Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival to Present Ladies Of Hip-Hop: SpeakMyMind

Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents the Underground Uptown Dance Festival, a festival of commissioned street and social dances taking place in the subterranean Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater at the Guggenheim from January 10-16, 2024 and at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall on January 12. Rare in the field of dance, let alone in the creators' traditions, beyond presenting fee, all projects will have received longitudinal support. With some spanning four years, across multiple residencies Works & Process will have provided living wage fees, 24/7 devoted studio access, adjacent housing, access to health care insurance enrollment, performance fees, and iterative performance opportunities. Inspired by the circular architecture of the Guggenheim, the cyphers prevalent in street dance, and social environments where these performing art traditions were germinated, the works being presented weave audiences and artists together. These commissions endeavor to amplify the innate qualities of dance to physically connect and facilitate the embodiment of joy and community.

WORKS & PROCESS Uptown Dance Festival AT THE GUGGENHEIM

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Peter B. Lewis Theater, 071 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10128

Choose-What-You-Pay tickets available at www.worksandprocess.org.

Ladies of Hip-Hop

The Black Dancing Bodies: SpeakMyMind (premiere)

Jan 13, 3 and 7 pm

Part of an ongoing performance and documentary effort focused on Black women in street and club dance culture, this session of The Black Dancing Bodies Project continues to explore the power of the "choreopoem," a word coined in 1975 by playwright and poet Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf). In SpeakMyMind each member of the collective responds to the question, "If I could speak my mind, what would I say?" In this world premiere, experience new writings, music, and movement spanning dance styles from African to waacking, vogue, hip-hop, and house, all curated under the direction of Michele Byrd-McPhee.

SpeakMyMind was commissioned by Works & Process, developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), and Office Hours Residency at The Kennedy Center (2023). Iterative performances have taken place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jacob's Pillow, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, SummerStage, Dancers Responding to AIDS Hudson Valley Dance Festival, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

SpeakMyMind is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts's National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.

The Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival is part of JanArtsNYC, one of the city's largest and most influential arts gatherings for which more than 45,000 performing arts leaders, artists, and enthusiasts from across the globe converge in New York.

Championing creative process from studio-to-stage, Works & Process has made a long-term investment in all of the artists and projects featured in the festival. Recognizing that presenting alone is not enough, all projects have received sequenced Works & Process LaunchPAD and bubble residency support providing industry-leading residency and performance fees, residencies with 24/7 studio space, on-site housing, transportation, and health insurance enrollment access. Celebrating the iterative nature of live performances, the public has been invited to explore steps in the creative process through public presentations at residency centers as well as in New York City at the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and SummerStage and in venues nationally as commissions start to tour. These commissions endeavor to amplify the innate qualities of dance to physically connect and facilitate the embodiment of joy and community.

ABOUT WORKS & PROCESS

A non-profit without walls, Works & Process champions performing artists and their creative process from studio to stage. We platform artists from the world's largest organizations and amplify underrecognized performing arts cultures. We provide rare, longitudinal, and fully-funded creative residencies, and commissioning support. We present at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Each summer Works & Process curates and presents free dance programs with City Parks Foundation's SummerStage and NYC Parks.

Works & Process LaunchPAD "Process as Destination" provides artists multi-week residencies with 24/7 studio availability, on-site housing, health insurance enrollment access, industry-leading fees, and transportation to residency partners spanning counties in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.

Stay connected: @worksandprocess

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