Chocolate Factory Theater--is an experience of an Illinois prairie that we cannot (or maybe can) see. It is darkness and dawn at a beach we cannot (or maybe can) feel beneath our feet. It comes to life in a small loft studio in Long Island City but is intended to take us somewhere to wait for the unexpected and unforeseeable to become apparent to us.

To label it as a dance, and specifically a duet between Monson and Mauriah Kraker, is to lop off two of its essential limbs--the live soundwork of Jeff Kolar (electronics) and Zeena Parkins (acoustic harp); the lightwork of Elliott Jenetopulos, performed in the breath of the moment. (Costumes are by Susan Becker; scenic design by Regina Garcia.) It seems important to this team that their contributions be noted then removed from that hook and released. Something else, we've read, will come to "emanate at the edge of kinesthetic perception."

The research for this project was started in February 2017 with weekly rehearsals at dawn. These rehearsals have generated material connections between light, music, and movement – not as a representation of the liminal states of dawn but as a way of accessing new frameworks for emanating presence and animacy through the three mediums. This work allows for the possibility that movement disappears and leaves only sensation, an emanation that is experienced through the skin and ears, not so much through the eyes. Through the choreographic process, the collaborators will research the physics of sound, light, and movement on multiple scales – both scientific and experiential – drawing on atmospheric science as well as particle physics to inform the dawn practice.

Monson proposes something new, not so much relinquishing the choreographer's role--for the movement in this piece is fascinating and appealing as it is willful and wayward--as redirecting us to an unacknowledged result of choreography, a different purpose for it and for its fusion with other stimulants. I feel that I'm quite stuck on the edge of this desire, instinctually sympathetic with it while what's aimed for remains elusive. As audience members, we're habituated to focus on looking and listening for things and to appreciate (and, yes, interpret and judge) what we see and hear. bend the even intends disruption, or some form of liberation, but I'm caught up in its sensations.

What did we do with the sudden, absolute stillness that broke out on occasion? Did we check for external or internal vibes, or did we tick the seconds, wondering what we were supposed to be feeling and when the dancers might finally move again? Did that time feel more awkward than destabilizing? What about Jenetopulos's precipitous jolts in the lighting or other changes in sound and the dynamics of motion? Did we just "even" the bends right out and get back to our usual way of taking things in?

All that's to say, I'm not sure the bends in any even did more than point to a barrier we should know about. It did not lower that barrier--at least, not for me, not last evening. But maybe that pointing is, in itself, a useful beginning.

bend the even, running through Saturday with performances at 8pm, is sold out, but there is a waiting list. For information, click here.

The Chocolate Factory Theater
5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
(map/directions)

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Jennifer Monson premieres "Live Dancing Archive" at The Kitchen

At the outset of Jennifer Monson/iLAND's Live Dancing Archive, the audience sits without benefit of light for a very long time. We hear tiny, ambient sounds of one another breathing, shifting, rustling, settling into an alive, soft darkness. Recalling that Monson recently told me that she had come to think of her audience as the ocean, I'm also remembering a time when I sat and watched the open sea at night, its awesomeness shading into something even more mysterious and compelling than usual and more than a little scary. What's in there? What's down there? 

Jennifer Monson (photo by Valerie Oliveiro)

Live Dancing Archive, presented at The Kitchen, serves as a way for Monson to embody a decade of her history of research and making, her sensitive and searching relationship with ecological systems of environments and communities, and her understanding of herself within all of this as a queer woman, activist and artist. It includes not only her hour-long performance--a collaboration with two brilliant artists, lighting designer Joe Levasseur and composer Jeff Kolar--but also a video installation by Robin Vachal and a digital archive designed by Youngjae Josephine Bae.  Levasseur and Kolar accompany her live for the journey, shaping and toning her austere surroundings: Levasseur striding here and there, adjusting the position and varying intensity of portable lights; Kolar sitting at his table of wonders, manipulating "external weather phenomena, wireless technology systems and human activity" through an array of handmade radio transmitters and receivers. If all of this seems like a pretty packed package, it is indeed, necessarily, packed and yet rendered with elegance.

Having seen a preview of part of the video last year, I limited myself to Monson's live show last evening. Even so, I came away feeling full and privileged to witness the skill and authority of this performance.

