Artists Reach Out: Brother(hood) Dance!

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

Brother(hood) Dance!
(Orlando Hunter Jr & Ricarrdo Valentine)

Orlando Hunter Jr (left) and Ricarrdo Valentine
(photo: Caroline Yang)

Brother(hood) Dance! is an interdisciplinary duo that seeks to inform its audiences on socio-political and environmental injustices from a global perspective, bringing clarity to the same-gender-loving African-American experience in the 21st Century.  Orlando Hunter Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine have been presented domestically and internationally at FiveMyles, B.A.A.D! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), Danspace Project, New Waves! Dance & Performance Institute (Trinidad & Tobago), Viso Festival 2016 (Mexico), Universidad Veracruzana-EEE (Mexico), Jean Rene Delsolins Institute (Haiti) and more. Brother(hood) Dance! was formed in April 2014 as a duo that researches, creates and performs dances of resistance and liberation.

Ricarrdo Valentine (left) and Orlando Hunter Jr
(photo: Ramy Mam)

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

Yes, we are currently working on Ricarrdo’s senior plan project at Marlboro College, which will also be a new work for Brother(hood) Dance! There was supposed to be a gallery showing of his photographs and a live performance of La Abuela Negra en el Armario/The Black grandma in the Closet.  However, the work had to be re-imagined in a photobook and dance film, for now. In addition, Brother(hood) Dance! was supposed to perform Afro/Solo/Man for Gibney's Replay platform in June, and our residency at Bates Dance Festival was cancelled. As of now, we are in the process of re-envisioning and honing in on the details of Brother(hood) Dance! now that Ricarrdo will be an undergrad in May.

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

Ricarrdo: Dance has always been with me since I was a young boy gathering my mother and grandmother into the living room for one of my performances. With such enthusiasm for dance, I entered Eliot Feld/Ballet Tech in the 3rd grade, riding the yellow school bus back and forth from Crown Heights to 890 Broadway. This foundation in institutional learning led me to dance with Dancewave Kids Company, Alfred Gallman, Christal Brown, Edisa Weeks, Germaul Barnes, André Zachary, Ni’Ja Whitson and other fly Black artists in the dance field. In April 2014, Orlando and I co-created Brother(hood) Dance!. We’ve been exploring dance, photography, and community building ever since. Now that I will be graduating from undergrad in May, I will be honing in on my photography practice and have developed more photo books and photo series.

Orlando: I remember being taught how to dance in my living room by babysitters, seeing photographs of my parents as (Chicago) steppers, dancing at family reunions, doing dance performances with the Jerry Gamble Boys and Girls Club, dancing with Unlimited & Next Level Drill and Dance team in Fairview Park, and having my own dance group called Sota Souljaz from middle school through my sophomore year of high school. These were all experiences where family and friends encouraged me to follow what I loved to do. In the western sense of studio training, my junior and senior year of high school, I attended Perpich Center of Arts Education and furthered my dance education at the University of Minnesota, where the integration of spirit, dance and social engagement was lit by my guru and one of my dance mothers, Ananya Chatterjea. Today, I am proud to have Brother(hood) Dance! as a reflection of how the people who were a part of those foundational experiences can witness their community investments within my work.

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

We are practicing embodying great depths of self-love to facilitate spaces where others may find the same. We are envisioning an integrated space of dance, photography, and agriculture where Black artists and artists of color can develop their creative ideas, as well as have a hands-on-the-land experience so that they can produce grounded and conscious art making.

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

As artists centering Blackness in all we do, our practice allows us to rest, heal, listen, and create a future that lets the next generation be free through arts and agriculture. We care a lot about creating a comfortable space for authentic living and human transformations. Our care is to make sure marginalized folks do not go invisible and forgotten.

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

We created a piece in 2016 called how to survive a plague, and here it is 2020, and it serves as a blueprint of sorts for care-giving with check-ins, healing with herbs, aromatherapy, music, touch, deep and meaningful conversations, and dealing with the hard stuff. These are practices we have embedded within our artistic life to ensure thriving and surviving in an ever-evolving time.

******

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.

******

Subscribe in a reader

Sharing, surviving: Black men dance at Danspace Project

Damon Green performs at Danspace Project in
Working on Better Versions of Prayers: Volume 1
by Chicago dancemaker J'Sun Howard
(photo: Ian Douglas)

Ricarrdo Valentine, above,
and below with Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.
of Brother(hood) Dance!
in how to survive a plague
(photos: Ian Douglas)

Demonstrations, marches, sit-ins/die-ins/love-ins, rallies, prayer: are there alternatives to these forms of protest that we can employ to generate positive change? 

For his presentation at Danspace Project, Chicago's J'Sun Howard asks this question and offers a possible answer in a trio for Black queer men entitled Working On Better Versions of Prayers: Version 1. Is Howard's result actually a better version of prayer?  Of protest? That's never clear but, choreographically, this dance is easy on the eyes.

Dancers D. Banks, Damon Green and Will Harris mark off an uncluttered space in which, from the start, we can focus on the lyrical fluidity of their movement--a flowing reach and unfurling, a cursive squiggling and twirling and twining that, while accelerating or embracing flourishes of basketball or hip hop or voguing or West African movement, never loses control or its through line. Howard writes with an aesthetically conservative hand. He is a lover of beauty and of the beauty in these dancers, presenting them subtly, sympathetically and with utopian vision--the world he wants to see.

