When Barbara Morgan photographed Graham

An Unforgettable Photo of Martha Graham
by Joan Acocella, Smithsonian.com, June 2011

Dancing in the park

Bryant Park Moves with Limon Dance
Experience the joy of movement and dance.

Saturday, July 16 (11am-Noon)

Free classes are led by former and current members of the internationally renowned modern dance company, Limon Dance, on the lawn at Bryant Park.

Open to all levels and ages.

Located behind the New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan, between 40th and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues (map and directions)

Who's hot? Brazil's Tom Zé!

Tom Zé, a Brazilian Force of One, at Alice Tully Hall
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, July 14, 2011

Paul Taylor moves season to Lincoln Center

Paul Taylor Moving Shows From City Center to Koch Theater
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, July 14, 2011

Through the looking glass...

NY Premiere of Looking Glass
by Third Rail Projects

Performed by Tom Pearson, Tara O'Con, Elizabeth Carena, Jennine Willett, Tori Sparks and Marisa Nielsen-Pincus

All photos (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Extraordinary Moves: A Celebration of Dance through Movement, Film and Art at the World Financial Center (River to River Festival)

New York Live Arts announces new season

What in the world is happening here?

Well--believe it or not--it's sort of an impromptu plein air press conference convened by the ever-resourceful Bill T. Jones in front of New York Live Arts (formerly Dance Theater Workshop, now merged with Jones's dance troupe) but actually in front of an NYFD fire truck.... Wait. Is this getting way too complicated?

Let me start over.

At a morning press conference inside NYLA's Bessie Schönberg Theater, Jones (NYLA Executive Artistic Director) had just been introduced by the organization's CEO Jean Davidson. Jones surprised us by elegantly, delicately dancing and even singing a little as he made his opening remarks. Halfway through, he started to talk about his own troupe's upcoming season but, suddenly, the NYFD ordered everyone to leave the building and assemble across the street!

We had to wait until the fire truck pulled up and the firemen did...something...I have no idea and no one seemed to know what. In the meantime, Jones doffed his shirt, as is his wont, and completed his address to the crowd of press, staff, dance world colleagues and curious passersby. Happily--and to the great relief of Carla Peterson, NYLA Artistic Director, who would have had to shout over street noise--we were soon able to return to the theater.

Truth be told, for the first time, the very idea of New York Live Arts does seem hot enough to warrant the arrival of a truckload of firemen. And it certainly seems dance enough to still the fears of folks who thought that the loss of the name Dance Theater Workshop meant something sinister.

The upcoming season--beginning September 16 with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company--and other NYLA programs rock. I'll drop a handful of names, just for starters: Reggie Wilson, Yvonne Meier, Rachid Ouramdane, John Kelly, Richard Move, Ivy Baldwin, Jodi Melnick, John Jasperse, RoseAnne Spradlin and Big Dance Theater. Over 40 diverse emerging, mid-career and established dance artists will participate in the presenting season or other NYLA programs. NYLA will continue DTW's traditions of commissioning cutting-edge performance, offering audiences opportunities to revisit seminal works and giving artists the chance to develop and show new projects in informal presentations.

The 2011-2013 recipient of a new program--Resident Commissioned Artist--will be Yasuko Yokoshi, the well-regarded, Hiroshima-born choreographer who has worked in New York since 1986. Yokoshi's two-year award includes a salary, health insurance, and support for creation and possible touring of new work. Imagine that! Jones described this as "a new standard for the entire field." Indeed and amen, amen.

"We launched New York Live Arts because we want to instigate change, not react to it," said Jones, later explaining the organization's initiatives as "a leap of faith."

There's much more to learn about New York Live Arts. So, for complete information about the mission, the upcoming season and the spectrum of artist services, click here.

Pamela Sneed at Dixon Place's HOT! Festival

Black lesbian poet Pamela Sneed begins her monologue, America Ain't Ready, beneath the projection of a famous photo portrait of Black lesbian poet Audre Lorde. You know the one: Lorde slightly lowering the professorial, thin-rimmed glasses from her eyes, her Black Mona Lisa smile pleasant enough until you realize that she's likely about to say something America Ain't Ready for.

Pamela Sneed in "America Ain't Ready" (photo by Lisa Guido)

Lorde's revered presence hovers over Sneed throughout this marathon performance, inspiring, instigating, protecting. And Sneed needs that strength right now because, as we learn, she's performing through a world of pain. Not emotional pain--which also could be the case, of course--but physical pain from complex, enormously costly dental problems. She is an artist without health insurance in an America that ain't ready for universal single payer health care any more than it's ready to compensate artists for the intense, dedicated and crucial work that they do.

Sneed begins by reminding us that Lorde insisted that "poetry is not a luxury." It's a necessity. She invites us to imagine a world without all of the arts and artists. Her itemization of our potential losses is staggering. Here, at Dixon Place, through strain and rage, she preaches to the choir, and you want to send her to Capitol Hill to put the fear of God in those supposedly God-fearing Republicans (and some Democrats, too). She's the woman for the job. And, while we're talking job--damn it--if you ever ask Sneed, or any artist, to do a job, be sure to pay her for it. 

America Ain't Ready, adapted from a book-length epic poem, diagnoses perhaps a few too many things that ail this society. However, Sneed's performance, as real as it can get, sears its way into your consciousness. Her aim: To wake up as many people as possible before it is too late to achieve the America in which she still believes. We all have work to do.

Hot! Festival 2011--Dixon Place's 20th Annual NYC Celebration of Queer Culture--continues through August 6 with a mix of "theater, dance, music, burlesques, performance art and homoeroticism for the whole family." Find out more and make ticket reservations here.

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