New York Live Arts' Will Present the World Premiere of Colleen Thomas' LIGHT AND DESIRE

New York Live Arts' (Live Arts) Live Feed creative residency and commissioning program presents the world premiere of light and desire, a new evening-length work by the NYC-based dancemaker and professor Colleen Thomas, featuring an ensemble of acclaimed international female performers and artmakers. The piece - anchored by a short film by the award-winning filmmaker Carla Forte - looks at how women artists cope under unjust and manipulative power structures. light and desire will be presented at New York Live Arts Studio (219 W 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) from Wednesday, March 25th through Saturday, March 28th; all performances at 7:30 pm. Tickets start at $15 and can be purchased at https://newyorklivearts.secure.force.com/. There will be a Stay Late discussion following the March 26 performance moderated by a special guest TBA.

light and desire calls upon family history, social politics, and personal experience to tell and uplift the narratives of women who have resisted oppression by creating their own forms of radical expression. The central question it addresses is how women hold, embody, and express power. Conceived and directed by Colleen Thomas, who also performs in it, light and desire features Carla Forte (Venezuela); a dancer-choreographer Ildiko Toth (Hungary / Germany); dance curator, critic, and choreographer Joanna Lesnierowska (Poland); filmmaker, dancer, and choreographer Ermira Goro (Albania/ Greece); and teacher, dancer, and filmmaker Rosalynde LeBlanc (USA). The piece is an homage to Women's Month and a celebration of the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Thomas, whose work often focuses on women and human perception and perspective, has been developing similar international collaborations since 2016. Last year, her work but the sun came up and we were here was created in residencies in Poland and presented as an opening night work at the 2019 LaMaMa MOVES! Dance festival. The piece gathered performers from Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and the USA. This current project extends into three continents, featuring artists who often share their time between more than one country of residence.

"The dancer's individual experience of war, immigration, racism, and sexism are at the core of this work. I have known all of my international collaborators and worked with these women for years. Their strength lies in the extraordinary, poetic vulnerability and compassion they convey to the audience," says Colleen Thomas. "I began creating light and desire with a lot of anger and concern over the misogyny I saw in our country in 2016. Sharing through dialogue and movement with women from other countries has been and remains a cathartic adventure," she further explains.

Additional performers include 15 women from the NYC dance community who act as a chorus of women's protest. light and desire features lighting design by Stacey-Jo Marine, intricate floral masks designed by Rebecca Makus, and original music composed by Robert Boston, with Jo Morris as a vocalist.

This presentation is part of Live Arts' Live Feed creative residency program, a laboratory for the development of new commissioned work directed toward the Live Arts theater. The Live Feed program is supported in part by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Partners for New Performance. This work is made possible by the generous support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Barnard College, Miami Light Project, and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Colleen Thomas is a New York-based choreographer, scholar, teacher, and performing artist. She is the director of Colleen Thomas Dance, co-director of Bill Young/Colleen Thomas Co., and co-curator for LIT (loft into theater). She began her professional career with the Miami Ballet and went on to work with renowned contemporary choreographers such as The Kevin Wynn Collection, Nina Wiener Dance Company, Donald Byrd/The Group, Bebe Miller Dance Company, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, among others. Her work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America and has been presented in NYC at Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Dance Theatre Workshop/New York Live Arts, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Triskelion Arts Center, Governor's Island, and the 92nd Street Y, to name just a few. In 2019, her work with artists from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the USA premiered at La MaMa MOVES! Dance Festival. She is a co-author (with A. Goldman and P. Sajda) of a 2019 scientific study Contact improvisation dance practice predicts greater mu rhythm desynchronization during action observation, published in the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts journal. Thomas received her BA in Psychology from SUNY Empire State College and her MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She has been an adjunct faculty member at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, The New School, Barnard College, Skidmore College, and Bates College. She is currently a Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University. www.colleenthomasdance.com

Carla Forte is a Venezuelan-born multidisciplinary artist based in Miami, Florida. Having trained initially as a dancer, she established a media-based practice incorporating dance and film. She is one of the founders of the multidisciplinary art collective Bistoury Physical Theatre and Film in Caracas, Venezuela. Her feature films Ann (2016), The Holders (2015) and Historias de la Urbe (2010) have been presented on the international film festival circuit, including Atlanta International Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, Festival EuroMediterraneo, Mix Mexico Film Festival, and many more. Among the dance video works she directed are Hurricane (2017), Staring at the ceiling (2014), Interrupta (2013), which were featured in important festivals and galleries - Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Corner, Cannes, France; OGA VideoArt Exhibitions, Rome, Italy; Festival Les Instants Vidéo, Marseilles, France; Pool Internationale TanzFilmPlattform, Berlin, Germany; and Experiments in Cinema Festival, Albuquerque, NM, to name just a few. Short film Tears (2017) aired last year on the South Florida PBS TV channel. Forte was awarded numerous grants and artistic residencies from prestigious programs around the world, such as Knight Arts Challenge, Miami (2019); En Residencia Koubek Center, Miami-Dade College (2019); Kulturscio'k Live Art Collective Residency Program, Domicella, Italy (2019- 2018); FONLAD Residency Program Coimbra, Portugal (2018); TigerTail Artist Access-Award, Miami (2017). Forte was also selected for the prestigious networking platform Berlinale Talent Berlin (2017). www.fortecarla.com