One moment alone appears disruptive--a dancer's brief, frustrated interaction with part of the decor and his partner's intervention. This second dancer's role presents interesting questions: Is he helping his mate? Or is he restraining him? And then, near Howard's conclusion, comes the mystery figure (Green) emerging with face obscured, head enveloped in a leafy bush strung with Christmas lights--a remarkable, if cryptic, image.

In a “reverential gesture to lost ancestral artistic dreams,” Hunter and Valentine seek to venerate the Black African bodies that were exiled from the urgency of care and shunned by their communities and government [during the HIV/AIDS pandemic].

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine--the Black gay couple who are Brother(hood) Dance!--now have built how to survive a plague, a popular feature of Danspace’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found, into a work of enhanced, operatic proportions. Their aesthetics call for so much sensory engagement--and, yes, overload--you might expect the generous sights and sounds to be joined by offerings of food and libations. No such luck. But we did get to sample the aromatherapeutic artistry by Nicole Wilkins. I thought I caught a waft of something minty at one point, and then something else, pleasant enough but unidentifiable.

Ultimately, the sexy and ecstatic ritual of how to survive a plague is, I think, an invitation to take what we need by way of self-care. In that context, what works for one, in one moment, might not work for another, and many things will compete for your attention. You will find exuberant dance (with superb technique, always) overlapped with poetry and humor and glorious singing and visuals and kooky-fun costuming and booming voiceovers and, for a precious few, a chance to get up and shake your body. Trickster Eshu and Mother Kali share and dance this Carnaval, neither exactly shy and retiring types. I thank these deities--and more--for the audacity of Hunter and Valentine and look forward to whatever they bring us next.

Vocals: Starr Busby
Costume design: Shane Ballard
Lighting Design: Carol Mullins

Shared Evening: Brother(hood) Dance! & J'Sun Howard continues tonight and tomorrow at Danspace Project with performances at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

SPECIAL NOTE:

Nicole Wilkins recommends arriving hydrated for the best possible experience [of the aromoatherapy]; water will also be available during the show. If you have any questions or concerns please call the Danspace Project office at (212) 674.8112.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Subscribe in a reader

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2020: And then everything changed

Radha Blank in The Forty-Year-Old Version (photo Jeong Park/Netflix)

Poster for HBO's Lovecraft Country, starring Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett

 

Ruth Negga in Hamlet, St.Ann's Warehouse (photo: Teddy Wolff)

 

 

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2020

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Not a best-of list but a kind of memory palace

of remarkable arts events from the year 2020!

[Read last year’s list here.]

 

 

Performances by Emily Johnson, Adrienne Truscott and John Jarboe at The Poetry Project’s New Year’s Day Marathon at St. Mark’s Church, January 1

Atlantics, directed by Mati Diop, released on Netflix, November 15, 2019

Women’s Resistance by Urban Bush Women at American Dance Platform, The Joyce Theater, January 7 and 12

Indestructible by Abby Zbikowski performed by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company at American Dance Platform, The Joyce Theater, January 7 and 12

Soundz at the Back of my Head by Thomas F. DeFrantz at Gibney, January 9-11

Afro/Solo/Man by Brother(hood) Dance! at Gibney, January 9-11

A Prophets Tale: Portrait of the Lyricist (work-in-progress showing) by 7NMS|Marjani Forté-Saunders + Everett Saunders at Live Artery, New York Live Arts, January 12

AIR by Mariana Valencia at Performance Space New York, January 9-11, 16-18

Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection at The Grolier Club, through February 8

David Vaughn’s The Dance Historian is In: Dyane Harvey Salaam at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, January 29

Letters To Marsha with Viewing Hours (a diptych) by mayfield brooks at JACK, January 30-February 1

Ode to Mother Earth (The dark divine) by Brother(hood) Dance/Orlando Hunter, presented at Wise Fruit 9.0: Mama Earth at Hudson, February 17

Jordan Casteel: Within Reach at The New Museum, February 19-May 24

Ruth Negga in Hamlet, Gate Theatre Dublin, February 1-March 8

Burnt-Out Wife by Sara Juli, Dixon Place, February 21-28

Ti’ed (The Solo) by Christine C. Wyatt, WorkUp 6.1, at Gibney, March 5-7

Postwar a sci-fi love rage by Glenn Potter-Takata a.k.a. Gorn, WorkUp 6.1, at Gibney, March 5-7

Hope Hunt and The Ascension into Lazarus by Oona Doherty at 92Y Harkness Dance Center, March 6-7

 

 

 And then, everything changed:

ARTS IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

 

 

Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis starred in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. (Netflix)

 

2020 Dance Magazine Award winner Camille A. Brown choreographed Netflix's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. (Photo: Whitney Browne)

 

Two Gentlemen of Verona presented by The Show Must Go Online, streamed live March 19

Fire in my mouth (2019) by Julia Wolfe, New York Philharmonic conducted by Jaap van Zweden, streamed on NYPhil site and viewed March 28

Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park, The Public Theater) aired on PBS/Great Performances, viewed March 29

Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan (2016), directed by Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger (Netflix), viewed March 30

Revelations Workshop with Hope Boykin, Ailey All Access, viewed March 30

Afectos (U.S. premiere, 2014) by Rocío Molina and Rosario “La Tremendita” at Baryshnikov Arts Center, viewed April 9

Kathak: An American Story, Episode 4 by Leela Dance Collective, featuring Pandit Chitresh Das and Jason Samuels Smith at 2006 Kathak at the Crossroads Festival, viewed on YouTube, April 11

The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show, Netflix, streaming from April 1

Present Laughter by Noël Coward, PBS Great Performances (November 2017), viewed April 12

