NEW YORK LIVE ARTS to Present The Barnard Project, 11/21-23

New York Live Arts will present The Barnard Project, now in its ninth year, November 21 - 23 at 7:30pm and November 23 at 2:00pm. This year's performance will showcase works by 2013-14 Barnard Project artists Boyzie Cekwana, Lance Gries, Annie-B Parson and Donna Uchizono.

Over the past nine years, Barnard College and New York Live Arts have worked together to connect students to the world of professional dance by commissioning premieres from cutting-edge choreographers. This year's Barnard Project marks the first international collaboration between the academic institution and the Suitcase Fund, New York Live Arts' international cultural exchange program. Through the Suitcase Fund, Barnard students have had the opportunity to work with choreographer Boyzie Cekwana, one of the leading voices of South African contemporary dance and a 2013-14 New York Live Arts season artist.

In addition to a new work by Cekwana, the program will feature a premiere by the "fluid, taut, rubbery [and] hammy" (The New York Times) Gries, known for creating pieces with "intimacy, immediacy and vulnerability" (Critical Correspondence). Annie B-Parson, hailed for a "freewheeling brilliance" (The New York Times) re-envisions her dance-theater works as Lucifer Kicking (detail), and Uchizono, a choreographer with a knack for "making something out of nothing" (Philadelphia City Paper), will recreate Heads Revisited.

Performances will take place at New York Live Arts' Theater. Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students (with valid CUID). Tickets may be purchased online at newyorklivearts.secure.force.com/ticket/, by phone at 212-924-0077 and in person at the box office. Box office hours are Monday to Friday from 1 to 9pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 8pm.

The Barnard Project: Boyzie Cekwana; Lance Gries; Annie-B Parson; Donna Uchizono

Nov 21 - 23 at 7:30pm; Nov 23 at 2:00pm

New York Live Arts Theater, New York Live Arts

Tickets: $20 adults/$12 students with valid CUID

T: 212-924-0077 | www.newyorklivearts.org

219 W 19th Street, New York, NY 10011

Box Office hours:

Monday-Friday 1 - 9pm | Saturday-Sunday 12 - 8pm

About The Program:

The evening will feature the following works:

realitytalentsuckslikecontesttv.com by Boyzie Cekwana

Cadence for Eight by Lance Gries

Lucifer Kicking (detail) by Annie-B Parson

Heads Revisited by Donna Uchizono

About The Artists:

Recognized as a leading choreographer of his generation in South Africa, Soweto born choreographer-dancer Boyzie Cekwana has toured throughout the world and received prestigious prizes in Africa and Europe, including First Prize for Rona at the Third Platform III of African Contemporary Dance in Madagascar in 1999. His choreography is in the repertoire of companies such as Ballet de Lorraine, Scottish Dance Theatre and The Washington Ballet (commissioned with The Kennedy Center for its celebrated African Odyssey Festival). Cekwana is known for creating visceral dance works informed by a seemingly ceaseless interest in questions of the human condition. In 1997, he formed his own company, Floating Outfit Project, to break away from the strict forms of traditional African dance and the work of South African ballet companies. Based in Durban, South Africa, the company is engaged in collaborative projects with both artists and non-artists throughout the world. To date these have included projects with The Fantastic Flying Fish (Durban, South Africa), La Camionetta (Montpellier, France), Davis Freeman-Random Scream (Brussels, Belgium), Eager Artists Theatre Company (Durban, South Africa) and Gladys Agulhas' ATW (Johannesburg, South Africa). Most recently, Cekwana has been collaborating with choreographer Panaibra Canda from Mozambique on the INKOMATI project, and to develop the South-South Think Tank, a group working to promote artists and circulate their work within the Southern Hemisphere. The Inkomati (dis)cord, a collaborative work created with Canda, recently had its U.S. premiere at New York Live Arts in September, 2013 (co-presented with the French Institute Alliance Française's Crossing the Line 2013 festival.

