InfiniteBody

Eva's on Substack!

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 16:08:00 -0500

Check this out via QR code!

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2024

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 1 Jan 2025 04:31:00 -0500

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2024

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Wicked

You know who this is.


Kali Reis,True Detective: Night Country

Origin's Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor

Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

Kōji Yakusho, Perfect Days

Doechii

Artists, I thank Spirit for your lives.

I wish you the recognition, respect, support, and care you need,

for you give us so much.

Stay strong in 2025!

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Good Grief (Netflix)

Good Grief, written and directed by Daniel Levy, streaming on Netflix

Each of Us A Desert, by Mark Oshiro (Macmillan, 2020)

Yungchen Lhamo – One Drop of Kindness (Real World Records, 2023)

Artist Firelei Báez: I Consider Myself a Filter | Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

Hear, by Ogemdi Ude, Out-Front! Fesival 2024, The Center, January 13-14

King in the Wilderness, directed by Peter W. Kunhardt, 2018, streaming on Max

Choreographer Samar Haddad King, APAP showing

Heather Christian's Terce: A Practical Breviary (photo: Maria Baranova)

Gathering, by Samar Haddad King (Yaa Samar! Dance Theater), work-in-progress showing for APAP at The Center for Ballet and the Arts, January 16

Okan (band), Elizabeth Rodriguez: vocals, violin; Magdelys Savigne: vocals, percussion (website)

Jeremy Dutcher (musician) (website)

Beverly Johnson: IN VOGUE, directed by Josh Ravetch, 59E59 Theaters, January 21

Origin, directed by Ava DuVernay

True Detective: Night Country, directed by Issa López, streaming on Max

Terce: A Practical Breviary, written, composed and created by Heather Christian, directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant, January 24-February 4

Aristotle Thinks Again, directed/choreographed by Dan Safer, Great Jones Repertory, La MaMa, January 25-February 4

¡Fenomenal!, Rompeforma 1989-1996

¡Fenomenal!, Rompeforma 1989-1996, with Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez, The Dance Historian Is In, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, January 31

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 2015)

Joan Baez: I Am A Noise, directed by Karen O'Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O'Boyle, streaming on Hulu

The Vince Staples Show, Episode 2, directed by Ben Younger (2024), streaming on Netflix

Motaz Azaiza Captured Gaza’s Suffering. But ‘Nothing Changed.’ by Mona El-Naggar, Neil Collier and Mark Boyer, The New York Times

All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh (2024), streaming on Hulu

Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wenders (2023)

What We Hold, by Jean Butler, Irish Arts Center, February 14-March 3

Dune: Part Two, directed by Denis Villeneuve (2024)

Anatomy of A Fall, directed by Justine Triet (2023), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Black Cake, created by Marissa Jo Cerar, directed by Natalia Leite (2023), streaming on Hulu

The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer (2023), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

"The Shape of My Impact" by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, edited by Briona Simone Jones, The New Press (2021)

Damsel, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (2024), streaming on Netflix

Shirley, directed by John Ridley (2024), streaming on Netflix

Cowboy Carter, by Beyoncé (2024)

Harlem (2021-2023), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show, directed by Ari Katcher (2024), streaming on Max

Susan Muaddi Darraj's Behind You is the Sea

Behind You is the Sea, by Susan Muaddi Darraj (Harper Collins, 2024)

Ripley, directed by Steven Zaillian (2024), streaming on Netflix

Tig Notaro: Hello Again, directed by Stephanie Allynne (2024), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov (2023), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Japanese Tea and Ritual Room —卯月Uzuki (April), by Maho Ogawa with Carolyn Hall, Annie MingHao Wang, and Tomoko Hojo, JACK, April 19-20

Imagination: A Manifesto, by Ruha Benjamin (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024)

Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Twentieth Anniversary Edition), by Robin D. G. Kelley (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Prentice Penny's Black Twitter: A People's History (photo: Disney/Andrew Walker)

Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca at The Joyce Theater, April 23-28

Ahead of the Curve, directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow (2020), streaming on Netflix

El Niño, by John Adams, The Metropolitan Opera, 2023-24 season

Black Twitter: A People's History, directed by Prentice Penny (2024), streaming on Hulu

Butterfly in the Sky: The Story of Reading Rainbow, directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb (2024), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Stax: Soulville U.S.A., directed by Jamila Wignot (2024), streaming on Max

Two Weeks Inside Gaza’s Ruined Hospitals, by Samer Attar; video by Alexander Stockton and Amanda Su, The New York Times

Pacita Abad. Detail. Marcos and His Cronies (1985-95)

Pacita Abad, MoMA PS 1, April 4-September 2

Heroes, by John Scott, La MaMa Moves, May 30-June 2

Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater (2024) streaming on Netflix

Chaka Khan: Tiny Desk Concert, NPR Music, June 11

Purlie Victorious, by Ossie Davis, directed by David Horn, PBS Great Performances, streaming May 24-July 19

MoviePass, MovieCrash, directed by Muta'Ali (2024), streaming on Max

Remembering Gene Wilder, directed by Ron Frank (2023), streaming on Netflix

Andrea Gibson's poetry: You Better Be Lightning

You Better Be Lightning, by Andrea Gibson (Button Poetry, 2021)

Hacks: Seasons 1-3, streaming on Max

Where Olive Trees Weep, directed by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo (2024) (https://whereolivetreesweep.com/)

Bad Faith, directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones (2024), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

El Paisa, directed by Daniel Eduvijes Carrera (2023), PBS Short Film Festival

Boca Chica, directed by Ai Vuong and Samuel Diaz Fernandez (2024), PBS Short Film Festival

Colman Domingo (left) and Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing

Documentary series on champion Simone Biles

Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar (2023)

Simone Biles Rising limited series, directed by Katie Walsh (2024), streaming on Netflix

Skywalkers: A Love Story, directed by Jeff Zimbalist (2024), streaming on Netflix

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lakhpa Sherpa, directed by Lucy Walker (2024), streaming on Netflix

Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color

Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode, A Discovery of Witches

Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color by Lorraine Monteagut, PhD (Chicago Review Press, 2022)

Milton Nascimento & esperanza spalding: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, NPR, streaming from August 7

Daughters, directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton (2024), streaming on Netflix

Lift, directed by David Peterson (2022), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

A Discovery of Witches (2018-2022), streaming on Netflix

The Bear by Andrew Krivak (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020)

Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, Brooklyn Museum, September 13-January 19, 2025

Get to Know the Misunderstood Canada Goose, directed by Karsten Wall, New York Times Op-Docs

Shogun's Hiroyuki Sanada (left) and Anna Sawai

Shogun limited series (2024), streaming on Hulu

Robert Smithson at Dia: Spiral Jetty by SandenWolff (2024)

Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala at Asia Society through January 5, 2025

My Book-of-the-Year from Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Penguin Random House, 2024)

The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt (2024)

Apple Killed Albums. Now It Wants to Rank Them, The Culture Desk podcast with Wesley Morris and Eric Hynes, The New York Times

Ali Wong: Single Lady, directed by Ali Wong (2024), streaming on Netflix

Skeleton Architecture's improv (photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Prelude 2024: Skeleton Architecture, CUNY Graduate Center, October 16

For Day of the Dead, a Burst of Flowers to Honor the Departed, directed by Cesár Martinez Barba, Op-Docs, The New York Times, November 1

Conclave, directed by Edward Berger (2024)

Anora, directed by Sean Baker (2024)

Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard (2024), streaming on Netflix

The Piano Lesson, directed by Malcolm Washington (2024), streaming on Netflix

Wicked, directed by Jon M. Chu (2024)

