DNA PRESENTS - 2008 Fall Season

Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) is pleased to announce the 2008 Fall Season of DNA PRESENTS, the signature presenting series of Lower Manhattan’s premiere center for experimental dance. Following five successful seasons since the opening of DNA’s theater in 2006, the Fall 2008 season features a diverse roster of innovative choreographers in solo and multi-artist showcases, including the ongoing, popular series SPLICE, RAW Material, and Gene Pool.

Through a unique blend of multidisciplinary programming comprised of explosive and emotive dance performances that address the currency of our times paired with multi-gallery exhibits, on-line historic & live webcasts and moderated discussions, DNA PRESENTS makes culture accessible to audiences from New York and its surrounding communities. The acclaimed performance series is part of a laden and expansive approach to DNA's mission to “make dance real” by offering various opportunities in education, creation, and performance. DNA provides possibilities that fulfill the cultural enthusiast’s need to experience dance from initial introduction to professional-level training. The season features artists who are deeply involved with DNA’s performance and education dialog and who demonstrate a passionate commitment to fostering a vibrant dance community in Lower Manhattan. All performances take place in the theatre @ DNA at 280 Broadway (Entrance on Chambers St.) 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10007. Tickets for all performances are available through Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200, at www.ticketcentral.com or at the door.

DNA PRESENTS

Artists Present @ DNA

DNA PRESENTS

Katie Workum Dance Theater

October 10 – 12

Carlisle (A DNA Commission) is a place where women warp and swarm, goats trot on ancient mountain switchbacks, ghosts shimmer quietly and wolves tear away at fences. Limbs and ideas intermingle with our animal instincts, our sadness and our gladness. The inhabitants live in a both abstract and familiar world of impulses, camaraderie and antlers that make up all our everyday lives.

Katie Workum has been creating Dance Theater since 1999. Known for her hilarious physicality, Worum’s dance theater style engages audiences through vivid narration and evocative movement. Working in both long and short form, her work has been presented throughout New York and beyond at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop, PS 122, The Kitchen, Symphony Space, The Flea Theater, Joyce SOHO, HERE, the Painted Bride, and WAX to name a few. In the past she has collaborated a great deal with Will Rawls, Leigh Garrett and Terry Dean Bartlett with whom she co-curates DANCEOFF! at PS122 as well. Currently she is dancing for Ivy Baldwin Dance and will tour Young Jean Lee’s Church this winter. She has had the honor of dancing for and learning choreography from David Neumann, Stacy Dawson, GAle GAtes, Ken Nintzel, Sarah East Johnson, Kourtney Rutherford, and Elizabeth Streb. She is an MFA candidate for Dance Education at New York University. www.katieworkum.org

Performed by Samantha Allen, Ivy Baldwin, Kennis Hawkins and Hannah Heller, With: Ahreum Chung, Jae Im Chung, Jee Yeon Jang, Ah Rong Kim, Eunkung Kim, Ji Yeun Lee, and Soo Hyun Park
Sound design by Jenny Seastone Stern, live songs written and arranged by Katie Workum, additional song by Grizzly Bear
Costumes by Mindy Nelson

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

SPLICE: unraveled Jen Abrams/Heidi Latsky Dance

SPLICE a single evening concert of two female choreographers with diametrically opposed styles and choreographic processes toying with perspective, DNA presents Jen Abrams and Heidi Latsky.

October 17-19

abrams

Jen Abrams' tense and tender, INVOLUTION uses dance, theater, text and video to reveal the assumptions and undercurrents that define a series of intimate relationships.

Jen Abrams' work has been hailed by The Village Voice as "quintessentially New York," and her performances "convincing no matter what [she chooses] to do." Her work has been presented at BAX, HERE, Dixon Place, the Nuyorican Poets Café, and the Bowery Poetry Club, as well as at WOW Café Theater, where she has been an active member for eight years. She was a 2005 BAX space grantee, and an 07-08 Outer/Space resident at DTW. Jen is a Contact Improvisation impresario giving herself to the art form for sixteen years. She is a DNA and Movement Research Improv teacher, and after relocating to New York City from Chicago, she proved her salt by performing in and presenting five full-length concerts with the Contact Improv-based company she co-founded, Limbic Fix. She is a classically trained actor and writer, and has given readings of her work to enthusiastic crowds at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Halcyon, and Bar 13.

