Nora Ephron, 71

Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss. ― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. ― Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron, Essayist, Screenwriter and Director, Dies at 71
by Charles McGrath, The New York Times, June 26, 2012

Charles Rice-Gonzalez here, there, everywhere

And speaking of BAAD...

I wanted to link you to author/playwright Charles Rice-Gonzalez's calendar of readings (in support of his debut novel, Chulito: "about a tough, sexy hip hop-loving, young Latino man, coming out and coming of age in the South Bronx") and events, but I see that his site is not updated. Ahem...

Okay. So I'll just do a little copy-n-paste from his email announcement.

There's a lot here. So take your pick.

Wednesday, June 27 at 6:30pm
Reception, Reading, and Signing for Love, Christopher Street: Reflections of New York City edited by Thomas Keith
Hosted by Out Professionals and OP-LYNX
Essays about LGBT life in New York City, with Mark Ameen, Christopher Bram, Martin Hyatt, Fay Jacobs, Michele Karlsberg, Rev. Irene Monroe, Charles Rice-González, Bob Smith & Judy Gold, and Charlie Vázquez.
The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., room 410
($10 general admission; $5 for Out Professional Members)

Thursday, June 28 at 6:30pm
MNN – Manhattan Neighborhood Network
Queers of Color: Visions, Transformations, and Journeys
This unique community dialogue features artists and activists in conversation about making change, current work and future goals.  Featured are Charan P. Morris, Poet and Spoken Word Artist;  Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Author of CHULITO and Co-Founder and Director of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance; and Claudia Sofia Garriga Lopez, Activist and Artist, among others.  Free Event.

Friday, June 29 at 6:30pm
CHULITO reading and book signing
HAF - Hispanic AIDS Forum’s Latino Youth in Action
Charles Rice-Gonzalez is the guest speaker and will read from CHULITO.
HAF - 213 West 35th Street, 12th Floor - New York, NY 10001

Monday, July 9 at 6-8pm
Macondo Fellows at La Casa Azul Bookstore
Join NYC residents Charles Rice-Gonzalez, poet Ron Drummond, and Toni Margarita Plummer, with a special guest appearance by Levi Romero, Centennial Poet for New Mexico. This is a rare opportunity to hear all these Macondistas* together as they read poetry and prose and sign books. (*Fellows from the Macondo Writers’ Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros.) La Casa Azul Bookstore is a new spot for literature and community events in El Barrio.  La Casa Azul Bookstore, 143 E. 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029 (Free event.)

Thursday, July 12 at 6:30pm
CHULITO reading and book signing
San Antonio Public Library – Mission Branch
Charles Rice-Gonzalez will read from CHULITO and sign books.
Mission Branch - 3134 Roosevelt Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78214 (Free event.)

July 15 - 21
Therapy of the Soutl for Men Who Love Men
Arnie Vargas (LCSW) leads this weekend of exploration and celebration in your tribe as a man-who-loves-men. The group will approach discussions from personal stories, drawing from political, sociological, psychological, and spiritual theories to discover who we are, where we are, and where we want to go. Instructors include Charles Rice-Gonzalez.  Retreat is in Provincetown, MA.  Visit http://ajvargas.blogspot.com/ or call Arnie Vargas at 1-800-314-7618.

August 31- September 3
Easton Mountain's Annual Labor Day Retreat
Charles Rice-Gonzalez will lead a writing workshop in this annual retreat that offers men space to take the risk of sharing their deepest inspirations and aspirations in large and small group activities that draw from personal inner beauty to create in a supportive community. Other workshops will include breath and movement, poetry, different expressions of art and playfulness. To register or for more info visit http://www.eastonmountain.com/programs/120831LaborDay.html

Save the date!
Sunday, September 23 (time TBA)
Brooklyn Book Festival
Borough Hall

Una Noche de Prosa y Poesia

Las Buenas Amigas joins Bronx Acadeny of Art and Dance to promote the creative expression of Latina Lesbian and Latina Queer women with a creative writing workshop.