John Prine and Bill Withers In Their Own Words, a special by Anna Sale, WNYC, aired April 14

Fleabag (National Theatre Live) written by and performed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge; directed by Tony Grech-Smith and Vicky Jones (2019), Amazon Prime Video, viewed April 15

all decisions will be made by consensus, a Zoom opera composed by Kamala Sankaram, libretto by Rob Handel, directed by Kristin Marting, presented on Zoom by HERE, April 24-26

Balcony Bar from Home by ETHEL, presented by Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 24

Metropolitan Opera At-Home Gala, April 25

Take Me To The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, presented by Broadway.com on YouTube, April 27

Frankenstein by Nick Dear and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, National Theatre, streaming starting April 30

Ode by Jamar Roberts, presented by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on YouTube, April 30

Current and Former Ailey Women Dance Cry, video by Danica Paulos, Ailey All Access, YouTube, posted May 6

Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi: there is no Other, presented by MetLiveArts, May 16

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas, written and performed by Hannah Gadsby, directed by Madeleine Parry, Neftlix, streaming from May 26

Pass Over, written by Antoinette Nwandu, directed by Spike Lee (directed for stage by Danya Taymor), Amazon Prime Video, viewed May 30

Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, directed by Cristina Costantini and Kareem Tabsch, streaming from July 8

The Old Guard, written by Greg Rucka, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Netflix, streaming from July 10

Met Stars Live in Concert: Jonas Kaufmann in Polling, Bavaria with Helmut Deutsch, piano, viewed July 18

Welcome to A Bright White Limbo, directed by Cara Holmes, starring Oona Doherty, premiered Dance on Camera Festival 2020, July 19

Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance, directed by Khadifa Wong, premiered Dance on Camera Festival 2020, July 19

Gurumbé: Afro-Andalusian Memories, directed by Miguel Angel Rosales, streaming on KweliTV, viewed August 8

Beyond The Visible: Hilma af Klint, directed by Halina Dyrschka, streaming on KinoNOW, viewed August 27

Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)

In The Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe (Duke University Press, 2016)

Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry, Beacon Press, 2019

The Farewell, directed by Lulu Wang (2019), viewed September 10

Met Stars Live in Concert: Joyce DiDonato in Bochum, with Carrie-Ann Matheson, piano, and I’ll Pomo D’Oro, viewed September 13

Taina Asili: Joe’s Pub Live, YouTube, streaming from September 17

Process Memoir 6: thenowlater, Journey Two, Mind by Johnnie Cruise Mercer and TheREDprojectNY, presented by 92Y Harkness Dance Center, September 25

RBG, directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West. Magnolia Films (2018)

Herb Alpert Is…, directed by John Scheinfeld (2020)

The 40-Year-Old Version, directed by Radha Blank, Netflix (2020)

Schitt’s Creek, created by Dan and Eugene Levy, Netflix (2015-2020)

Julius Caesar, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, Donmar Warehouse at St. Ann’s Warehouse (2016), streaming in October

David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee, HBO/HBO Max (2020)

Lovecraft Country, created by Misha Green, HBO/HBO Max (2020)

King Lear--Virtual Reading, Crescent City Stage, October 17

Dancers on Film: Okwui Okpokwasili & devynn emory (with Kristin Juarez), The Getty Center, October 21

The School for Wives, starring Tonya Pinkins, Molière in the Park, October 24

The Tempest, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, Donmar Warehouse at St. Ann’s Warehouse (2016), streaming in October

DEBATE: Baldwin vs. Buckley, adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen, BRIC, YouTube starting October 22

Macbeth (film, 2010), directed by Rupert Goold, starring Sir Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood, PBS Great Performances, streaming November

Between the World and Me (film, 2020), directed by Kamilah Forbes, HBO, streaming from November 21

 

Key & Peele (five seasons, 2012-2015), starring Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, HBO, viewed throughout November

Mangrove (film, 2020) in Small Axe, directed by Steve McQueen, Amazon Prime Video, streaming from November 20

Lovers Rock (film, 2020) in Small Axe, directed by Steve McQueen, Amazon Prime Video, streaming from November 20

 

Education (film, 2020) in Small Axe, directed by Steve McQueen, Amazon Prime Video, streainging from November 20

On the Sunny Side of the Street by Kayla Farrish, Louis Armstrong House, from November 29

Last Gasp WHF by Split Britches (Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw) at La MaMa, streaming from November 20-December 12

nevermore by Taylor Swift

 

Dear Artist by Kelly Tsai, YouTube, from December 9

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, Netflix, from December 18
 

Canvas, written and directed by Frank E. Abney III, Neftlix, from December 14

 

My Octopus Teacher, directed by James Reed and Pippa Ehrlich, Netflix, from September 4

******

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

******

Subscribe in a reader

Who's falling for dance?

I attended two dance shows yesterday: Fridays@Noon at 92nd Street Y and New York City Center's Fall for Dance. I haven't been to Fridays@Noon in a long while, largely due to time and energy factors, but I'm glad I found my way to this one. Over the years, I have never taken in too many of the extremely popular Fall for Dance shows either, and that's because I've already fallen and I can't get up.

Who's falling for dance? And who's spending lunch break catching some dance on the Upper East Side?

It was a small, mainly "insider" dance audience at 92Y yesterday afternoon for Words and Images: Trebien Pollard, A Future Vision. Pretty much everyone voiced some version of these words: "I wish more people could have seen this program." Well, actually more people can, since 92Y has a recorded livestream, thanks to Paul Galando and his dance and new media fellows from NYU Tisch. So you don't have to take it from me, but curator Pollard and his colleagues Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Aimee Rials and Brother(hood) Dance! (Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine) killed it.

