Danspace Project’s Spring 2018 food drive performance series is curated by Maura Donohue, Remi Harris, Katy Pyle, Paz Tanjuaquio, and Indah Walsh, May 31-June 2 & June 28-29, 2018, at 8pm.

Artists include: Kareem Alexander, Clara Auguste, Raha Behnam, Winston Dynamite Brown, Dylan Crossman, Rina Espiritu, Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts, Melanie Greene, I-Ling Liu, Deborah Lohse, Mariah Maloney, Stevie May, Pamela Pietro, Bennyroyce Royon, Candace Tabbs, vis-á-vis, and Mei Yamanaka

 

 

This spring Danspace Project’s Food for Thought series presents five unique evenings of performance selected by a different guest artist curator each night. Curators are Remi Harris (May 31), Maura Donohue, (June 1), Paz Tanjuaquio (June 2), Indah Walsh (June 28), and Katy Pyle (June 29).

 

Admission for each night of Food for Thought is $5 with 2 cans of food, or $10 with no cans.

 

Canned goods collected through Food for Thought are donated to The Momentum Project. The Momentum Project fosters health and wellness by providing nutritious communal meals and supportive services to any person in need in New York City, especially those living with HIV/AIDS or other chronic illness. 

 

A schedule and more information about each evening of Food for Thought is below.

 

Thursday, May 31, 8pm
Curator: Remi Harris

Through her own work, performer, curator, producer, and choreographer Remi Harris explores the intersectionality between dance, new media, and female representation. She presents her own creative projects under her choreographic venture dancesbyremi and has worked with Dance Cat-alyst and Racoco/Rx, and Sydnie L. Mosley Dances. On this evening, she invites artists Raha Behnam, Winston Dynamite Brown, Melanie Greene, and Candace Tabbs to share work.

 

Friday, June 1, 8pm
Curator: Maura Donohue  

Maura Donohue founded Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixedcompany in 1995. She is a frequent contributor for Culturebot and Assistant Professor of Dance at Hunter College. Her selected artists for the evening are Rina Espiritu, Kareem Alexander, Clara Auguste.

 

Saturday, June 2, 8pm
Curator: Paz Tanjuaquio
Paz Tanjuaquio is an award-winning choreographer, performer, visual artist, and curator. In 2000 she co-founded the multi-use space, TOPAZ ARTS, Inc., in Queens, NY. Tanjuaquio has asked artists Dylan Crossman, I-Ling Liu, Mariah Maloney, and Bennyroyce Royon to participate in her evening of Food for Thought.

 

Thursday, June 28, 8pm
Curator: Indah Walsh

As Artistic Director of Indah Walsh Dance Company, Indah Walsh creates live performance gatherings that challenge assumptions of live performance and social norms. She has several roles at NYU Tisch School of the Arts including the Program Administrator for the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research as well as the Assistant Director for the Tisch Future Dancers and Dancemakers Workshop. Walsh’s artists are Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts, Pamela Pietro, and vis-á-vis.

 

Friday, June 29, 8pm
Curator: Katy Pyle

Katy Pyle established Ballez in 2011 as a means of inserting the herstory and lineage of lesbian, queer, and transgender people into the ballet canon, through the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public engagement. Pyle has curated three artists to perform: Deborah Lohse, Stevie May, Mei Yamanaka.

 

 

Danspace Project is located inside St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery at 131 East 10th Street (near 2nd Avenue) in Manhattan’s East Village. Danspace’s entrance is fully accessible via ramp. For questions about accessibility, please contact (212) 674.8112.

 

 

About the Curators

 

Maura Nguyen Donohue was born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in the US. In 1995, she founded Maura Nguyen Donohue/inmixedcompany following her first appearance at DTW as part of Fresh Tracks. Her work has toured extensively across the US and to Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand.  In NYC, she has been commissioned and produced several times by Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, and Mulberry St. Theater (now Chen Dance Center). As artistic advisor for DTW’s Mekong Project, Donohue curated and facilitated international exchange and residency programs for Asian diaspora artists in the US and Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. She writes for Culturebot, served as guest editor for Critical Correspondence's University Project, served as advisor and Asian Bureau Chief for The Dance Insider from 2000-2009 and has also written for Dance Magazine, American Theater Journal and HK Dance Journal. She serves on the Boards of DTW and Congress on Research in Dance. She was an Assistant Professor of Dance at Queens College, a teaching fellow at Smith, Hampshire and Mt. Holyoke Colleges, and began as an Assistant Professor of Dance at Hunter College this past September. She holds both a BA in Anthropology and Dance (92) and an MFA in Dance (08) from Smith College. She has two children and prefers riding her bike to school.