Una Noche de Prosa y Poesia (A Night of Prose and Poetry)

June 28, 7-9pm
Admission: Free

All works will be displayed and the installation shared with community members. In order to create the dynamic of Woman Space, this will be an exclusive workshop for Latina Women, Cis-Gender and Trans-Gender. Refreshments will be served. 

Noche de Prosa y Poetry para la Latina Lesbiana y Identificada Queer, Junio 28, de 7PM a 9PM. Este Taller de Poesia es exclusivo para Mujeres Latinas Cisgenero y Transgenero. Las esperamos! 

Abre las puertas a tus talentos creativos y artisticos.  Este es un Taller rico para Todas Nosotras en la comunidad!

BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance

841 Barretto Street, 2nd Floor, Bronx
Information: 718-842-5223

(directions)

IT GETS BETTER. Here's one way.

On June 5, 2012, the New York City dance community came together at the Gibney Dance Center to record message of hope, inspiration, and encouragement for LGBT youth.

The stories were beautiful, moving and heartfelt; the messages were powerful; and the day was an uplifting experience spent with friends. 

This is Eva Yaa Asantewaa's message.

****

All of that's great, but--omg!--I still think I look funny on video!

But I've always wanted to do one of these, because I don't think any youngster should feel alone and suffer in silence. So I thank the production collaborators (#SKYNOVA, Dance/NYC, Edwards & Skybetter | Change Agency, Fractured Atlas, Gibney Dance Center, JenEd Productions, and Jordan Isadore) for this opportunity. I look forward to seeing the rest of the videos from our community when they go live later this week (and I'll post the link or links).

If you're in San Francisco, get ready. The It Gets Better Dance Community team is heading your way. They'll be videotaping on Friday.

Great launch for CDWNM with "Writing on Tap"

Brenda Bufalino

Derick K. Grant

Bufalino with Michelle Dorrance

All photos (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I kept wanting someone to pinch me. Was I really in a studio with Brenda Bufalino, Derick K. Grant and Michelle Dorrance? See the photos above for evidence that this wasn't just a dream.

And after this intrepid trio--plus tap historian/author Constance Valis Hill and renowned pianist/arranger Frank Owens--schooled a congenial group of dance writers, tap dancers, other kinds of dancers and tap fans about issues in the journalistic coverage of tap, they quickly broke out their tap shoes and showed us why us writers really need to step up our game.

I guess when you spend a few months focusing on the minutiae of an event--in this case, a collaboration between Tony Waag's venerable American Tap Dance Foundation and my new Collective for Dance Writing and New Media--it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture. This, ladies and gentlemen, turned out to be a momentous occasion.

And not just because of our stellar guests and their dancing.

Writing on Tap succeeded because it offered a place for writers and artists to meet, share information and learn from one another in an atmosphere of respect and fun. Tap dancers have many grievances with dance critics--everything from our lack of expertise in music (after all, tap dancers are musicians) to our inability to recognize tap-historical allusions in contemporary tap choreography to just plain indifference to the form and dismissal of it as an art. The tap field hasn't had the cohesion necessary to act in its own behalf and, if necessary, raise a ruckus. But what we saw on Saturday afternoon was the beginning of an important dialogue that could make a difference--particularly in the future work of today's up-and-coming dance writers.

More and more, I want to facilitate and participate in spaces like this one and efforts like this.

And that's a good thing, since our host, our guests and our participants are all clamoring for more of them.

So Collective for Dance Writing and New Media will find a way to keep them coming. Keep in touch with us through our site. Like us on Facebook, follow @CollectiveDWNM on Twitter and put us in your Google+ circles. In coming months, we will be inviting you to get involved in our activities and help this organization grow and do more excellent work.