Pollard's dance artists step up and acknowledge that dance, while maintaining rigorous craft, can make powerful contributions to the current discourse on race, gender, sexuality and justice. I greatly admire Hunter and Valentine's work. In the video and dance excerpt they showed from Black Jones, they continue to set a high bar for exploring facets of Black gay identity and threats to Black life and well-being. They get me with accomplished performance technique as well as with humor and tenderness. Pollard, draped in a long, black gown, approaches his solo, Never Not Broken, like a ritual priest. Inspired by Martin Buber's I and Thou and Claudia Rankine's Citizen, the work makes use of Rankine's text and stark, solemn imagery to establish a space where hard questions can be asked about the cost of living as one's true self in oppressive society.

Mercer and Rials were discoveries for me. The only white and only female artist on the program, Rials is a New York-based Tisch grad raised in Alabama. Her solo, Modif(her), draws from her sense of crossing strict borders whenever she goes home, adjusting her appearance to conform, not out of shame but out of genuine concern for her and her family's safety. Modif(her) crackles with tension, obsessiveness and watchfulness, all sharply contained and restrained in space. Mercer's performance (with "drifter and assistant" Johnny Chatman II) impressed me for the opposite reason: Despite also alluding to societal strictures and dangers, Mercer seemed voracious in his imaginative reach and energy.

For a schedule of upcoming Fridays@Noon events, click here.

The Friday night Fall for Dance show featured France's CCN de la Rochelle/Cie Accrorap (acrobatic hip hop), Australia's Bangarra Dance Theatre and Hong Kong Ballet, all bringing big, crowd-pleasing US premieres. Oh...and among those unfurling ensembles, one more act, a solo: New York's Ayodele Casel, holding down the City Center stage with her assertive and nimble tap style. ("I feel like Ray Barreto on the timbales!") But maybe I should look at this a different way, because no tap dancer ever dances alone. Casel may have appeared to be up there by herself, but she showed up with her tribe--the ancestral women tap dancers, like Jeni Le Gon and Marion Coles, who she honors in While I Have the Floor. Every other act on Friday's program sprawled out in time, maybe too much so. (Dance sampler programs aimed at new audiences should give us samples, not productions almost lengthy enough to serve as their own evening.) But, if I had my wish, it would be for more Casel and a broader sample of her musical powers. It has been a long time since I've seen her dance, and While I Have the Floor, with its outward focus on others and heritage, though admirable, was not satisfying.

Fall for Dance's affordability is a great deal for dance artists and dance fans on a budget. Its omnibus programming enables established dance fans to easily try out companies or genres of dance they've never before considered or to catch up with a production they might have missed. I hope it really does inspire folks to explore and support other shows. For the hardcore dance-goer, though--okay, for me, I will own it--the evening can seem long while devoid of meaningful context for each company's presentation. It feels like both too much and not enough. But here's one sure thing: The folks in the seats throw a lot of love back at that stage.

This Fall for Dance program continues tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here. For information and tickets for programs running October 5-8, click here.

New York City Center
131 W 55th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Get your free email subscription

to InfiniteBody.

Click here!

My Curatorial Highlights of 2020

 

 CURATORIAL HIGHLIGHTS 2020

I call on all Black creatives to preserve and tell our own stories.

We must center, treasure and tell our own stories, or others will tell them their own way for their own uses--or refuse to tell them at all.

The comprehensive story of Calendar Year 2020 is a difficult one, and there are different ways I could tell it. This day, though, I wish to acknowledge and celebrate things achieved before and, then, in spite of the pandemic. Things accomplished before and, then, in response to the rise of this year’s anti-racism uprising. Things created in joy and, then, in sorrow, in an effort to keep at least some movement happening at a time of stasis and loss and to build circles of mutual support.


GIBNEY CURATION

Below is just a sample of notable events I curated for the Gibney organization during 2020:

Black Dance Artists on Masculinity, panel moderated by J. Bouey and featuring Du’Bois A’Keen, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Orlando Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine

Soundz at the Back of My Head, premiered by Thomas F. DeFrantz/Slippage, Bessie Award nominee (Quran Karriem) for Outstanding Sound Design/Musical Composition

Afro/Solo/Man, premiered by Brother(hood) Dance! (Orlando Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine), Bessie Award nominee for Outstanding Production and for Outstanding Visual Design (video)

Digital: Unidentified Fly Object (U.F.O) by Tendayi Kuumba with Greg Purnell

Long Tables: Latina/x in Dance and Performance (Alicia Diaz, Mariana Valencia, Yanira Castro, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Beatrice Capote) and Does Dance Matter to America?
(Danni Gee, Brinda Guha, Joya Powell, Ayodele Casel, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Aynsley Vandenbroucke)

Art + Action Artist Talks: Solo for Solo Artists, moderated by myself and featuring Marion Spencer, Darrin Wright, Zui Gomez, Wendell Gray III and Paul Hamilton. Spirituality of the Body, moderated by Charmaine Warren and featuring Laurel Atwell, Shamar Wayne Watt, Ogemdi Ude, and iele paloumpis

Sorry I Missed Your Show: presentations by Tess Dworman, 2020 Bessie Award nominee for Breakout Choreographer; LaJuné MacMillian; Michelle Boulé; Jennifer Nugent; Stefanie Batten Bland

Living Gallery: word-based performances by Linda La Beija; Nia Witherspoon; Melanie Greene; Kayhan Irani; Oceana James

Some of the many artists I met with during this year for consultations or discussions about developing work have included Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Leyya Tawil, zavé martohardjono, Kayla Farrish, Dohee Lee, mayfield brooks, Audre Wirtanen, Colleen Thomas, Olaiya Olayemi, Ahn Vo, Kazu Kumagai and Lisa LaTouche.


