92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival: STRIPPED/DRESSED
Company:
92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER
SAVE THE DATES
Friday, February 21 – Sunday, March 23
92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: STRIPPED/DRESSED
Featuring...
Nora Chipaumire, casebolt and smith, Netta Yerushalmy, Kyle Abraham and David Dorfman
NEW YORK, NY: December 12—The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival: Stripped/Dressed presents five artists over five weeks in February and March 2014. For the third year in a row, Doug Varone, whose company is in residence at 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Dance Center, has curated the Festival, choosing artists at different stages of their careers. Each choreographer spends the first half of the evening taking apart a dance – talking about it, showing how it was built and giving the audience a direct experience of dance-making without lights or costumes. After intermission, the work is presented fully “dressed.”
This year’s Festival artists are Nora Chipaumire, a Bessie Award winner (and Festival veteran) whose work challenges stereotypes of Africa and the black performing body; casebolt and smith, the Los Angeles-based duo who create irreverent dance theater; visceral yet thoughtful artist Netta Yerushalmy (making her second appearance as a choreographer in the Festival); recent MacArthur “genius” grant winner Kyle Abraham; and David Dorfman, a leading figure in contemporary dance since founding his company over 25 years ago.
The “Stripped/Dressed” format gives choreographers a chance to demystify, each in his or her own way, the dance-making process. In the beautiful, intimate space of 92Y’s Buttenwieser Hall, audiences are close to the raw material of art during the “stripped” portion of the evening, and have an enhanced view of the fully performed “dressed” works.
92Y Harkness Dance Festival, WEEK ONE
NORA CHIPAUMIRE: RITE RIOT
Fri, Feb 21 and Sat, Feb 22 at 8 pm; Sun, Feb 23 at 3 pm, $25
Jumping off from The Rite of Spring, with its perhaps colonial perspective on the age, social status and vulnerability of the sacrificial victim, Chipaumire’s work-in-progress, rite riot, looks at modern clans, matriarchs and expectations of family behavior. Varone says Chipaumire is “thrilling” because “she is a tremendous performer who lives entirely in the fabric of her own creations.”
92Y Harkness Dance Festival, WEEK TWO
CASEBOLT AND SMITH: O(H)
Fri, Feb 28 and Sat, Mar 1 at 8 pm; Sun, Mar 2 at 3 pm, $25
Los Angeles-based Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith are a company of two, and their 2010 work O(h) embraces the advantages and disadvantages of a duet as it “addresses magically and humorously how dances are made,” Varone notes. A sometimes giddy mix of layered movement, conversation, pop culture and appropriation, break dancing and show tunes, O(h) is a fast-paced, complex and funny journey into the minds of its creators.
92Y Harkness Dance Festival, WEEK THREE
NETTA YERUSHALMY: TBA NEW WORK
Fri, Mar 7 and Sat, Mar 8 at 8 pm; Sun, Mar 9 at 3 pm, $25
Varone describes Yerushalmy as a “heady image maker.” In her newest work, she asks if movement can be neutral. The dance is an attempt to see the body as an abstract entity and to understand where the dancer ends and the dance begins. Yerushalmy tries to understand the cultural associations, esthetic agendas and personal habits that inform her choreography.
92Y Harkness Dance Festival, WEEK FOUR
KYLE ABRAHAM / ABRAHAM.IN.MOTION: THE RADIO SHOW
Fri, Mar 14 and Sat, Mar 15 at 8 pm; Sun, Mar 16 at 3 pm. $25
The Radio Show is built around the idea of loss of communication. Abraham investigates the effects of the abrupt discontinuation of a radio station on a community and the lingering effects of Alzheimer’s and aphasia on a family. The eclectic score, a mix of old and new music, evokes memories and a passion for what is lost. Abraham’s work “is so sound in structure and form,” Varone says, “and he plays with that to create dances that feel remarkably current and real.”
92Y Harkness Dance Festival, WEEK FIVE
DAVID DORFMAN DANCE: LIGHTBULB THEORY and IMPENDING JOY
Fri, Mar 21 and Sat, Mar 22 at 8 pm; Sun, Mar 23 at 3 pm, $20
Varone says about Dorfman, “He is committed to creating work that explores conflict and how we deal with the unhinged things in life.” Although like most choreographers, Dorfman is usually focused on his company’s current project, he has recently become excited by the idea of revisiting and restaging some of his earlier work. For the Festival, he’s reviving Lightbulb Theory and Impending Joy, both from 2004 – but likely changing the number of dancers in each piece. Dorfman sees both pieces as examples of his “radical humanistic dance,” using text, music and motion to express things we all encounter.
WHAT: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival
WHEN: Fri, Feb 21 – Sun, Mar 23
WHERE: 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128
TICKETS: $25 at http://www.92y.org/harknessfestival or 212.415.5500
Visit our website at www.92Y.org
