THE MOVING MEMORY PROJECT to Return in February With a Dance Show

The Moving Memory Project - a multidisciplinary festival focused on memory and forgetting, created and produced by choreographer Stefanie Nelson and bestselling writer David Shenk (The Forgetting), - will return in 2023 for an in-person presentation of works by NYC-based dance artists, presented under the title Sense Memory. The event will feature opening remarks by Meredith Wong, director of Caring Kind's connect2culture program, and performances of three dance works: Bunker + Vault by Rebecca Margolick; Choir by Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts; and excerpts from Paradox in Translation by Mignolo Dance. The event will be held at 7:30 pm on Friday, February 10, 2023, at Broadway Presbyterian Church (601 W 114th St, New York, NY 10025). A post-show discussion and a reception with live music will follow. Admission is free, with the suggested pay-what-you-can donation; RSVP is required. To reserve tickets, go to https://www.sndancegroup.org/.

Launched in 2019, The Moving Memory Project embodies is founders' vision of bringing together artists, caregivers, and seniors to create a community of care surrounding issues connected to memory loss and destigmatizing the diagnosis of dementia, with the ultimate goal of raising awareness to increase funding until a cure is found. "Works like this can help the world think and talk about Alzheimer's in important new ways," says co-producer David Shenk whose writings on Alzheimer's and dementia garnered him international acclaim as an authority on the subject. Stefanie Nelson, the creator and choreographer of A MY NAME IS..., which was a centerpiece of the inaugural edition of the festival, adds: "We are excited to present works by a diverse group of groundbreaking, NYC-based artists who turn their attention to the ways our bodies retain brief impressions from a constant barrage of sensory information. Such memories are vital for our ability to comprehend and manage the world around us. These three artists were chosen for the intimacy and depth each brings to the work; these powerful solos truly embody the isolation and loneliness of this disease."

Video: Highlights from The Moving Memory Project 2019 https://vimeo.com/316688261

The Moving Memory Project is made possible in part with funding from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC.) This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the West Harlem Development Corporation.

PROGRAM DETAILS

Rebecca Margolick
Bunker + Vault

This solo dance is about how memory is experienced through the body and generations. It was influenced by archival research on the women who resided at the 92nd Y Residence and The Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls from 1899-1950. Rebecca's practice grew from this research, embodying and visualizing memories of these women, as well as her own, approaching the time in a non-linear fashion, reflecting the parallels, struggles, and shared history through generations of working-class women. This relentless solo plays with rigor and rhythm as a grounding force in a chaotic mind.

The work won the Jury Prize for "best indoor choreographic work" at the 2019 Festival Quartiers Danses in Montreal Canada. It has been presented in NYC and internationally.

Kayla Farrish/ Decent Structures Arts
Choir

"Choir is a solo on shedding. It is the quiet, the loss, the lost, the build-up and confrontations in Blackness when you're too tired, the desire for change, and a score for liberation. It is going back in time in personal memory and connecting to spaces of history to recall home, feeling, and all these voices in the community I'm connected to. And over time, we decide to shed and to shift, and possibly eventually find joy, fear, spirit and praise, and at least release. It is the choir that floods through me finally." - Kayla Farrish

This performance was created through the curation of Kenyon Adams in connection with Carrie Mae Weems's exhibit The Shape of Things at the Park Avenue Armory; it was a part of The Land of Broken Dreams, a larger convening of artists and scholars sharing research and work in. The soundtrack was mixed by Kayla Farrish and includes recordings by artists who inspired the work: Walter Hawkins, Julius Eastman, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Kendrick Lamar, Big Joe Turner, Ella Fitzgerald, SHXCXCHCXSH, Aaron Dilloway and Lucrecia Dalt, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, and 7038634357.

Mignolo Dance
Excerpts from Paradox in Translation

Paradox in Translation embodies two poems, creating a vocabulary that exactly maps to the spoken/sung text. This is complemented by more disjointed translations, culminating in a dreamscape that explores the contradictions inherent in memory, love, and loss. Choreographed by Charly Santagado, with text by Matthew Menchaca and Charly Santagado and music by Emory Campbell and Steve Reich (Alex Smoke Remix), the piece is performed by Charly Santagado and Eriel Santagado.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Stefanie Nelson

(Concept, Producer) founded and directs Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup, a contemporary performance group based in NYC, and DANCEITALIA, an international summer dance program in Lucca, Italy. She approaches her work intuitively, distilling deeply personal ideas into highly kinetic, expressive, and provocative works rooted in cross-media collaboration with artists working in music, video, and visual arts. Her work has been described as 'instinctual, untamed, and edgy'. Entering the dance field as a performer, notably as a soloist with Anna Sokolow's Player's Project, Nelson is an accomplished teacher as well having been invited to many studios and educational institutions worldwide. She is the 2023 recipient of the National Foundation for the Arts grant, among many other prestigious institutional support. The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) identified her as an Emerging Leader in the field of dance providing a year-long mentorship. She's served as a Choreography panelist for NYFA's prestigious Artists' Fellowship awards and The Joyce Theater and local NYC dance festivals. Nelson recently collaborated with fashion designer Terrence Zhou for Bad Binch TONGTONG's New York Fashion Week debut with Assistant Maya Orchin. She also choreographed Plan-B, a feature film starring Diane Keaton. She recently opened Motore592, a new center for contemporary practices in Lucca, IT in 2021 which hosts Dance Italia and TRY international dance program.

