Shared Evening: Jasmine Hearn / Mariana Valencia

*No late seating! Please arrive on time, and be sure to check train and bus schedules for the weekend!*

A shared evening of new commissions by choreographers Jasmine Hearn and Mariana Valencia, both of whom work with choreography as a radical vehicle for memory and archive.

Jasmine Hearn is a Bronx-based choreographer, performer, and dancer. Currently, she is a collaborating performer with Alisha Wormsley, David Dorfman Dance, Helen Simoneau Danse, and Tara Willis. shook is a new work consisting of three duets with Hearn and collaborators Maria Bauman, Kayla Farrish, Dominica Greene, Catherine Kirk, Angie Pittman, and Alisha Wormsley. This “collaborative calling” is paired with an original soundscape created by Hearn.

Mariana Valencia is a dance artist and co-editor of Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence and a founding member of the No Total reading group. Her new performance work, Yugoslavia, encompasses ethnography, memoir, and observations of her own cross-cultural identifiers. “In Yugoslavia, I intersect the First World, the Second World, the countryside, the imaginary plane and vampires. Factual, humorous, and grave observations depict my herstorical frame,” writes Valencia. With Yugoslavia, “I’m in search of the spiritual, in observation of the physical, and in awe of the artificial.”

Shared Evening: Brother(hood) Dance! / J’Sun Howard

*Please note the second half of the evening by Brother(hood) Dance! includes aromatherapy by Nicole Wilkins as part of the performance. Nicole recommends arriving hydrated for the best possible experience; 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.*

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? J’Sun Howard’s Working On Better Versions of Prayers: Version I is a poetic testimony in which miracles can erupt at any moment. “My aim is to make a dreamscape that can be a possibility for a future world,” writes Howard, a Chicago-based dancemaker and poet who most recently performed at Danspace in the Bessie Award-winning work of Darrell Jones. Howard is inspired by​ “radical hope,” a concept articulated by author Jonathan Lear who was influenced by ideas from ​the last hereditary Chief of the Crow Nation, Plenty Coups (1848-1932). Howard and performers/collaborators D. Banks, Damon Green, and Will Harris create a charismatic space for joy, exploring the intimacy between queer men of color, flirting with notions of divine radical presence and how it “holyficates.” Director: J’Sun Howard; Dramaturge: Raquel Monroe.

An early version of Brother(hood) Dance!’s how to survive a plague was seen during Danspace’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found. In this interdisciplinary meditation on the artistic generational gap between those lost in the global AIDS epidemic, Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine investigate who survives and whose stories are told during and after life, and explore methods of healing, care-giving, and living testimonies in a ritualistic setting of movement, sound designed by Hunter and live singing by Starr Busby, and aromatherapy by Nicole Wilkins. 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. Costumes by Emmy Award-winning designer Shane Ballard.

Lighting Design: Carol Mullins

Simone Forti Workshop: Body Mind World

*Participant tickets for both workshops are sold out. Observer tickets will be available at the door and are cash only.

If you are interested in joining the waitlist for a workshop, please arrive 1/2 hour prior to the start time.*

No movement experience is necessary! Wear comfortable clothes and bring a notebook. Observation-only tickets are available!

Forti is in residence at Danspace Project as part of Tea for Three (her performance project with Steve Paxton & Yvonne Rainer), working with her current practice using both movement and text. Forti describes the Body Mind World workshop:

Do our words have access to what we know in our bones? In our daily lives we spontaneously weave together body language and spoken words to help us understand and communicate. In this Body Mind World workshop we will cultivate this synergetic process to help us engage with subject matter that interests us. The class will include warm-ups to awaken our kinetic juices, and focused stream of consciousness writing to put us in touch with our wild thoughts, questions and observations. We will work with improvisational movement scores, as well as in ways that can help us develop a natural and intuitive flow between our moving and our speaking, with surprise and delight. By letting our body intelligence and our verbal mind interact, we will access a fuller view of our world, both personal and collective.

Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer: Tea for Three

*Advance tickets for all 3 performances are sold out. A wait list will begin at the door each evening at 7:15pm* 

Three nights of performance, improvisation, and interaction between three singular and influential artists, Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer. Writes Paxton, “Tea for Three is the recent interplay by Forti, Paxton, and Rainer, three veteran dancers who admired each other’s work forty-five years before performing together. They each bring their doughty selves to the stage, making dance and performance conversation. No tea is served, but food for thought.”

A Community Memorial Honoring the Life and Work of Trisha Brown

Danspace Project and the dance community at large celebrate the legacy of choreographer Trisha Brown (1936-2017), who altered how we perceive, create, and understand dance since forming her company in 1970. Over five hours, Brown’s company alums, colleagues, and admirers will speak, dance, reminisce, and pay tribute to one of our history’s greatest influencers.

This event is free and open to the public and guests may come and go throughout the day. All are welcome to join in paying homage to Brown and her legacy in transforming our worldwide artistic community.

12pm-1pm
Judy Hussie-Taylor
Iréne Hultman
Wendy Perron
Susan Rosenberg

1pm-2pm
Denise Luccioni
Laurel Jenkins
Nancy Dalva
Liz Gerring
Stephen Petronio
Val Bourne

2pm-3pm
Babette Mangolte
Liz Thompson
Sam Miller
Ralph Lemon
Tere O’Connor

3pm-4pm
Hendel Teicher
Jennifer Tipton
Yvonne Rainer
Molly Davies

4pm-5pm
Philip Bither
Bill T. Jones
Adam Brown

Dancing by 
Kathleen Fisher, Lance Gries, Iréne Hultman, Laurel Jenkins, Eva Karczag, Jon Kinzel, Tara Lorenzen, Diane Madden, Mariah Maloney, Leah Morrison, Brandi Norton, Wendy Perron, Jaime Scott, Shelley Senter, Vicky Shick, Stacy Spence, Keith Thompson, Abby Yager

Excerpts of works
Accumulation (1971), Solo Olos (1976), Group Primary Accumulation (1973), Glacial Decoy (1979), Groove and Countermove (2000), Opal Loop (1980), Lateral Pass (1985), Son of Gone Fishing (1981), Set and Reset (1983), In Memoriam: by Stacy Spence (2016), Foray Foret (1990), Sky Map (1969), For MG: The Movie (1991), If You Couldn’t See Me (1994), In Memoriam: by Jon Kinzel (2017), Another Story as in Falling (1993), Spanish Dance (1976)

Film screenings of full pieces will be on view in the Sanctuary and Parish Hall.