SITE-SPECIFIC INCUBATOR (2015) | dancinginthestreets

SITE-SPECIFIC INCUBATOR WITH JOANNA HAIGOOD / JUNE 2015

Alethea Pace outside of BAAD!

photo: Zach Scheinfeld

Dancers on the BAAD! Stage

photo: Rachel Nuñez

Arthur Aviles and Shizu Homma on Westchester Avenue

photo: Zach Scheinfeld

In collaboration with Artistic Advisor Joanna Haigood,10 chorographers explored nooks and crannies in and around BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, creating short dances in places you'd never expect—a dressing room, a supply closet, a basement hallway, a ladder, and stairwells—among other spaces. Each artist created and performed two 3-minute dances in these unique spaces, inspired by and responding to their architecture, history, and uses.

DATES:

Saturday, June 27, 2015; 10 am to 5 pm

and

Sunday, June 28, 2015; 10 am to 5 pm

LOCATION:

BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance
2474 Westchester Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461

ARTISTS:

Joanna Haigood (Artistic Advisor) is the Bessie-Award winning choreographer of Paseo, the traveling, site-specific work celebrating the rich South Bronx Latin music and dance history, which she created in collaboration with Music Director Bobby Sanbria; and the director of The Bronx Revolution and the Birth of Hip Hop, which she created in collaboration with five hip hop pioneers. Both works were produced by Dancing in the Streets and Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education as part of the South Bronx Culture Trail.

Haigood has created an astounding body of large-scale site-specific and interdisciplinary work, and has been called the “Poet of Memory” for her gift of unearthing and reflecting the subterranean layers of a specific place and community, and bringing them to life in powerful and visually stunning ways. She is the Founding Artistic Director of the San Francisco-based Zaccho Dance Theatre. She has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, a U.S. Artist Award, and a Bessie Award. (www.zaccho.org)

Participating Choreographers:

Arthur Aviles, Marsi Burns, Sherema Fleming, Shizu Homma, Monifa Kincaid,

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Alethea Pace, Mary Sofianos, David Thomson, Milteri Tucker

PARTNERS:

BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance: In October 2013, BAAD! moved to the chapel of St. Peter’ Episcopal Church in Westchester Square, where it is continuing its 15-year legacy of nurturing and presenting the work of established and emerging artists with a special focus on work by and about women, people of color and the LGBTQ community. (www.baadbronx.org)

Bronx Pro Group is a family-run property management and development company in the Bronx that specializes in high quality, green, affordable housing for low and moderate income households. Hayden Lord Park is a community park attached to two Bronx Pro buildings, which serves the surrounding community through participatory arts projects, including mural painting. (www.bronxprogroup.com)

Westchester Square BID (Business Improvement District) is a non-profit corporation whose dues-paying members—property owners, merchants, and residents of the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx—join forces to improve the quality of life of the neighborhood through physical improvements and community events, including free public performances. (www.wsbid.com)

SUPPORT: The Site-Specific Incubator received generous support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.