Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival to Present THE RECKONING and CAGED BIRDS

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.

ARRAY's LEAP: The Reckoning by Francesca Harper, music by Nona Hendryx

Kash Gaines' Caged Birds (in-process)

Jan 16, 7 pm

Existing as a film commissioned by ARRAY's Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP) and a live performance that premiered in 2022 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Reckoning is choreographer and director Francesca Harper's response to the 2010 killing of 7-year-old Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones at the hands of Detroit law enforcement. In collaboration with composer Nona Hendryx, Harper has created an expressive historical record of injustice as she explores the relationship between erasure and commodification in the media's coverage of brutality against bodies of color. Dancers from Ailey II and FHP Collective perform in costumes by Elias Gurrola with lighting design by Itohan Edoloyi.

For many young New York City artists, the rambunctious dance tradition of showtime on the subway is their best opportunity to perform in front of a live audience. In tandem with the renegade act of public dance is always the possibility of confrontation and arrest, risks that performer/documentarian Kash Gaines's cast of artists know all too well. At this in-process sharing of Kash's new project Caged Birds, commissioned by Works & Process, you'll hear intimate stories of dancers' perilous encounters with law enforcement inside and outside the MTA system and see the craft they've honed performing on the city's biggest stage. This performance offers proof that these uncaged birds truly can fly.

The Reckoning was commissioned by ARRAY's Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP), a propulsive fund dedicated to empowering activists to disrupt the code of silence that exists around police aggression and misconduct. The development of the live performance of The Reckoning was supported by and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) with the collaboration of Gabri Christa and the Movement Lab at Barnard College.

Caged Birds was commissioned by Works & Process, and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2023 and 2024) and Bridge Street Theatre (2023), and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).

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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