Jennifer Monson (photo by Ian Douglas)

In Live Dancing Archive, Monson presents herself as a hybrid creature of fur (fake pelt strapped to her torso, concealing her breasts) and human, womanly flesh (the wide mesh of her translucently pale, footless tights enclosing while revealing the nudity of her lower body). She initiates her dancing by pawing and pushing through the air, unfurling into and swimming into it. She endlessly channels organic forms, many presences coming and going in her movement and aspect. An inner wildness becomes external, and vice versa, all with precise control and calibration of pace, effort and coordination. A brief femme-drag sequence/lipsync to singer Antony's "Bird Gerhl" (with Monson ritually adorned by her costume designer, Susan Becker, in a completely uncharacteristic platinum wig, scarlet lipstick and saffron chiffon sleeves) serves as a solemn moment of vulnerability shortly before we experience, along with her, violent disturbance in the surrounding field of energy and sound.

There's so much more that transpires, in this ferocious, profoundly beautiful presentation, than I can say here. I hope you will jump at your chance to take it all in before Live Dancing Archive ends its run at The Kitchen tomorrow night.

Remaining performances: tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm. For more information and tickets, click here.

Vachal's video installation will be on view in the theater today (noon-6pm) and tomorrow (11am-6pm) for free viewing.

Browse, enjoy and subscribe to the Live Dancing Archive site: Click here.

The Kitchen
519 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Body and Soul: Listen.: Jennifer Monson

Dancer-choreographer Jennifer Monson (photos by Ian Douglas)

Situating myself in the American tradition of examining the frontier—the border between wilderness and civilization—as a dynamic arena for embodying the contradictions of freedom and power, my dance work navigates the territory between what is wild and civilized.

The usefulness of the term “nature” has become complicated for me as I struggle with the dialectic of nature/not nature. What is not nature? Wilderness becomes a more amenable concept for me in that it alludes to something untamable, unknowable and challenging, and it is a very human concept. Wilderness as a concept seems central to human evolution. Dancing is a powerful medium for addressing our “nature” and is one of the places I experience wildness.

 --excerpts from Artist Statement by Jennifer Monson

To listen to Jennifer Monson talk about her new project, Live Dancing Archive, download my Body and Soul mp3 recording, or subscribe to the podcast series here.

iLAND Web site

Jennifer Monson bio and artist statement

Live Dancing Archive at The Kitchen

February 14-16, 21-23 (8pm)

For more information, click here.

Job Opening: work for iLAND

Part-Time Managing & Program Director Sought

Application deadline: July 15

iLAND is seeking a part-time Managing & Program Director to lead the organization into its next phase of programmatic growth. A perfect opportunity for an enthusiastic and motivated not-for-profit manager interested in contemporary dance and environmental issues, the position will involve working with renowned choreographer Jennifer Monson as well as support staff. The ideal candidate will be able to work independently and take initiative, yet work within a strong team to expand the organization's programs and services in the areas of rural residencies, international residencies, mentorship, environmental justice, interdisciplinary collaboration, and partnerships with both cultural and environmental organizations. This is an exceptional chance for someone with a long-term view to create a strong platform for an organization poised to expand its visibility and impact. The position will initially be part-time with the goal of increasing the budget significantly towards a full time role.

Responsibilities:
    Oversight of organizational operations including fundraising, budgeting and financial management and communications;
    Management of the annual iLAB residency program;
    Development and management of the annual iLAND symposium;
    Production of the creative work of Artistic Director Jennifer Monson.

Qualifications:

    Minimum 2-3 years training and experience in management in the performing arts and/or environmental science;
    Excellent organizational, administrative and computer skills;
    Ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
    Passion for and/or work experience in the area of environmental activism, research, science or policy;
    Excellent oral and written communication skills;
    Ability to initiate and nurture relationships with a variety of people from different backgrounds and fields;including but not limited to scientists, artists and advocacy groups;
    Proficiency with a range of MAC-based computer software;
    Communication skills via social media;
    A great sense of humor.

For additional information on iLAND's programs, visit www.ilandart.org.

Salary commensurate with experience.

Application deadline: July 15th

Please email a resume, three references and cover letter with Managing Director as the subject of your email to info@ilandart.org

Interviews will take place between July 20-22 with final candidates' interviews on August 6-7.

