Tag Archives: la mama

LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS: ARTISTS EMBRACE LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Who: Nearly two hundred performers
What: Lower East Side Festival of the Arts
Where: Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. at Tenth St.
When: May 27-29, free (donations accepted)
Why: The twenty-seventh annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, a wide-ranging, indoor and outdoor celebration of the vast creativity of the neighborhood over the decades, will feature nearly two hundred performers, at Theater for the New City and on Tenth St. Taking place May 27-29, the festival, with the theme “Artists Embrace Liberty and Justice for All,” includes dance, spoken word, theater, music, visual art, and more from such familiar faves as David Amram, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, James Rado, La MaMa, Akiko, Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, Malachy McCourt, KT Sullivan, Eduardo Machado, Austin Pendleton, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, Melanie Maria Goodreaux, Chinese Theater Works, New Yiddish Rep, Eve Packer, 13th Street Rep, and Metropolitan Playhouse.

The event will be emceed at the various locations by Crystal Field, Robert Gonzales Jr., Danielle Aziza, Sabura Rashid, David F. Slone Esq., and Joe John Battista. There will also be vendors and food booths and special programs for children curated by Donna Mejia and hosted by John Grimaldi, film screenings curated by Eva Dorrepaal, a “poetry jam with prose on the side” curated by Lissa Moira, and an art show curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe. Select performances will be livestreamed here.

LA MaMA MOVES! DANCE FESTIVAL ’22

Tiffany Mills’s Homing kicks off La MaMa festival (photo by Robert Altman)

Who: Tiffany Mills Company, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Jesse Zaritt, Gerald Casel Dance, Pele Bauch, Marina Celander, Compañía Cuerpo de Indias, Valetango Company, John Scott Dance
What: Seventeenth La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
Where: La MaMa, Ellen Stewart Theatre and the Downstairs Theatre, 66 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Aves., and online
When: Thursday – Sunday, April 14 – May 1, $20-$30
Why: Following two iterations in 2021, one online only, one hybrid, La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival is back where it belongs at the Ellen Stewart and Downstairs Theatres, highlighting works by nine dance artists and companies Thursday through Sunday through May 1. “This season’s choreographers are working with a myriad of issues: reexamining the meaning of home, researching postmodern dance as a racial construct, and recognizing the essential need for trust in our everyday lives,” curator Nicky Paraiso said in a statement. “These concerns have arisen in a time of crisis, uncertainty, and also reflection, questioning the ways we respond with our bodies, our minds, our hearts. The artists in this season’s festival have taken on these issues in creative, thoughtful, deeply felt ways.” The shows will be available for streaming following the live performances.

The festival kicks off April 14-16 with the world premiere of Tiffany Mills Company’s Homing, part of the troupe’s twentieth anniversary season, performed by Mills, Jordan Morley, Nikolas Owens, Emily Pope, and Mei Yamanaka and set to music by Max Giteck Duykers. April 15-18 sees a twin bill of Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s journey of coming out and reconciliation, Process memoir 7 (Vol. 5): to land somewhere unfelt, and Jesse Zaritt’s No End of Detail (III), a solo show exploring body rituals and Jewish-American identity. The New York premiere of Gerald Casel Dance’s Not About Race Dance takes place April 22-24, performed by Casel, Styles Alexander, Audrey Johnson, Karla Quintero, and Cauveri Suresh, with live sound design by Tim Russell. That same weekend finds a shared evening of two world premieres, Pele Bauch’s A.K.A. Ka Inoa, which examines names and ethnic identity, and Marina Celander’s Stone She: Space Edition, about humanity’s disconnect with nature, with Celander, Asma Feyjinmi, Michaela Lind, and Katja Otero and millstone design by Emma Oppenheimer.

On April 23, Movement Research will host the offsite afternoon symposium “Secret Journey: Stop Calling Them Dangerous #3,” with the unstoppable Yoshiko Chuma and others. The final weekend consists of the US premiere of Compañía Cuerpo de Indias’s Flowers for Kazuo Ohno (and Leonard Cohen), honoring Ohno, one of the creators of Butoh, and folk legend Cohen; the world premiere of Valetango Company’s Confianza (“Trust”), in which Rodney Hamilton, Orlando Reyes Ibarra, Alondra Meek, and Valeria Solomonoff seek transformation; and the US premiere of John Scott Dance’s Cloud Study, performed by Mufutau Yusuf and Magdalena Hylak, set to music by Ryan Vial.

