Please join Dance/NYC for a series of conversations about integrated and disability dance artistry. Organized around upcoming New York City metropolitan area performance activity at the nexus of disability and dance, the series will feature leading artists working at that nexus in conversation with their presenters. The goals of the series are to drive awareness and interest in dance made by and with disabled artists, capture and share lessons learned by featured artists, and generate dialogue and partnerships among attendees.

Featured artists are grantees of Dance/NYC’s Disability. Dance. Artistry. Fund, created to advance dance making by and with disabled artists. Dance/NYC will launch its series on Tuesday, August 1, 2017 with a conversation with Heidi Latsky Dance, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., followed by a master class, 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, moderated by Kevin Gotkin, Co-Founder of The Disability/Arts/NYC Task Force, and spotlighting choreographer Heidi Latsky and representatives of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts: Jill Sternheimer, Director of Public Programming; Daniel Soto, Associate Producer of Public Programming; Miranda Appelbaum, Assistant Director of Accessibility and Guest Services; and Jordana Phokompe, Director of the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center.

Register for the Conversation and Master Class with Heidi Latsky Dance and find additional details at Dance.NYC. 

Future conversations in the series, which will continue through March 2018, will feature AXIS Dance Company, Full Radius Dance, Jess Curtis/Gravity, and Kinetic Light. Visit Dance.NYC for details on upcoming conversations and Disability. Dance. Artistry. Fund-supported performances. To register for the Disability. Dance. Artistry. Network, an exclusive community dedicated to promoting integrated and disability dance artistry and advancing inclusion and access to the art form for disabled people, visit Dance.NYC.

The purpose of the Disability. Dance. Artistry. Fund, made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation, is to generate dance making and performance by and with disabled artists. This activity is intended to advance artistic innovation and excellence—and, by extension, further disability rights. It extends Dance/NYC’s Disability. Dance. Artistry. initiative, launched in 2015, which includes substantive research, convening, and online resources. Learn more about the initiative at Dance.NYC. 

Disability. Dance. Artistry. Conversation Series

Conversation and Master Class with Heidi Latsky and Jerron Herman of Heidi Latsky Dance, August 1, 2017, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Conversation; 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Master Class
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Featured Speakers: Heidi Latsky, Artistic Director, Heidi Latsky Dance; Jerron Herman, Development Consultant and Company Member, Heidi Latsky Dance; Jill Sternheimer, Director of Public Programming, Lincoln Center; Daniel Soto, Associate Producer of Public Programming, Lincoln Center; Miranda Appelbaum, Assistant Director of Accessibility and Guest Services, Lincoln Center; and Jordana Phokompe, Director of the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
Learn more about Heidi Latsky’s work On Display at www.heidilatskydance.com.

Conversation with Full Radius Dance, Date TBA
Harlem School of the Arts
Featured Speakers: Douglas Scott, Artistic Director, Full Radius Dance; and Alfred Peisser, Artistic Director and Director of Theatre, The Harlem School of the Arts

Conversation with Jess Curtis/Gravity, Date TBA
Location TBA
Featured Speakers: Jess Curtis, Artistic Director, Jess Curtis/Gravity; Claire Cunningham, Performer; and Ben Pryor, Founder, Curator, Producer, American Realness, and Director of Performance & Residency Programs, Gibney Dance

Series is in formation. Additional events may be announced.

Upcoming Dance/NYC Disability. Dance. Artistry. Fund Grantees’ NYC Performances

Heidi Latsky Dance’s ON DISPLAY
ON DISPLAY – disrupting the urban landscape is this dance installation, a mostly still human sculpture court in public spaces where periodic bursts of movement weave throughout featuring performers ranging in age, disability, race, and size. In 2015, at the invitation of the Mayor's Office, ON DISPLAY began as a series of guerilla site specific installations across NYC to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. After activating local, national, and international sites for the last two years, ON DISPLAY will energize iconic NYC sites with a new version featuring nuanced and daring images of varied people this Disability Pride Month.