Getting "Out There" with iLAND

iLAND
presents


Moving Into the Out There

Indeterminacy & Improvisation

in Performance & Environmental Practice

at The New School

A symposium on movement, science, and the environment 

in New York City

March 23, Noon to 8pm and March 24, 10am to 7pm

Moving Into the Out There is iLAND’s fourth annual symposium on dance, movement, and the environment. The two-day event in the heart of New York City brings together dancers, choreographers, designers, ecologists, advocates, and scientists for interactive panel discussions, field workshops, and networking opportunities. This year’s symposium features an in-depth review of PARK, an environmental performance project at Fresh Kills Landfill supported by the 2011 iLAB Residency. Moving Into the Out There will also highlight iLAND’s recent efforts to synthesize insights and discoveries from the past seven years of iLAB collaborative residencies. Detailed event descriptions are attached.

Moving Into the Out There is an open forum for exploring new methods of understanding urban ecosystems through innovative collaborations between practitioners of movement, dance, science, and environmental management. iLAND cultivates a deeper engagement with urban environmental issues through its cross-disciplinary approach, and the annual symposium invites the general public to experience and explore recent works emerging from the iLAND community.

Moving Into the Out There features the work of iLAND’s 2011 iLAB Residency, opening up the results of that collaborative experience to a wider audience for discussion.

Throughout the Symposium, participants share in the process of searching for shared language and collaborative processes that cut across the arts and sciences, focusing on dance and the body as primary mediators of experience, imagination, and knowing. Through Moving Into the Out There, iLAND aims to generate conversation about collaborative practice throughout communities of art and science, instigating new ways of understanding and intervening in contemporary environmental problems – particularly those related to over-development and climate change.

Admission is $5-25 sliding scale. For complete programming and schedule information--and to reserve your ticket--click here, call (347) 573-5547 or email info@ilandart.org.

The New School (Wollman Hall)

65 West 11th Street, Manhattan

(directions)

Imagining Seneca Village

Announced by iLAND (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance)

From the iLAND community:

Imagining Seneca Village

September 25, 6-7:30pm 

Choreographer and 2007 iLAB Resident Lise Brenner has partnered with Tenement Museum Education and tour guide Emily Gallagher and composer/performer Imani Uzuri to create a tour of an imagined Seneca Village, a New York City semi-rural, woodland settlement that flourished in the early-mid 19th century. Populated by predominantly African-American and Irish landholders, Seneca Village was located on the West side of the Park, from approximately 83rd-88th Streets, and was torn down in 1858, when Central Park was created.

Location: Summit Rock, Central Park. 

All ages welcomed! Free, Rain or Shine! Hold the date!

This land is iLAND

iLAND Symposium
Saturday, March 28th

iLAND will hold its first annual symposium in New York City, this Saturday:

Connecting to the Urban Environment: Creating embodied and relational approaches to environmental awareness

Saturday, March 28
9:30am-1pm (no charge, registration opens at 9am)
Refreshments will be served.

Eugene Lang College
The New School for Liberal Arts
6 East 16th Street, Manhattan
Room #D1009 (auditorium)

Connecting to the Urban Environment, iLAND's first annual symposium, will address issues emanating from the creative collaborations of past iLAB residencies. iLAB alumni will be paired with representatives from environmental organizations who are actively designing new relationships to urban space. Presentations will share the results of grappling with the project of finding shared language and processes across the arts and sciences while centering dance and the body as the mediator and resource for experience, imagination and knowing. The symposium will include oral and media presentations, workshops, and small-group discussions.

Symposium information

iLand Web site

iLand on Facebook

Dancing at Dead Horse Bay

iLAND--interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance invites you to public engagements for the iLAB 2008 Artist in Residence Program:

Dead Horse Bay

Collaborators:
Sarah White, Choreographer
Angel Ayón, Architect
Gerald Marks, Visual Artist

Saturday, August 16, 2008, 2:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2008, 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Sunday, October 12, 2008 12:30 PM to 7:00 PM

For up-to-date on the Dead Horse Bay project, click here.

For more information contact: info@ilandart.org or 212-375-8283.

Located at Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn

Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine.
Light refreshments will be served

Details on Saturday, August 16 event

“The experience will begin at low tide, around 2:15 PM. There will be dance performance on the tidal flat and a very remarkable bay beach to explore. Sunset, moonrise, and high tide all happen right around 8:00 PM. The alignment of sun, moon & earth is special this month and the full moon will rise in a state of partial eclipse. Our location was chosen as a perfect spot to view the sunset behind Coney Island and the NY skyline and the moonrise/eclipse out of Jamaica Bay.”