Performed by Jessica Ames, Jessica Dellecave, Ariel Polonsky, Jen Abrams

abrams

Heidi Latsky Dance presents excerpts of GIMP. A landscape of movement portraits that dives into the heart of difference, voyeurism and the unexpected, GIMP confronts the audience with their preconceptions, challenging us to re-think accepted notions about dance, performance and body image. GIMP, highlights uncommon virtuosities and the raw beauty of bodies that work in a wide range of "normality" Time Out Chicago, May 2008.

Heidi Latsky (Artistic Director/Choreographer, Heidi Latsky Dance, (HLD) and GIMP), has been a moving force in the dance world for many years, as a choreographer for stage, theater and film. Latsky initially received recognition as a celebrated principal dancer for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance. Her work and company have toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, performing at preeminent venues and festivals like Central Park Summerstage, Dance Theater Workshop and Judson Church in NYC, the Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Festivals in Canada, Switzerland, Croatia and Slovenia. Latsky has received many distinguished choreographic commissions including Cannes International Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater, Danspace Project, Teatro Libero (Palermo), The Whitney Museum of American Art and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project. The world premiere of HLD’s newest project GIMP, will be at North Fourth/VSA Arts of New Mexico in Albuquerque this fall, followed by a NYC season at the Abrons Art Center.

Performed by Christine Briggs Winslow, Jeffrey Freeze, Lezlie Frye, Heidi Latsky, Lawrence Carter Long, Catherine Long

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

Kota Yamazaki | Fluid hug-hug

November 7-9

Kota Yamazaki’s Chamissa 4℃ (A DNA Commission)is inspired by both the extraordinary landscape of the desert in New Mexico which is filled with yellow chamissa flowers, and Van Gogh's Sunflower, making a central image of the piece "madness in yellow." Twisted delusions of characters cross each other and a serene landscape slowly emerges through the accumulation of disrupted images.

Kota Yamazaki (Choreographer) was born in Niigata, Japan and was first introduced to Butoh through the teaching of Akira Kasai. Rosy co., Yamazaki's first company, has performed in numerous venues and festivals including Indonesian Dance Festival, Place Theater in London, Biennale Nationale de Danse Val-de Marine, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Buena Center for the Arts, Chicago Columbia College Dance Center, and Yorkshire Dance Festival. In 2002, Yamazaki moved his base in New York and founded his new company, Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug. In 2007, Yamazaki received a New York Performance Award (Bessie Award) with Germaine Acogny for the choreography of FAGAALA with Senegal-based company Jant-bi.

Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug was founded in 2002 on the policies; "Traveling, Exchanging and Exploring." Yamazaki believes that a person is fluid and has to keep flowing, like water, so that exchange between people from different backgrounds can become more easy and free. The name of Fluid hug-hug came from this idea of fluidity and meeting people from all over the world.

Performed by Bill Manka, Jean Freebury, Mina Nishimura, Sarah Zitnay
Music Composed by Masahiro Sugaya
Original lighting and set design by Ben Cobham
Lighting design by Amanda K. Ringger
Costumes by Ess-Hoshika Laboratory

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

STEELEDANCE

November 14-16

Bicipital Groove or Echo my Instincts (Choreographed by Teri Lee Steele and Oliver Steele with Guest Choreographer Kevin Wynn) explores changing roles in the dance community - from dancers to choreographers and teachers. First shown as a work in progress in DNA’s Gene Pool production in February 2008, Bicipital Groove or Echo my Instincts will be presented in it's entirety as an evening-length work. Referring to students as “kids” feeling quite distant from them in age, yet yearning to stay a part of the agile young dancer...the piece brings forth thoughts on vanity, the constant search for the self and the battle between youth and maturity.

Teri Steele graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in Exercise Physiology. Oliver Steele, Romanian by birth and a citizen of Germany, trained at the Iwanson Dance Center in Munich and moved to New York in 1992. In 1995 they co-founded their own company, STEELEDANCE. Through prolific movement invention, STEELEDANCE works brilliantly fuse technical virtuosity and subliminal wit. Their choreography has been presented at Joyce Soho, DTW’s Bessie Schönberg Theater, the Cunningham Studio, The Yard, the DeMille Theater at NCSA, the Tribeca Performing Arts Center and the Evolving Arts Theater. They have taught at Steps on Broadway, Abizaid Arts, Tappan Zee Dance School, Rutgers University, Hunter College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, North Carolina School of the Arts, the Iwanson Dance Centre (Germany), Matsuyama University (Japan), Dance Camp Companie Champagne (Italy) and Ketsevhagoof Studio (Israel). Oliver is currently on faculty at DNA teaching Contemporary Modern. Teri teaches Pilates Mat, private Apparatus sessions and is the creator of the DNA Pilates Mat Certification Program as well as their Continuing Education Curriculum.

