BAYE & ASA x The Playground NYC
Company:
The Playground NYC
BAYE & ASA x The Playground NYC
Tuesday, 04/11 || 2:00-3:45PM, $6
Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, NYC
Entrance 53A Chambers Street
The Playground NYC allows dancers to experience various choreographic styles and ideas, engage with a new community of dancers, and gather resourceful information and inspiration from the array of choreographers involved. In turn, established choreographers are paid for their creative investigations, are given free space to explore new movement with professional dancers, and are provided with the opportunity to establish relationships with new dancers and fellow choreographers.
Class Description:
Hip Hop & West African dance languages inform the way we energetically confront contemporary dance & theater. This is not a Hip Hop or West African dance class.
We’ll investigate improvisational scores that build awareness of detail & creative decision-making. We’ll sharpen our performance techniques & externalize our experience with our eyes, using an active focus to create a dialogue with our environment that invites the possibility of character & narrative. We’ll explore theatrical games that open new potential for expressivity. We’ll create an empathetic space to tackle phrases with physical courage. Class is sweaty. Everyone is welcome.
Bio:
Baye & Asa is a company creating movement art projects directed & choreographed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington & Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt. We grew up together in New York City, and that shared educational history is the mother of our work. Hip Hop & African dance languages are the foundation of our technique. The rhythms of these techniques inform the way we energetically confront contemporary dance & theater. We’ve presented our live work at The Joyce Theater, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pioneer Works, The 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, DanceHouse Vancouver, Blacklight Summit, Battery Dance Festival, and were selected as one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" for 2022. Our film work has won numerous awards and has been presented internationally.
In the coming year, we’ll be creating new commissions for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the Martha Graham Dance Company.