We hope you'll join us!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Founder
Member, Executive Committee
Collective for Dance Writing and New Media

New York Live Arts writing students' projects

Ashley Thursby

Melissa West
(Photo: Anjola Toro)

Anabella Lenzu

Sofia Strempek
(Weiferd Watts Photography)

New York Live Arts students 

from my Spring 2012 Writing on Dance series

present their final projects

This season of Writing on Dance, I challenged a group of nine students--all women, all dance or performance artists--to explore questions and experiments designed to complicate, expand and enrich the way they engage with and write about the art of dance. How do we come to know a dance, connect with its ideas and energy and turn on energy in our own writing? How can we allow dance to discover us as we watch it? How can we worry less about form and formality in our writing and simply start anywhere that feels intriguing, delicious and powerful? How can we identify--and defy--the barriers to freedom in our writing? How do we, as writers, curate experience for our readers and open the multi-verse of dance to their enjoyment?

These questions have no set answers, but they launch individual and rewarding journeys.

It was the age of questions, not knowing what you wanted, knowing what you didn't want. -- Agnès Varda (Les plages d'Agnès)

For this teacher, the eight-week series proved to be an exercise in flying without a net--focusing less on dance writing as formal arts journalism; sharing some strategies I use in teaching intuitive development and working with Tarot and sacred symbolism. The students were encouraged to take these mind games and materials wherever their experiences led them and, with the group's gentle support, analyze their own results. For these talented and accomplished women, the program provided community as they followed their own curiosity and questions to the next challenge and the next and the next. Now that they have a stronger sense of the "more" that awaits them as writers, I'm confident that you'll want to keep up with their developing work.

EmmaGrace Skove-Epes

Kate Ladenheim

Philippa Crowne

Jessica Parks

Katrina De Wees

Big thanks, as always, to the folks at New York Live Arts--especially Ben Kimitch, who coordinates Writing on Dance--for extraordinary enthusiasm and support.

Please follow the links provided below to the writers' individual blogs or cloud sites to learn more about them and read their final Writing on Dance projects.

*****

People walking in the same direction
by Anabella Lenzu

A Latina /European choreographer exploring the New York City dance scene

Dance for your ego. Is dance inclusive or exclusive? I hear myself -and other choreographers- say they want their work to be accessible to the audience, but in reality the material that we put forth is just for an elite sector of the audience. There is a thin line between what you want to create and what you want to offer to the people. The words "service in dance" is in decay. Read more.

Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer and teacher with over 20 years experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy and the USA.  Lenzu draws on her diverse background to create thought-provoking and socially-conscious dance-theatre in the interest of improving our human condition. She is also a published author for various dance and arts magazines. http://www.AnabellaLenzu.com

Dear Arts—Deal with it…
by Ashley Thursby

Louisville, Kentucky has a strong arts scene, but for how much longer? After the Mayor’s recent budget proposal cutting the Louisville Ballet by 80%, the board members are faced with another roadblock. Having ended the fiscal year in the black for the first time in years, the ballet company felt on track, yet doing everything right has not paid off for this arts organization. Read more.

My name is Ashley, artist, dance teacher, writer, Pilates instructor; the usual combo-career of sorts that allows me to do what I love 30 weeks out of the year—ballet. Although blogging is new to me, I intend for it to be an outlet for my voice as an artist. I consider myself a living, breathing advocate for the sustainability of arts both in general and for my current home in Louisville, Kentucky. http://ashleythursby.wordpress.com

The Value of Respect 

by Kate Ladenheim

A response to Lightsey Darst's The Poorest Art: Dance and Money (The Huffington Post, June 1 and June 4, 2012). Read more. 

Kate Ladenheim is a freelance dancer and the artistic director and choreographer for her dance company The People Movers. Kate also writes a personal blog and teaches yoga. http://kateladenheim.com/

yvonne rainer at dia:beacon
by Melissa West

yvonne rainer at dia:beacon is a brief textual analysis of Ms. Rainer's recent concert at Dia:Beacon. Melissa West closely interprets the work as it was performed and discusses Rainer's work in the larger context of performance and media studies. Read more.