David Shenk

(Co-producer) is the award-winning and national bestselling author of six books, including The Genius in All of Us ("deeply interesting and important" - The New York Times), The Forgetting ("remarkable" - The Los Angeles Times), Data Smog ("indispensable" - The New York Times), and The Immortal Game ("superb" - The Wall Street Journal). He is a popular lecturer, a short-film director/producer, and a contributor to National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nature Biotechnology, Harper's, Spy, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, NPR, and BBC. PBS's "The Forgetting," inspired by Shenk's book, won an Emmy in 2004. In 2006, the book The Forgetting was featured in Sarah Polley's Oscar-nominated film "Away From Her." Shenk has advised the President's Council on Bioethics on dementia-related issues, served as a Senior Advisor to Cure Alzheimer's Fund, and is the Creator/Executive Producer of the "Living with Alzheimer's" film project. Shenk lives in Brooklyn. www.davidshenk.com

Meredith Wong

(Keynote Speaker) is an educator with over 20 years of experience working in culture and disability. In her current position as Director of connect2culture® at CaringKind, a social service nonprofit based in New York, she has created and grown a unique program that connects families with cultural organizations offering meaningful engagement programs for people living with dementia and their family and professional care partners. Meredith is a native New Yorker, and a former Steering Committee member of the Museum, Arts, Culture, Access Consortium (MAC), and the Education Committees of the Cooper Hewitt Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design. Her speaking engagements include the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) conference and at the annual Alliance for American Museums (AAM) conference. Meredith earned a B.A. in Art History from Goucher College and an M.A.T in Museum Education from George Washington University.

Kayla Farrish

(Choreographer/Performer) is an award-winning choreographer, performer, filmmaker, and photographer, producing multidisciplinary work with her collaborators, Decent Structures Arts, an emerging company combining filmmaking, storytelling, dance theater performance, and sound score. The company has been commissioned by such venues as The Clarice-Black Light Summit, Fusebox Festival, ODC Theater, Gibney, Little Island, Louis Armstrong House Museum, Four/Four, Danspace Project, Pepatian/BAAD!, Triskelion Arts, among others. Projects produced with Decent Structures Arts include films Black Bodies Sonata, The New Frontier (my dear America), With grit From, Grace, Roster, and the 2022 film Martyr's Fiction. In recent years, Farrish engaged in a number of high-profile collaborations, including performing in the Bessie Award-winning production of The Motherboard Suites, directed by Bill T. Jones, and sharing her work with Kyle Abraham/AIM Reunion Concert at the Lincoln Center, collaborating with the incredible jazz musician Melanie Charles, and choreographing for the critically acclaimed project Little Amal, directed by Tea Alagic. In addition, Farrish has freelanced with companies including Sleep No More NYC, Marjani Forte/7NMS, Kate Weare Company, Helen Simoneau Danse, Company SBB, Dendy/Donovan Projects, Arthur Aviles, Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Reiner, Nicole Von Arx, Danielle Russo, and many others. She has taught and rehearsal directed at Juilliard, University of the Arts, NYU, Marymount College, University of NC School of the Arts, Alonzo King Lines Training Program, New Dialect, and others. www.kaylafarrish.com

Rebecca Margolick

(Choreographer/Performer) is a Canadian-born choreographer and dancer based in New York. Her multidisciplinary group and solo works have been presented across the US and Canada as well as internationally in Costa Rica, France, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Mexico, and Israel. She was named one of Dance Magazine's Top 25 to Watch in 2021, and has received multiple awards for her solo work. Rebecca has received numerous fellowships (including the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation's New Directions Choreography Lab under the mentorship of Gus Solomons jr) and awarded many residencies from leading art centers such as the Banff Centre for the Arts, BC Movement Arts Society, Dance Deck Vancouver, La Galerie Chorégraphique (France), and the GPS Fund Movement Research Artist in Residence at Derida Dance Center (Bulgaria). Rebecca is currently a company member and a rehearsal director of Chuck Wilt's UNA Productions. She has worked with such dancemakers as Sidra Bell, Belinda McGuire, Jerome Bel, Kayla Farrish, Allen Kaeja, Patricia Norowol, Maya Orchin, Derrick Belcham, Emily Terndrup, Shay Kuebler, and Barak Marshalls. Rebecca trained at Arts Umbrella in Vancouver and graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. www.rebeccamargolick.com

Charly Santagado

(Choreographer/Performer) is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and curator as well as co-founder and artistic director of Mignolo Dance. Originally from Florida and based in the NJ/NY area, she graduated with the highest honors from Rutgers University in 2017 with a major in philosophy and minors in dance, music, and creative writing. Charly has danced with several companies and choreographers including Heidi Latsky Dance, VALLETO Dance, ReFrame Dance Theatre, Katelyn Halpern and Dancers, Yu.S. Artistry, and Monteleone Dance Collective. She also regularly performs in her own work, which has been presented at numerous venues, including Ailey Citigroup Theater, Peridance, Triskelion Arts, Suzanne Roberts Theater, and The Berrie Center. In recent years, she's been selected for coLAB Arts' new choreography commission, Dance Canvas's Choreographic Initiative, an Urbanity Dance NEXT Residency, Norte Maar's CounterPointe9, One Day Dance's third season, and a Kulturfactory Residency in Domicella, Italy. She has won screendance awards at several international film festivals, as well as Ramapo College's Leaning into the Unknown Competition, Spoke The Hub's Winter Follies (Director's Choice), Palm Springs International Dance Festival's film competition, KoDaFe in NYC, and International Online Dance Competition's Choreography Division. www.charlysantagado.com

For more information about the event, visit www.sndancegroup.org