JOHN SIMS RESIDENCY — 2020: (DI)VISIONS OF AMERICA

John Sims speaks out in multimedia presentations at La MaMa

Who: John Sims
What: Five-day multidisciplinary residency
Where: The Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
When: December 1-5, pay what you can $10-$60
Why: Conceptual artist and activist John Sims has been working on the multimedia project Recoloration Proclamation for two decades; it is now ready to be unveiled at La Mama, where the Detroit native is the 2021 artist-in-residence. From December 1 to 5, Sims will present six programs hitting on topical issues involving race, slavery, the Confederacy, police brutality, and inequalities that came to light during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The residency kicks off December 1 at 7:00 with an installation viewing and artist talk featuring the AfroDixieRemixes Listening Session — fourteen different Black versions of “Dixie” — and the world’s largest AfroConfederate flag, followed December 2 at 7:00 (and December 5 at 2:00) with a film screening of Recoloration Proclamation. On December 3, 4, and 5 at 7:00, Sims will take part in live performances of 2020: (Di)Visions of America. It all forms a unique self-portrait of the artist as well as a multidisciplinary look at the mind-set of contemporary America as Sims seeks redemption and rebirth through peace, liberty, and justice.

TWI-NY TALK: STEPHEN PETRONIO / PETRONIO’S PUNK PICKS AND OTHER DELIGHTS

Stephen Petronio leads an open rehearsal in preparation for La MaMa shows (photo by Paula Court)

PETRONIO’S PUNK PICKS AND OTHER DELIGHTS
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
November 18-21, $21-$30
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org
petron.io/event/lamama

At a recent open rehearsal streamed on Zoom, Newark-born, Manhattan-based choreographer Stephen Petronio said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to look back at some of those works from some of those smaller little gems that we love.” The result is “Petronio’s Punk Picks and Other Delights,” running November 18–21 at La MaMa. The evening consists of eleven short solos and duets, going back to 1993, set to songs by the Stranglers, the London Suede, Anohni, Nick Cave, Elvis Presley, Yoko Ono, Rufus Wainwright, and Radiohead, as well as Igor Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre Du Printemps,” performed by Larissa Asebedo, Kris Lee, Jaqlin Medlock, Tess Montoya, Tiffany Ogburn, Ryan Pliss, Nicholas Sciscione, and Mac Twining. Petronio will also present the world premiere of Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s multimedia and then we hit the boundary where the sun’s wind ceases . . . , with music by LVDF, Heliopause, and Anne Müller.

Founded in 1984, the Stephen Petronio Company was one of the busiest troupes during the pandemic. Beaming in first from their individual homes, then gathering together at the Petronio Residency Center (PRC), a 175-acre haven in the Catskills, the tight-knit company performed new pieces, hosted online galas and master classes, put on a virtual season at the Joyce, and had a public birthday party for Petronio. Over that time, Petronio kept a quarantine journal that has been published in a deluxe hardcover limited edition, In Absentia, with lavish photos by Sarah Silver and Grant Friedman. In addition, Petronio is expanding his Bloodlines program, in which he restages classic works by such choreographers as Yvonne Rainer, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and Trisha Brown, to include a “futures” section that so far has featured new commissions by Davalois Fearon and Mercer.

While preparing for SPC’s debut at La MaMa, the always engaging and candid Petronio answered questions about choreographing “when the world stopped,” returning to the stage, what music is on his current playlist, and more.

Stephen Petronio released the deluxe hardcover book In Absentia during the pandemic (photo by Sarah Silver)

twi-ny: Let’s start with perhaps the most obvious question: How does it feel to be back working in theaters? At your open rehearsal following Fall for Dance, you said “it was exciting and frightening and emotional.”

stephen petronio: It’s all of those things but particularly with this body of work, it’s like finally, we can really focus in with a microscope on some of the details that are the underpinnings of what is at the center of a particular body of work and the delicious focus of what we do in the studio.

twi-ny: SPC was one of the most active companies during the pandemic lockdown. How soon after March 2020 did you decide to forge ahead at such a pace online?

sp: I decided immediately because that’s my survival instinct. My legs kept moving and I felt that to stop, we would all be overwhelmed with uncertainty and fear. I thought it best to use our physical practice to keep us grounded.

twi-ny: How important was PRC to that decision?

sp: I don’t think we would have been able to do it without PRC. First of all, I had a completely safe space to work in and I immediately began teaching classes on Zoom to the dancers just as a way of being together and then we began making on Zoom as a way of staying in touch with our practice. Then I began to realize that we could actually make stuff to show other people. I could only do that because of PRC. And then when I was able to work out the finances, I was able to bring the company up fairly regularly for a few weeks at a time across those endless months of lockdown. We also quickly realized that we could be a haven for other choreographers who could make it up to us.

