Home of Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre and The Bronx Dance Coalition
TONI LESTER
ALL THINGS - SEEKING TRANSCEDENCE IN DIFFICULT TIME: A DANCE CONCERT
OCTOBER 11 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
Join us for an exciting dance concert set to music and sound design by Toni Lester with dancers Latoya Brooks, Melani de Guzman and Megan Curet. Sculpting nature, noise, spoken word, instrumental and electronic music inspired by the lives of social change pioneers Nina Simone, Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer, feminist/gender nonconforming/civil rights activist Pauli Murray and others, Lester's soundscape explores how we can find spiritual refuge in the face of adversity.
FELIX RODRIGUEZ
THE 1993 SHADEFEST BALL AT THE MARC BALLROOM: PANEL, SCREENING & DANCE JAM
NOVEMBER 1 | 8PM
FREE
Don’t miss the screening of the RR Chanel & Hector Xtravaganza 1993 Shadefest Ball. The evening starts with a panel discussion with ballroom icons including Junior Labeija and Jack Mizrahi who will elaborate on the evolution of ballroom MCing. A surprise guest will perform during intermission, and an open stage party will ensue so that the audience can dance and vogue along with the legends on the screen.
JOAN BRADFORD
STAIRS
NOVEMBER 22 & 23 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSIONS
A movement recollection of domestic abuse, a coming to terms of concealed pain, a reconciliation of one’s own blame, moving through, growing past, flourishing.
With clear intentions, Stairs will not present the fear captured in such violent moments of abuse; it will not be a work of re-traumatization. It will present the subtle burdens, the nuances of craze, the notions of guilt, the mental injury, and societal shame survivors live within. This group work will allow the viewer to not only find empathy in the narrative before them but a first-hand perspective into the mind, soul, and spirit of those who have withstood such experiences. Through collaborative contemporary movement forms and Suzuki based physical theatre scores, the work will address the manipulation through gas lighting, the questioning of one’s sanity, perception, and memory with aims of responding to the often heard “Why didn’t you just leave?”
With these ideas in mind, the work will use a maneuverable, segmented, life-sized staircase structure as a metaphor for stairs one claims they have fallen down to hide physical afflictions. This staircase structure performing as an abstraction of one’s life; a difficult upward trajectory, an ample amount of steps in between, and the hope of something more just beyond the landing. Alike, the descending down these literal steps, embodying the internalized, hidden, struggles of those living through such trauma. Taking some steps forward, moving more steps back, toying in between. While in the very same idea, with time and forgiveness, taking strides up these stairs, gaining the momentum to move on, to empower, and to finally, triumphantly live.
Stairs is made possible through the mentorship of Sydnie L. Mosley and Alexandra Beller and supported by Dance Your Future: Artist & Mentor Collaborative Residency project produced by Pepatián in partnership with BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Type your paragraph here.
QUEER SLOW JAM PARTY
OCTOBER 4, 2019 | 9:30PM
FREE
Maybe less of a throwback and more of a reclaiming: we are about to transform those memories of high school dances that many of us didn’t attend – at least not in the way we wanted to. Let’s get close and see what we can get up to way down below 95 bpm. Let’s be people dancing up on other people, when we want to and when we are wanted. Let’s give our permission for the proximity that we are feeling. Let’s be queer and normal and strange and open and close… very close… Sweating to the beat of slow motion.
Choreographers jumatatu m. poe and Donte Beacham will start off the night with a short instruction of some of the close dancing they have been experimenting with in rehearsal, related to the hip swing of the J-Sette march, and the importance of pelvic movement in African-descended dance forms. Throughout the night, the dancers of This Is a Formation will perform brief slow choreographies.
NILE HARRIS
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HUXTABLE FAMILY: EPISODE 3
NOVEMBER 15 & 16 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
**THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL JUNE DURING THE OUT LIKE THAT! FESTIVAL.***
‘The Rise and Fall of the Huxtable Family: Episode 3’ is a continuation of an episodic interdisciplinary performance series created by Nile Harris. Inspired by the form of 1990’s television sitcoms, the performance examines the blurring of American black identity in mass media and syndicated television and its roots in minstrelsy. Through embodied dramaturgy, the work asks us to undo and unravel our socialized mask – bucking off Eurocentric notions of palatability in a hope to move closer to a healing of our shared colonial wounds. “What are we to make of an integration premised first, on the entire black community’s emulation the Huxtables? An equality that requires blacks to be twice as good is not equality—it’s a double standard.” (Ta-Nehisi Coates, ‘Fear of a Black President’).
This engagement of ‘The Rise and Fall of the Huxtable Family’ is supported by Dance Your Future: Artist & Mentor Collaborative Residency project produced by Pepatián in partnership with BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant.
INTERVENTION
OCTOBER 5 | 12:30PM IN WESTCHESTER SQUARE
OCTOBER 9 | 5PM IN LOWER EAST SIDE
EXACT LOCATION TBA VIA INSTAGRAM AT @_move_you_
FREE
The Interventions are pop up performances of This Is a Formation that will happen in various historically and/or predominantly Black neighborhoods in various locations throughout New York.