Performed by the STEELEDANCE Company
Music by Various Artists, mixed by DJ Heinz and Tbob
Costumes by Teri Lee Steele and Oliver Steele

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

GERALDCASELDANCE

Artist in Residence

November 21-23

Save The Robots! is a physically powerful dance that examines gentrification and loss. Borrowing the title from a 1980’s after hours club in the Lower East Side of New York City, Save The Robots! seeks to evoke the metaphor of mortality through stylized movements and choreographic structures that contemplate the death of creativity and individuality. Music, fashion and dances from that specific time period set the stage for this theatrically rich dance.

Philippine-born Gerald Casel received a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 1991 and an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007 assisted by a fellowship from the Advanced Opportunity Program. He has danced in the companies of Michael Clark, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Lar Lubovitch, The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Sungsoo Ahn and Stephen Petronio where he was a member from 1991-1998 and 2001-2005 serving as the Stephen Petronio Company’s Assistant Director and Director of Education. He continues to re-stage Petronio repertory on major companies. In 1997 he was honored to receive a New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” for sustained achievement. Casel began making choreography for his company GERALDCASELDANCE in 1998 performing at Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Joyce SoHo, Danceworks (Milwaukee), Conduit (Portland) and ODC Theater (San Francisco). www.geraldcaseldance.com

Performed by Lindsay Ashmun, Gerald Casel, Na-ye Kim, Kai Kleinbard, Toni Melaas, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Nick Strafaccia, Sam Wentz and Isadora Wolfe Music includes a mix of various dance music and electronica from the 1980’s, 1990's and today

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

Gene Pool

December 4-7

Gene Pool is an annual showcase of the diverse performance genres practiced, utilized and morphed within DNA. Offering a sample of new and re-staged works, Gene Pool features choreography from artists and teachers with longstanding relationships to DNA. Choreographers this season are Jennifer Archibald, Isabel Gotzkowsky, Colleen Thomas, Ellis Wood and more.

Performance Times: Thursday and Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday at 3:00pm and 7:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

Raw Material

December 12-14

As fresh and motley as its name implies, RAW Material is a juried performance series that encourages burgeoning artists to bring new work to a live audience, and to experiment with new ways of crafting their work. This season’s artists include Stephanie Sleeper | sleepdance, Megan Mazarick, Jenni Hong Dance, Anne Zuerner | The Roxanne Lola Movement Machine.

Friday and Saturday 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm Ticket prices: $18, ($13 members, $15 students)

Artist Present @ DNA

AMERICAN DANCE GUILD PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL 2008

danceguild

The AMERICAN DANCE GUILD PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL 2008 offers a feast of new choreography along with tributes to two modern masters, Murray Louis and Anna Sokolow. The Opening Night Gala on Thursday, September 11th, will include a special tribute to living dance legend, Murray Louis. Guest artist Peter Kyle will dance Mr. Louis' Frail Demons, and former Louis company member Betsy Fisher returns to New York, from Hawaii, to dance a solo from Figura. Mr. Louis will be present. A reception will follow the performance.

Friday September 12th continues the excitement with works by the inimitable Anna Sokolow. the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble will present Session For Six, a jazz-influenced work, and the mesmerizing, final quartet from Lyric Suite two works that demonstrate Sokolow’s astounding range and musicality. Also on Friday, Kun-Yang Lin will perform Dedication, a tribute to Patricia Nanon of The Yard, longtime supporter of ADG.

The festival offers a stellar roster of wildly diverse and intergenerational choreographers—the antic Pooh Kaye, meditative Nai-Ni Chen, Laban-influenced Bill Evans, lyrical Thomas/Ortiz Dance and outspoken Alexandra Beller, to highlight only a few. The Louis and Sokolow works will be repeated on subsequent programs, and on Sunday Louis' Porcelain Dialogues will be performed by the original cast members—directed by Janis Brenner. Over forty companies and artists from New York City and across the United States will perform, with works ranging from modern to post-modern to performance art to cultural hybrids. The five programs revel in the cross currents of contemporary dance styles. See www.americandanceguild.org for complete program information.

Each evening in the lobby, videos of Mr. Louis’ and Ms. Sokolow’s work will be shown.

In addition to the public performances, three master classes are planned for Thursday through Saturday afternoons. Kun Yang Lin will teach on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2-4pm; Alberto Del Saz of the Nikolais/Louis Foundation will teach class on Friday, Sept. 12, 2-4pm; and Jim May of Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble will teach on Saturday, Sept.13, 12-2pm. Check www.americandanceguild.org for location after September 1st.

