Body and Soul
By Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Body and SoulFeb 19, 2023
Katrina Reid: Mercury Rx--Review, Redo, Renewal
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.
For more, visit Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog here.
Petra Kuppers: How to go on a crip drift
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.
https://wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814351116/diver-beneath-the-street/
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/eco-soma
More on Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog here.
Daniel Phoenix Singh: True change from the roots
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/
For more, visit Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog here.
Alexandra Beller: Mindful recuperation
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 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.alexandrabellerrdances.org
For more, visit Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog here.
Valencia James: Dancing ancestry
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/
See Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog for more.
Melanie George: The art of returning
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
See more about Melanie George at Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog: https://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2024/03/body-and-soul-melanie-george-art-of.html
Bhumi B Patel: This world needs queerness
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
See more about Bhumi B Patel at Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog: https://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2024/03/body-and-soul-bhumi-b-patel-this-world.html
Olaiya Olayemi: Alive in All Senses
We welcome artist/educator olaiya olayemi who shares her view that resisting grind culture and living a sustainable life necessitates time for rest, play, and pleasure.
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.
Learn more about olaiya olayemi at: ww.pillowtalkwithaplaygurrrl.com
And visit Eva Yaa Asantewaa's InfiniteBody blog here.
Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure (Part Two)
In Part Two of Mythologies of Erasure, we continue our 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 stories a society or community tells about itself too often promote marginalization and erasure of history.
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.
For more about Dr. Mercer, also visit InfiniteBody blog. Click here.
Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure (Part One)
Next, 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 stories a society or community tells about itself too often promote marginalization and erasure of history.
This episode is Part 1 of Dr. Mercer's talk and will be followed by Part 2 in our next episode.
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.
For more about Dr. Mercer, also visit InfiniteBody blog. Click here.
Rebecca Fitton: Rethinking fiscal sponsorship and equity
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.
Watch Fitton's 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
Vicky Shick: The refuge we take in trust
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."
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.
Heather Robles: Reclaiming aliveness
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!
******
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
Stephan Koplowitz: History in place
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.
Learn more about Stephan's own history and his work on InfiniteBody blog here.
Thomas Ford: For love of Black queer identity
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. In today's episode, Ford reflects on the violent colonial history at the root of homophobia in Black families and community. https://www.thomasfordnyc.com/
Visit InfiniteBody blog.
Kate Mattingly: Troubling the silence
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 on 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.
Learn more about Dr. Mattingly on InfiniteBody blog here.
Italy Bianca: Pleasure Within
"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 here and also learn more about Italy Bianca on InfiniteBody blog.
Catherine Kirk: an artist of many measures
Like her bestie Tamisha A. 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."
Learn more about Catherine Kirk on InfiniteBody blog here.
Learn more about A.I.M by Kyle Abraham here.
Tamisha A. Guy: Bring it back home
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.
Learn more about Tamisha A. Guy on InfiniteBody blog here.
Learn more about A.I.M by Kyle Abraham here.
Dr. Iquail Shaheed: Blackness. Social justice. Joy.
My guest, Dr. Iquail Shaheed, Artistic Director of Philadelphia-based DANCE IQUAIL!, sits in to talk about his desire to reflect the "three pillars of creating a new world" and how working with incarcerated populations has led to his new work, Public Enemy.
Learn more about Dr. Shaheed on InfiniteBody blog here and at http://www.danceiquail.org/.
Ricarrdo Valentine: Rest for freedom
During the pandemic, dance artist and photographer Ricarrdo Valentine continued to work towards a graduate degree in Dance, keenly aware of academia's toll on body, mind, and spirit. Influenced by healing philosophies, such as the famed Nap Ministry of Tricia Hersey, Valentine shares what he has learned about self-compassion and rest, critical tools of liberation from capitalism and grind culture.
To learn more about Ricarddo Valentine, visit InfiniteBody blog here.
Also visit www.ricarrdovalentine.com and www.bhooddance.com.
Samar Haddad King: on time
US-raised Palestinian artist Samar Haddad King (Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre) ruminates on what pregnancy, birth, and raising her daughter have taught her about time.
Learn more about Samar Haddad King on InfiniteBody blog here. And read The New York Times' review of the Spring 2022 Gibney presentation of YSDT's Last Ward here.
Megan Curet: in collective rhythm
In her work with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba traditions and contemporary dance, Megan Curet considers the relationship between movement, sound, and decolonization within communal practice in Black diaspora. She says, "I wanted to be a part of the conversation that shakes up the body, that shakes up the way we think, and I believe no other approach does so better than the act of moving, the act of repeating movement, and that act of coming into space together."
Listen to Megan Curet's Body and Soul episode here, and learn more about her on InfiniteBody blog here.
