New York Live Arts Announces Fall 2019-20 Season

Bill T. Jones, MacArthur Genius Award and National Medal of Arts awardee and Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, and Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director, announced the New York Live Arts' fall 2019-2020 season today. "Is there such a thing as 'we'? How and why do we come together? What makes a community? These questions are on our minds as we enter our 9th season. How do artists embody and shed light on these questions?", said the team.

Back by popular demand, the New York Live Arts (Live Arts) season opens with the return of Tony Award -winning playwright and performer Sarah Jones (Bridge & Tunnel), September 12-15 and 18-21, 2019. Jones plays a dazzling medley of characters in Sell/Buy/Date, an exuberant show inspired by the real-life experiences of people affected by the sex industry. Set in the future, and brimming with Jones' masterful, multicultural characterizations, Sell/Buy/Date conveys an honest, moving and even humorous look at a complex and fascinating subject, all while preserving the full humanity of voices seldom heard in the theater. Sell/Buy/Date is directed by Carolyn Cantor and was commissioned by the NoVo Foundation, which works around the world to end violence and discrimination against all girls and women.

The second opening highlight of the fall season features Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's two early benchmarks of postmodern dance, Fase (September 24-28, 2019) and Rosas danst Rosas (October 1-5, 2019). Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich premiered in 1982 using the structure of Reich's music to develop an independent movement idiom that illustrates the music and adds a new dimension to it. Rosas danst Rosas builds on the minimalism initiated in Fase, where abstract movements constitute the basis of a layered choreographic structure in which repetition plays the lead role. Four female dancers dance themselves, again and again in a work that is unequivocally feminine to repetitive, "maximalistic" music by Thierry De Mey and Peter Vermeersch. First iterations of Fase were seen in Live Arts' legacy program Fresh Tracks in 1982.

With a special interest in nurturing, developing, and presenting new work through the Live Feed creative residency program, Live Arts presents the world premiere of Last Audience by Yanira Castro / a canary torsi, October 16-20, 2019. The work is embodied by its audience, becoming a live laboratory for the communal work of conjuring. Comprised of a set of unique scores written for each performance, Last Audience grapples with agency and manipulation, negotiating the individual and the collective inside a theatrical context. Last Audience draws on language and themes from requiems and Greek classical tragedies and all performances are free with reservation. This includes a public meal in the Live Arts lobby prior with special guests to be announced. From August 8 - September 6, 2019, the Live Arts Ford Foundation Live Gallery lobby wall will feature Wild, Wild Earth; a group showcase co-curated by Yanira Castro, Martita Abril, and Dain DeltaDawn that assembles artists from the New York Foundation for the Art's Immigrant Artist Program, including Valeria Carboni, Riaki Enyama, Ana Maria Farina, Nazanin Noroozi, Masahito Ono, Htet T San, Beverly Tu and Chen Wang. On October 19, 2019, group showcase In | Between, co-curated by Yanira Castro and Martita Abril, assembles artists from the New York Foundation for the Art's Immigrant Artist Program including: Júlia Brandão, Floor Grootenhuis and Julian Louis Phillips, Robert Ó Shea, Lyto Triantafyllidou and Tina Wang.

With major support from the William Penn Foundation, Live Arts presents Live Feed artist Rashaad Newsome's multi-dimensional, two-city project Black Magic. The project consists of events and installations at New York Live Arts, Philadelphia Photographic Arts Center (PPAC), and Icebox Project Space (Icebox), both in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Black Magic is a holistic reflection on agency, Blackness, and the futurity of intersectional identities and oppression. The project is comprised of three separate elements: an exhibition entitled To Be Real at PPAC; a presentation of Newsome's ongoing critically acclaimed performance FIVE; and a vogue ball- The Champion Ball. At the conceptual center of To Be Real, which opens September 12, 2019 at PPAC, is a cloud-based A.I. entity named Being (2019) whose mind has been populated with the works of radical authors, revolutionaries, theorists such as Paulo Freire, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Janet Mock, and the like. Being functions as an interactive tour guide of the exhibition, thinking critically about itself, Newsome, and the other works in the show. Its physical form is a figurative sculpture suspended in a death drop made of Ghanaian mahogany wood and sex-toy silicone.

Accompanying the exhibition in Philadelphia are the continuously re-envisioned performance works that chronicle vogue culture over the past decade: FIVE, a generative multilayered work that sequentially incorporates choreography, performance, video, digital and two-dimensional drawing, and sculpture, at Icebox November 23, 2019. The Champion Ball will showcase local artists performing in a traditional vogue ballroom competition and be performed at Icebox November 16, 2019. FIVE will make its New York City debut at New York Live Arts November 8-9, 2019. Newsome will also create a unique installation for the Ford Foundation Live Gallery lobby wall at Live Arts to open on September 12, 2019, and participate in a panel discussion at PPAC with exhibition curator Jasmine Wahi on October 17, 2019.