Marlon James

Colman Domingo in The Madness

Ebony Obsidian (l) as Lena Derriecott King (r) in Netflix's
The Six Triple Eight

GNX by Kendrick Lamar (PG Lang and Interscope Records, 2024)

Get Millie Black limited series, written by Marlon James (2024), streaming on Max

The Madness limited series, directed by Clement Virgo (2024), streaming on Netflix

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. (Crown, 2020)

The Brothers Sun, directed by Kevin Tancharoen (2024), streaming on Netflix

Louder: The Soundtrack of Change, directed by Kristi Jacobson (2024), streaming on Max

Yacht Rock: A Rockumentary, directed by Garret Price (2024), streaming on Max

somebody somewhere, directed by Jay Duplass, Robert Cohen, and Lennon Parnham (2022-24), streaming on Max

Doechii: Tiny Desk Concert, NPR Music, December 6

Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist Art of Tibet, Metropolitan Museum of Art, through January 12, 2025

Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was..., directed by Hamish Hamilton, streaming on Netflix

Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín (2024), streaming on Netflix

The Equalizer, Seasons 1-3, streaming on Netflix

The Six Triple Eight, directed by Tyler Perry, streaming on Netflix

Kieran Culkin & Colman Domingo | Actors on Actors, Variety (2024), streaming on YouTube

Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It, directed by Cameron Barnett (2024), streaming on Netflix

A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold (2024)

The Nickel Boys, directed by RaMell Ross (2024)

REVIEW: MMC’s Fall Repertoire 2024 features work by Jazelynn Goudy

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:35:00 -0500

Dance artist Jazelynn Goudy (photo: Kenzo Matese)

This black-and-white photo portrait shows dance artist Jazelynn Goudy, a Black woman wearing a light-colored jacket over a light-colored top. She has a spill of dark locks down the right side of her face. She looks directly into the camera while framing her face with her hands—capping her forehead with her left hand and holding her chin between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.

Fall Repertoire 2024

Dance Department

Marymount Manhattan College

Theresa Lang Theater

December 5-7, 2024

This past week, the Dance Department of Marymount Manhattan College (MMC) presented its Fall Repertoire 2024. I caught Program A–choreography by Aaron Loux, Molissa Fenley, Tamisha A. Guy, and Jazelynn Goudy, an MMC assistant professor. Each work deployed large ensembles of student dancers streaming across MMC’s Theresa Lang Theatre, and each found ingenious ways to carve that modest space into complex, shifting layers and levels of abstract activity.

Loux’s San Quentin draws inspiration from the unorthodox work of Henry Cowell, an American composer arrested in 1936 under California’s anti-sodomy laws and incarcerated at one of the nation’s most notorious prisons. For the MMC performance, pianist George Lykogiannis played Set of Two Movements, one of the pieces Cowell created during his years at San Quentin, time during which he continued to compose work, teach music students, and even conduct the prison orchestra. This backstory, though, does not prepare you for Loux’s sunburst of choral movement, a perfect partner to music expressive of audacious tenacity and transcendence.

For Going to the Sun, set to music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Fenley has crafted both an exaltation of nature and a lament for the natural treasures we’ve lost and continue to lose. The work was inspired by Montana’s Glacier National Park and the ice and waterways of Greenland, all threatened by climate change. Where Loux’s ensemble visualizes the exuberance of Cowell’s unusual music, Fenley’s orderly precision of placement and movement paints a detailed, awe-inspiring landscape–one of cold, pristine beauty and fragility. In Breaking the Mold, Guy similarly floods the stage with dancers, often bunched and moving in unison abstract patterns. Yet, Guy’s vision requires more fluidity and taffy-stretchiness within and among bodies in various configurations–-a quartet, a quintet, a solo, duet, and so forth.

All three works posed respectable challenges of technique, coordination, and expressivity for their performers. By and large, those tests were met. But then came Goudy’s Divine Flight–or, as she prefers to render the title, D vIne fl~ight. Please imagine what my keyboard can’t recreate: a lowercase d nestled within the lower-left corner of that uppercase initial D.

Scene from Divine Flight (photo: Molly Ouret)

Performers: Foreground: Charlene Longchamp, Alyssa Marten, Ariadne Viloria, Kelly Dresner, hidden: Isabelle Julien, Background: Elias Colado

Charlene Longchamp (darker skin dancer) dressed in white pleated sheer linen pants, and an orange shear top, falling backward with arms in the air into the arms of Isabelle Julien (hidden) Alyssa Marten, wearing an orange sheer top, white athletic pants, a glittering net covers half their head: Ariadne Viloria (upstage) Orange top and White bottoms, Kelly Dresner in a white top with a thin strap and pinkish red button. All are in a deep shallow lunge with arms extended toward Charlene, who is falling.

Elias Colado, Purple sleeveless top, and white bottoms in mid-spin bent position, arms crossed.

It immediately became clear that Goudy’s piece had taken pride of place, and rightly so, as the program’s closer.

This ensemble piece is grounded in real-life intimacy, in the love and intense complexities between Goudy and her older sister who, just over a year ago, died of lymphoma. If, unaware of this history, you happened to watch D vIne fl~ight, you might question the sequence in which dancers lift and port a wooden bier over which an immobile body is stretched. Nothing else in the look of the work hints at death or provides death any platform. This work celebrates the rigor and exhilaration of Black dancing, evoking the rhythmic, percussive stylings of West Africa and the Black Midwest. By doing so, Goudy, unexpectedly and magically, unified the intent and spirit of the program’s previous dances, boosting their relevance.

In the world Goudy envisions, the colors of vitality fill the stage, a backdrop projection suggests hazy memories of urban neighborhoods, and the bustling choreography declares ”Life is here. Life is abundant. We are an abundant and generous people.”

Danced with powerful release and rippling joy by the students, D vIne fl~ight is, at once, a tribute to a loved one, a fever dream, and a statement of victory. For us, the living, it is the continued flow of life into a future we make because we can.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

InfiniteBody, December 8, 2024

Thank you to Body and Soul's guest speakers!

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 07:50:00 -0400

Eva Yaa Asantewaa (photo: selfie)

A smiling Black woman wearing headphones and a turtleneck sweater sits in front of a bookcase (partial view). Her chin rests on her left hand.

I'm taking a moment to express my deep gratitude to the many respected artists and educators who have contributed to BODY AND SOUL podcast since its revival in December 2022, sharing experience, knowledge, insights, passions, and what keeps them awake at night. These guest speakers have included:

Ziiomi Law
Lisa La Touche
María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Jiménez
devynn emory
Maxine Montilus
Kayhan Irani
Brinda Guha
Travis Knights
Judith Sánchez Ruíz
Daphne Lee
Stephanie Skura
George Emilio Sanchez
Cory Nakasue
Elena Demanyenko
Megan Curet
Samar Haddad King
Ricarrdo Valentine
Iquail Shaheed
Tamisha A. Guy
Catherine Kirk
Italy Bianca
Kate Mattingly
Thomas Ford
Stephan Koplowitz
Heather Robles
Vicky Shick
Rebecca Fitton
Dr. Nina Angela Mercer
Olaiya Olayemi
Bhumi B Patel
Melanie George
Valencia James
Alexandra Beller
Daniel Phoenix Singh
Petra Kuppers
Katrina Reid

If you haven't listened yet, dip into this treasure trove now!

LISTEN HERE:
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/eva-yaa-asantewaa

or here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6rwqny2GMb43jImKhCj1sh

BODY AND SOUL: Katrina Reid: Mercury Rx--Review, Redo, Renewal

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 10:58:00 -0400

Katrina Reid (photo: Kiya Marie Schnorr)

The headshot of Katrina Reid, a dark-skinned Black woman with very short and very blonde hair, is outside in a park, looking into the camera with a confident smile.