Directions and Transportation

Take the #2 Train to the last stop, Brooklyn College/Flatbush Avenue.
Transfer to the Q35 bus. Ask the driver to let you off at the "last stop before the bridge".
Signs will lead you down to our site on the water.
There is a parking lot where Aviation Road meets Flatbush Avenue. Across the street from the parking lot is a path that will lead you down to the site area.

Click here for GoogleMap of the area surrounding Dead Horse Bay.

The experience will begin at low tide, around 2:15 PM and there will be dance performance on the tidal flat and a very remarkable bay beach to explore. Sunset, moonrise, and high tide will all happen right around 8:00 PM. The alignment of sun, moon & earth is super precise this month and the full moon will rise in a state of partial eclipse. (Days ago, our August new moon eclipsed the sun, though you needed to be around Western China to see it!) Our location was chosen a a perfect spot to view the sunset behind Coney Island and the NY skyline and the moonrise/eclipse out of Jamaica Bay.

Dead Horse Bay
Collaborators: Choreographer Sarah White, Architect Angel Ayón, Visual Artist Gerald Marks

Dead Horse Bay, situated along Brooklyn's southernmost waterfront, appears today as a place wedged somewhere in time between an industrial past, return to natural shoreline and an undetermined future. The Collaborators will use this site as a context to explore, reflect and ultimately discourse on the environmental impact of site alterations engineered to meet human needs. Their collaborative project will stem from their combined interests in understanding and interpreting nature, ecology, causality, evolutionary change, structural integrity, assigning value to experience, and examining cultural behaviors both current and historic.

Throughout the three-month residency period, monthly public events, scheduled around the summer full moons, will take place at Dead Horse Bay. Events will include a combination of choreography and movement explorations, temporary site interventions and multimedia documentation and representation. Through environmental assessment, creative interplay, site interpretation and traditional man-nature rituals the collaborators intend to create a forum for understanding and experiencing the effects of use, misuse, isolation and neglect along New York City's coastline.

iLAB is a collaborative residency program between movement based artists and scientists, environmentalists, urban designers/landscape architects, architects and others that integrate creative practice within different fields/disciplines. The goals of iLAB are 1) to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and the urban environment through kinetic experience, 2) to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art, and the ecology of physical interrelationships such that we create and investigate innovative approaches to science, infrastructure, urbanisms, and architecture within a performative context, and 3) to support the development of process in engagement over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAB 2008 is supported in part by the Jerome Foundation and Brooklyn Arts Council, and Robison.

info@ilandart.org 212-375-8283

Human Geography and the Practice of Presence

iLAND- interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance invites you to public engagements for the iLAB 2008 Artist in Residence Program.

Human Geography and the Practice of Presence

Collaborators:

Karl Cronin, Choreographer, NYC
Sasha Cuerda, Geographer, Chicago
with Dancer Maggie Bennett

Dates, Times, Location:

6-8 pm Thursday, July 10, 2008: The Choreography of Agency

An evening of movement and experiences and experiments — through a series of guided practices led by the collaborators, participants will have the opportunity to explore different ways of relating to space using their kinetic experience as a starting point.

and

6-8pm Thursday, July 31, 2008: Summer highlights and discoveries

An evening presentation which explores research highlights as well as the struggles and possibilities inherent in art-science collaboration.

Located at Pier 44 in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine. Light refreshments will be served.

Directions and Transportation:

Meet in front of The Waterfront Museum at at 290 Conover St. at Pier 44.

The museum is at the end of Van Brunt St. Turn right on Reed St., go one block and turn left on Conover. Go through the entrance gate to the right to Pier 44. For more specific directions call 212 375-8283 or click here.

**Wednesday evenings 6-8pm, an open practice session will be held with the collaborators that is open to the public.

For more information call Karl at 617 759- 8466.

The collaborators will conduct movement research based on two leading theories from the field of Human Geography: Action Network Theory (ANT) and Non-Representational Theory. These two theories have been widely debated within the field of geography, and in their own ways postulate a manner of being in space that involves interacting directly with one’s environment—moving beyond layers of semiotics and abstracted representations.