twi-ny: You really took advantage of everything that Zoom has to offer. What was it like choreographing such virtual works as #GimmeShelter and Are You Lonesome Tonight that way?

sp: A complete nightmare! I hadn’t seen Zoom before the pandemic and it took me time to understand the lag time in relationship to making movement with music. And I also began to see many other people working on Zoom and some it was really fun and inventive and I was looking for a way to use the technology in a method that was true to my own work.

twi-ny: You also celebrated your sixty-fifth birthday over Zoom; did you have a good time? It was fun to watch.

sp: I had an amazing time and it was very emotional because it was such a lonely and isolated time; it was really fun to be with people in a very relaxed way.

twi-ny: You kept a journal during the pandemic that you’ve released as a deluxe book, In Absentia. What spurred you to keep that kind of diary?

sp: When the world stopped, I began to do all the things that I do that remind me of myself, remind me of my body, my thoughts, my emotional life, and so I went to writing as a natural response to check in with myself in a regular way. I did a memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict, about ten years back and so a writing practice is not new to me and it seemed like such an important event that we were living through that I wanted to mark it in some way.

Jaqlin Medlock dances from her home during online presentation (photo courtesy Stephen Petronio Company)

twi-ny: My two favorite dancers during the lockdown were Sara Mearns and Jaqlin Medlock. (I named them Best Solo Dance Performance in the twi-ny Pandemic Awards, along with Jamar Roberts.) You have such an amazing rapport with Medlock, which was evident in your recent open rehearsal; what makes her the ideal SPC dancer?

sp: She is sharp as a razor, I’ve known her for over ten years so we’re so fluid together in terms of my thought process and language, and she’s incredibly determined to get things exactly the way she wants it. She’s a monster for details, and watching that [#GimmeShelter] solo come into focus up to the final recording was such a delight.

twi-ny: SPC performed at Fall for Dance at City Center, and next up is La MaMa. You’ve never performed there before, although I believe you’ve lived near there for a long time. What made you want to perform there this time around?

sp: I moved onto St. Marks Place in 1979 and lived there for many, many years. Normally, it’s hard for me to figure out the finances for my company’s performance in a theater of that size. My executive director, Jonas Klabin, was having drinks with the director of programming, Nicky Paraiso, of La MaMa at a performance and began to open up a discussion about it. Of course, I’ve known Nicky for years. But this is a time to do things that we really want to and let the economics fall as they may. La MaMa is such a gem of a place to perform and this is the perfect moment.

twi-ny: I love La MaMa, and I see Nicky all over town, always checking out what’s going on. “Petronio’s Punk Picks and Other Delights” consists of eleven numbers set to music by a wide range of artists. You’ve previously done an evening of songs by Nick Cave, Underland; if you could choreograph a whole album by anyone, what would it be? Is there a specific song you’d love to choreograph but haven’t been able to?

sp: Nick Cave was a highlight. I did a work to a catalog of Lou Reed songs [The Island of Misfit Toys], which was another miraculous moment in my life. I’ve been tempted to tackle Leonard Cohen’s body of work but his poetry is so dense that I’ve been hesitant. Leonard Cohen’s song “Democracy” is an anthem I’d love to have a go at!

Stephen Petronio walks down the outside of the Whitney as part of Trisha Brown retrospective (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: I would love to see that! What kind of music do you listen to when you’re not thinking about songs for dances?

sp: I’m listening to Bach a lot, Billie Eilish; I’m very fond of female vocalists in particular. Lana Del Rey has a new album out that’s pretty damn good. And I’m loving St. Vincent.

twi-ny: Now that you’ve embraced the virtual world, do you see the future of SPC as a hybrid one, or are you going to concentrate solely on in-person shows?

sp: I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to become hybridized. We jumped in and we’re in. But it’s so delicious to be back in front of an audience. And the shows at La MaMa are a total love letter to the people that have been following me over the years. It’s really fun to make a show that’s so much about the joy of the work that I’ve made with incredible dancers over the years and to music that I completely love. This is music that has moved me, and to pass it to this current generation of titan dancers seems just right. We’re still here!

