2016 BAX Space Grant Recipients Announced

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange is excited to announce the 2016 BAX Space Grant Recipients.

Selected through a rigorous and competitive process the following dance, theater and performance artists will have an opportunity to create or delve into work within a setting that is conducive to working deeply and exploring new territory. Artists receive free studio space, opportunities to share work, and engage in conversations with other space grantees. Please join us in congratulating these artists!

The 2016 Summer Space Grant Recipients are:

Radical Evolution
Abigail Levine
Alex Romania
The 2016 Fall Space Grant recipients are:
Ashley Brockington
Kristopher Pourzal
Brittany Williams

Our Space Grant program is the oldest of our programs that support developing artists. It was initially created for dance artists and expanded to support theater and performance artists in the late 1990s. Space grants are often an artist's entry point into a deeper relationship with BAX. A significant number of our Artists In Residence started their relationship with BAX as space grantees and then claimed the organization as their artistic home. Space grants acknowledge that seasoned artists and newly emerging artists need uninterrupted space and time to try new ideas or to change directions. Again and again in surveys of NYC's performing artists, access to space is the most essential resource. We remain committed to space grants as the core provision of our Artist Services offerings. Artists are selected by application and reviewed by a panel of former space grantees, Artists In Residence, staff and guests.

Summer Space Grant is ideal for the Brooklyn and Queens based dance, theater, or performance artist who already has a performance commitment or an artist who is embarking on a research period for an upcoming work and does not wish to present. The Fall Space Grant allows Brooklyn and Queens based dance, theater, or performance artists an opportunity to perform the work they have developed in front of an audience at the conclusion of the rehearsal process in a showcase format with a post- performance discussion. The Fall Space Grant Showcase will take place on Friday & Saturday, December 2-3, 2016 in the BAX Theater.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Radical Evolution is a multiethnic producing collective committed to creating artistic events that seek to understand the complexities of the mixed-identity existence in the 21st Century. We believe that visibility and representation for the fastest growing demographic in our nation is crucial to live performance. We incorporate people from a variety of backgrounds into our aesthetically rigorous, ensemble-based process, with a focus on people of color. Through our work, we hope to seed the field of experimental and collaboratively created theatre with practitioners that celebrate the intersectionality of perspectives and aesthetics of the city around us. We work constantly to assert a vision for cultural and social equity in our field, city and nation. www.radicalevolution.org, @radevolution

Abigail Levine is a New York-based choreographer and performer. Her work has been presented at venues including Movement Research Festival, Mount Tremper Arts Festival, Danspace Project, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Roulette, The Knockdown Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, SESC São Paulo, Prisma Forum (Mexico), Hemispheric Institute Encuentro (Montreal), Días de la Danza (Havana), Benaki Museum (Athens), and Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (Cairo). Abigail was a reperformer in Marina Abramovic's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and has also performed recently in the work of Clarinda Mac Low, Carolee Schneemann, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Will Rawls, and Mark Dendy. In 2014, she learned Yvonne Rainer's iconic 1965 work Trio A, coached by Pat Catterson. She holds a Masters in Dance and Performance Studies from NYU and was the 2013-15 editor of Movement Research's digital performance journal Critical Correspondence. Levine is currently visiting faculty in dance at Wesleyan University. abigaillevine.com

Alex Romania is a multidisciplinary artist / performance-maker, organizer, and teacher based in NYC who has taught and shown work nationally and internationally. Most recently Alex has shown work at Human Resources (LA), TAC: Temescal Art Center (Oakland), LACUNA (Portland), Encuentro (Lima), UV Estudios (Buenos Aires), the Pillsbury House (Minneapolis), FringeArts (Philadelphia),Gibney Dance (NYC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), and has taught at el Museo del Arte Contemporáneo (Lima). Alex enjoys organizing events with dance and performance artists in NYC, facilitating teens in the creation of devised performance and stop motion videos, video-documenting live performance, and practicing Thai Yoga. Alex currently dances for Kathy Westwater, has performed in works by Catherine Galasso, Andy de Grout, Eddie Peake, Jacob Slominski, Ishmael Houston-Jones, DeFacto Dance, Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, and has collaborated with a handful of performance art collectives, amongst other artists. cargocollective.com/alexromania

Ashley Brockington has been trolling around the downtown theater scene since 2001. She has toured the parks of New York City with Circus Amok for over a decade. Circus Amok is a politically-minded queer circus that provides free art to the people every (other) summer.

In 2006, Ashley joined the women and transgendered artists of the WOW café theater collective. A theater run collectively by the artists, WOW was Ashley's creative home for a demi-decade. She produced Rivers of Honey, a monthly cabaret for and by queer women of color. She created an annual performance project called Black Girl Ugly that investigates Black girlhood and self-esteem.

Ashley recently acquired a BA in Theater from Brooklyn College with her sights set on getting a PhD in something Black and Artsy. But first she's planning on settling into her new life as a New York Neo-Futurist. The New York Neo-Futurists are a collective of artists that present a weekly show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, an ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes. www.nynf.org; Twitter & Instagram & Tumblr: nappysnatch; www.blackgirlugly.com

Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal is a Brooklyn-based performing artist. He makes (solo) performances about performing. His work has been presented at such venues as Roulette, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Dixon Place. Kristopher is a 2016 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Additionally, he has recently worked for Catherine Galasso, K.J. Holmes, and Will Rawls. He holds an MFA in Dance from Arizona State University.

Brittany Williams hails from the streets of Miami Fl. Williams was recently selected to present work for Dancing While Black Dancing on Fertile Ground in New Orleans. She was also one of the women choreographers selected to participate in Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Prototype Week. She is the founder of "Dancing for Justice" organization and "Obika Dance." Williams is one of the founding members and principal dancer with Olujimi Dance Theatre in Miami Fl and she has danced with Forces of Nature, InSPIRIT Dance Company, and Venus Rising. She has also apprenticed with Urban Bush Women and interned with Rennie Harris Academy of Legends Summer Program. Her work has been shown at Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, 92ND Street-Y, Judson Church, FIVE MYLES, Dixon Place, and Center for Performance Research, and Spoke the Hub -all located in New York; internationally in Brazil at the International Blacks in Dance Conference, Germany at the International Solo Dance Festival, and Trinidad at the Makeda Thomas Artist in Residence Program.

Founded in 1991, BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange, is a community based performing arts center dedicated to developing artists of all ages, from children to professionals. The organization offers community access to arts and culture, supporting the creation of new work by emerging artists, engaging diverse audiences and providing arts education to youth and families. BAX has intentionally constructed an environment where children study and professional artists create under the same roof. Students are mentored by professional directors and choreographers. The organization's distinct focus on developmental process makes it a nurturing incubator for experimental dance and theater artists and is an important advocate for under-represented voices in the New York City performing arts community.

For more information about BAX and its programs, visit www.bax.org.

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