Nancy Willard, 80

Nancy Willard, Prolific Children’s Book Author, Dies at 80
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, March 6, 2017

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Miriam Colón, 80

Miriam Colón, 80, Actress and Founder of Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Dies
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, March 5, 2017

This ability: "Our Configurations" at Gibney Dance

Top: Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson of Kinetic Light
(photo: Scott Shaw)
Bottom: Marc Brew of AXIS Dance Company
(photo: Andrea Testoni)

In a dance concert, what would be more surprising ? What Marissa Perel asks her first two able-bodied "consensual submissives" to do in (do not) despair solo while she exercises her agency to speak to her audience? Or how she treats her third submissive?

How about this: What's more in your face? The way choreographer Sonya Delwaide moves her two performers, keeping you aware of dancer Julie Crothers (AXIS Dance Company) phocomelia, a genetic disorder affecting one of her arms? Or the fact that the two women, Crothers and Alivia Schaffer, remain finely, intimately attuned to each other at each point of their duet, Dix minutes plus tard (Ten Minutes Later)?

And what of the partnership of Kinetic Light's Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson (to bend a bough and Broken Intent)? Is it more mindblowing to watch these dancers use streamlined wheelchairs as if these objects were STREB action gear? Or is it the way both women switch on their vulnerable flesh, their minds and their passions throughout a demanding encounter, showing us what it means to claim space, to claim life?

Our Configurations, an evening at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, reworked how we think about and look at disability in dance and performance. It raised questions of audience preconceptions--what do we expect and feel entitled to see?--and the privilege of the able-bodied to decide what is or is not noteworthy and virtuosic in performance.

Virtuosity, the product of disciplined labor, is worthy of respect, no one denies. In the post-show Q&A moderated by Hentyle Yapp, Sheppard declared, "Why wouldn't we have virtuosity? We put in the hours like everyone else." (Absolutely noted!) But for Perel, a queer artist living with pain, making art is "an act of resistance against normativity," an upending of expectations. So virtuosity needs to be "a new set of choices" not projected by viewers or critics but conceived by artists themselves. "Crips to the front," Perel declares. "People with disabilities taking up space in dance contexts."

I came away from Our Configuration with my own energies flying. Like AXIS artistic director Marc Brew (of Remember When, his visual and expressive feast in dance and film), I felt eager for this evening to open the way for "more, more, more."

The Winter/Spring 2017 season at Gibney continues with The Bureau of the Future of Choreography's presentation of 1776. Click here for more information.

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Artists come together for global human rights at Dixon Place

This weekend, Dixon Place hosts a new arts festival dedicated to global issues around human rights. The International Human Rights Arts Festival has been launched by DP and producer Tom Block's Institute of Prophetic Activist Art, an educational venture drawing from a spectrum of mystical philosophies, from Martin Buber to Black Elk, for creative engagement with societal concerns. Last evening's opening ceremony was introduced by the venerable television writer, producer and progressive activist Norman Lear. Richard Nixon, he reminded us, derided his groundbreaking All in the Family as a show for and about "queers, fags, homos and hippies."

Well, "queers, fags, homos and hippies," frequently make up the audience at Dixon Place and might well enjoy much that's on tap at the IHRA fest now through Sunday. And there's certainly a lot with 2016 Bessie-winner Joya Powell (Outstanding Emerging Choreographer) showing work today at 1:30 with her troupe, Movement of the People Dance Company, on a bill with Spilling Ink Dance Company, a troupe devoted to the arts of India and the Indian diaspora. Another up-and-coming dancemaker, Jessica Chen has commissioned works for a 10pm show tonight featuring her J CHEN PROJECT troupe, Tom Tsai, Karla Garcia and Heather Robles. Edisa Weeks (Delirious Dances) and Jacqueline Dugal (Dugal Dance Projects) share tomorrow evening's 9pm slot.

And, whew! That's just the dance part!

With performance, film, poetry, theater, music, visual arts, kids activities, discussions, lounge performances and the ever-handy Dixon Place bar, there's truly something for every interest. Get a schedule of events and ticket information (including day passes) here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Boaz Vaadia, 65

Boaz Vaadia, Sculptor Who Worked in Street Stone, Dies at 65
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, March 2, 2017

Ben Martin, 86

Ben Martin, Time Photographer Who Captured the 1960s, Dies at 86
by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, March 2, 2017

How to be a BAAD! badass

Above: poet Pamela Sneed
(photo courtesy of the author)
Below: dance artist Jasmine Hearn
(photo: Scott Shaw)

Comedy, dance, poetry, good company and more: BAAD! has it all in the month of March celebrating Women's History Month in full Bronx style.

Comedienne Robbyne Kaamil
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Check out BAAD!ASS Women Festival 2017, running March 9 through April 8 and featuring the creative work and activism of "fierce women and transwomen artists."

For schedule and ticketing details, click here.

BAAD!

The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance

2474 Westchester Avenue (Westchester Square), Bronx

(map/directions)

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