LUCKY STAR (0.3)

Pioneers Go East Collective’s Lucky Star (0.3) takes place at Judson Memorial Church July 13-30

LUCKY STAR (0.3)
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South between Thompson & Sullivan Sts.
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, July 13-30, free with RSVP, 8:00
www.judson.org
pioneersgoeast.org

Pioneers Go East Collective honors the history of DIY queer artmaking at such famed New York City venues as La MaMa, Judson Memorial Church, and the Pyramid Club in Lucky Star (0.3), a free multidisciplinary performance installation taking place Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8:00 at Judson from July 13 to 30. Inspired by Club 57, which was recently highlighted in the documentary Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide, the in-person work consists of five episodes featuring dance/performance artists Shaina and Bryan Baira, Bree Breeden, Daniel Diaz, Beth Graczyk, and Joey Kipp and nightlife icon Agosto Machado. Lucky Star (0.3) was written by creative director Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte and production designer Philip Treviño, with choreography by Ori Flomin, film by Jon Burklund and video designer Kathleen Kelley, set design and fabrication by Mark Tambella, and sound by Marielle Iljazoski and Ryan William Downey.

“Lucky Star was born by a desire to make art in a new time,” the collective said in a statement. “We pay homage to creators and legends whose trailblazing work has solidified ways for us to survive as artists reimagining our approach to sharing our work in the age of social media and instant gratification. We term the project a meta-creative journey inviting viewers to engage in an emergent process of collective liberation.” Inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem “Pioneers, O Pioneers!” (“O you youths, Western youths, / So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, / Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, / Pioneers! O pioneers!”), Pioneers Go East Collective was founded in 2010 to “empower a collective of thought-provoking, adventurous, and proud LGBTQ artists . . . dedicated to Latinx, BIPOC, and immigrant artists and teaching artists and their communities in all five boroughs, [exploring] stories of vulnerability and courage for social change.” Admission to Lucky Star (0.3) is free with advance RSVP.

La MaMa MOVES! DANCE FESTIVAL

Mei Yamanaka will be part of Tiffany Mills Company presentation at 2021 La Mama Moves! Dance Festival

Who: Tiffany Mills Company; Hadar Ahuvia and Tatyana Tenenbaum; J. Bouey; Morgan Bullock, Gerald Casel, Daudi Fayar, BamBam Frost, and John Scott; Ricarrdo Valentine/Brother(hood) Dance!; Jasmine Hearn; Sugar Vendil; more
What: Digital and in-person dance festival
Where: La MaMa online and at Downtown Art/Alpha Omega
When: May 12–23, free – $25 (pay-what-you-can)
Why: The 2021 edition of La MaMa Moves! will be a hybrid dance festival, consisting of workshops, discussions, and performances streamed live from the Ellen Stewart Theatre and the Downstairs Theatre at its home at 66 East Fourth St. as well as held in front of a limited audience at Downtown Art/Alpha Omega at 19 East Third St. “Performing artists have always proven to be resilient and resourceful even during the most challenging times,” La MaMa Moves! curator Nicky Paraiso said in a statement. “Since the pandemic began last March, dance practitioners have been both taking time to reflect and going ahead in doing the creative work they are always doing. This past year has certainly been painful and frustrating, both mentally exhausting and physically debilitating. Dance artists have, however, continued to make work, and I believe that the artists participating in this season’s La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival are making work that is essential and true to this pivotal moment in time.”

The sixteenth annual festival kicks off May 12 with an intergenerational discussion in recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with Yoshiko Chuma, Sophia Gutchinov, Potri Ranka Manis, Paz Tanjuaquio, and Sugar Vendil, moderated by choreographer and writer Maura Nguyen Donohue. Tiffany Mills Company will offer a Zoom workshop for kids on May 13, Hadar Ahuvia and Tatyana Tenenbaum will perform Prayer of the Morning on May 13 and 15, J. Bouey will present untitled: an exploration of grief on May 14 and 16, and Morgan Bullock, Gerald Casel, Daudi Fayar, BamBam Frost, and John Scott will participate in a Virtual International Showcase on May 18. Tiffany Mills Company will give a sneak peek at the excerpts-in-process Home Project on May 20 and 22 (with Mills, Jordan Morley, Nikolas Owens, Emily Pope, and Mei Yamanaka), Ricarrdo Valentine/Brother(hood) Dance! shares All About Love about Black healing on May 21 and 23, and, on May 22 and 23 at 4:00, La MaMa moves to the nearby Downtown Art/Alpha Omega for outdoor performances of Jasmine Hearn’s Songs from Pleasure Memory and Vendil’s Test Sites. All events require advance RSVP and are either free or pay-what-you-can ($5-$25).

