Through inspiring keynote presentations, artist talks, and interactive discussions, this conference explores the dynamic relationship between dance and political activism, with a particular focus on disability, race, gender, and class.
The creators of After, There Will Be Flowers want to shift the narratives of intimate partner violence from perpetration to healing. Lizzie Rajchel, the project’s co-creator, describes some of the dramaturgical and practical moves the production made to center healing and care.
Fifty Boxes of Earth at Theater Mu was a maximalist play that combined Western and South Asian theatrical styles, choreography, and puppetry. Lianna Matt McLernon and playwright Ankita Raturi talk about the show’s collective approach and how it was created to be reproduced for any specific community.
The solo dance theatre piece LOAM adopts the balance, duration, and repetition of soil. Cara Hagan details the research questions and generative processes that she used to shape LOAM—and her own life.
Host Tjaša Ferme has a lighthearted chat with director, choreographer, and filmmaker Mary John Frank about the climate, virtual reality (VR) musicals, why VR works better in “one take,” and how and why to make theatre in VR at all.
Interdisciplinary artists and producers Jennie Hahn and Sharon Mansur are connecting performance and community through their work in Indigenous-settler relations and Arab American artist communities, respectively. In this MicroCosmos encounter, they consider the practices and experiments at the heart of their work.
Sandbox-style immersive theatre productions like Sleep No More and Life and Trust present unique challenges to providing accessibility measures for audience members, but it is possible and necessary to prioritize access in these spaces. Allie Marotta assesses current access practices in these productions and recommends targeted improvements.
There are so many cool Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) performance artists out there! Since this performance art season only had ten episodes to talk to artists directly, this last episode wraps up the season and goes through a whole bunch of other contemporary artists that hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson are excited about.
Exploring Sustainability of Artistic Practice in the Field of Contemporary Dance
Thursday 21 November 2024
France
The International Contemporary Dance Collective (iCoDaCo) 2024-2027 series of online conferences will explore, throughout the four-year project, what sustainability means in the context of artistic practice—considering everything from time management and self-care to navigating political and social pressures, from the environmental disaster to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution.
Access dramaturgy is a practice of integrating access creatively and collaboratively in performance from the earliest moments of the creative process. Access dramaturg Alison Kopit, in collaboration with Ann Marie Dorr and Maggie Bridger, introduces the transformative practice of access dramaturgy as implemented in Radiate and Dark Disabled Stories.
Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Khansa shares his artistic journey, blending traditional Middle Eastern music with modern avant-pop, and offers a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process. This episode delves deep into the power of art as a medium for cultural fusion and storytelling.
Eseovwe Emakunu and Anita Anoma of Shanty Theatre recently launched a campaign that brought together primary school performers and university audiences for a dance drama performance about climate change. They discuss the creative process and impact of this performance project, which catalyzed action and learning about the impact of climate change and deforestation in Nigeria.
In this dispatch from the third day of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) Tenth Anniversary Convening, Olga Sanchez Saltveit reflects on conversations about the LTC’s future, as well as the art, community, and celebration threaded through the convening’s closing ceremonies.
LaJuné shares about the inception of Black Movement Library: a database of motion capture data from Black folks they created, while seeking to avoid the paradigms of erasure, extraction, and exploitation of Black bodies. In their work, they encourage freedom and personal expression over correct data capture. They believe none of us are just numbers, and to treat our movements in our bodies as just data sets is very harmful.
Part of Great Jones Rep's Humanismo: Ancient Futures Series.
Sunday 28 January 2024
United States
This work continued a company June 2020 online workshop performance with Safer. GJR members were joined by guest performer Marcus McGregor to explore Greek tragedies, post apocalyptic possibilities, how awful people are, and how awesome it can be to exist on the planet.
Villa Albertine presented the professional symposium Reciprocities: Making and Supporting Dance between France and the United States which livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network. This two-day event features artists' dialogues as well as roundtables with experts on topics such as choreographing residencies, pedagogy as performance, acts of transmission, and curatorial ecologies.
Eseovwe Emakunu and Dennis U. Obire, co-founders of the Shanty Theatre, chronicle their work in the Adagbabiri Community in Bayelsa State, which is one of the most educationally deprived states in Nigeria. Using a theatre for development model, the group worked with local children to create a performance that demonstrated the importance of education in the social development of a community and nation.
Second Hand Dance embarked upon research on support for artists with access needs after artistic director Rosie Heafford had to pull out of a festival that did not provide sufficient accommodations for her invisible disability. She shares takeaways from that research in the form of actionable steps that festivals, showcases, and industry events can implement.
An Evening with Russian Actor and Director of Theatre and Cinema Alexander Molochnikov
Monday 24 April 2023
New York City
In 2021, the world premiere of the ballet The Seagull: Interrupted Flight staged by Molochnikov took place on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow—a ballet interpretation of Chekhov’s play, presented in the program at the Golden Mask in 2022. While in exile in New York, Molochnikov is aiming to present the The Seagull: Interrupted Flight. Due to the political situation Molochnikov is no longer able to work in Russia. He will present, with New York actors, excerpts from his ongoing workshop, followed by a discussion.
Jeffrey Mosser connects with Willa Jo Zollar, who is founder, chief visioning partner, and MacArthur Genius at Urban Bush Women. Together they talk about touring, the festival circuit, and strategy necessary to sustain a company for thirty years.
Robert Magasa is an experienced dancer, choreographer, and actor who trained in Zimbabwe and now runs UjeNi Dance Ensemble Theatre in Malawi. In this interview, Magasa discusses his career, the economics of producing theatre in Malawi, and his current work to bring a combination of traditional and Afro contemporary dance to schoolchildren in Malawi.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club presents Posaka with Kinding Sindaw livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 22 October 2022 at 1 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
In this episode, co-hosts Bíborka and Zsófi are joined by visual and performance artist and environmental activist, Éva Bubla; dancer, choreographer, researcher, and founder of the performance research group SVUNG, Kinga Szemessy; and culture manager, event organizer, curator, founder of the PLACCC Festival, and the Hungarian liaison for the IN SITU Network, Fanni Nánay. Drawing from their individual experiences, they discuss the current climate crisis and how different artists engage with this complex issue.
In this week’s episode, hosts Bíborka and Zsófi focus on different abilities and handicapped people in the performing arts. Translating their guests’ responses into English, the co-hosts sit down with independent theatremaker, poet, and dramaturg Ádám Fekete; and the core members of the ArtMan Association, Dorka Farkas, Kata Kopeczny, and Ferenc Kálmán, who work with integrated dance and movement practices to produce amazing contemporary dance shows.
