CUNY Dance Initiative Sets Fall 2015 Events

The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), a university-wide residency program now in its second year, announces its fall 2015 public events.

The CUNY Dance Initiative, led by New York City's public university system, is a new model for collaboration. By facilitating residencies for New York City choreographers and companies on CUNY campuses, CDI aims to support dance artists, enhance college students' cultural life and education, and build audiences for dance at CUNY performing arts centers.

Eleven CUNY colleges in all five boroughs have been hosting residencies since January 2015, and the residency artists and their projects represent a wide-range of ideas and styles that reflect the diversity of the CUNY communities. CDI directly assists colleges with artist fees, rehearsal expenses, and marketing efforts.

Artists are selected through an annual open application process and each campus chooses its residency companies. The application for 2016 residencies will open September 10 at 10am and close October 1 at 11:59pm. More information can be found at www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative.

Fall 2015 Schedule of Events:

Mark Gindick

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

Open rehearsal: September 25, time TBA

FREE / www.jjay.cuny.edu/gerald-w-lynch-theater

A professional actor, dancer, writer and clown, Mark Gindick has performed with Ringling Bros. and the Big Apple Circus, and was featured in the PBS award-winning documentary CIRCUS! He also dances with Doug Elkins. For this open rehearsal, Gindick will show excerpts from his show Wing-Man, a laugh-out-loud, hilarious, and surprisingly poignant "one-clown" physical comedy show that explores our obsession with social media.

From The Horse's Mouth: A Celebration of the Legacy of Clark Center

City College Center for the Arts

Performances: October 1-2 at 7pm

Theater B at Aaron Davis Hall

$20; $10 students & seniors

Tickets: www.citycollegecenterforthearts.org

This residency and performance by From the Horse's Mouth celebrates The Clark Center for the Performing Arts, an organization created by Alvin Ailey in 1959 as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic arts community in New York City. The Clark Center was a special place, open to everyone at a time when that was the exception, providing a diverse array of dancers and choreographers with opportunities to study and hone their craft. Created by Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham, From the Horse's Mouth is a celebratory dance/theater production that has received standing ovations and rave reviews for its captivating story-telling and exceptional dancing. This project is dedicated to Thelma Hill, an inspiring teacher and mentor who was instrumental in starting the Clark Center for the Performing Arts as well as the dance program at City College.

The Clark Center Story: The House that Ailey Built

Part of From The Horse's Mouth: A Celebration of the Legacy of Clark Center

September 28 at 6pm

Theater B at Aaron Davis Hall

FREE / www.citycollegecenterforthearts.org

Celia Ipiotis -- creator, producer, and moderator of the nationally recognized culture series EYE ON DANCE -- moderates a panel about the history and impact of the Clark Center for the Performing Arts. Panelists include Ella Thompson Moore (former dancer for Alvin Ailey, Director of the Charles Moore Dance Company and teacher at The Clark Center), Anna Kisselgoff (former Dance Critic at The New York Times), and additional guests.

Decadancetheatre

Baruch Performing Arts Center at Baruch College

Workshop Performances: October 1?3 at 8pm

Rose Nagelberg Theater

$30; $15 students & seniors

Tickets: 646-312-5073 or www.baruch.cuny.edu/bpac/

Decadancetheatre, led by 2012 Bessie award nominee Jennifer Weber, will present a workshop performance of its new work A Hollywood Classic. The piece reimagines iconic numbers from the golden age of the movie musicals, paying tribute to dance film pioneers Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelley, Debbie Reynolds, and Busby Berkeley. Translated through the contemporary lens of explosive, hip hop choreography and set to timeless musical tracks, A Hollywood Classic brings to the stage a romance on the dance floor of Hollywood proportions.

Broken Box Mime Theater (BKBX)

City College Center for the Arts

Performance: October 28 at 7pm

Theater B at Aaron Davis Hall

$20 in advance/$25 at the door; $10 students & seniors

Tickets: www.citycollegecenterforthearts.org

Broken Box Mime Theater (BKBX) tells original stories entirely through movement. Using dance and mime techniques, the company's pieces range from realistic to metaphorical, heart-wrenching to hilarious, cinematic to intimate, and everything in between. BKBX's work aims to unplug audiences from their screen-crowded lives and reignite the power of their own imagination.

Dance in the Making: KineticArchitecture Dance Theatre & Dance to the People
College of Staten Island
Performance: November 6 at 8pm
Williamson Theater
$10 / $5 students

Tickets: 718.982.ARTS / www.cfashows.com

A shared program of new work by 2015 CUNY Dance Initiative resident companies.

KineticArchitecture Dance Theatre cultivates work that is artistically progressive, socially relevant, and insanely irreverent in nature. The company will present an excerpt from its new work NO SAFE WORD, which explores the need for connection based upon Director Arrie Davidson's experiences as a professional Dominatrix, plus Cries Real Tears and Davidson's take on Scheherazade.

Dance To The People, an open collective of dancers looking to generate opportunities for dance training, movement research, and choreography, has been in residence at the College of Staten Island since fall 2014. During this time, Maira Duarte, working with students at CSI, has developed Narrentanz (Dance of Fools), a dance-theater piece based on images of madness evoked by Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization. This new work will be presented on November 6.

Matychak Dance

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College

Open rehearsal: December 4 at 3pm

West Quad Building, Room 204

FREE / www.brooklyn.cuny.edu

Matychak will begin working on their second evening length work, The Body Keeps the Score. Taken from the choreographer's personal journey in dancing with chronic illness, The Body Keeps the Score is a vulnerable, yet non-apologetic exploration of how limitation can be our best asset. While in residence at Brooklyn College, the company will also work on movement vocabulary for a commission by LaGuardia Arts High School and further develop Lacuna, a work first created through Devices: Choreographic Intensive, a mentoring program of Doug Varone and Dancers. Founded in 2011, Matychak is a project-based contemporary dance company that bridges the divide between the uptown and downtown modern dance worlds, as seen through the eyes of artistic director Nathalie Matychak.

Other residencies this fall include: Eva Dean Dance at Baruch College, Tree House Shakers at Borough of Manhattan Community College, Ephrat Asherie at Lehman College Department of Dance and Theatre, Jenny Rocha at Lehman College Department of Dance and Theatre, Gabrielle Lamb at Queens College, Dante Brown | Warehouse Dance at Queensborough College, Department of Dance and Physical Education, and Tiffany Mills Company at Queensborough College, Department of Dance and Physical Education. In addition to rehearsing on campus, these artists are presenting lecture-demonstrations and workshops for CUNY students.

The CUNY Dance Initiative is supported by The New York Community Trust, with additional funding from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.