July 13, 2017, 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., Cherry Hill at Central Park, entrance at West 72nd Street
July 24, 2017, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., King’s County Hospital, 451 Clarkson Avenue, Brooklyn
July 24, 2017, 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office, 163 West 125th Street
July 27, 2017, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street
July 28, 2017, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., The Whitney/High Line, 99 Gansevoort Street
July 29, 2017, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., Hearst Plaza, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza
August 3, 2017, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street
For details visit: www.heidilatskydance.com

Full Radius Dance’s Do You Know What You Are Doing Now?
Full Radius Dance’s presentation of a physically integrated dance performance with choreographic work by Douglas Scott and Alice Sheppard including “Do You Know What You Are Doing Now?” “Do You Know…” speaks to how insecurity causes uncertainty and anxiety about oneself, others, the situation, and the process of creation. As noted American actress Meryl Streep said, “I have various degrees of confidence and self-loathing...You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent...Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing.”

October 13-14, 2017, 7:00 p.m., Harlem School of the Arts: The Herb Alpert Center, 645 Saint Nicholas Avenue. Please note: exact performance dates and times are to be announced. For details visit: www.fullradiusdance.org

Dancing Wheels Company and School’s Physically Integrated Dance: Past Present and Future
Dancing Wheels’s restaging of a work by Agnes DeMille, performance of current works in its repertory that were choreographed by New York City–based choreographers, and commissioning and premiering of a work by choreographer David Dorfman.

October 7, 2017, The Ailey Citigroup Theatre. Please note: exact performance dates and times are to be announced. For details visit: www.dancingwheels.org

AXIS Dance Company’s Radical Impact
Directed by Marc Brew, Radical Impact will be created in collaboration with Composer/Pianist JooWan Kim, Artistic Director of Hip-Hop Orchestra Ensemble Mik Nawooj. Brew and Kim will be teaming up for the first time, exploring what it means to be human through music and movement. They will investigate themes around politics and identity, while drawing on each dancer’s unique experience of how they exist in the world and how their stories can be told through the medium of dance. This performance is part of Gibney Dance’s POP series, a program supporting curated rental opportunities for the dance community.

November 16-18, 2017, 8:00 p.m., Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway. Please note: exact performance dates and times are to be announced. For details visit: www.axisdance.org

Jess Curtis & Claire Cunningham’s The Way You Look (at Me) Tonight
How do we look at each other? How do we allow ourselves to be seen? How do our bodies shape the ways we perceive the world around us? Can we change how we see others? The Way You Look (At Me) Tonight is a social sculpture-a sensory journey, for two performers and audience.  Developed in collaboration with noted author and philosopher of perception Dr. Alva Noë, leading UK disabled artist Claire Cunningham and international choreographer and performer Jess Curtis dance, sing, tell stories and ask questions combining performance, original music, and video to wrestle (sometimes literally) with important questions about our habits and practices of perceiving each other and the world. The New York City run will also feature a workshop and symposium about disability, performance, and the philosophy of perception with Movement Research.

January 10-13, 2018, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway. Please note: exact performance dates and times are to be announced. For details visit: www.jesscurtisgravity.org

Kinetic Light’s Descent from Beauty
Kinetic Light’s performance of Descent from Beauty, an evening-length dance work that tells the story of Venus and Andromeda, choreographed by disabled dancer Alice Sheppard in collaboration with disabled dancer Lauren Lawson and disabled lighting and video artist Michael Maag.

March 19-25, 2018, La MaMa, 66 East 4th Street. Please note: exact performance dates and times are to be announced. For details visit: www.kineticlight.org

Leadership support for this series has been provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Dance/NYC convenings are made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; by the New York State Council on the Arts, with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and by the National Endowment for the Arts. For their founding and leadership support of Dance/NYC’s Disability. Dance. Artistry. initiative, Dance/NYC thanks the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, and Engaging Dance Audiences administered by Dance/USA and made possible with the generous funding of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. For their partnership and guidance, Dance/NYC thanks the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, Victor Calise, Commissioner, Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, Art Beyond Sight, The Disability/Arts/NYC Task Force, and the Disability. Dance. Artistry. Task Force.