LOVE STORY, THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

Yoshiko Chuma’s Love Story, The School of Hard Knocks is a twenty-four-hour durational online experience

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
Saturday, October 17, 11:00 am – Sunday, October 18, 11:00 am, $5 – $400 (pay what you can)
lamama.org/love-story

Osaka-born multidisciplinary artist Yoshiko Chuma celebrates the fortieth anniversary of her collective, “The School of Hard Knocks” (SOHK), with the live, twenty-four-hour virtual work Love Story, streaming through La MaMa beginning at eleven o’clock in the morning on October 17. SOHK debuted at the 1980 Venice Biennale and became an official company four years later; the troupe has traveled the world with such shows as AGITPROPS: The Recycling Project, 7 x 7 x 7, and Pi=3.14 . . . Ramallah-Fukushima-Bogota Endless Peripheral Border, many of which were developed and premiered at La MaMa as well as PS122 and Dixon Place here in New York. A durational performance installation that incorporates dance, music, film, visual art, and narrative storytelling, Love Story deals with such timely topics as immigration, national security, and war; Chuma, who has been based in the United States since 1977, will also be looking at her personal and professional past, present, and future, focusing on the idea of borders, which have taken on a whole new level of importance under the Trump administration while also impacting how art is now created online as well as how Chuma has shunned the limitations of genre in her career.

Love Story — which consists of live and prerecorded segments, with part of the show taking place in La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre — was conceived, choreographed, and directed by Chuma, working with artist liaison Ai Csuka, creative producer and musician Ginger Dolden, actor Ryan Leach, Middle East specialist Ruyji Yamaguchi, and dramaturgs and designers Jake Margolin and Nick Vaughan. Among the cast of more than fifty international performers are Deniz Atli from Turkey, Agnè Auželytė from Amsterdam, Los Babuinos from Venezuela, Sahar Damoni from Palestine, Tanin Torabi from Iran, and Martita Abril, Mizuho Kappa, Heather Litteer, Devin Brahja Waldman, and zaybra from New York, with live, original music by Robert Black on double bass, Jason Kao Hwang on violin, Christopher McIntyre on trombone, and Dane Terry on piano.

“This week I was supposed to be in New York for performances celebrating Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks’ forty-year anniversary,” Auželytė recently wrote on Facebook. “While my physical body will stay put in Amsterdam for a long while to come, I will still be there, online and energetically, sharing the screen with a group of artists, some whom I had the opportunity to get to know for a long time already and some whom I only ever met on Zoom! (How weird is that? Is it still weird?) I am also touched to see some of them physically at the theater at La MaMa, which has been closed to the public for seven months now! We’ve had a lot of late-night conversations during this process and it continues to make me think about how to reimagine theater in the era of self-isolation and Zoom life. What does local-global mean anymore? Where are our bodies? What are our bodies?”

The multidisciplinary Love Story streams live from Saturday to Sunday morning (photo courtesy La MaMa)

The list of collaborators on Love Story is long and impressive. In addition to those listed above, there will be choreography by Yanira Castro, Ursula Eagly, Allyson Green, Jodi Melnick, Sarah Michelson, Anthony Phillips, Peter Pleyer, Kathryn Ray, Steve Recker, and Vicky Shick; poetry by Kyle Dacuyan, Bob Holman, and Anne Waldman; music by Mark Bennett, Tan Dun, Nona Hendryx, Christian Marclay, Lenny Pickett, and Marc Ribot; film and video by Chani Bockwinkel, Jacob Burckhardt, Rudy Burckhardt, Andrew Kim, Jonas Mekas, and Charlie Steiner; photography by Robert Flynt and Dona Ann McAdams; set designs by Tim Clifford, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Kresch, and Elizabeth Murray; and appearances by Barbara Bryan, Rachel Cooper, Mark Russell, Yoko Shioya, Bonnie Sue Stein, Laurie Uprichard, David White, Donald Fleming, Dan Froot, Kaja Gam, Brian Moran, Nicky Paraiso, Harry Whittaker Sheppard, Gayle Tufts, Sasha Waltz, David Zambrano, Nelson Zayao, Emily Bartsch, Peter Lanctot, Kouiki Mojadidi, Emily Marie Pope, Isaac Rosenthal, and Aldina Michelle Topcagic. Of course, it takes a lot of work to fill up 1,440 continuous minutes of performance, and Chuma has assembled quite a team.

You can get a sneak peek and behind-the-scenes look at the collaborative project on October 15 at 8:00 when La MaMa will present a livestream preview that includes archival footage, sketches, and rehearsal clips. In preparation for Love Story, La MaMa has also been hosting such live Saturday morning Zoom events as “Secret Journey: Stop Calling Them Dangerous” and “SML: Zooma — Dead End” in addition to evening shows that give a taste of what we’re all in for from Bessie Award winner Chuma and her unpredictable troupe, a virtual hybrid that should offer, at the very least, a twenty-four-hour respite from this school of hard knocks we are living through in 2020.