Melissa West is an independent mover/choreographer/poet and hooper based in Staten Island, NY. She is a recipient of the 2012 Premier and Excellence in the Arts grants from the Council for Arts and Humanities on Staten Island.

An Easy Bloom
by Philippa Crowne

An investigation of John Jasperse's re-staging and re-thinking of his 2001 piece, Fort Blossom revisited. Read more.

Philippa Crowne started writing about dance in high school in the HighFive Trac class at Dance Theater Workshop with Brian McCormick. Under the direction of Leah Cox and Maria Simspon, she recently completed her senior thesis at Bard College on the legacies and repertoire of Merce Cunningham and José Limón. Philippa continues to write and see dance in New York City.

Moving Portraits
by Sofia Strempek

Company Stephanie Batten Bland’s recent performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center was a voluptuous, visually compelling showcase of two of her works, Terra Firma and A Place of Sun. Read more.

Sofia Strempek graduated from the University of Utah about a month ago with a BFA in modern dance and a minor in English Literature. Her work has been published in the dance journal/blog loveDANCEmore and in the Daily Utah Chronicle. All of Sofia’s writing and graphic design can be found at informalfloor.blogspot.com.

Uptown, downtown...another town
by Jessica Parks

Uptown, downtown...another town is a descriptive commentary piece about Gallim Dance's recent performance of Sit, Kneel, Stand at the Joyce Theater. Parks uses colorful language that stimulates the imagination and provides the reader with verbal imagery of the work. Read more.

Jessica Parks is a New York City based dance artist working in the realms of choreography, dance writing, teaching and performance. She is co-artistic director of The Umbrella Co., author of the blog So She Danced and a member of Urban Dance Collective and Heather N. Seagraves and Dancers. Through her work Jessica hopes to share dance with as many people as possible and inspire and continue to be inspired by those around her.

A Conversation with Larissa Velez-Jackson
by EmmaGrace Skove-Epes

A Conversation with Larissa Velez-Jackson is an excerpt of a transcribed conversation I had with multimedia dance and performance artist Larissa Velez-Jackson, after being introduced to her work through her piece Star Crap in Progress (the solo). In the conversation, Larissa and I discuss audiences and our expectations of them, feminism, dragging, queer art, affect, and performance. Read more. 

EmmaGrace Skove-Epes is a Brooklyn-born choreographer, dancer, and sometimes singer. She currently dances for choreographers Jesse Phillips-Fein, Dana Salisbury, and Nadia Tykulsker/Spark(edIt) Arts. Her own choreography has been shown at HERE Arts Center, Judson Memorial Church, the Paradise Theater, Spoke the Hub’s Gowanus Arts building, and Triskelion Arts.

TRANSPORT MY MIND THROUGH TIME, THROUGH IDEAS, THROUGH SHAPE, SIZE, RHYME: a response in three parts
by Katrina De Wees

On Thursday May 17th I attended A Matter of Practice, curated by Lydia Bell a recent graduate of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. The evening was a part of Food for Thought at Danspace Project, a benefit series supporting the St. Marks Church food program. The exchange was glorious, emerging curators, food for the hungry and live performance! Read more.

Katrina De Wees is a multimedia performance artist, educator and emerging curator based in Brooklyn, NY. She currently works as a museum educator and arts administrator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her dance inspired, and art reflective writings may be viewed at www.leftovermakeup.com.

"Writing on Tap" on tap today!

Today's the big day for Writing on Tap at American Tap Dance Center with several great guest speakers and a tap jam, too!

No RSVP? There's still a little room. Come to ATDC by noon, and we'll be glad to see you!  

http://collectivedwnm.com/events

American Tap Dance Center
154 Christopher Street, #2B, Manhattan
(between Greenwich and Washington Streets)  

co-sponsored by

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media
American Tap Dance Foundation