Listen to Katrina Reid: Mercury Rx--Review, Redo, Renewal

on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Katrina Reid (photo courtesy of the artist)

A photo of Katrina running down an empty street. Only the back of her body is visible, one leg is kicking back in a stride, and her arms are fully extended behind her. There are lush trees and verdant grass on both sides of the road, and her black shadow appears below. The sky above is blue, bright, and full of fluffy white clouds.

Katrina Reid (photo by Tia Byington-Noll)

A black-and-white photo of Katrina hanging and twisting from a ladder that is attached to a building outside. She is holding on with both hands. The camera’s focus is from above, and she has white protective markings painted on her face. Her eyes are closed and her brows are furrowed in contemplation.

Katrina Reid (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer who crafts art projects rooted in improvisation, experimentation, and storytelling. Select presentations of her work include the Queens Museum, ISSUE Project Room, the Knockdown Center, Current Sessions, DoublePlus/Gibney Dance, AUNTS, the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Florida A&M University, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX). As a collaborator, Katrina explores performance across dance, theater, music, ritual, and film. Most recent projects include [siccer] by Will Rawls, and the upcoming Spectral Dances by Jonathan González, as well as past works by David Thomson, Third Rail Projects, Kevin Beasley, Emily Johnson, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Marguerite Hemmings, and Megan Byrne, among others. Learn more at katrina-reid.com.

BODY AND SOUL: Petra Kuppers: How to go on a crip drift

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Mon, 8 Apr 2024 07:36:00 -0400

Petra Kuppers (photo: Tamara Wade)

Petra Kuppers, a white queer disabled cis woman of size with yellow glasses, shaved head, pink lipstick and a black dotted top, smiles up to the sky, arms outstretched, embracing the world. Her mobility scooter’s handlebar is visible at the bottom of the image. She is in front of a multicolored wall: purple, pink, yellow and orange.

Listen to Petra Kuppers: How to go on a crip drift

on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Becoming Fossil in Venice (photo: Edward Smith)

Petra, with her mouth wide open, her collaborator and wife Stephanie Heit next to her, and a number of community participants all dancing in the light of Becoming Fossil, a community dance video about climate emergencies and resiliences. The screen shows a color-shifted close-up of a fossil coral.

Crip Drip Performance Meditation in Venice (photo: Edward Smith)

Petra in the light, eyes closed, with volunteers holding bags of salt crystals to hand out once the audience lines up.

Petra Kuppers (she/her) is a disability culture activist and a community performance artist. She
grounds herself in disability culture methods, and uses somatics, performance, media work, and
speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. In these
pandemic years, she’s been engaged in crip drifts: working with human and more-than-human
others outdoors (or through dream journeys online), exploring interdependence, listening, being-
with, and complex joy.

Her latest academic study is Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters
(University of Minnesota Press, 2022, open access). Her fourth poetry collection, Diver Beneath
the Street, investigates true crime and ecopoetry at the level of the soil (Wayne State University
Press, February 2024). She teaches at the University of Michigan, and is a 2023 Guggenheim
Fellow.

⁠www.petrakuppers.com

⁠ht⁠⁠tps://wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814351116/diver-beneath-the-street/

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/eco-soma

BODY AND SOUL: Daniel Phoenix Singh: True change from the roots

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 6 Apr 2024 04:19:00 -0400

Daniel Phoenix Singh (photo: Metro Arts)

Daniel Phoenix Singh performing Vasanth

Daniel Phoenix Singh is seen in one of the performance poses of his syncretic blend of Bharata Naytam and Modern genres of dances. His two hands are spread open like the petals of a lotus flower, his arms are in a long diagonal, reaching into space while he is spiraling his upper body in contrast to his lower body. He is wearing dark blue pants with turquoise blue pleats on the sides.

Listen to Daniel Phoenix Singh: True change from the roots

on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Daniel Phoenix Singh has worked in higher education, the field of dance, queer communities, South Asian communities, and in arts practice, policy, and funding at local and national levels. His identities lie at the intersection of his queer, antiracist, South Asian, immigrant, artist, and advocate roles in the various communities he inhabits.

He acknowledges the complicity and internalization of colonial and racial oppressions in his life and works hard to approach issues from an anticolonial and antiracist perspective. He has been influenced by the work of Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy (aka Periyar | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar), Rabindranath Tagore, Arundhathi Roy, Toni Morrison, and particularly Justin Laing (http://hillombo.net/about/) who work from intersectional frameworks.

In his dance practice, Daniel was mentored by Pamela Mathews as curiosity took him from computer science to a dance major in college. He is deeply grateful to Lorry May, Harriet Moncure Williams, and Karen Bernstein for helping shape his choreographic voice. Madhavi Mudgal and Leela Samson in India have broadened his perspectives on the space Indian dance forms can occupy both within the body, in the pedagogy, and field of dance.

He is a single parent to amazing twins who have been his foremost teachers and test his improvisational skills every day.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielphoenixsingh/

BODY AND SOUL: Alexander Beller: Mindful recuperation

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 6 Apr 2024 04:08:00 -0400

Alexandra Beller (photo: The GingerB3ardmen)

A curly-haired red-headed white woman with green eyes and an inviting smile

Alexandra Beller (photo: Judith Stuart)

A dancer standing in a one-legged balance, holding a single egg

Listen to Alexandra Beller: Mindful recuperation

on my Body and Soul podcast here.

NOTE: For a glossary of Laban terms mentioned in this episode, click here.

Alexandra Beller, Artistic Director of Alexandra Beller/Dances, (2002-present), was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company member from 1995-2001. Alexandra created over 50 original Dance Theatre works, presented at theaters throughout the US and companies in Korea, Hong Kong, Oslo, and Cyprus. She has created dance theater works for over 45 universities throughout the US.

Alexandra currently choreographs predominantly for Theater. Credits: Off Broadway: Sense and Sensibility (Sheen Center, Judson Gym, Folger Shakespeare Library, American Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage), (Helen Hayes Award, Lortel Nomination, IRNE Best Choreography), The Mad Ones (59E59), Bedlam’s Peter Pan (Duke Theatre), How to transcend a happy marriage (Lincoln Center Theatre), Regional: Two Gentlemen of Verona (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), As You Like It (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Folger Shakespeare Library), The Young Ladies of... (Taylor Mac), Chang(e) (HERE), Current: Antonio’s Song (CATF, Milwaukee Rep), Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) (La MaMa, and touring), Directing/Choreographing Macbeth. She wrote and directed an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for 92Y.

She was on faculty at Princeton 2015-2022 and teaches at The Laban Institute for Movement Studies, HB Studios, UWM grad program. Alexandra holds a BFA/Dance, MFA/Choreography, and CMA (Certified Movement Analyst).

www.alexandrabeller.com

www.alexandrabellerdances.org

www.praxispace.com

BODY AND SOUL: Valencia James: Dancing ancestry

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 2 Apr 2024 11:22:00 -0400

Valencia James (photo: Botond Bognar)

A dark-skinned Black woman, with shoulder-length locs looks into the camera and smiles. The sun casts a soft golden wash on her face. She is wearing a red and orange patterned dress and wooden circular earrings.

Listen to Valencia James: Dancing ancestry on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Valencia James is an interdisciplinary artist from Barbados interested in the intersection between dance, theater, technology, art installation and activism. Her works have explored remote interdisciplinary collaboration, artist-driven open-source software tools and the combination of live performance with immersive interactive technologies. Currently, she is researching the relationship between performance and play and how traditional Caribbean cultural and spiritual forms have been used by communities in active resistance and problem-solving in the face of colonial systems.