Live Arts' legacy Fresh Tracks performance and residency program continues its 55-year commitment to bringing new voices to the forefront. The program provides five emerging artists with a 50-hour studio residency, a professionally produced shared evening bill in the New York Live Arts Theater, commission fee, one-on-one dialogue sessions with the program's Artistic Advisor Nia Love, professional development workshops led by renowned professionals from the field and exclusive access to Live Arts' Marketing, Production and Programming staff. Fresh Tracks performances of the artists' auditioned works take place in the Live Arts theater December 13-14, 2019.

In addition to performance presentations, Live Arts continues its popular discussion series Bill Chats featuring Bill T. Jones in conversation with poet, educator, memoirist, scholar, cultural advocate, and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Elizabeth Alexander on September 17, 2019, and renowned architect and founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Elizabeth Diller on December 9, 2019. The fall edition of Open Spectrum community dialogue series on November 10, 2019 curated by activist and leader in the House | Ballroom, Michael Roberson, Ballroom Has Something To Say, is comprised of a voguing class, a lecture/performance/discussion examining how a community reimagines itself through Performance, Fashion, and Intentional Kinship, and a competition The Category is Vogue Fem.

Details and tickets will be released for the spring 2020 season in December 2019, featuring Live Artery, Live Arts' dynamic platform of new and recent works by resident commissioned artists and curated guests, presented during the annual Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference; premieres from Live Feed artists Zishan Ugurlu and Alexandra Chasin, Kimberly Bartosik / daela, Abby Z & the New Utility, Colleen Thomas, and Jaamil Olawale Kosoko; in-process showings of new Live Feed artists, including Christopher Williams, Ashley R.T. Yergens, Holly Bass, Daniel Alexander Jones, and Milka Djordjevich; a work-in-progress showing from 2019-2020 Randejelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist Raja Feather Kelly; Fresh Tracks residency studio showings; a Feminist dinner party organized by multigenre artist Liliana Dirks-Goodman; Live Arts' annual multidisciplinary festival Live Ideas exploring Afrofuturism; and the third annual Live Arts Pride celebrating LGBTQAI artists, rights and equality.

Live Arts Plus Partners come from Live Arts' community of artists and nonprofits, and receive access to discounted space, marketing, and production opportunities, including Marymount Manhattan College November 1-3, 2019, cullen+them's young dance collective November 14-16, 2019, Barnard/Columbia Dances November 18-23, 2019, Zvi Dance December 18-21, 2019, and in 2020: Ellen Robbins, Eugene Lang Dance, Ballet Next, and 10 Hairy Legs.

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS 2019-2020
SEASON SCHEDULE

August 8-September 6, 2019
Wild, Wild Earth
New York Live Arts
Lobby Wall Exhibit
A group exhibition co-curated by Yanira Castro, Martita Abril, and Dain DeltaDawn that assembles artists from the New York Foundation for the Art's Immigrant Artist Program including: Valeria Carboni, Riaki Enyama, Ana Maria Farina, Nazanin Noroozi, Masahito Ono, Htet T San, Beverly Tu and Chen Wang.

September 12, 2019
Rashaad Newsome
Black Magic: To Be Real (Off-site)
Philadelphia Photographic Arts Center (PPAC)
Philadelphia, PA
Interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome's multipart project, Black Magic, at PPAC and New York Live Arts, is a holistic reflection on agency, Blackness, and the futurity of intersectional identities and oppression. To Be Real is an exhibition featuring an array of new analog collages, as well as a cloud-based A.I. entity named Being (2019) whose mind has been populated with the works of radical authors, revolutionaries, theorists such as Paulo Freire, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Janet Mock, and the like. Its physical form is a figurative sculpture suspended in a death drop made of Ghanaian mahogany wood and sex-toy silicone.

Sept 12-15 & 18-21, 2019
Sarah Jones
Sell/Buy/Date
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
New York Live Arts presents the return of Tony Award -winning playwright and performer Sarah Jones (Bridge & Tunnel) to kickoff the 2019-20 season. Jones plays a dazzling medley of characters in Sell/Buy/Date, an exuberant show inspired by the real-life experiences of people affected by the sex industry. Brimming with Jones' masterful, multicultural characterizations, Sell/Buy/Date conveys an honest, moving and even humorous look at a complex and fascinating subject, all while preserving the full humanity of voices seldom heard in the theater. Directed by Carolyn Cantor.

September 17, 2019
Bill Chats: Elizabeth Alexander
Screening of "Can You Bring It" (excerpt of work-in-progress)
In association with Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

Sept 24-28, 2019
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
Fase
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's very first performance, premiered in 1982. Comprised of three duets and one solo, it is set to four repetitive compositions by Reich. De Keersmaeker uses the structure of Reich's music to develop an independent movement idiom that doesn't merely illustrate the music but also adds a new dimension to it.

Oct 1-5, 2019
Anne Teresa DeKeersmaeker
Rosas danst Rosas
New York Live Arts,
New York, NY
In 1983, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker had her international breakthrough with Rosas danst Rosas, a performance that has since become a benchmark in the history of postmodern dance. Building on the minimalism initiated in Fase, abstract movements constitute the basis of a layered choreographic structure in which repetition plays the lead role. Four female dancers dance themselves, again and again in a work that is unequivocally feminine. Repetitive, "maximalistic" music by Thierry De Mey and Peter Vermeersch were created concurrently with the choreography.