CURATING DANCING QUEERLY FESTIVAL

I was delighted to be recommended to the producers of Boston’s annual Dancing Queerly Festival to guest curate a digital evening of video works from New York-based LGBTQ artists. I selected J. Bouey, Ni’Ja Whitson, Maria Bauman-Morales, zavé martohardjono and Brother(hood) Dance! for this well-received program.

In years past, I have also enjoyed curating events for Danspace Project, La MaMa and 92Y Harkness. I'm still eager for independent curatorial or dramaturgical projects--specifically Black- or BIPOC-centered ones. Reach out!

CREATING BLACK DIASPORA

This summer, I started organizing Black Diaspora, my pilot program designed for rising Black artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds and dance/performance techniques and traditions. I invited artists to apply following recommendations from more experienced Black artists in New York's community, and a cohort of eighteen was formed. Since September, sponsored by Gibney, they have met by Zoom to hold conversations on topics of their own choosing. Some of these informal community conversations have been joined by invited artists such as Ayodele Casel, J. Bouey, Jerron Herman, Kayla Hamilton, Ni'Ja Whitson, Raja Feather Kelly and Rokafella and Kwikstep and more are coming in 2021. Participation is free. Recently, I was offered additional funding to curate a series of workshops for the Black Diaspora cohort. These will run from February through June of 2021, facilitated by Cynthia Oliver, Gilbert T. Small II, Paloma McGregor, Nicole Stanton and Bebe Miller. I have invited this first cohort to return for a second fiscal year (September 2021 through June 2022). It is my intention to develop Black Diaspora into a full-featured residency program over the next few years.


LAUNCHING IMAGINING: A GIBNEY JOURNAL

Along with its newly-redesigned website, Gibney now has a bi-monthly online journal--Imagining: A Gibney Journal--which I have edited along with outgoing Curatorial and Editorial Coordinator Dani Cole. (Monica Nyenkan has now joined Gibney in the CEC role and has begun assisting me with Imagining.) Some of the writers engaged in our September and November 2020 issues were Ogemdi Ude, George Emilio Sanchez, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Conrhonda E. Baker and Aynsley Vandenbroucke. We are situated at the intersection of the arts and social justice and seek to make space for underrepresented voices.

CREATING/CURATING THE EVA YAA ASANTEWAA BLACK ARTS LEADERSHIP AWARD (EYABALA)

I have awarded the EYABALA space grant at Gibney--funded through a generous contribution from board member Andrew A. Davis--to nia love, Jerron Herman, David Thomson, and Jordan Demetrius Lloyd. These artists will receive 50 hours of free rehearsal space when studios in both of Gibney’s centers can safely reopen. (UPDATE: Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, Jerron Herman had to withdraw from this program. André Zachery has been given this award in his place. And, last but not least, the hours have been increased for all awardees from 50 to a whopping 100!)


ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

In November, I convened a new independent group Black Curators in Dance and Performance, two-dozen strong, with a focus on mutual support, creative collaboration and advocacy. We have set January 22 for our third meeting.

The independent Artists and Advocates of Color Collective (AACCollective), which I proposed as a haven and support for BIPOC artists affiliated in any way with Gibney, finally began to take off this year, growing in membership and activity.

I have also had the honor of serving on the 2020 Bessie Awards Steering Committee for a short spell this year and joined some amazing community leaders on the advisory Dance/NYC Symposium Committee in preparation for the upcoming symposium (March 17-19, 2021).


Most of our journeys have been disrupted this year, and I have had to put aside or alter many things planned for this year and the next. But I’m happy to say 2020 still offered good opportunities to stay in motion and strive to make a difference.

Wishing you and yours all the best in 2021!

Eva

******

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

******

Subscribe in a reader

Dance/NYC to present seventh annual Symposium

On Sunday, February 28, the advocacy organization Dance/NYC will convene its seventh annual symposium, featuring panels, workshops, legal and management consultations, film screenings and more. Hosted by Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, the event aims to confront issues of dance education, racial equity, technology, dance in public spaces, and the accessibility of dance to performers and audiences with disabilities.

Keynote speakers include Misty Copeland (American Ballet Theatre), Virginia Johnson (Dance Theatre of Harlem), Edwin Torres (Acting Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs), and Darren Walker (Ford Foundation).

Brother(hood) Dance! Collective (Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine) will offer a performance of Black Jones, "an exploration of manhood through the naked lens of two same-gender loving men" activating "their emotional and spiritual selves."

For complete schedule and registration information for Symposium 2016, click here.

For complete information and registration for the Disability. Dance. Artistry pre-symposium (Saturday, February 27), click here.

Volunteers are welcome. Click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

BODY AND SOUL: Ricarrdo Valentine: Rest for freedom

Ricarrdo Valentine (photo: Orlando Zane Hunter Jr)

A Black man wearing a salmon-colored sweater is looking directly into the camera, wearing a gold ring on the left and a silver and blue ring on the right with a multicolored Kufi hat.

During the pandemic, dance artist and photographer Ricarrdo Valentine continued to work towards a graduate degree in Dance, keenly aware of academia's toll on body, mind, and spirit. Influenced by healing philosophies, such as the famed Nap Ministry of Tricia Hersey, Valentine shares what he has learned about self-compassion and rest, critical tools of liberation from capitalism and grind culture.

