Green Space's Take Root Series Presents Bassam Abou Diab with Valerie Green/Dance Entropy

LIVE performances return to Green Space, kicking off the Take Root series with an excerpt from Valerie Green/Dance Entropy's "HOME" project, culminating a residency with visiting choreographer Bassam Abou Diab from Lebanon.

The evening will also feature Diab's solo work "Eternal," and a post performance Q/A. In addition to the performance, the evening will include live Lebanese Music with Richard Khuzami on Percussion and Maurice Chedid on Oud, Pre & Post Show.

"HOME" is an international collaboration with choreographers from Sweden, India, Burkina Faso, Colombia and Lebanon. Each artist examines the concept of home from their own unique perspective, drawing upon the significance of this idea from their home country, as well as factors including culture, upbringing, economics, politics, and personal identity. Five Choreographers are invited to NYC in 5 phases to work with the dancers in 10-day intensives at Green Space.

Currently in Phase 5, Dance Entropy is working with Bassam Abou Diab on this idea of Home. "My view of 'home' as an artist coming to the United States is linked to accepting religious, ethnic and cultural differences to generate a feeling of safety and belonging. Home is acceptance, safety, security, and privacy. It is the space in which I feel I can be free, natural and present; the place in which I entrust my secrets and my details. It is the place that gives me the feeling of being an integral part of, the place that I feel comfortable in despite my racial, gender and social differences."

During the performance, Bassam Abou Diab will perform the solo Eternal, a dance show that raises questions about the role of the dancing body in facing the despotic political regimes in the Arab countries and the transformations it went through in order to become a rebellious political movement that can face oppression and torture using music and dance.

Abou Diab Master Class At Green Space/Virtual Hybrid on September 21, 6-8pm

This workshop focuses on a number of rituals used in events, prayers, funerals and burials in Middle East societies. It also highlights the use of rituals in movements and the transformations of symbols into a theatrical dance technique, creating a common language of signs as kinetic memory. The workshop is divided into three parts: a vocal and physical warm up, practicing a series of movements (rituals), and combining physical and musical rhythms.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's Executive Order requires masks indoors and proof of at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine for entry to any Green Space event.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please click HERE.