Oct 16-20, 2019
a canary torsi / Yanira Castro
Last Audience
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
(World Premiere)
Last Audience is a work embodied by its audience--a live laboratory for the communal work of conjuring. Comprised of a set of unique scores written for each performance;, the piece grapples with agency and manipulation, negotiating the individual and the collective inside a theatrical context. Drawing on language and themes from requiems and Greek classical tragedy on judgement and democratic formation, Last Audience moves inside the unstable space between the perfunctory and the transformative.

6:30PM daily: COMMUNE free, public meal before every performance hosted by special guests invited to contribute a dish, poem, story, and dance. Everyone is welcome (with or without a ticket).

Oct 19-5PM: In | Between group showcase co-curated by Yanira Castro and Martita Abril that assembles artists from the New York Foundation for the Art's Immigrant Artist Program including: Júlia Brandão, Floor Grootenhuis and Julian Louis Phillips, Robert Ó Shea, Lyto Triantafyllidou and Tina Wang.

Nov 8-9, 2019
Rashaad Newsome
FIVE Live Arts
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
FIVE is a generative multilayered work that sequentially incorporates choreography, performance, video, digital and two-dimensional drawing, and sculpture. Originally conceptualized using the five primary movements of voguing, FIVE recalibrates them into a new choreographic and video experience. Five dancers perform on camera while Newsome reframes and remixes the footage live, creating projected abstracted gestures. FIVE's malleability and durational shape-shifting is a reflection of change within the vogue style, perceptions around the art form, and the dynamic change in how it has manifested and is consumed.

Nov 10
Open Spectrum: Ballroom Has Something to Say
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
2:30PM: The Art of Performance voguing class co-taught by Pose cast member Jason A Rodriguez (Vogue New Way) and Ballroom Icon Pony Zion (Vogue Fem).

5PM: Ballroom: Trans Sounds of Black Freedom lecture/performance/discussion exploring the history of the House | Ballroom community as a Black Trans-Womanist theological discourse, a freedom movement, and its spiritual formation responses to race, class, sexuality, and gender oppression, and examines how a community reimagines itself through Performance, Fashion, and Intentional Kinship.

7MM: The Category is Vogue Fem (OTA), Curated by Michael Roberson (theologian, public health practitioner, activist, leader within the LGBTQ and House | Ballroom community, and advisor for the TV show Pose) and presented in partnership with House Lives Matter and the Arbert Santana Ballroom Freedom and Free School Project.

Nov 16, 2019 (Off-Site)
Rashaad Newsome
The Champion Ball
Icebox Project Space
Philadelphia, PA

Nov 23, 2019 (Off-Site)
Rashaad Newsome
FIVE
Icebox Project Space
Philadelphia, PA

December 9, 2019
Bill Chats: Elizabeth Diller

December 13-14, 2019
Fresh Tracks
New York Live Arts
New York, NY
Live Arts' legacy Fresh Tracks performance and residency program continues its 55-year commitment to bringing new voices to the forefront. The program provides five emerging artists with a 50-hour studio residency, a professionally produced shared evening bill in the New York Live Arts Theater, commission fee, one-on-one dialogue sessions with the program's Artistic Advisor, professional development workshops led by renowned professionals from the field and exclusive access to Live Arts' Marketing, Production and Programming staff. Through Fresh Tracks, New York Live Arts provides an unparalleled opportunity for new artistic voices to gain professional development, experience and recognition.

January, 2020
Live Artery
New York Live Arts' dynamic showcase of new and recent works by Live Arts commissioned artists and curated guests is presented during the annual Association of Performing Arts Professional's conference and will feature full theater productions, recently premiered works, and new studio presentations.

February 6, 2020
Raja Feather Kelly
2019 - 2020 Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist
Work-in-Progress Showing
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

February 13-15, 2020
Alexandra Chasin and Zishan Ugurlu
Fragments, Lists & Lacunae
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

March 4-7, 2020
Kimberly Bartosik / daela
Untitled
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

March 13, 2020
Christopher Williams
Live Feed Year One Studio Showing
New York Live Arts Studio
New York, NY

March 14, 2020
Ashley R.T. Yergens
Live Feed Year One Studio Showing
New York Live Arts Studio
New York, NY

March 18-21, 2020
Abby Z and the New Utility
Radioactive Practice
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

March 22, 2020
Feminist Dinner Party
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

March 25-28, 2020
Colleen Thomas
Light and Desire
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

March 30, 2020
Live Ideas Gala
The Caldwell Factory
New York, NY

April 8-11, 2020
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
chameleonbiomyth | the hold.
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

May 1, 2020
Holly Bass
Live Feed Year One Showing
Studio
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

May 2, 2020
Daniel Alexander Jones
Live Feed Year One Studio Showing
Studio
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

May 13-17, 2020
Live Ideas Festival

May 22, 2020
Milka Djordjevich
Live Feed Year One Studio Showing
Studio
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

May 29-30, 2020
Fresh Tracks Studio Showings
New York Live Arts
New York, NY

June, 2020
Live Arts Pride
New York Live Arts
New York, NY