To listen to today's Body and Soul podcast with Ricarrdo Valentine, click here!

Bio: Ricarrdo Valentine is a second-generation Black, Jamaican American/estadounidense, Same-gender-loving photographer and dancer who finds value in collaboration, individuality, and intimacy. I move and take photos from intuition. Ricarrdo’s photographic work has been exhibited at Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Centro Universitario de las Artes (MX). He has presented his choreography at Bates Dance Festival, Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio, LaGuardia Community College, and more. Ricarrdo continues to collaborate and work with Christal Brown/INspirit, Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dance, Paloma McGregor, Dante Brown/Warehouse Dance, Malcolm Low/Formal Structure, Jill Sigman/Thinkdance, Sage Ni'Ja Whitson-Adebanjo/NWA project, Andre Zachary/RPG, Emily Berry/B3W, and Barak ade Soliel. Ricarrdo is also the co-founder of Brother(hood) Dance!, a Brooklyn-based dance collective and a 2020 Bessie Award honoree for Afro/Solo/Man.  He is working on an ethno-visual project, Where My People At?, as a 2020-2021 NorthStar Art Incubator Fellow in addition to pursuing an MFA in Dance integrating agriculture and technology at The Ohio State University.  To view Ricarrdo's images, you can visit www.ricarrdovalentine.com. Also visit www.bhooddance.com.

"Native American Realness": Address/redress cultural appropriation

Rosy Simas and Christopher K. Morgan
(photos: Tim Rummelhoff and Brianne Bland)

On Saturday, January 7, American Realness 2017 presented a conversation featuring Native American choreographers Rosy Simas (Seneca) and Christopher K. Morgan (Native Hawaiian) with Sara Nash, Program Director, New England Foundation for the Arts at Brooklyn's ISSUE Project Room.

The afternoon session was organized by American Realness in response to concerns first raised in mid-December by Simas about the APAP-related festival's planned programming of a solo performance by Latifa Laâbissi, a French national of Moroccan lineage. (See Rosy Simas Reads Laâbissi’s "Self Portrait Camouflage", InfiniteBody, December 13, 2016.)  Sima's complaint and subsequent conversations with American Realness founder, curator and producer Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor led to an apology statement from Pryor, who had programmed the Laâbissi show in collaboration with MoMA PS1 associate curator--now Executive Artistic Director of Performance Space 122--Jenny Schlenka. Although Pryor quickly withdrew his organization's co-sponsorship of the Laâbissi event, MoMA PS1 kept the show on its APAP schedule. In the meantime, Simas and Laâbissi had an extensive conversation about the issue. 

The Native American Realness forum was convened on Saturday:

"to discuss the state of Native American performance work across the US and the epidemic of institutional negligence, insensitivity and attempted erasure of and towards Native American / Indigenous / First Nations’ values, histories and contributions to contemporary artistic practice. This conversation seeks to investigate how our dominant culture’s historical insensitivity aids in forms of cultural appropriation, Redface, and racism in artistic practice, spectatorship and presenting. Does Redface sell? Is curating Native artists seen as risky, unsellable, or uninteresting, or does this speak to institutional and societal ignorance?"

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.--co-founder, with Ricarrdo Valentine, of Brotherhood Dance!--attended this session and contributes a report.

Native American Realness

by guest contributor

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.

Native American Realness was nothing short of a resistance that's been happening for over 500 hundred years. Artist Rosy Simas from Minneapolis initially sparked what's part of a larger fire as it relates to indigenous performance, life and well-being. Simas challenged the annual American Realness festival to reexamine why it would present Latifa Laâbissi's Self Portrait Camouflage, a Red Face performance, an appropriation by an artist who may or may not have done the research on indigenous performance.

Laâbissi was not there to defend her work and dialogue with Simas. Should she have been?

The conversation opened with each person stating their names and if they belonged to any indigenous nation--a traditional way of opening the space and filling it with ourselves and our ancestors. The first questions posed for the room were loaded yet poignant: What is "Red Face" and why is it problematic? Why is it programmed? We further questioned: Why does Red Face programming get funded in the United States while Native American artists do not? Boundaries were set so that Indigenous people in the room would speak first.

It should be noted that not every cultural institution would have the integrity to share their failure so publicly and be willing to host the provocateur and many others who stand in solidarity. And they did this only a month after the controversy arose. Response plus action.

Red Face is a racialized representation of Native American people similar to Black Face in America. Red Face is the impersonation of Native American people by white people of European descent, though not exclusively. People of color can also objectify their own cultures as well as others. Educational structures and cultural production sectors use this and other similar mechanisms to control the image of Native Americans. These efforts continue to write Native Americans out of their own stories, never affording space or access to funding for Native Americans to write their truths.

As the conversation progressed, further challenges emerged around intention and the research process. Who is authentic? For bodies of color, entering European performance spaces is a radical act in and of itself.

Participants questioned how context can be provided for the audience. Should it even be provided? When it comes to esthetics, what is disruptive? If the standard is European esthetics, then we must question who is radical. Someone mentioned a recent performance by Will Rawls that was sourced in Balkan dance traditions. What does "radical" mean for different cultures? In the words of Rosy Simas, "If an artist says it's radical, shouldn't we believe them?" Contextualizing performance is left up to the artist who must negotiate how much they want to let the audience in on their intended communication.

As the ninety-minute conversation ended, everyone realized that this was only a beginning to the work of excavating the dissociative culture we live in and its reluctance to process the trauma suffered by indigenous cultures. How do we heal?

