Danspace Project presents the premiere of Kayla Farrish/ Decent Structures Arts' "The New Frontier (my dear America) Pt. 1"
Company:
Kayla Farrish/ Decent Structures Arts
Danspace Project presents the premiere of Kayla Farrish/
Decent Structures Arts
The New Frontier (my dear America) Pt. 1
Thursday, October 17 at 8pm
Friday, October 18 at 8pm
Saturday, October 19 at 8pm
at Danspace Project
Danspace Project presents the premiere of Kayla Farrish’s new work, The New Frontier (my dear America) Pt. 1 as part of the fall 2019 season. Kayla Farrish is a New York-based choreographer, dancer, photographer, and director with a vision for intimate storytelling. With her company, Decent Structures Arts, she creates multidisciplinary performance work that is a hybrid of film, photography, and dance. As Farrish explains, “Decent Structures Arts aims to hold up a mirror to the society we form and participate in, to the communities and cultures we identify ourselves with, and lastly, to the tremendous and unique experiences that form us as individuals.”
A composite of three works of live performance and film including With grit From Grace (2018), Black Bodies Sonata (2017), and the all-new, The New Frontier, this eveningbrings visibility and honesty to how American history and societal constructs impact our current identity, experience, and ability for change.
With grit From Grace is a dance that began with a simple question: “what would it feel like to be at my fullest capacity and potential?” Black Bodies Sonata is a dance and a film that explores the humanization and dehumanization of black bodies, especially within predominantly white spaces, and exposes layers of trauma and methods of survival in the black experience.
“In bringing these two works together in performance I immediately imagined a third piece that could fit between, in front of, ending, and surrounding these two works,” writes Farrish. “In building on these studies within feminism, racism, and radical questioning or revealing, I imagined a widespread new landscape all together…a new frontier. I imagined what people of color, women, or other minority groups would look like as pioneers. In this work we go back to the beginning, looking at whatever records of history we may have, and push the range and possibility of our own experiences. We begin to feel, speak, and rupture.”
Through effort, storytelling, satire, and reality, The New Frontier (my dear America) Pt. 1 unpacks layers of shared American history, in embodying power in differing forms, in dealing with the reality of racism and sexism in daily experience, and in attempts to unveil accountability.
Danspace Project is pleased to have partnered with Petronio Residency Center in Round Top, NY, to provide a 7-day residency for Farrish and collaborators to develop this work.
Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts
The New Frontier (my dear America) Pt. 1
Performers: Kayla Farrish, Dorchel Haqq, Emilee Harney, Kerime Konur, Kar’mel Small, and Mikaila Ware (live work); Alexander Diaz, Kayla Farrish, Dominica Greene, Kerime Konur, and Rebecca Margolick (film).
Camera Work: Kerime Konur, Alexander Diaz, Kayla Farrish, and Rebecca Margolick
Editing: Kayla Farrish
Text Collaboration: Nik Owens and Mikaila Ware
Photography Gallery: Kayla Farrish
TICKETS
Advance tickets are priced at $22 and can be purchased by visiting danspaceproject.org or by calling TheaterMania / OvationTix at (866) 811.4111. If available, tickets can be purchased at the door on the night of the performance for $25 (cash or check only).
LOCATION & CONTACT INFORMATION
Danspace Project is located inside St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery at 131 East 10th Street (near 2nd Avenue) in Manhattan’s East Village.
Phone: (212) 674-8112.
Email: info@danspaceproject.org
ACCESSIBILITY
Danspace Project’s main entrance is fully accessible via ramp. A same-level restroom is available near Danspace Project’s main performance space in the church sanctuary.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts is an emerging company combining filmmaking, photography, and dance. Farrish is a NY based director with a vision for intimate storytelling. She’s received three choreographic commissions: Of Bones Dance (2014) and Houses on the Moon Theater Company (2016), and Danspace Project (2019). She co-choreographed Gods and Accepting Darkness with Nik Owens (2015). Studying photography and film with Yara Travesio, Benjamin Heller, and Brooklyn Central, she formed portraiture and improvisation studies Beloved Loveless, and premiered With Delicacy and Permanence live solo and film at B.A.A.D! In Summer 2017, granted the Chez Bushwick residency, she created 5 short films and cinema-inspired photograph gallery. These films screened at Bushwick Open Studios, Triskelion Film Festival, Deconstructed:Dance Films Festival, Mouthfull Presents/Of Bones Dance, and Detroit Women in Film Festival. In 2018, she developed live works: Wager/With grit From, Grace, live version Black Bodies Sonata, and Why I Can’t Hold Strangers performing at Stuffed: Dinner and Dance and Movement Research at Judson Church, Pepatian APAP, Arts On Site Performance Party, Danspace Project’s Food For Thought, BAAD!, and other spaces. She produced and created “Spectacle” Film and Live Performance evening-length piece apart of Pepatian Dance Your Future Residency (2018) with Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant support. In 2019, she is developing The New Frontier as its own film and also stand alone live production through Keshet Makers Space Experience Residency, Petronio Residency Center, BAX Summer Space Grant, and through the support and organization of a Danspace Project Fall 2019 Commission.
About Danspace Project
Danspace Project presents new work in dance, supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences. For 45 years, Danspace Project has supported a vital community of contemporary dance artists in an environment unlike any other in the United States. Located in the historic St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Danspace shares its facility with the Church, The Poetry Project, and New York Theatre Ballet. Danspace Project’s Commissioning Initiative has commissioned over 570 new works since its inception in 1994.
Dominica Greene and Kayla Farrish. Screenshot of video by: Alexander Diaz.
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