Valencia has been a 2020 Rapid Response Fellow at Eyebeam NYC and a 2021-2022 Sundance Interdisciplinary Fellow. She has presented work at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2015, SIGGRAPH 2021, and the 2022 New Frontier exhibition at Sundance Film Festival. Valencia has participated in group exhibitions in Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Budapest, San Francisco and Berkeley. http://valenciajames.com/

BODY AND SOUL: Melanie George: The art of returning

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 06:55:00 -0400

Melanie George (photo by JD Urban)

The bright, cool-toned photo features Melanie George in the foreground and a blurred white door ajar in the background. Melanie, a Black woman with brown skin and coily hair, is photographed from the chest up. She is turned slightly to the left and gazing toward the camera with a playful, reserved smile. She is wearing bright red lipstick and nail polish, and her fingertips are lightly touching her sternum. Melanie is wearing a long-sleeve jumper zipped up at the center, with a white base and lively plant-like print. The print consists of multiple solid colored shapes--red, silver, navy and burgundy--each emanating from a central point with long, thin strands. She sports hexagon earrings of a thin metal material dangling an inch below her earlobes.

Listen to Melanie George: The Art of Returning on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Melanie George is Associate Curator and Scholar in Residence at Jacob’s Pillow, and guest curator for the 2024 American Dance Platform at the Joyce Theater. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by Raja Feather Kelly, Helen Simoneau, Alice Sheppard, Urban Bush Women, and SW!NG OUT among others. Melanie is featured in the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance and a contributing to scholar to Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches, and Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century. Melanie is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Rutgers University and has guest lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School. In 2021, she was named one of Dance Magazine’s 30 over 30, and is the recipient of the Outstanding Leadership Award from the National Dance Education Organization. She is a performer/dramaturg with The Jazz Continuum. https://www.melaniegeorge.org

BODY AND SOUL: Bhumi B Patel: This world needs queerness

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 07:40:00 -0400

Bhumi B Patel (photo: Lydia Daniller)

A brown-skinned dancer, Bhumi B Patel, with long black hair in a black v-neck shirt, looks directly at the camera with a wide smile and slightly squinted eyes.

(photo: Robbie Sweeney)

A single brown-skinned dancer, Bhumi B Patel, is surrounded by a semi-circle of onlookers in chairs in a dance studio with a gray marley floor and brown beams across a white ceiling. Sunlight streams in from the windows while the dancer is crouched on the ground in all black, with both hands flat on the floor in front of her.

Listen to Bhumi B Patel: This world needs queerness on my Body and Soul podcast here.

Bhumi B Patel directs pateldanceworks and is a queer, desi, home-seeker, science fiction choreographer, movement artist, and writer. She has presented her choreography in the Bay Area, Manoa (Hawai’i), Los Angeles, New York, and Columbus (Ohio). Bhumi was a 2022-2023 Dance/USA Fellow and a 2023 YBCA 100 Honoree. She has presented at Dance Studies Association, Popular Culture Association, National Women’s Studies Association, and Asia Pacific Dance Festival, and has published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Contact Quarterly, and InDance. Her research on queer decoloniality and improvisation intersects with her performance-making as a way of tracing the deep connections of past, present, future to build communities of nourishment and care. pateldanceworks.org

BODY AND SOUL: Olaiya Olayemi: Alive in All Senses

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 10:25:00 -0500

olaiya olayemi (photo courtesy of the artist)

a smiling dark-skinned black woman with pink faux locs and red glasses. pink lip gloss adorns her lips.

Body and Soul podcast next welcomes artist and educator olaiya olayemi who shares her view that resisting grind culture and living a sustainable life necessitates time for rest, play, and pleasure.

Listen to her episode, Alive in All Senses, here.

olaiya olayemi is an antidisciplinary artist, radical educator, pleasure anarchist, and erotic witch. she creates texts, images, sounds, and movements. she currently lives in philadelphia, pa. www.pillowtalkwithaplaygurrrl.com

BODY AND SOUL: Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Mon, 8 Jan 2024 16:01:00 -0500

Dr. Nina Angela Mercer (photo: Fabiola Jean Louis)

A headshot of a caramel-honey-skinned Black woman who is looking directly into the camera. She is wearing her dark brown hair in many long twists. She is also wearing a maroon crocheted hat that has saffron and sky-blue accents crocheted into a panel at the edge of the hat. She is wearing deep maroon lipstick. She is not smiling fully, but she looks content. She is outside in daylight.


Dr. Mercer in Invocation for José Antonio Aponte, a video poem (photo: Toshi Sakai)

A black-and-white photograph of a caramel and honey-brown Black woman holding two tree branches in front of her face. The branches frame her face so that parts of the top and bottom of her face are covered by the two branches she holds. Only her eyes, cheeks, and nose are visible in the dim light. Her hair is engulfed in shadow. But her hands and collarbone are also visible. She wears a black dress with a v-neck collar. She has on a silver necklace with two charms hanging from it--one charm is a lapis lazuli gemstone, the other is a small silver bow and arrow.

Next on Body and Soul podcast, we visit with playwright and scholar Dr. Nina Angela Mercer who draws from family roots in Washington, DC and her lifelong fascination with mythology and world-building to examine how the stories a society or community tells about itself too often promote marginalization and erasure of history.

To listen to Part One of her Body and Soul episode--Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure---on Spotify, click here. And you can find Part Two here.

Gypsy and the Bully Door at Georgetown University, 2023

Dr. Nina Angela Mercer is a culture worker, scholar, and interdisciplinary artist. Her plays include GUTTA BEAUTIFUL; ⁠ITAGUA MEJI: A ROAD AND A PRAYER⁠; ELIJAHEEN BECOMES WIND; CHARISMA AT THE CROSSROADS; A COMPULSION FOR BREATHING; MOTHER WIT AND WATER-BORN; and ⁠GYPSY AND THE BULLY DOOR⁠. She also collaborated with Urban Bush Women as writer and performer in HAINT BLU. Nina’s writing is published in The Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; ⁠A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online⁠; Break Beat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic; Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century; Performance Research Journal; Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People; and So We Can Know. She is currently a community engagement fellow at The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture at Georgetown University's Racial Justice Institute. She is also the executive director of ⁠Ocean Ana Rising, Inc./OAR⁠. For more information, visit her at ⁠www.ninaangelamercer.com⁠.

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2023

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 14:43:00 -0500

InfiniteBody Honor Roll 2023

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Fantasia Barrino-Taylor as Celie in The Color Purple

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

Margot Robbie in Barbie. (photo: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.)

Welcome to my annual end-of-year round-up of cultural moments--not so much a Best-Of. More of a Here's What Meant A Lot to Me!

As always, you'll find some Better-Late-Than-Never items I've caught up with--like the first one, Justin Kurzel's 2015 film, Macbeth, with its searing performances and cinematography.

I also want to acknowledge and give huge thanks for the contributions of my guest speakers for Body and Soul podcast--Lisa La Touche, devynn emory, Maxine Montilus, george emilio sanchez, Samar Haddad King, and Vicky Shick, and so many more. Catch up with this series on Spotify here.

Clearly, the 2020s continue to compete with one another for which year will be voted the most challenging. But even as our times become more dire, the arts continue to testify for human qualities and contributions still worthy of celebration and emulation.

As we approach the New Year, I wish you the clarity, strength, and courage to envision, create, and make a meaningful difference in 2024 and beyond.

Ceasefire now. Free Palestine.

-- Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Justin Kurzel's Macbeth

Macbeth (2015), directed by Justin Kurzel (Netflix)

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), directed by Edward Berger (Netflix)

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2022), directed by Joe Brewster and Michéle Stephenson (Sundance Film Festival 2023)

Danielle Deadwyler, star of Till

Roberta Flack

Till (2022), directed by Chinonye Chukwu (Amazon Prime Video)

American Masters: Roberta Flack, directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio (PBS)

The 1619 Project, various directors; executive produced by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Hulu)

Empire of Light, directed by Sam Mendes (HBO Max)

The Yanomami Struggle, curated by Thyago Nogueira, The Shed (February 3-April 16)

The Heisenberg Variations: Imagination, Invention, and Uncertainty, by Jennifer Finney Boylan, Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in the Arts and Humanities, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, February 16

Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes, directed by Peter Schnall (PBS)

Still from Women Talking

We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth, editors: Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth (The New Press, 2022)

The Elephant Whisperers, directed by Kartiki Gonsalves (Netflix)

Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley (2022)

Remember This, directed by Jeff Hutchens and Derek Goldman (PBS Great Performances)

left-to-right: Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan, and John Abraham, Pathaan, Yash Raj Films

Pathaan, directed by Siddarth Anand (Amazon Prime Video)

Reggie, directed by Alexandria Stapleton (Amazon Prime Video)

Te Wheke, Atamira Dance Company, The Joyce Theater, March 29-April 2

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, The Joyce Theater, April 4-9

Next at The Kennedy Center: Ballet Hispánico’s Doña Perón, PBS, streaming April 14-May 12

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, directed by Laura Poitras, streaming on HBO Max

Trisha Brown Dance Company, The Joyce Theater, May 2-7

No Bears, directed by Jafar Panahi, streaming on The Criterion Channel

Author Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb in Turn Every Page

Jeremy Strong, at left, and Brian Cox in Succession

Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb, directed by Lizzie Gottlieb on Amazon Prime Video (2022)

John Mulaney: Baby J, directed by Alex Timbers, streaming on Netflix

Mother by Eiko Otake, Green-Wood Cemetery, May 7

Kazunori Kumagai: Tap Into The Light, Gibney, May 11-13

The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, directed by Linda Mendoza, streaming on Netflix

Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski (2022), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Cette maison, directed by Miryam Charles (2022), streaming on The Criterion Channel

DanceAfrica 2023: Golden Ghana: Adinkra, Ananse, and Abusua, BAM, Artistic Director Abdel R. Salaam, May 26-29

Succession, created by Jesse Armstrong, streaming on HBO Max

ear for eye, directed by debbie tucker green (2021), streaming on The Criterion Channel

SciGirls Stories: Black Women in STEM, directed by Adja Gildersleve, Maya Washington, and Bianca Rhodes, streaming on PBS, June 1-29

Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, directed by James House, streaming on PBS, June 2-30

Jury Duty, directed by Jake Szymanski, streaming on Amazon Prime Video

L-r: Jean Millington, June Darling, and June Millington of Fanny (photo: Marita Madeloni)

Fanny: The Right to Rock, directed by Bobbi Jo Hart, streaming on PBS, May 22-June 19

Assembly: Center for Dialogue and Exchange in the Arts, Danspace Project, June 9-10

Purple, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Lincoln Center's Summer for the City, June 9-25

Open Working Rehearsal, The Met Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin with Angel Blue and Russell Thomas, Carnegie Hall, June 22

Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Max)

The film Nimona, adapted from ND Stevenson's 2015 graphic novel

Vir Das: Landing, directed by Vir Das, streaming on Netflix

Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, streaming on Max

Call Me Kate, directed by Lorna Tucker, streaming on Netflix

Nimona, directed by Troy Quane and Nick Bruno, streaming on Netflix

Not My Enemy, directed by Kehinde Ishangi (2022), streaming on Vimeo

Authors Anita Kopacz (above) and Viola Davis

Shallow Waters by Anita Kopacz (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

Finding Me by Viola Davis (Harper Collins, 2022)

Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan

Kit Conner (left) and Joe Locke of Heartstopper

Heartstopper Season 2, streaming on Netflix

The Lincoln Lawyer, Seasons 1-2, streaming on Netflix

Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig (2023)

The Half-God of Rainfall, by Inua Ellams, directed by Taibi Magar, at New York Theatre Workshop, July 14-August 20

Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity, directed by Dorsay Alavi, streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India 200 BCE-400 CE., Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 21 -November 13

Pepón Osorio: My Beating Heart/ Mi corazón latiente, The New Museum, June 29-September 17

María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold, Brooklyn Museum, September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024

The Blue Caftan, directed by Miryam Touzani (2022), streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel

Lupin (Season 3), streaming on Netflix

David Byrne of Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense

Edisa Weeks in 3 Rites: Liberty

Stop Making Sense (Restored), directed by Jonathan Demme

3 Rites: Liberty, by Delirious Dances/Edisa Weeks, October 12-15

Silver Dollar Road, directed by Raoul Peck, streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Performer Ty Defoe

Author Héctor Tobar

Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Culture (starring Halluci Nation, Martha Redbone, and Ty Defoe), Next at The Kennedy Center, PBS

Deadloch, written by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Mythsd of "Latino," by Héctor Tobar (MCD Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023)

Nyad, directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, streaming on Netflix

The Bear (Season 2), streaming on Hulu

Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin in Rustin, streaming on Netflix

Stamped from the Beginning, directed by Roger Ross Williams, streaming on Netflix

Community of Parting, directed by Jane Jin Kaisen (2019), Vimeo

South to Black Power, directed by Sam Pollard and Llewellyn M. Smith (2023), Max

Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper (2023)

Danzantes del Alba, Teatro Línea de Sombra, NYU Skirball Center, December 3

Lesbian Poetic Traditions: Judy Grahn, Julie R. Enszer, JP Howard, and Alicia Mountain, Live from NYPL, December 6

Beyoncé

Park Eun-bin of Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Teo Yoo and Greta Lee of Past Lives

Renaissance, directed by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (2003)

Leave the World Behind, directed by Sam Esmail (2023), steaming on Netflix

She Said, directed by Maria Schrader (2022), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Julian (2022) and Moth (2023), films by Kate Weare and Jack Flame Sorokin

Past Lives, directed by Celine Song (2023), streaming on Amazon Prime Video

The Color Purple, directed by Blitz Bazawule (2023)

Extraordinary Attorney Woo, directed by Yoo In-shik, streaming on Netflix from 2022

Visible Mending, directed by Samantha Moore, The New York Times, Op-Docs. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/opinion/knitting-healing.html

American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson (2023)

Body and Soul: Rebecca Fitton: Rethinking fiscal sponsorship and equity

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 7 Nov 2023 09:19:00 -0500

Rebecca Fitton (photo: Sarah Annie Navarette)

Rebecca, a mixed-race Asian American person with messy short brown hair smiles. Their hands are in the pockets of a short-sleeve, navy corduroy jumpsuit.

In this episode of Body and Soul podcast, dance artist and administrator Rebecca Fitton (she/they) presents insights from her research into the ways current systems of fiscal sponsorship maintain the status quo of power and fail artists.

Listen to her Body and Soul episode via Spotify, and watch her film, Best Practices (2022).

Transcript of this episode

Rebecca Fitton is from many places and peoples. She nurtures community through movement, conversation, and food, strives to equally prioritize her multifaceted roles as an artist, administrator, and advocate. Fitton works as Co-Director/Director of Operations and Development for Bridge Live Arts and as the Director of Studio Rawls for artist Will Rawls. She has previously produced multi-disciplinary works for J. Bouey, zavé martohardjono, and FAILSPACE. From 2017-2021, she worked with DELIRIOUS Dances/Edisa Weeks to coordinate community gatherings focused on abolition movements. She was a Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee member from 2018-2020 and participated in Dance/USA’s Institute for Leadership Training in 2021. Their writing has been published by Triskelion Arts, Emergency Index, In Dance, The Dancer-Citizen, Etudes, Critical Correspondence, and Dance Research Journal. They hold a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an MA in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin. rebeccafittonprojects.com

Body and Soul: Vicky Shick: The refuge we take in trust

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Mon, 9 Oct 2023 19:03:00 -0400

Vicky Shick (photo: Alan Mandell)

Describing this photo, Vicky Shick writes:

I am sitting on a gray bench with a bunch of green leaves behind me. My hair is loosely piled.on top of my head. I am wearing a dark gray sweater - a light green collar is sticking out and around my neck is a colorful gray, red and pink scarf.