Elena Demyanenko: The art of disobedience
Russian-born dance artist and educator Elena Demyanenko traveled from her adopted home in New York to Berlin to support the growing community of artists fleeing Russia's devastating war on Ukraine. In this moving talk, Demyanenko reflects on questions for herself and other artists making work in times of war, propaganda, censorship, and courageous disobedience.
Learn more about Elena Demyanenko on InfiniteBody blog here.
Cory Nakasue: embracing complexity
Cory Nakasue sees complexity all around us and within us--from the cosmic realm above to the most intimate spaces below here on planet Earth. Self-described as "a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video," Nakasue likely inhabits far more than even those multiple identities and roles. In this talk for Body and Soul, she shares thoughts about how our tendency to avoid complexity denies us the pleasure of engaging with what's real.
Read more about Cory Nakasue on InfiniteBody blog here.
george emilio sanchez: Information is medicine
My guest today, george emilio sanchez, is a passionate and critical voice for our times. A skilled artist and activist, he brings a gift for blending factual historical and cultural knowledge, lived experience, and creative storytelling in solo performances that inform, captivate, and challenge audiences. In this episode of Body and Soul, sanchez discusses a 19th-century Supreme Court ruling that violated indigenous tribal sovereignty; In the Court of the Conqueror, a performance in collaboration with visual artist Patty Ortiz; and The Shed's great exhibition on Brazil's indigenous Yanomami people.
To learn more about sanchez, visit InfiniteBody blog here.
Please forgive the abrupt ending of this episode! Details I edited out--concerning The Yanomami Struggle exhibition at The Shed, a New York City arts space--can be found at https://theshed.org/program/262-the-yanomami-struggle. The exhibition runs through Sunday, April 16, and I do highly recommend it.
https://www.georgeemiliosanchez.com/
Stephanie Skura: intention and surrender
Bessie Award-winning Stephanie Skura is widely noted not only for her long career as a performer, maker, and teacher of post-modern dance but for being a magical catalyst for other artists' creativity. In today's talk, she shares how her imaginative practice, called scores, opens up liberating possibilities. For Skura, dance is a path to consciousness; a method to access the balancing, healing capacity of intuition; a way to play her role in repairing the world.
Listen here, and learn more about Stephanie Skura on InfiniteBody blog here.
Daphne Lee: Prepare for touring. Prepare for leadership.
Ballet dancer Daphne Lee, currently with world-renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem, has learned much about the joys and rigors of touring. In this talk, she shares her observations, concerns, and tips for young performers and challenges the dance field to consider how it develops new leaders.
Listen here and learn more about Daphne Lee on InfiniteBody blog here.
Judith Sánchez Ruíz: no better time than now
Initially trained in dance in her native Cuba, Judith Sánchez Ruíz has enjoyed an illustrious international career that includes performing for one of the towering figures of post-modern dance, Trisha Brown, who died in 2017. Fans of both Sánchez and Brown rejoiced last year when the Trisha Brown Dance Company named Sánchez as the troupe's first commissioned guest choreographer.
I was honored when Sánchez agreed to take time out from her whirlwind schedule--we're talking about zipping from Hong Kong to Münster to Brooklyn to Switzerland!--to record this wonderful talk for Body and Soul podcast!
Listen here and visit InfiniteBody blog (here) to learn more about Judith Sánchez Ruíz!
Travis Knights: making sound on Mars
As Canadian tap dancer and podcaster Travis Knights recorded this episode, he used a great word to describe one of his beloved colleagues, and I, in turn, will choose the same word to describe Knights's performing--impeccable. I first learned of Travis through another tap artist you've heard on this podcast--Lisa La Touche--and, coincidentally, I later met Travis and shared space with him in a discussion on the state of tap today. And, yeah, maybe there are no coincidences!
I'm never sure how these Body and Soul podcast talks will turn out, but I've come to believe in their emergent magic, all so unique. Learning more about the charming--and very frank--Travis Knights did my heart good, and I hope you'll enjoy his talk, too.
Visit InfiniteBody blog for more about Travis Knights. Click here.
Brinda Guha: Melting down the wall
"As the original nomads knew, I needed to affirm, accept, and embrace the idea that home is where our bodies already are and that migrating to new homes is a human right."
Journey along with Brinda Guha through memories of family, community, culture, the inner world, and performance--from Kathak to flamenco to contemporary dance.
And learn more about Guha on InfiniteBody blog. Click here.
Kayhan Irani: stories from the waters of memory
Kayhan Irani--writer, performer, mother--finds herself in a swirling constellation of stories, savoring books by writers of color pointing the way to liberatory values and a possible future.
Learn more about Kayhan and her work on InfiniteBody blog here.
Maxine Montilus: To teach is to learn
Maxine Montilus has served many roles in dance--performer, choreographer, administrator, writer, and educator. I asked her to focus this podcast episode on her experience and ideas as a passionate and imaginative dance teacher across ages and levels. It was a delight to listen to her, and I hope you will enjoy this, too!
