Grantees Produce Free, Collaborative, Live Arts Boston Showing

Join JJ&D for Boston's first collaborative concert of dance funded by the Live Arts Boston (LAB) grant! This November, LAB grantees Chavi Bansal, Alexander Davis, and Jessie Jeanne Stinnett come together for a diverse weekend of contemporary performance and community connection. Drawing upon creative traditions ranging from creating new vocabularies to fiber arts, the cohort will delve into the complexities of socially molded identity through seven works, including: "Ethel Merman Disco", a preview of Davis's soon-to-be evening length work focused on the commercialization of queer culture; Bansal's Kalaripayatt, which explores the intersections of classical dance forms and Indian martial arts; a new work by NYC based choreographer Sidra Bell; and a commission of Man of the Hour, a work for 8 men by internationally acclaimed Dutch-Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili, performed, for the first time, by an all woman cast, . Via bold athleticism, mesmerizing spines, and a touch of dark comedy, these artists challenge us to dig for empathy- relationally, globally, and internally.

Under the direction of Jessie Jeanne Stinnett, Jessie Jeanne & Dancers (JJ&D) is a rigorous creative laboratory and performance collaborative for visceral and somatic research, through contemporary dance making practices. Lauded by Hannah Chanatry of WBUR Boston as presenting "conceptually driven performance that unpacks the complexities of being female, and pushes the academic boundaries of choreography", the company values audacity and somatic awareness. JJ&D has committed to commissioning local, national, and international dance choreographers to set original works on New England-based dancers. In an effort to fortify the dance economy, the company strives to work with one established and one emerging choreographer each season. This season's commissioned artists are Sidra Bell (NYC) and Itzik Galili (Israel). Both projects have been sustained in part by The Boston Foundation in partnership with The Barr Foundation. JJ&D also provides educational opportunities for early career performers and makers by offering educational programming, allowing young New England artists to grow and contribute to artistic discourse.

www.jessiejeanneanddancers.com

Alexander Davis, originator of Alexander Davis Dance (ADD), has had the honor of performing at the Boston Opera House, in the basement of a CVS, at the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts, and most memorably on a street corner in the South End. Alex has worked and performed with organizations across Boston including Ryan Landry's Gold Dust Orphans (Best of Boston 2016), Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Children's Chorus and Improv Asylum/Laugh Boston. In 2014, Alex's work, Slight Displacement represented New England as an Honorable Mention at the ACDA National Gala at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, DC. Alex is currently a company member of Urbanity Dance, and an ensemble member of the Hartford-based Judy Dworin Performance Project. Alex has worked with a variety of artists including Betsi Graves, Cynthia McLaughlin, Rebecca Stenn, Marcia Murdock, Jennifer Pollins, Candice Salyers, Carl Flink, Marcus Schulkind, Andy Noble, Ryan Landry, Lorraine Chapman, Doug Varone and Monica Bill Barnes. Alex is also a passionate arts administrator, a published memoirist, an exhibited fiber artist, a sexual consent educator, and an okay comedian.

www.alexanderdavis.dance

In 2010, Chavi Bansal founded her company, Vimoksha, or "Liberation" in Sanskrit. Hailing from India, Chavi Bansal's early dance training was in Bharatnatyam, Bollywood, Martial Arts, and Indian Contemporary dance. She danced with Danceworx, a Bollywood and Indian Contemporary company from 2003 until 2007. Craving a broader dance vocabulary, Chavi moved to the Netherlands to study at Fontys Hogescholen voor de Kunsten, where she earned her B.A. in Dance with a specialization in Choreography. Using a foundation of Indian classical movement and western modern technique, Chavi's work is developed largely through improvisation. She worked for the Production house Dansateliers in Rotterdam, was a guest choreographer at the University of Stavanger in Norway, and has presented work at festivals throughout the Netherlands, Norway, and India. Since moving to Boston in 2014, Vimoksha has created a company of Boston-based dancers. Chavi's work is supported by the Lab grant (Boston Foundation), New England Dance Fund (NEFA), and by the Cambridge Arts Council. www.chavibansal.org

The Live Arts Boston (LAB) grant, an initiative of The Boston Foundation (TBF) in partnership with The Barr Foundation, provides up to $15,000 in project-specific funds to makers whose creative visions strongly value collaboration, inclusion, and the healing of ethnic, racial, and community divisions. The grant supported 60 Boston area artists in 2017.

www.tbf.org/LAB

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