In this episode of Body and Soul podcast, the respected, award-winning artist and educator Vicky Shick discusses the challenge and "universal necessity" of trust in a time of widespread distrust and anxiety. As an artist, she sources trust in "the innate intelligence in our bodies" and "in the vulnerable practice of creation."

Listen to Vicky's episode here. And scroll down to learn more about her work!

Vicky Shick has been involved in the New York dance community for four decades--teaching, performing, and making pieces. She feels grateful to all the incredible people with whom she has worked. She was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and staged several of Brown’s dances, including in her hometown, Budapest. Previously, she was a member of the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble. Vicky has developed student pieces at Barnard, The New School and Yale, among other institutions. Her last two works were at Arts on Site, and a collaborative performance at Roulette with choreographer/artist Jon Kinzel. In New York City, she teaches at Movement Research, for the Trisha Brown Dance Company and has taught for 15 years at Hunter College. She was a Movement Research Artist-in-Residence (twice), a Bessie recipient (twice), a grant recipient from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a Gibney DiP grantee, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

BODY AND SOUL: Heather Robles: Reclaiming aliveness

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 8 Oct 2023 15:31:00 -0400

Heather Robles (photo: AK47 Division)

In this headshot of Heather, she smiles while facing the camera, her brown hair pulled back in a bun, while wearing red lipstick, red dangly earrings, and a black suit jacket with white shirt underneath.

Heather Robles gently beckons us out of the numbness we might have slipped into as the world feels so hard right now. What do we desire and how can desire and curiosity awaken and guide us forward towards joy?

You'll notice this episode has no background music. I didn't need or want that sound to cover Frijolito's snoring!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

Heather Robles (photo: by Keith A Manning)

Black and white photo shows Heather in a full body position back arched up, arms above head and hands furled like a plant about to unfold, her legs standing with one knee bent and foot forced arch. She is in front of a window with city lights showing through, the floor wooden. She is wearing a long asymmetrical sleeveless top and black leggings while barefoot.

Heather Robles is a nondisabled queer Latinx cis woman of Indigenous Mexican descent who lives on the stolen land of the Lenape and Canarsie peoples in what is colonially called Brooklyn. She is Founder and Artistic Executive Director of Alma Dance Company. As a choreographer and performer, she has worked with many artists including Yvonne Rainer, Sidra Bell, Pavel Zuštiak, Nathan Trice, DANCENOISE, André M. Zachery, Buglisi Dance Theater, Fredrick Earl Mosley, Suzzanne Ponomarenko Dance, The Equus Projects. She is also the Executive Director of the New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies, and a certified birth doula at Our Birth Doula. Heather is also a dance educator, teaching artist, producer, and advocate for mental health in the dance field. https://www.almadanceco.com

Congratulations to the Bessies organization and this year's winners!

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 6 Aug 2023 05:16:00 -0400

j. bouey in A Message from Mx. Black Cooper (photo: Rachel Keane)

The New York Dance and Performance Awards, the Bessies, tonight announced the 2023 award recipients at the 39th Bessie Awards Ceremony. The Illustrious Blacks hosted this year’s celebratory event, which was held at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park as part of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City. A complete list of the 2023 awards follows below.

Bessie Awards were presented to artists for outstanding choreographer/creator, performer, sound design/music composition, visual design, outstanding revival, and breakout choreographer—an award that honors an artist who has made an exceptional leap in their career this past year. All of the awardees and nominated artists in these categories received a $500 honorarium, courtesy of a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Renowned dancer, singer, and actor Dionne Figgins presented Virginia Johnson with the 2023 Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance. Artists and dance advocates Porshia A. Derival and Ms Vee presented Michele Byrd-McPhee with the 2023 Award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance. Other presenters included Tyler Ashley, Clifton Brown, George Faison, Erin Fogerty, Dyane Harvey Salaam, Karisma Jay, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Abdel Salaam, and Paz Tanjuaquio.

Barkha Patel was honored with the 2023 Juried Bessie Award, selected by the 2023 Bessie Jury luciana achugar, Ayodele Casel, and Kyle Marshall. The Juried Award recognizes a choreographer who exhibits some of the most interesting and exciting ideas in dance in New York City today, and whose work deserves to be seen more outside the city. The award comes with touring support and other engagement opportunities from New York State DanceForce.

The ceremony also included special remarks from Vicky Capote of Dance/NYC, Alton Murray, Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Lucy Sexton, Executive Director, New Yorkers for Culture and Arts, and Bessies Executive Director Heather Robles.

The ceremony included an audience participation dance tribute to O’Shae Sibley. Dance Theatre of Harlem performed Orange, a duet by Stanton Welch, in honor of Virginia Johnson. Fredrick Earl Mosley’s Unbroken, performed by his company Diversity of Dance was also presented, along with an excerpt from Princess Lockeroo’s The Fabulous Waack Dancers Big Show, and Afro-Acro, performed by AbunDancers Youth Ensemble.

The Bessies also honored members of the dance community who died this past year. The moving In Memoriam was presented by dancers Mireicy Aquino and Jhailyn Farcon.

The celebration continued at the Bessies Silent Disco After-Party with DJ Sabine Blaizin on Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza.

The 2023 Bessie Awards Ceremony was produced by Torya Beard and Heather Robles.

THE 2023 NEW YORK DANCE AND PERFORMANCE AWARD RECIPIENTS AND CITATIONS:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE AWARD

Virginia Johnson

For inspiring audiences for 28 years with dynamic performances as a founding member and principal dancer of Dance Theatre of Harlem. For her tenure as Artistic Director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, continuing the company’s legacy of innovation and excellence, while expanding its reach and impact through collaborations with other organizations. For founding Pointe Magazine, and serving as editor-in-chief for nearly a decade. For editorial vision, bringing diverse voices and perspectives to the forefront of the dance community. For a lifelong commitment to the arts, and a career of significant contributions to the world of dance as a celebrated dancer, editor, and artistic director.

OUTSTANDING SERVICE TO THE FIELD OF DANCE AWARD

Michele Byrd-McPhee

For being an incredible force in the global dance community, especially as an advocate for young girls and women in hip-hop. As the Founder and Executive Director of Ladies of Hip-Hop, Byrd-McPhee has worked for decades to recontextualize spaces and conversations about hip-hop along gender, cultural, socio-historical, and racial lines. Her vision for women of all generations in hip-hop has created opportunities for them to perform on concert dance stages, teach in the most prestigious dance institutions, and create incredible opportunities for themselves within hip-hop’s legacy.

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHER/CREATOR

LaTasha Barnes

LaTasha Barnes presents The Jazz Continuum at The Joyce Theater

A joyous celebration of jazz dance throughout history, Barnes flexes the imposed proscenium setting to engage a communal experience, demonstrating community as the center of this form. An offering of (re)embodiment to the audience, this work showcases seamless transitions between styles, demonstrating technical mastery from the cast and deep creativity and thoughtfulness from its creator.

Dormeshia

Dormeshia Tap Collective: Rhythm Is Life at The Joyce Theater

For crafting stellar interplay between movement, sound, performer, and improvisation. Deeply human, rooted in tradition and joy, Dormeshia shows us where tap dance has been, where it is, and where it is going.