Learn more about Maxine at InfiniteBody blog here and her website here.
devynn emory: dancing in the liminal
There's no reason to build a wall of labels around devynn emory and their work in this world and between worlds. They care for body, spirit, and community in a multitude of ways--from nursing to choreography, from mediumship to bodywork, from writing to work with death and grieving. This rich interweaving of skills and services sounds strange only in a society that deliberately separates body and soul and fails to respect the multiplicity of ways of knowing and healing. devynn, however, stays attuned to ancient ways and what the land teaches.
Visit InfiniteBody blog to learn more about devynn emory and also visit their website at www.devynnemory.com.
María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez: Earth and Spirit
I first learned about María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez and her research when I was invited to an upcoming dance-and-ecology symposium presented by the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division (January 27; livestream February 3). I was immediately drawn to the direction of her interdisciplinary work which infuses performance with Afro-Atlantic spiritual traditions of reverence and care for the natural world. I was eager to learn more about Jiménez and share her ideas with you. I highly recommend the symposium which will also feature presentations by five other members of the 2022-2023 cohort of Dance Research Fellows--Juli Brandano, Rosemary Candelario, Lindsey Jones, Richard Move, and Rachna Nivas. Information and free RSVP for the in-person or livestreamed event here.
Read more about María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez on InfiniteBody blog here and at her website here.
Lisa La Touche: Tap 4 The People
I'm delighted to feature the wonderful tap artist and filmmaker Lisa La Touche as my next guest. Born in Canada and, for a time, residing in New York's Harlem, Lisa has traveled the world with her tap shoes--drumming the earth, finding community, and realizing the power of artistic legacy.
Read Lisa's bio and learn more about her on InfiniteBody blog: https://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2023/01/body-and-soul-lisa-la-touche-tap-4.html
Ziiomi Law is not playing small!
Hello, again, everyone! It certainly has been a long, long time!
I'm reviving my long-abandoned podcast Body and Soul and, in the course of doing so, reviving my InfiniteBody blog as well!
I hope you'll inspired by this first new episode featuring dance and interdisciplinary artist Ziiomi Law, US born and raised, now residing in Panama City, Panama. I asked Ziiomi to talk about what helps them--as a person and artist--reach beyond restrictions to be all they can be.
And you can learn more about my guest on InfiniteBody or Ziiomi's website https://ziiomilaw.com.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Listen.: Cristiane Bouger
Cristiane Bouger is a Brooklyn-based artist and writer. She explores the intersection of performance, theater, philosophy, literature, do-it-yourself practices and post-punk influences. Her work reveals existential examinations reflecting upon the female body, desire, cultural conducts, behavior and symbols, biography and fiction. She is a 2012 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a 2012-2013 Performa Magazine Writer-in-Residence.
Learn more on InfiniteBody blog (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody
Listen.: Jennifer Monson
(c)Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody infinitebody.blogspot.com
Raimund Hoghe: US premiere of "Pas de deux"
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody
infinitebody.blogspot.com
Listen.: JoAnna Mendl Shaw
Visit The Equus Projects site: www.dancingwithhorses.org/
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Camille A. Brown
Listen.: Steven Reker
People Get Ready/Steven Reker will present the world premiere of Specific Ocean at New York Live Arts (October 18-20). Prior to the October 18th show, there will be a conversation about 'Where Contemporary Dance and Pop Music Intersect in NYC Today" at 6:30pm, moderated by Michael Azerrad. More information here: www.newyorklivearts.org/event/specific_ocean
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Todd Shalom
For information on Catastrophe!, the final "way" of the Elastic City season, with Spanish artist Xavier Acarin--tomorrow, Tuesday, October 2, 7pm, on the Lower East Side--visit the Elastic City site at www.elastic-city.org/.
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Dan Safer
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Listen.: Imani Uzuri
For more information about Imani Uzuri and her new album, The Gypsy Diaries, visit her site at www.imaniuzuri.com.
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Maria Bauman
Bauman fun facts:
*Premiered "Stand" at SummerStage, August 11, 2012
*Setting "Stand" at Long Island University Dance Department this semester
*Guest Artist at Connecticut College, September 2012
*Teaching contemporary dance at Hunter College this semester
*Working with Jen Abrams on a new piece called "Any Resemblance," using video, photography, the Internet and live performance
Contact links for more information are available on InfiniteBody blog at infinitebody.blogspot.com.
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Deborah Hay
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Listen.: Edisa Weeks
Edisa Weeks premieres To Begin the World Over Again at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Sept 27-29 at 8pm; Oct 4-6 at 8pm.
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)
Listen.: Saifan Shmerer
saifan shmerer | SASSON premieres Nothing Lasts Forever, Nothing is Lost Forever at The End (18 Kent Street, Brooklyn: map/directions). Thursday-Saturday, September 27-29. Details and tickets can be found at www.dontyousass.me.
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)