Lance Gries is an independent dancer, choreographer and teacher based in NYC. From 1985-1992, he was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. His work with that company has been honored with a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award and a Princess Grace Foundation Award. Since 1990, he has created and presented solo and group choreography in various venues in New York City such as The Kitchen, Danspace, Judson Church, La MaMa Experimental Theater and The State Theater at Lincoln Center, as well as cities throughout Europe, Australia and South America. His most recent solo evening, Etudes for an Astronaut, was nominated for a 2011 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award. A renowned teacher, Gries has taught workshops and master classes throughout the world. He recently premiered The FIFTY Project (recipient of a Princess Grace Special Project Grant). In celebration of his fiftieth birthday this year, he invited fifty dancers from around the world to meet him in a fifty-minute open dance. A video installation of these meetings was presented at La MaMa Galleria. His next work will be presented by Danspace in New York City, in March 2014.

Annie-B Parson is co-artistic director, with Paul Lazar, of the OBIE and New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award-winning company Big Dance Theater. Big Dance has appeared in venues including: Brooklyn Academy Of Music, City Center, DTW, New York Live Arts, Spoleto Festival, The Kitchen and Classic Stage Co., as well as internationally in Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. Big Dance's most recent piece for the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, commissioned by The Anticodes Festival in France and The Walker Art Center, premiered at the Theatre National de Chaillot in Paris. Parson created dance for David Byrne's musical Here Lies Love, which ran at The Public Theater. In 2008, she choreographed for David Byrne's world tour, as well as for his world tour with St. Vincent in 2011. Other recent work: Futurity (ART); Orlando (CSC-Lucille Lortel Nomination 2011), Broken Heart (TFNA, Lortel Nomination 2012), choreography for the string quartet Ethel and Dark Sisters, the Opera by Nico Muhly. Parson recently co-created Chekhov's Man in A Case for Hartford Stage, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, which is touring to many venues including Berkeley Rep and The Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C. this year and next. Parson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007, and the first Jacob's Pillow Award for visionary work in 2005. She is the Ford Fellow/USA Artist recipient of a theater award for 2012.

Hailed by Ms. Magazine's end of the century issue as a choreographer making great leaps forward into the 21st century, Donna Uchizono, Artistic Director of Donna Uchizono Company, is known for work spiced with wit, rich invention and unexpected beauty. Donna Uchizono Company has been presented throughout the United States, Europe and South America. A Guggenheim Fellow, Uchizono's work has been recognized by many grants and awards including the Alpert Award in Dance, New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award, Rockefeller MAP, the National Dance Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, Arts International, the National Performance Network, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the Greenwall Foundation and Meet the Composer, among others. Uchizono's work is characterized by its numerous collaborative projects including collaborations with Visual Artist David Hammons and Composers "Butch" Morris, James Lo and Guy Yarden. Uchizono's interest in original and live music for performance is evidenced by her collaborations with composers and her former role as co-director and -curator of "Bread to the Bone", a live music/dance series at The Knitting Factory in New York. In 2004, Uchizono was the choreographer for The Long Christmas Ride Home, a play by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel for the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, CT. She has also created a work for Mikhail Baryshnikov, commissioned by Baryshnikov Dance Foundation. An active member of the dance community, Uchizono is a member of the Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, where she was the founding member and served as the first Chair. Donna Uchizono Company will be performing the original State of Heads at New York Live Arts December 4 - 7, 2013.

About the Barnard Project and the Barnard College Department of Dance: The first university partnership of its kind, the Barnard Project pairs curated artists from a renowned presenting institution with Barnard College and Columbia University dance students in a semester-long residency environment, offering choreographers and their selected casts the opportunity to work in a laboratory setting that emphasizes shared process.

The Barnard College Department of Dance, located in the world dance capital of New York City, offers an interdisciplinary program that integrates the study of dance within a liberal arts setting of intellectual and creative exploration. The major builds upon studio courses, the Department's productions at venues such as Miller Theater and New York Live Arts, and a rich array of dance studies courses. This structure allows students' creative work to develop in dialogue with critical inquiry into the history, culture, theory and forms of western and non-western performance, typically enhanced by study in other disciplines. Students work with accomplished artists whose work enriches contemporary American dance, and study with outstanding research scholars. Making, thinking and writing about art are an essential part of the liberal arts education, and thus are central principles to the Barnard College Department of Dance's curriculum. The Department also partners with cultural institutions in New York City to connect students with the professional world.

The Department of Dance is fully accredited and in good standing with the National Association of Schools of Dance.

New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times. At the center of this identity is Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director, a world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer.

We commission, produce and present performances in our 20,000 square foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square foot studios that can be combined into one large studio. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, provides an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists. Our influence extends beyond NYC through our international cultural exchange program that currently places artists in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.