Jaamil Olawale Kosoko curates Food for Thought: BLACK MALE REVISITED
Company:
Danspace Project
Danspace Project Presents Food for Thought:
BLACK MALE REVISITED -
Experimental Representations Through the Ephemeral Form
curated by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Three days of performance, dance, music, and discussion.
February 6-8, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - New York, NY, January 27, 2014 - Danspace Project presents a special edition of our Food for Thought benefit series with a combination of dance, performance, discussion, and music, over three distinct evenings. This Food for Thought is organized and conceived by New York City and Philadelphia-based performer and curator Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, co-director of anonymous bodies || art collective. Admission for each evening is $5 with 2 cans of food; or $10. All food proceeds support St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery's food distribution programs. Please note: This program is not for review.
With BLACK MALE REVISITED: Experimental Representations through the Ephemeral Form Kosoko marks the 20th anniversary of Black Male, an exhibition curated by Thelma Golden at The Whitney Museum of American Art in 1994. Black Male struck a nerve in the visual art community with its frank interrogation of representations of black masculinity. Using Golden's exhibition as a point of departure, Kosoko incorporates voices from trans and queer artists and situates their work inside an experimental dance context with three nights of multi-genre performance.
Inspired by sources including a 1994 essay by Homer Jackson entitled Where, Oh Where, Are the Black Performance Artists? and bell hooks' We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, Kosoko began research for this project while studying at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan's Center for the Arts. A recent iteration of the project took place during Art Basel Miami Beach '13.
DETAILED SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, at 8PM
Music by experimental performance art band The Georges (Jason Quarles, Julian Rozzell, Jr., Steven Leffue and Alec Duffy), the resident band at JACK arts center in Brooklyn.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is joined in conversation by Danspace Project executive director Judy Hussie-Taylor to introduce his BLACK MALE REVISITED project.
Multi-disciplinary artist Lawrence Graham-Brown performs Yes (Act 1), a piece based on idealizations of Black masculinity.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, at 8PM
Solo performances by Whitney V. Hunter, IMMA/MESS (Jarrod Kantrell), Sir Lady Indee (Indee Mitchell), Rafael Sanchez.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 3PM-7PM
Conversations Without Walls: BLACK MALE REVISITED
Note: this conversation takes place in the Parish Hall inside of St. Mark's Church (131 East 10th Street, at 2nd Avenue, in Manhattan's East Village)
3-4PM - Revisiting Black Male Today: A Look 20 Years Later
Panelists discuss the seminal 1994 Black Male exhibition at The Whitney Museum of American Art, considering how the landscape has changed for black male visual and performance artists (as both subjects and practitioners) over the past 20 years. Is there more visibility today? Why? Is black art simply in vogue in this contemporary moment or have we undergone a renaissance?
With: Rich Blint - Moderator (Independent Curator, Associate Director, Office of Community Outreach and Education, Columbia University School of the Arts), Greg Tate (Writer, Artist, Educator), James Haile III (Writer, Educator)
4-5PM - Expanding Notions of Black Masculinity: Gender and Identity in Visual and Performance Art
Panelists discuss issues of visibility for queer and trans artists working in contemporary art, touching on themes of tokenism and considering how artists are currently working to combat negative stereotypes of Blackness and Queerness within the American Art canon.
With: Thomas Lax - Moderator (Assistant Curator, Studio Museum in Harlem), Paul Mpagi Sepuya (Visual Artist), Geo Wyeth (Artist, Musician), niv Acosta (Artist, Musician)
5-6PM - Considering Contemporary Artistic Practices and the Distribution of "New" Black Creativity
Panelists discuss how the landscape for the performance and visual arts field has changed (or how it has stayed the same) since the '90s. They discuss issues of distribution for experimentation for minority artists as well as issues of cultural bias towards outsider artists: those who don't easily categorize within normative performance genres and traditions such as "modern dance and/or theater."
With: Whitney V. Hunter - Moderator (Artist, Independent Curator, and Educator), Cosmo Whyte (Artist, Educator), Sherman Fleming (Artist, Educator), Ryann Holmes (Community Programming Director, MoCADA, Founder of bklyn boihood)
6-6:30 - Closing Conversation
Gregory Walker (Founding Director of The Brother's Network) in dialogue with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, at 8PM
The audience is welcome to join Ishmael Houston-Jones in a creative and interpretive dialogue with internationally-recognized DJ/Composer/Producer King Britt.
Tickets and Admission:
Evening performance admission is $5 with two cans of food; or $10. No advance reservations.
Admission for Conversation Without Walls is a suggested donation of $10. RSVP for conversation at danspaceproject.org.
Cash or check only.
Location:
Danspace Project is located inside St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in New York City's East Village. 131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), New York, NY 10003.
Phone: (212) 674-8112. Website: www.danspaceproject.org.
Funding: Food for Thought is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Member Rosie Mendez.
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. Now in its fourth decade, 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 The Incubator Arts Project. Danspace Project's Commissioning Initiative has commissioned over 450 new works since its inception in 1994.
Danspace Project's Choreographic Center Without Walls (CW²) provides context for audiences and increased support for artists. Our presentation programs (including Platforms, Food for Thought, DraftWork), Commissioning Initiative, residencies, guest artist curators, and contextualizing activities and materials are core components of CW² offering a responsive framework for artists' works. Since 2010, we have produced seven Platforms, published seven print catalogues and five e-books, launched the Conversations Without Walls discussion series, and explored models for public discourse and residencies.
www.danspaceproject.org
Facebook: Danspace Project
Twitter: @DanspaceProject
Tumblr: danspaceproject.tumblr.com