 

Remi Harris is a Brooklyn based performer, curator, producer, and choreographer whose work explores the intersectionality between dance, new media, and female representation. She is a company member of Dance Cat-alyst and Racoco/Rx, has worked with Sydnie L. Mosley Dances; Banana Peel Dance, Amy Marshall, Keigwin + Company, artists Olek, and Hitomi Nozawa, fashion designer Catherine Malandrino, and The Penniless Loafers to name a few. In addition to performing, she works on her own creative projects under her choreographic venture dancesbyremi. Her stage work has been presented at Abrons Art Center, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Danspace Project, Teatro La Tea, Triskelion Arts, The Actors Fund Theater, The Brick Theater, and several site-specific areas in NYC. She was previously the Education Coordinator for Ballet Hispanico and the Co-Director of Brooklyn Studios for Dance and advocates for dance as a member of several dance organizations. A native of Barbados, she grew up in Brooklyn, NY where she received her initial dance training. She graduated with a BA in Dance from Hofstra University where she was on scholarship. In 2016 she was commissioned for a new work by Women in Motion, an organization dedicated to supporting female choreographers.

 

Katy Pyle is a lesbian choreographer, dancer and educator whose works explore her own conflicted relationship with the form of ballet. Graduating from Hollins University with a BA in Multimedia Performance Art in 2002, and from the High School Conservatory program at the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1999, formerly a child actor, Pyle has been performing professionally since age 5 and has lived in New York City since 2002. She has co-created and performed internationally in works by Ivy Baldwin, Faye Driscoll, John Jasperse, Xavier Le Roy, Jennifer Monson, Anna Sperber, Katie Workum, and Young Jean Lee, among others. She created multimedia rock operetta duet performances with Eleanor Hullihan as asubtout from 2003-2009. In 2010, Pyle presented her fully produced full-length work as a lead artist at Danspace Project at St. Marks Church. A 2013-2015 Artist in Residence at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Pyle has also been granted residencies through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mount Tremper Arts, Rockbridge Artist’s Exchange, the Dragon’s Egg, Abrons Arts Center, and La Mama. Ballez was established by Pyle in 2011 and inserts the herstory and lineage of lesbian, queer and transgender people into the ballet canon, through the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public engagement. Major works include ‘The Firebird, a Ballez’ (Danspace Project, 2013), ‘Variations on Virtuosity, a Gala with the Stars of the Ballez’ (American Realness, Abrons Arts Center, 2015) and ‘Sleeping Beauty & the Beast’ (La Mama, 2016). Pyle recently choreographed ‘Slavic Goddesses’, at the Kitchen in early 2017, which featured solos for Ballez dancers, as a collaborative project with artist Paulina Olowska.

Adult Ballez Class has been ongoing at BAX since 2011. Pyle has brought the class to many venues across the nation and internationally, including: Whitman College, Yale University, Princeton University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, The New School, Beloit College, Movement Research, Allied Media Conference, Beyond Tolerance Youth Conference, CounterPULSE, University Musical Society, and Irreverent Dance.

 

 

Paz Tanjuaquio has been active in NYC since 1990 as a choreographer, dancer, performer, visual artist, curator, and marathoner. Her work has been presented by the Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Harkness Dance Festival at 92nd St. Y, Dance Theater Workshop’s Fresh Tracks Series, LaMaMa ETC, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Aaron Davis Hall, Symphony Space, Dixon Place, Thelma Hill Performing Arts, Yangtze Repertory and nationally at San Diego Dance Theater’s Trolley Dances, Godt-Cleary Projects in Las Vegas, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and Ohio University. Awards for her choreography include National Endowment for the Arts, NYFA BUILD/Homer Avila Memorial Award, two Individual Artist Awards from Queens Council on the Arts, and DTW’s Suitcase Fund where she participated in the Mekong Project’s Cambodia Creative Residency and artistic research travel in Vietnam. She has been an artist-in-residence at Kaatsbaan in Tivoli, NY, Akiyoshidai International Art Village in Japan, The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard, Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, and Movement Research in NYC. As a dancer, she has performed with Molissa Fenley and Dancers since 1997 and Marlies Yearby’s Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater from 1991-96. She has been guest artist at Sacramento State University, Frank Sinatra School of the Arts HS, and Vargas Museum at Univ. of the Philippines. She received her MFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and her BA in Visual Arts from University of California, San Diego. She is currently an active member of the NYS DanceForce since 2009, hosting the 2013 annual statewide conference at Topaz Arts in Queens. Paz is Vice-President and Co-Founding Director of TOPAZ ARTS, Inc.

 

Indah M. Walsh is a choreographer, performer, dance educator, and administrator. She has danced in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and across the US. Indah earned a BFA in dance from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance in 2008 and an MFA in dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2014. As a choreographer, Indah Walsh was awarded a Creative Engagement Grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2017. Indah has showcased work at venues and festivals including NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Watermill Center, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Take Root at Greenspace, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Dixon Place, Spoke the Hub, Dance New Amsterdam, The American Dance Guild Festival, Triskelion Arts, and many others. Her work has also been featured in California at the Dance and Movement Workshop for Educators as well as Backhausdance Platform Production in Irvine. Indah has taught and choreographed works for high schools, colleges, and dance conventions in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and California including: Steffi Nossen School of Dance, Gibney Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center, Nevada Union High School, Taipei American School, Singapore American School, Dance and Movement Workshop for Educators, Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asia Schools Cultural Convention, Southwestern College, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Currently, Indah serves a number of roles at NYU Tisch School of the Arts including the Program Administrator for the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research as well as the Assistant Director for the Tisch Future Dancers and Dancemakers Workshop.