During the iLAB residency, the collaborators will create movement practices that begin to address some of the fundamental elements of these two theories, and will offer opportunities for participants to engage in the movement practices firsthand. Scores will be developed and tested and presented on-site at Brooklyn Bridge Park as well, as two locations yet to be determined in the Brooklyn littoral zone.

iLAB is a collaborative residency program between movement based artists and scientists, environmentalists, urban designers/landscape architects, architects and others that integrate creative practice within different fields/disciplines. The goals of iLAB are 1) to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and the urban environment through kinetic experience, 2) to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art, and the ecology of physical interrelationships such that we create and investigate innovative approaches to science, infrastructure, urbanisms, and architecture within a performative context, and 3) to support the development of process in engagement over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAB 2008 is supported in part by the Jerome Foundation and Brooklyn Arts Council.

info@ilandart.org
212-375-8283

The necessary wild

A Wilderness, Lost in the City
by William C. Thompson, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The New York Times, May 29, 2008

I was delighted to be introduced to Ridgewood Reservoir by dancer-choreographer Jennifer Monson who is devoted to keeping it as a wild, natural preserve. I ran into her last night at Susan Rethorst's (wonderful!!!) show at Danspace Project, and we were both excited about this op-ed piece in the Times. But Ridgewood Reservoir is not the only "teeming wildlife preserve" in New York City. One of my favorite city haunts is Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, located in Queens, just off Cross Bay Boulevard, about a 10-minute walk from the A train's Broad Channel station. Having access to nature is as necessary to me as the food I eat and the dances I witness!

We are family.
Canada geese at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge
Photo by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(c) 2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, May 26, 2008
Photo by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(c) 2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Save Ridgewood Reservoir

Riverkeeper

iLand--Interdisciplinary Lab for Art, Nature and Dance

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

2008 iLAB residency program announced

iLAND–interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance has announced its 2008 iLAB residency program to be held May-September 2008 with the possibility of a renewable residency the following year.

An information seminar wil be held on December 11, 2007 at Solar One at Stuyvesant Cove in Manhattan, 6:30–8:30pm. For directions to Stuyvesant Cove and Solar One, click here. The seminar will facilitate contact between movement-based artists and scientists and environmentalists. There will be the opportunity to discuss ideas for proposals and find potential collaborators. RSVP by December 8: Click here.

For Application Guidelines and the Request for Proposals, click here.

iLAB is a collaborative residency program between movement based artists and scientists, environmentalists, urban designers/landscape architects, architects and others that integrate creative practice within the different fields/disciplines through an engagement with the ecology of New York City.

The goals of iLAB are:

1) to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and the urban environment through kinetic experience

2) to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art and the ecology of physical interrelationships such that we create and investigate innovative approaches to science, infrastructure, urbanisms and architecture within a performative context.

3) to support the development of process in engagement over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

For more information, click here.

iLAB 2007 Artist in Residence Program

iLAND- interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance announces the public engagement of the iLAB 2007 Artist in Residence Program: The City From a Plants Perspective: Mapping NYC as Native Flora.

Collaborators:
Lise Brenner, Choreographer, NYC
Ulrich Lorimer, Curator, Native Plants, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, NYC
Katrina Simon, Landscape architect and visual artist, Sydney, Australia
Jonathan Zalben, Composer and sound artist, NYC.

iLAB 2007 is based on the concepts that most people organize their activities via mental maps (wait for the train here; get off in front of the stairs at 14th Street) and that maps are creative projects, capable of uncovering unseen aspects of even the most well-traveled landscape. Tracking native plants in New York City makes for an exponential rise in perceiving (and valuing) vacant lots, wind and migratory bird patterns, and some of the city’s many obscured histories. iLAB 2007 uses the presence of poplars, pokeweed, and Indian hemp as the horticultural trigger for movement-based, sound-based, and design-based data collection about the urban habitats of these and other native plants. Join iLAB 2007 on one or both excursions to the outermost edges of the outer boroughs for creative field study and collective map-making.

Dates, Times, Location:

12 – 5pm Sunday, September 30, 2007 at Floyd Bennett Field / Ryan Visitor’s Center and 4 – 7pm Friday, October 5, 2007 at Coney Island / Nathan’s

Events are FREE and open to the general public and will happen rain or shine.

Directions and Transportation:

Floyd Bennett Field: 2 to Flatbush Avenue/Brooklyn College, then Q35 bus to the Ryan Visitor’s Center/Aviator Sports Complex. We will meet inside the Ryan Visitor’s Center. For more information on Floyd Bennett Field, see www.nyharborparks.org/visit/flbe.html

BIKE: Greenway (Class I bike route) along Flatbush Ave.