Benjamin Akio Kimitch

Tiger Hands at The Shed

For a beautiful work with an extraordinarily sensitive exploration of personal and cultural identity. The work creates an entirely new movement vocabulary that holds resonant memories of traditional Peking opera dance forms, and is embedded with shimmering novelty in tribute to a beloved mother.

Omari Wiles

New York Is Burning at Works & Process at The Guggenheim

For a beautiful representation of intergenerational Black experiences that pays homage to the dancers and artists from the classic documentary Paris Is Burning. This work is a gorgeously joyous, queer collection of dance and music stories. As a timeless tribute, it highlights the Afro Dance, House, Vogue, and Ballroom communities, their current cultural relevance, and prioritizes the diversity of dancers’ bodies, bringing out the power within Black dance and music.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMER

j. bouey

In A Message from Mx. Black Copper by j. bouey at Movement Research at the Judson Church

For an exhilarating performance embodying Black joy. This work is an exploration of emotion and movement that evokes love, trauma, honesty, and progression. The performance was thoughtful, unapologetic, and celebratory of life, self, and ancestry.

Amanda Castro

In Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic by Ayodele Casel at The Joyce Theater

Castro’s performance capacity and arresting stage presence offer playfulness, dynamism, and mastery, particularly in the connection between percussionist and dancer. Her clear delineation in performance teaches the audience about Afro-Latin influences and intrinsic tap rhythms, with a demonstrated fluency in many styles.

Joyce Edwards

In Grace, The Equality of Night and Day and Open Door by Ronald K. Brown at The Joyce Theater

For bringing presence and identity into an exquisite embodiment of Ronald K. Brown’s work. Edwards exudes irrefutable strength, depth, warmth, reverence, conviction, and connection.

Albert Silindokuhle Ibokwe Khoza

In And so you see… our honorable blue sky and ever enduring sun… can only be consumed slice by slice… by Robyn Orlin at New York Live Arts

A uniquely bombastic, outrageous, and gorgeous performance that transcends genres, this is an unforgettably commanding performance that reveals deeper truths.

OUTSTANDING REVIVAL

In The Upper Room (1986/2022)

By Twyla Tharp at New York City Center

For a masterfully crafted and timeless work of dance art. In the Upper Room synthesizes choreography, costumes, music, and lighting into a transcendent experience for both audience and performers. The compelling score intersects with the bold choreography, creating an experience of raw power and grace.

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN/ MUSIC COMPOSITION

Charles Turner and Sean Mason

For LaTasha Barnes presents The Jazz Continuum by LaTasha Barnes at The Joyce Theater

For a New York City sonic dream of musical arrangement that pays tribute to the eras of Black music from authentic jazz to hip-hop classics. The audience is brilliantly taken on a rollercoaster of musical nostalgia that makes one want to cry, dance, and move with joy! From the piano keys to the DJ turntables, and from the jazz clubs of Harlem to the playgrounds of Brooklyn, the arrangement is a true delight showing the magic of The Jazz Continuum.

OUTSTANDING VISUAL DESIGN

Tina Tzoka & Loukas Bakas (Set Design), Stephanos Droussiotis (Lighting Design), Nektarios Dionysatos (Sculptures and Special Constructions), Dimitris Korres (Mechanical Inventions)

For Transverse Orientation by Dimitris Papaioannou at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

For a team of designers who create scenes beyond what people might think is possible, and leave them gasping in awe. The team is the ‘David Copperfield’ of the field, possessing wide imaginative abilities that create the magic and make-believe of the theater.

OUTSTANDING BREAKOUT CHOREOGRAPHER

Symara Johnson

For deeply personal and profoundly joyful movement research with a choreographic practice based in American and West Indian heritage. For merging movement practices with rigorous archival research which calls for being in the present moment. For a creation of space within this practice for engagement of many ideas generated on the spot, and the ability to move between them with abandonment.

2023 JURIED BESSIE AWARD

Barkha Patel

For elegantly and magnificently creating, educating, and sharing work that elevates classical Indian and Kathak dance. Patel is deeply rooted in her art form’s spiritual and cultural history and is a contemporary voice who will contribute to the evolution of Kathak dance and its place in the dance world at large.

ABOUT THE BESSIES

The New York Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work in the dance field in New York City for 39 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schönberg, the awards were established in 1984 by David R. White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize choreography, performance, music composition, visual design, legacy, and service to the field of dance by independent dance artists and organizations. Nominees are chosen by a selection committee composed of artists, presenters, producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the Bessies Membership and participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. For more information about The Bessies, visit www.bessies.org.

The 2022–2023 Bessie Awards Selection Committee: Tyler Ashley, Elizabeth Burke, Tymberly Canale, Yoshiko Chuma, Donna Costello, Porshia A. Derival, Tiffany Geigel, Valerie Green, Satsu Holmes, William Isaac, Anabella Lenzu, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Shalewa Mackall, Yoko Murakami, Ivan Talijančić, and Kate Thomas.

The Bessies Steering Committee: Paz Tanjuaquio (chair), Yvonne H. Chow, Stanford Makishi, maura nguyễn donohue, Nicky Paraiso, Craig Peterson, Tiffany Rea-Fisher, george emilio sanchez, and Charmaine Warren.

BODY AND SOUL: Stephan Koplowitz: History in place

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 15:14:00 -0400

Stephan Koplowitz (photo: Lynn Lane)

Award-winning choreographer and writer Stephan Koplowitz discusses the importance of thorough research into the history of a place--and knowledge of one's own relationship to history--in the making of site-specific performance. He describes site work as disruptive and all performance as political.

Listen to Stephan's episode of Body and Soul podcast here. And scroll down to learn more about his own history and work!

Occupy by Stephan Koplowitz (photo: George Simian)

Mill Town by Stephan Koplowitz (photo: Jonathan Hsu)

Stephan Koplowitz is an award-winning artist/educator who creates site-specific and staged
dance performances, interactive media installations, and short films. His site performances aim
to alter people’s perspectives of place, site, and scale, infused with a sense of the human
condition, and concerned with the intersection of natural, social, and cultural ecologies within
urban and natural environments. His productions have been produced by performing arts
venues domestically and abroad having created 93 works (66 commissions) in the US, Europe,
and Asia. He received a 2017 Rockefeller Bellagio Fellowship, a 2004 Alpert Award, a 2003
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2000 “Bessie,” and 6 NEA Choreography Fellowships (1988-97). He
was named a Distinguished Alumni by Wesleyan University (BA in Music Composition) and the
University of Utah (MFA, Choreography). In April 2022, Oxford University Press published his
critically praised book On Site: Methods for Creating Site-Specific Performance. Koplowitz lives
in New York City. https://www.stephankoplowitz.com

BODY AND SOUL: Thomas Ford: For love of Black queer identity

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 05:23:00 -0400

Thomas Ford (photo: Angelo Soriano)

A person with brown skin wears a gray cap and a gray sleeveless shirt tucked into black athletic pants. His torso bends to the side, and ears hang over his shoulder in the same direction. The fingers of his right hand gently reach to the camera, while his knees bend and legs spread in a wide position.

In today's episode of Body and Soul podcast, dance artist and writer Thomas Ford reflects on his research into the violent colonial history at the root of homophobia in Black families and community.

Listen to Ford's talk here.

Thomas Ford is a dance artist, writer and scholar whose research examines the mechanisms of identity and culture through an exploration of embodiment, choreography, and Black, queer, critical and performance studies. https://www.thomasfordnyc.com/

BODY AND SOUL: Kate Mattingly: Troubling the silence

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 8 Jun 2023 13:53:00 -0400


Kate Mattingly

Above: a white woman's face with curly, honey-colored hair, smiling and tilting her head slightly left. No photographer credit. Courtesy of Kate Mattingly.