Please follow the project on Instagram at @_move_you_ for information about related performance events happening in various neighborhoods in the Bronx and Manhattan.
SOULS OF OUR FEET
NOVEMBER 2 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
BAAD!'s signature compilation dance concert brings together a bevy of dance styles and talents from the Bronx and beyond. Eight choreographers share between 5 and 10 minutes of performance from works in progress to fully realized short pieces. This year's choreographers include Trevor Miles, Symara Williams, Gerard Minaya, and more.
JUMATATU M POE & JERMONE DONTE BEACHAM
LET ‘IM MOVE YOU: THIS IS A SUCCESS AND A STUDY
OCTOBER 4-5, 2019 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
Let ‘im Move You, a series of performance and installation works, is a continuation of jumatatu and Donte’s work within and in response to J-Sette’s movement vocabulary and Black queer performance aesthetics. In A Study, performed by the artists, J-Sette is a base of experimentation into the role of strategy both in dance making and social design. This Is a Success, the second performance work in the series, is a duet performed by jumatatu and dancer William Robsinon that explores notions of African-American exceptionalism as expressed through the middle class, Black American values reiterated in the J-Sette form. J-Sette’s rhythmic rigor and team-oriented execution of in-time formal improvisations allow the artists to flirtatiously tease their audiences through playful games of rhythm, pattern, and attention.
The two respective duets inform the larger group workLet ‘im Move You: This is a Formation, which will be performed at Abrons Arts Center October 10-12. Purchase tickets for Let 'im Move You: This is a Success and a Study and Let ‘im Move You: This is a Formation and receive a $5 discount on your order!
This engagement of jumatatu m. poe & Jermone Donte Deacham is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts (midatlanticarts.org). This project was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Let ‘im Move You is a National Performance Network/Visual Artist Network (NPN/VAN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by BAAD! in partnership with DancePlace, Abrons Arts Center and NPN/VAN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org
BAAD! HALLOWEEN EVENT
OCTOBER 26 | 8PM
FREE
What better place to host a queer Halloween party than inside of a 19th century chapel surrounded by a graveyard? And what better excuse to show off in your best drag, ghoulish gown, and beat face? Legendary Bronx drag queen Appolonia Cruz hosts the night which includes an open mic, karaoke, costume contest, and dance party. Come prepared to get down with the spirits.
MARIA BAUMAN-MORALES/MBDance
(re)Source
COMMISSIONED BY THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY & BAAD!
SEPTEMBER 25 - 28, 2019 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
***SHOW ADDED ON SEPTEMBER 26.***
(re)Source is an evening-length live danced and spoken artwork performed inside an audience-co-created installation that Bauman-Morales designed in consultation with acclaimed Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti. Creator Maria Bauman-Morales dances through, with, in, and in spite of the visual, sonic and human landscapes which house (re)Source. The performance-ritual is unique and steeped in immediacy every time Bauman-Morales inhabits it; (re)Source is a scored improvisation wherein Bauman-Morales dances, sings, and speaks through the assets in her family (both the Blackfolks and whites), what it takes to make it in Trump's U.S., and what her research into maroonage and her own ancestors have to do with all of that. She employs some of her families' histories as a complex microcosm of race relations in the United States, digging in to the process of other-ing, being other-ed, and reclaiming radical connection.
(re)Source is made possible through the co-commission of Chocolate Factory Theater Commission and BAAD! This work was created, in part, through the Artist in Residence Program at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. (re)Source was also developed with support from the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative. Thank you to Amara Tabor-Smith and to the Sarasota Dance Company for providing space to continue developing (re)Source this past summer.
BLAKTINX 2019
CANDACE TABBS
COMING TOWARDS
NOVEMBER 8 & 9 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
coming toward cultivates creative practice as healing practice. In a multidisciplinary evening of movement, poetry, song and visual art, coming toward charts a non-linear progression through recognizing emotions, choosing authenticity, and walking in truth. Collaborating with visual artist sayazake, Tabbs textures time and space, calls upon ancestral guidance and works toward healing to unveil what becomes of us when the only way out is through.
coming toward is made possible through the mentorship of Joya Powell and supported by Dance Your Future: Artist & Mentor Collaborative Residency project produced by Pepatián in partnership with BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
BARBRA HERR
TRANS-MISSION
OCTOBER 18 & 19 | 8PM
$15 STUDENTS, SENIORS; $20 GENERAL ADMISSION
From a little, bullied Boricua boy in the Bronx to blonde bombshell drag queen to outspoken trans activist: Barbra Herr has lived a whole lotta life. But at 61 years old, she’s still a late bloomer. After 25 long years of gender transition — the NYC nightlife legend is ready to be complete. Follow Barbra on her sometimes painful, often funny — but always honest — journey to sexual awakening in this compelling new one-woman show directed by Helen Hayes Award nominee Luis Caballero