CAR: Take Belt Parkway to Exit 11S, then Flatbush Ave south.

Coney Island: D, F, N, Q to Stillwell Avenue. Follow the exit signs to Surf Avenue. You will see Nathan’s across the street. We will gather at the seating to the right of the food services.

For more information, click here or call 212-375-8283.

iLAND is a not for profit organization conceived and formed by choreographer Jennifer Monson in 2004. The organization’s mission is to investigate the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAB 2007 is supported in part by the Robison Foundation.

Jennifer Monson
Artistic Director
iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP Dance Performance

iLAND, Inc. presents

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP Dance Performance

Saturday, June 23, 2007 from Dawn to Dusk

at Ridgewood Reservoir, Highland Park, Queens

The performance ushers in summer 2007 with a day of dancing informed and inspired by the unique ecosystems and landscape of the Highland Park Ridgewood Reservoir area.

For reservations, more directions and information www.ilandart.org or e-mail at info@ilandart.org or call 212 375 8283.

Conceived of and directed by Jennifer Monson in collaboration with

Composer- Kenta Nagai

Architects- Gita Nandan and Elliott Maltby of thread collective and

Dancers- Maggie Bennett, Charlotte Gibbons, Mariangela Lopez, Jennifer Monson and Christina Muellenmeister

Field Guides – Uli Lorimer, Native plant curator of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; Johanna Meyer, Choreographer; Heidi Steiner, member of the Brooklyn Bird Club; and Nami Yamamoto, Choreographer and a NYC Parks Department Urban Park Ranger.

Video Documentation – Ryutaro Ishikane, Robin Vachal

Costume Designer - Jocelyn Melechinsky

Production Manager – Ariel Federow

Performing Dawn to Dusk – Maggie Bennett, Charlotte Gibbons, Mariangela Lopez, Jennifer Monson and Christina Muellenmeister.

Performing noon to 1pm: Young dancers from the New Song Studio in Elmhurst, Queens – Kristy Lau, Kelly Lau, Amanda Lee, Annie Lee, Shelley Li, Jessica Santosa, Kelly Shum, Sonja Smeland, Janice Wang.

Performing noon to 4pm:

Musicians – Sean Meehan, Tamio Shirashi, David Watson

Dancers – Yari Alcaraz, Brooke Belott, Azahara Ubera Biedma, Megan Byrne, Eve Chalom, Marie-Charlotte Chevalier, Diana Crum, DD Dorvillier, Milka Djordevich, Christine Elmo, Alexis Halkovic, Chih Chun Huang, Jen Kelly, Molly, Lieber, Andrea Liu, Giorgia Minisini, Margaret Paek, Richert Schnorr, Eryn Rosenthal, Isabelle Thiele, Rebecca Wender, Sarah White, Sara Worden.

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP is a year long performance project that investigates the unique landscape of the reservoir. This 50-acre site comprises wetlands, native swamp forest and urban wilderness unusual to the inner city. The artists are involved in a year long process of investigating the ecology of the reservoir with scientists as well as developing a creative process on site that responds to the changing seasons and the dynamic interplay of the human actions and natural phenomenon at play in the area.

The dancing will move around the mile long perimeter of the reservoir in five distinct groups. The audience is asked to take their time walking the edge while watching the dancing, observing the environment and engaging in two architectural exhibits that will display information from a breeding bird census, vegetative mapping, the history and seasonal shifts at the site. Four guides will be on hand to direct and offer information.

The public is invited to come at any time during the day. The majority of the dancers will be performing from noon to 4pm. Bring a picnic, relax, come and go as you please as you enjoy this rare and special urban gem and the dancing that responds to it.

Transportation:

BY BIKE: Three group bike rides will leave from Park Slope, Williamsburg and Downtown Manhattan. Information including exact departure locations and times are available at www.ilandart.org.

BY SUBWAY: J train to Cleveland Street walk 3 blocks to the park, up the hill and to the reservoir. A shuttle will be provided between 11am and 3pm from Cleveland Street.

Ridgewood Reservoir/iMAP is hosted by City of New York / Parks & Recreation and is supported in part by the Multi-Arts Production Fund, a program of Creative Capital, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

iLand, Inc. interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance investigates the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. ILAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields.

iLAND is a 501 (c) (3) organization; incorporated in 2004.