New York Live Arts Will Host FRESH TRACKS New Works Program in May
Dorchel Haqq, Ariel Lembeck, Cristina Moya-Palacios, Dahlia Qumhiyeh, and Sacha Vega will perform May 15–16.
Now in its 61st year, New York Live Arts's early career artist residency program Fresh Tracks presents a shared evening of new works from five distinct artists: Dorchel Haqq, Ariel Lembeck, Cristina Moya-Palacios, Dahlia Qumhiyeh & Sacha Vega. The artists will present work developed during the program's yearlong residency in the New York Live Arts Theater (219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) on Friday, May 15th and Saturday, May 16th at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $25 with limited Pay-What-You-Wish available to be purchased online or 212-691-6500, on sale now.
The Fresh Tracks Residency & Performance program is a season-long residency for early career movement-based artists in support of new work creation and professional development with Juliana May as Artistic Advisor. The program originated at Dance Theater Workshop in 1965 to bring new choreographic artistry to the forefront and has included great makers such as Bill T. Jones, Elizabeth Streb, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Tere O'Connor, Dean Moss, Ronald K. Brown, Reggie Wilson, Juliana May, Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Milka Djordevich*, Lisa Fagan*, and many more. New York Live Arts is proud and grateful that, through Fresh Tracks, the organization continues to support and spotlight early career movement-based artists of all ages and creative backgrounds based in New York City. “It has gone by a few names since it began…Studio Series, Choreographers Showcase and, since 1984, Fresh Tracks. But it remains a place, as [Bill T.] Jones said, ‘to see where new ideas are just breaking the soil,'” wrote Siobhan Burke for The New York Times.
* = ‘24-'25 season artists.
This season's shared evening will feature:
Dorchel Haqq's vol.1/DND/ a study on perspective features performers who confront human awareness and identity in an overstimulated world. ‘DND'- do not disturb mode warrants agency over one's autonomy. A reflection on consciousness, consumption, attention, and evolution of humanity, vol.1/DND/ a study on perspective is performed by Dorchel Haqq, Christine Shepard, Syaera Valentine, & Channce Williams to an original soundscore by Joy Guidry.
Ariel Lembeck's Blasé-faire is a dance about the everyday grind; where a fist pump, a ponytail twirl, and a slow dip straddle the line between compulsory and existential. Syncopated rhythms, overstretched gestures and intricate patterns bring Marin Day, Emma Judkins, Dasol Kim and Ariel Lembeck into solo tangents, tangled tableaus, and collective action. This dynamic quartet redefines the space in which they dance, while probing their relationship to labor and productivity.
Choreographed by Cristina Moya-Palacios, Without Breasts There Is No Paradise is an ensemble dance theater work that examines the contributions of Latin Americans to the cultural fabric of the United States and beyond. During this time of increased visibility and dialogue surrounding the persecution and abduction of Latin American immigrants, there has been a constant bilateral reminder that Latines are only valued for their manual labor. Through a series of vignettes depicting various facets of iconic Latin American entertainment, this piece is a reclamation of the humanity and vibrancy within the community. Performers Valentina Baché, Kashia Kancey, Cristina Moya-Palacios and Kyle Scheurich lean deep into the absurd with a telenovela slapping duet, luchadores in love, a spiraling Miss Universo, and an El Chacal striptease number. The work both plays into and rejects stereotypes in a shiny, dramatic, and off-kilter physical theater extravaganza.
Dahlia Qumhiyeh's AB+ is a theatrical movement piece that explores the entanglement of the medical industrial complex using ropes, projection, and bandages. The piece explores gender affirming health care as an act of initiation into a web of insurance claims, hoops to jump, and occasional acts of violence. A live cast of six, and two performers projected on a screen, move through ropes, engage in a fight, and cut themselves free to reveal the damages that come from what could be healing. Featuring performances by Sarah Esser, Joshua Leon Eguia, Angad Kalsi, Christine Shepard, Dahlia Qumhiyeh, and Bev Vega, AB+ features a sonic landscape devised of triphop, electronic music, and live commentating by two medical insurance providers.
In SWELL, multidisciplinary choreographer Sacha Vega and surreal comedic performer Rose Luardo take on the slippery logic of power through a shared hallucinatory solo. Power suit. Power play. Power ballad. Power trip. Power pose. Together, Vega and Luardo devise an experimental dance that slips between satire and sincerity, hustling through impressions of American ambition, humiliation, and autonomy, all channeled through the body of a woman enigmatically unmoored by linear time. From their process trickles up a disruptive, humorous piece, layering physical comedy, 80s grandeur, nicotine nostalgia, and overinflated ideologies.
After an audition period last summer, the artists selected receive a 50-hour studio residency and a $5000 fee, thanks in part to a grant from the Jerome Foundation. In addition to producing a shared evening of new work in the theater developed during the residency, professional development workshops and meetings throughout the residency focus on applying learned knowledge and skills towards the shared production. While working with advisor Juliana May, the artists take part in professional development workshops led by renowned professionals from the field. Residents also obtain exclusive access to Live Arts' Communications, Development, Production and Programming staff, and a Live Core Artist Membership. Fresh Tracks is supported in part by Partners for New Performance.
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