American Dance Guild Performance Festival 2008 continues the Guild tradition of bringing together artists from across the nation and internationally for performances and master classes. Come celebrate the dancers of the present, savor the accomplishments of the past, and look into the future!

Tickets:
Thurs September 11 | 8pm
Fri September 12 | 8pm
Sat September 13 | 3pm and 8pm
Sun September 14 | 3pm

Photo by Rebecca Rice Dance by Lois Greenfield 2005

history of unforgetting

CT meets NYC

Drawing inspiration from a 2,000 year old tradition practiced by South Asian female temple-court artists, history of unforgetting \acknowledges the artistic contributions while exploring their multifaceted identity. Using a contemporary movement vocabulary rooted in the North Indian classical dance technique, Kathak, history of unforgetting explores the hierarchy and exploitation inherent in the tradition of temple-court arts along with the displacement suffered by these artists during colonization.

The system of temple-court artists was created to serve as high entertainment for a patriarchal society, educating women to become great artists of poetry, music, and dance. Later, when the tradition was outlawed by the British, the temple-court artists were ostracized from society, their honor and identity questioned. With their patronage ended, many were forced into prostitution to survive.

Although the classical art forms were later revived and have regained its place in South Asian culture today, the cultural elites who learned the arts never fully acknowledged their teachers, fearing the old stigmas. "history of unforgetting" illustrates the injustices these women have had to endure, while shedding light to their contributions to the South Asian art forms that continue to flourish today.

The parul shah dance company based in New York City builds upon Kathak's storytelling roots. Their vision has gained widespread recognition for highlighting the expressive power of Indian classical dance through an innovative movement vocabulary reflecting the experiences of today. Lead by choreographer Parul Shah, her works have been presented at major venues around the world, including City Center's Fall for Dance, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, and international venues in Asia and Europe.

Friday, October 3rd at 8pm
Saturday, October 4th at 2pm and 8pm* (reception to follow evening performance)
Tickets: $25, $18 for students
*Reception ticket: $30 (use "PARTY" code when purchasing), $23 for students (use "PARTYS" code when purchasing)

CT MEETS NY DANCE FEST

CT meets NYC

Now in its 4th year CT MEETS NY DANCE FEST brings together a wide range of emerging and established choreographers and their companies in one exciting weekend of performances. Offering two unique programs with cutting edge choreography and a diverse collection of styles, 'CT MEETS NY' gives a wide angle view of 21st century modern dance, delighting and educating audiences in both NYC and CT.

Friday Program: Oct 24

Mitzi Adams/Adams Company Dance
James Robey/James Robey Dance
Cindy Bernier/BernierDance
Robin Rapoport/Headless Whorse Dance
Isabel Gotzkowsky/Isabel Gotzkowsky & Friends
Lane Gifford/Lane & Co.
Mary Ann Wall/RedWall Dance Theater
Sasha Soreff/Sasha Soreff Dance Theater
Tracie Stanfield/Synthesis Dance Project

Saturday Program: Oct 25

Cindy Bernier/BernierDance
Emily Berry/B3W
Catherine Gallant/Catherine Gallant Dance Caron Eule/C. Eule Dance
Daniela Hoff/Daniela Hoff Dance Company
Katie Stevinson-Nollet/Full Force Dance Theater
Nejla Yatkin/NY2Dance
Nikole Lachioma/The Parker Project Courtney Ffrench/Vissi Dance Theater

Tickets:
Fri October 24 | 8pm
Sat October 25 | 8pm

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Performance Project

CT meets NYC

Held twice yearly in the Spring and Fall, The Performance Project offers DNA Students an opportunity to expand upon relationships with DNA Faculty and Guest Modern Artists established through open classes. DNA supports the growth of those relationships outside of the classroom by pairing students with teachers of their choosing to work collaboratively on a creative project presented in a three evening concert. Serving both recreational dancers and aspiring professionals dancers, the Performance Project provides the chance to experience the creative process of dance through rehearsals and performance. For the more advanced/professional dancer, it gives them the opportunity to work with a choreographer of their choice, expanding their performance experience and the opportunity to network.

For more information go to the Performance Project page

Performance Times

Fri Oct 24 | 8:30pm
Sat Nov 1 | 3pm and 8:30pm
SunNov 2 | 3pm

Tickets: $17 ($12 members, $15 students)

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