Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival to Present Lloyd Knight And Company Stefanie Batten Bland

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.

Lloyd Knight, Jack Ferver, and Jeremy Jacob (in-process)

Company Stefanie Batten Bland: Embarqued: Stories of Soil (highlights)

Jan 14, 7 pm

Martha Graham Dance Company Principal Dancer Lloyd Knight shares a first look at an intimate and personal solo inspired by the women in his life, his mother and Martha Graham. Knight's work brings together research in the Martha Graham archive that was facilitated through a fellowship at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division and Works & Process LaunchPAD creative residencies with choreographer Jack Ferver and filmmaker Jeremy Jacob at Bridge Street Theatre, Modern Accord Depot, and Watermill Center. This in-process new work lays bare what it takes both physically and psychologically to pursue a life in dance and explores Knight's youth, upbringing, and what drew him initially to Graham from an early age.

See highlights from Company Stefanie Batten Bland's Embarqued: Stories of Soil. A ship mast rises from the stage and reaches toward both our past and our present-recalling slave ships, memorials, and monuments-as meanings unfurl through dance. This dance-theater work, performed by a cast of five, is based on an excavation of self and country that is expressed through textiles, skin tones, labor, land, humor, and moving bodies, offering rich storytelling and a visceral journey toward wholeness, connecting people and places through an unfolding time continuum. The work invites reflection of our shared history and interrogates our relationship with memorialization, revealing post-colonial foundations and mythologies.

Woven into the performances, Jerome Robbins Dance Division Curator Linda Murray moderates a discussion with Batten Bland, Knight, Ferver, and Jacob.

Embarqued: Stories of Soil received commissioning support from ArtYard and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Embarqued was created through critical research and creative residencies provided by ArtYard, Duke Performances at Duke University, and The Yard in Chilmark, Massachusetts, in partnership with Martha's Vineyard Museum and Martha's Vineyard African American Heritage Trail. Embarqued was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts's National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation. The project has received additional support from Jerome Robbins Foundation, New Music USA, and a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.

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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