Native American Realness was an opportunity for cultural workers and community members to have open dialogue about the misrepresentation and appropriation of Native culture and performance. This conversation was an example of how cultural production platforms and artists can work together to incite change, offering healing resistance with rigorous dialogue and harmonious creative space.

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Orlando Zane Hunter Jr. is a choreographer and dancer who researches, illustrates and creates from an African-American male perspective. In his work, he tackles issues resulting from a capitalistic imperialist patriarchal white supremacist system. Hunter grew up dancing hip-hop and graduated with a BFA in Dance from University of Minnesota, where he performed works by Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Carl Flink, Louis Falco, Colleen Thomas, Uri Sands, Stephen Petronio and Nora Chipaumire. His solo Mutiny was selected to represent the University of Minnesota at the 2011 ACDFA gala in Madison, Wisconsin. Orlando studied LGBT activism and history in Amsterdam and Berlin. He has performed with Christal Brown/INspirit Dance Company, Contempo Physical Dance, Forces of Nature, Makeda Thomas, Threads Dance Project, TU Dance and Ananya Dance Theater, an all-women’s company where he was the first male member and toured with them to Trinidad & Tobago and Zimbabwe. Hunter is a co-founder of the collective Brother(hood) Dance!

Free email subscription

to InfiniteBody

Click here!

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2017

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2017

@APAP presentations of Pavel Zuštiak's Bastard (The Painted Bird: Part 1) and Custodians of Beauty--the latter, part of the PS 122's COIL festival--by Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo at La MaMa, January 4-8

@APAP presentation of Dana Michel's Mercurial George, American Realness festival at Abrons Arts Center, January 5-10

@Artists Stand with Standing Rock, presented by ACRE PISAB at Downtown Art, January 21

@The Tempest by Donmar Warehouse at St. Ann's Warehouse, January 13-February 19

@Alive & Kicking (film), directed by Susan Glatzer (Magnolia Pictures), Dance on Camera Festival, February 3-7

@Last Work by Ohad Naharin, Batsheva Dance Company at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, February 1-4

@to make ready again by Marguerite Hemmings at JACK, February 2-3

@I Am Not Your Negro (film), directed by Raoul Peck, released February 3

@What Remains (work-in-progress showing) by Will Rawls at BRIC, February 10-11

@Works & Process Rotunda Project: Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 16

@This Ain’t A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering (film), directed by Taja Lindley, premiered February 16

@National Museum of African American History & Culture, visited February 24

@Loving (film; released 2016), directed by Jeff Nichols

Daniel Kuluuya and Allison Williams
in Jordan Peele's Get Out

@Get Out (film), directed by Jordan Peele, release date February 24

@Our Configurations, featuring works by AXIS Dance Company, Marc Brew, Kinetic Light and Marissa Perel, at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, March 4

Eiko Otake in residence at Cathedral of St. John the Divine
(photo: William Johnston)

@Remembering Fukushima: Art and Conversations in the Cathedral, conceived and directed by Eiko Otake and presented in partnership with the Asia Society and Danspace Project, March 11

Aynsley Vandenbroucke performs And
(photo: Ian Douglas)

@And by Aynsley Vandenbroucke at Abrons Arts Center, March 30-April 2

@Homecoming Queens, featuring work by The Dauphine of Bushwick, Haus of Umpteen Corpses, Kalandra Bankhead, K.James, lady bedbug, Ragamuffin and Vic Sin at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, April 5

@Good Mud by Lily Gold at Danspace Project, April 6-8

@Album, a work-in-progress showing by Mariana Valencia at BAX, April 7-8

@Bertha, a work-in-progress showing by Tara Aisha Willis, featuring sound design by Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste at Danspace Project, April 8

@Liveyard, a work-in-progress showing by Candace Thompson at Danspace Project, April 8

@an exercise in getting well soon, a work-in-progress showing by NIC Kay at Movement Research at the Judson Church, April 10

@Unwanted, a work-in-progress showing by Dorothée Munyanez with Holland Andrews at Baryshnikov Arts Center, April 13

@It's All True/Grandfather, a work-in-progress showing by Muna Tseng at Baryshnikov Arts Center, April 13

@Abandoned playground by Abby Z and the New Utility at Abrons Arts Center, April 13-15

@gl(host):lostatsea by Nia Love in "studies in living otherwise" at Theater for the New City, April 14-16

Renée Fleming and Elina Garanča
in Der Rosenkavalier
(photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera)

@Renée Fleming and Elina Garanča in Der Rosenkavalier, The Metropolitan Opera, April 17

@Poor People's TV Room by Okwui Okpokwasili at New York Live Arts, April 19-22, 26-29

@Nearly Sighted by Kayla Hamilton at BAAD!, April 21-22

@Irving Penn Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 24-July 30

@Arlington by Enda Walsh at St. Ann's Warehouse, May 3-28

@The Ghost Festival by Koma Otake at Danspace Project, May 11-13

@Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen set design for Keen [No. 2] by Ivy Baldwin, Ivy Baldwin Dance at Abrons Arts Center, June 1-11

@SlowDancing/TrioA by David Michalek in collaboration with Yvonne Rainer at Danspace Project, June 23-July 1

@No Maps on My Taps (film, 1978) and About Tap (film, 1984) by George T. Nierenberg, first theatrical release at Quad Cinema, July 7-13

@Dearest Home by Kyle Abraham (Abraham.In.Motion) at The Kitchen as part of Lumberyand in The City festival, June 28-July 2

Will Rawls and Ishmael Houston-Jones
chief curators of the 2017 Danspace Project Platform, Lost and Found
(photo courtesy New York Dance and Performance Awards: The Bessies)

For this and everything you do, gentlemen, thanks and kudos!