This Spring, author Kate Mattingly published Shaping Dance Canons: Criticism, Aesthetics, Equity, an analysis of many decades of dance criticism in the US (University of Florida Press). As a white woman, she accepts responsibility to speak out about white supremacy. In her talk today, she shares thoughts on how white supremacy has historically defined and dominated dance criticism and continues to silence women in academia.

Dr. Mattingly has written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Dance Magazine, and Pointe Magazine and is associate editor of Dance Chronicle. She is assistant professor of dance at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Listen to Dr. Mattingly's talk on Body and Soul podcast here.

Below: two dancers, a Black man and white woman, seen in profile, with his right hand holding her right hand as she leans away from his body. He stands firmly in a deep lunge while she leans into her left hip. Image of Troy Blackwell and Kate Mattingly from a workshop staging of William Forsythe's Steptext at New York University. (Photo: Peter A. Smith)

Kate Mattingly (she/her) focuses on fostering equity in dance education. As an assistant professor at Old Dominion University, she teaches ballet, dance histories, teaching principles, dance studies, and graduate research methods. Her book, Shaping Dance Canons, interrogates how critics have foreclosed opportunities for certain artists and dance forms while generating validity for others, thereby contributing to a racialized dance canon. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Dance and Pointe magazines, The Washington Post, and academic journals. She has a forthcoming anthology, called Antiracism in Ballet Teaching, that will be published by Routledge. Kate’s undergraduate degree in Architecture is from Princeton University, her MFA degree in Dance is from NYU, and her doctoral degree in Performance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in New Media is from University of California, Berkeley.

Shaping Dance Canons: Criticism, Aesthetics, Equity (University of Florida Press, 2023)
Dance Chronicle, Executive Editor
Special Issue: "Interrogating Histories and Historicizing Dance Studies"

BODY AND SOUL: Italy Bianca: Pleasure Within

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 30 May 2023 12:40:00 -0400

Italy Bianca (photo: Ashanti Hinton)

A brown-skinned woman with locs wearing a black,orange, and green halter top on the left side of the frame. Behind, a white background.

Photo: Aesam Sharafaldin

A brown-skinned woman with locs down to her waist and wearing a silver long necklace with two silver bracelets. Eyes closed and right arm on top of the left. Behind, a black background.

"My life is a dance," says dancer-healer-teacher Italy Bianca, "How am I going to stage it, each and every day?" Body and soul are connected, she knows from personal experience of trauma, healing, and creativity. In this talk to inspire other artists, teachers, caregivers, and anyone, Italy invokes what she has learned through modalities such as massage, acupuncture, herbalism, spiritual practice, and the use of sensory deprivation tanks.

Listen to her episode of Body and Soul podcast here!

Photo: Ernesto Mancebo

A brown-skinned woman with locs in a black dress leaning against a black cloth. The body is leaning towards the right with legs in a squat-like position. Arms are reaching out to the left side.

Italy Bianca is a sacred multimedia artist and herbalist who seeks to serve and enlighten the collective. From South Carolina and based in Brooklyn, NY, Italy believes that dancing leads to the transformation and healing of our personal and collective traumas; and aspires to offer the gift of transformational healing through community art. Her work focuses on creating work that portrays the rawest layers of human experience in collaboration with other local dancers and musicians. She has collaborated with various NYC dancers and companies such as Aeternus Dance Company, Asha Dance Company, Fiyah Dancehall Theatre, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, and Marguerite Hemmings. In 2017, Italy was nominated for a Bessie Award in the Outstanding Performer c, and Chategory and appeared in Crystal Water's I am House video in 2018. Italy received a B.A. in Dance Education, Performance and choreography from Coker University and trained at the Joffrey Ballet School in their Jazz and Contemporary Dance program. https://www.italybianca.com/

BODY AND SOUL: Catherine Kirk: an artist of many measures

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 06:12:00 -0400

Catherine Kirk (photo: Carrie Schneider)

A brown-skin Black woman, facing her right looking out straight ahead. She has a shaved head and is in front of a Black backdrop.

At left, Catherine Kirk; at right, Tamisha A. Guy in the duet MotorRover (photo: Whitney Browne)

from MotorRover, a new work by Kyle Abraham in collaboration with A.I.M, here showing two Black female dancers. The dancer on the left has a shaved head and is standing upright with her hand on her chest looking to her right, wearing olive colored pants and top. The dancer on the right wears dark gray, descends to the ground with her right hand outstretched, and looks down to her right.

Like her bestie Tamisha Guy, who spoke in our previous episode, Dallas native Catherine Kirk is a ten-year veteran of A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and a thrilling performer. Kirk describes herself as "an artist of many measures," one fascinated by stories and questions of "why humans are the way we are."

Listen to Catherine Kirk's episode on Body and Soul podcast here.

Catherine Kirk in If We Were A Love Song (photo: Christopher Duggan)

A Black woman wearing a dark gray dress. Body facing left with her arm reaching on a downward diagonal and her leg outstretched.

Catherine Kirk (she/her) was born on the unceded land of the Kiickaapoi and Wichita peoples, now called Dallas, Texas. She began formally studying dance at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts before graduating from New York University, Tisch School of Dance. A multi-hyphenate, Catherine is also a dance maker, marketing strategist, arts administrator, dance educator, and yoga teacher. Kirk has completed seasonal programs with San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, Movement Invention Project, and Springboard Danse Montreal, where she performed work by Fernando Melo, Ohad Naharin, and Sharon Eyal. Upon graduating, Catherine apprenticed for Sidra Bell Dance NY before collaborating and performing with Danakah Dance, UNA Productions, Burr Johnson, Jasmine Hearn, and Helen Simoneau Danse. She is thrilled to be working as A.I.M’s Marketing Associate and performing with the company. Catherine joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2013.

For more information on A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, click here.

BODY AND SOUL: Tamisha A. Guy: Bring it back home

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 06:11:00 -0400

Tamisha A. Guy (photo: Carrie Schneider)

A brown-skin Black woman looks over her left shoulder and directly at the camera. Her hair is out in an afro style, she has a soft gaze, half smile, and sits in front of a black backdrop.

Tamisha A. Guy in Bebe Miller's Rain (photo: Christopher Duggan)

A Black woman wearing a bright red dress and tights, facing left in a bow with her arms outstretched as they flick one leg into the air aiming to connect both knees.

Caribbean-born dancer Tamisha A. Guy celebrates her tenth year with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham--the New York-based, award-winning troupe which recently completed a triumphant spring season at The Joyce Theater. Acknowledging a time of deep contemplation and yearning for home, Guy speaks of her own fervent aim--to perform live for her family and community in Trinidad.

Listen to Tamisha A. Guy on Body and Soul podcast here.

At left, Catherine Kirk; at right, Tamisha A. Guy in the duet MotorRover (photo: Whitney Browne)

Tamisha A. Guy (she/her), a native of Trinidad and Tobago, began her formal dance training at Ballet Tech, under the direction of Eliot Feld. Later she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and SUNY Purchase College as a double major in dance and arts management. She has completed summer programs with Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Springboard Danse Montreal and has performed works by William Forsythe, Pam Tanowitz, and Mark Morris. In 2013, Guy graduated with honors from SUNY Purchase College and joined the Martha Graham Dance Company shortly after. In 2016, Guy was selected as one of Dance Magazine's Top 25 to Watch and she also received the 2016 Princess Grace Award. In 2017, she was named one of the Best Dancers of the Year by Dance Europe. In 2021, she was awarded the 2022 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Dance which recognizes foreign-born scientists and artists in the United States. Tamisha joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2014.

For more information on A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, click here.

Harry Belafonte: Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 2014

hummingwitch@gmail.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:09:00 -0400

https://youtu.be/Yfj6Ja86lCs