Ermira Goro is a movement and dance theatre artist who is constantly exploring new ways to research and communicate ideas. Ermira graduated from the Greek National School of Dance. With scholarships from Koula Pratsika Foundation and Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), she continued her studies in New York where she collaborated with international dance companies and created her first choreographic works. In 2004, she worked on the choreographic team for the choreographic opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Olympic Games. Since 2007, Ermira has been working with the world-renowned DV8 Physical Theatre as a performer, teacher, and Research and Development/Choreography Assistant. As a choreographer, Ermira has presented her work at Judson Church, Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Centre, Joyce Soho, Theatre Hora, Semio Theatre, PS 122/ Performance Space NY, Danspace Project, Galapagos Art Space, Sixrono Theatre, Benaki Museum, Athens School Of Fine Art, Flow 2 International Festival, Athens & Epidaurus Festival 2014/2016, Arc for Dance Festival and Onassis Cultural Foundation, among others. www.ermiragoro.com

Rosalynde LeBlanc's career as a performer, choreographer, and educator spans over twenty years. She was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (1993-1999), Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project (1999-2002), and the Liz Gerring Dance Company (2003-2006). In addition to performing in works of various independent choreographers, she has also danced with New York City's Metropolitan Opera and for the 250th Mozart Celebration in Salzburg, Austria. She continues her work with Bill T. Jones in the preservation of his legacy and pedagogy, most notably, directing the Educational Partnership between the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and Loyola Marymount University where she is currently the Chair of the Dance Program. Her choreography has been presented in venues around the country and her writing has been published by Dance Magazine and Ballettanz. She is also producing and co-directing (with the acclaimed cinematographer, Tom Hurwitz) the documentary film Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, which is due out in 2020. The film was awarded an Arts and Cultural Heritage grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Graves Award in the Humanities. Rosalynde holds a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase and an MFA from Hollins University.

Ildikó Tóth is a dancer, teacher, and dance maker based in Leipzig, Germany. After graduating with a BA from Codarts University Rotterdam, she received a DAAD scholarship for postgraduate studies in New York City. She moved there in 2005 and subsequently performed in the works of Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Company, Susan Marshall & Company, and Kota Yamazaki, among others. In 2012, Ildikó returned to Europe and became a member of the William Forsythe Company. Since its closure in 2015, she has been working as a freelance artist, involved in projects with Thierry de Mey, Heiner Goebbels, Fabrice Mazliah | MAMAZA, Sebastian Matthias, Michael Maurissens and Darko Dragičevic, as well as Irina Pauls. Ildikó Ildikó is a guest faculty member at Palucca University Dresden, and regularly teaches professional training classes and improvisation workshops at Mousonturm Frankfurt, Tanzfabrik Berlin, La Raffinerie Brussels, K3 Hamburg, the Hungarian Ballet Academy Budapest, The Playground New York City, among others. www.ildiko-toth.com

Joanna Leśnierowska is a dance writer, curator, and performance maker. Her writings on dance have been published in major Polish and international journals. She was a guest lecturer at Polish universities in Poznan and Krakow, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for the Music and Dance Institute in Warsaw. In 2004, she has created Poland's first regular dance space/choreographic development center, Art Stations Foundation - the largest privately-funded initiative of this kind in Poland - and continues to curate programs produced by this organization at Stary Browar Nowy Taniec in Poznan, where she has been a champion of international dance. Among American artists she has invited to perform and teach there were Yvonne Rainer, Lisa Nelson, Jennifer Monson, Jeanine Durning, and Rebecca Lazier, to name just a few. Since 2019, she is a curator of ACZIUN SUSCH, a dedicated choreographic program at the Muzeum Susch in Susch, Switzerland. Parallel to her curatorial work, Joanna develops her practice as an artistic coach to young choreographers and as a dramaturge and lighting designer to a number of Polish and International Artists. Her own portfolio of dance and performance works consists of nine evening-length dances, all of which were presented in Poland and toured internationally.

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS

219 West 19th Street, NYC (between Seventh and Eighth Avenue)
Tickets start at $15

For tickets call 212 924 0077
or go online at newyorklivearts.org

Photo Credit: Miguel Anaya

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