Okwui Okpokwasili
in Andrew Rossi's documentary Bronx Gothic

@Bronx Gothic (film) directed by Andrew Rossi at Film Forum, released July 12

@GHOST LIGHT by Third Rail Projects at the Claire Tow Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, June 19 through August 6

@To T, or Not to T by D'Lo at the Hot! Festival, Dixon Place, July 7-22

@Citizen Reno at Hot! Festival, Dixon Place, July 6

@Shelby Shellz Suzie Q Felton in HERE ON OUT at Secret Project Robot, July 26

Left to right: Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith,
Tiffany Haddish and Regina Hall in Girls Trip

Thanks, sistergirls, for the bellylaughs!

@Girls Trip (film) directed by Malcolm D. Lee, released July 21

@Tiffany Haddish in Girls Trip, released July 21

@Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, opened June 13

@Get Well Soon! by NIC Kay at the CURRENT SESSIONS: Volume VII: On Resistance at Wild Project, August 19

@Maria Bauman open studio for dying and dying and dying at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, August 24

@Dancing in the Hold: An Emergency Response to Charlottesville, convened by Mayfield Brooks for Movement Research at Abrons Arts Center, August 30

@Ten Huts by Jill Sigman, Wesleyan University Press, published in September

@Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972 exhibition curated by Wendy Perron, New York Public Library, Library of the Performing Arts, June 27-September 16

@Terrifying Times Call for Terrifying Jewelry by Laurie Berg at Dixon Place, September 6

@Batanaba [new work] by Faustin Linyekula, danced with Moya Michael at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, FIAF's Crossing the Line festival, September 9-10

@CAST by Yanira Castro/a canary torsi (opening night performed by devynn emory, Luke Miller, Sai Somboon and Darrin Wright) at The Chocolate Factory, September 13-23

@#PUNK by Nora Chipaumire at FIAF's Crossing the Line festival, September 14-15

@The Peculiar Patriot by Liza Jessie Peterson at National Black Theatre, September 13-October 1

@Asami Morita (lighting design) and Diego Montoya (decor design) for choreographers Elena Rose Light, Jess Pretty, and Miriam Gabriel & Antonio Villanueva in Invocation Proclamation Manifesto at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, September 21-23

@Unwanted by Dorothée Munyaneza with Holland Andrews at Baryshnikov Arts Center, September 21-22

@My Lai, performed by Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert and by Vân-Ánh Võ; music by Jonathan Berger; libretto by Harriet Scott Chessman at BAM Harvey, September 27-30

@A Letter to My Nephew by Bill T. Jones, Janet Wong, members of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and entire creative team at BAM Harvey, October 3-7

@Declassified Memory Fragment by Olivier Tarpaga, Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project at Harlem Stage, October 4

@Kazu Kumagai: HEAR/HERE at 92Y, October 13-14

@how to survive a plague by Brother(hood) Dance! at Danspace Project, October 19-21

@Virago-Man Dem by Cynthia Oliver at BAM Fisher, October 25-28

The sublime Leah Morrison (Trisha Brown Dance Company)
performs at the memorial service for Brown at Danspace Project.
(photo: Ian Douglas)

@Bird/Woman/Flower/Dare Devil: Trisha Brown, A Community Memorial, organized by Iréne Hultman and friends, Danspace Project, October 28

@Air This Pain and Alter It: What Can Poetry Do? at The Graduate Center, CUNY, with readings by Eduardo C. Corral, Nick Flynn, Kimiko Hahn, Bob Hicok, Jane Hirshfield, Tyehimba Jess, Gregory Pardlo and Jacqueline Woodson, November 2

Marjani Forté-Saunders in Memoirs of a... Unicorn
(photo: Maria Baranova)

@Memoirs of a... Unicorn by Marjani Forté-Saunders at The Collapsable Hole, presented by New York Live Arts, November 15-19

Disney Pixar's Coco

@Coco (film), directed by Lee Unkrich, co-directed by Adrian Molina, released November 22

@Skeleton Architecture opening Movement Research Fall Festival 2017: invisible material at Judson Church, November 27

@Haruki Murakami's Sleep by Ripe Time at BAM Fisher, part of BAM Next Wave 2017, November 29-December 2

@Race Card by Karma Mayet at JACK, December 1-16

Yinka Esi Graves
(photo: Camilla Greenwall)

@Yinka Esi Graves + Shamar Wayne Watt curated by Nora Chipaumire for DoublePlus shared evening at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, November 30-December 2

@Showtime NYC at George Emilio Sanchez's Bang Bang Gun Amok at Abrons Arts Center, December 8-9

@Thomas Dunn, lighting design for Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I or Hallucination by Kota Yamazaki at Baryshnikov Arts Center, December 13-15

@The Golden Section by Twyla Tharp and Shelter by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at New York City Center, November 29-December 31

@Best books I caught up with this year: Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi; Hunger by Roxane Gay; Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi; Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo; Binti and Kabu-Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor; Shrill by Lindy West

Season Three cannot drop fast enough for me!

@Best Netflix or Amazon movies and tv I caught up with this year: Anthropoid, How to Get Away With Murder (Season 3), Master of None (Season 2); Stranger Things 2, Mudbound, She's Gotta Have It, The Crown, Schitt's Creek

Okay, that's my honor roll for the year! 
What's on yours?

(photo: D. Feller)

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Subscribe in a reader