The Flea Announces Dance Conversations 2012, 3/14-25

The Flea Theater will bring back its highly-anticipated free dance festival, Dance Conversations, this spring. Dance Conversations 2012 will run March 14 – 25 showcasing a series of films and works-in-progress by 36 emerging and established choreographers, dance companies, and filmmakers. Following each showing or performance will be forums between the artists and audience exploring raw, evolving, and fully developed works. A full schedule is available online at www.theflea.org. 

"The Flea loves dance," says The Flea's Producing Director, Carol Ostrow. "We can think of no better way to endorse emerging and established choreographers and dance companies than to open our doors for these 8 days at our theater in TriBeCa. We want the floors to burn!"

Choreographer Nina Winthrop and Taimi Strehlow return to helm the festival as Curators.

"It continues to be a delightful pleasure to curate this series. Every season has had such talented and innovative choreographers showcasing their work," says festival curator Winthrop. "It's also been great to see several returning artists who prize the venue and feedback that The Flea Theater and Dance Conversations provide.  And each year, new artists are added to the mix for an exciting and often unpredictable festival."

Artists for Dance Conversations 2012 are Katie Balton Dance, Claire Porter/PORTABLES, Amos Pinhasi, Leyya Mona Tawil and Lars J. Brouwer, Barbara Mahler, Columbine Macher, Athena Kokoronis, Daniela Hoff Dance Company, Mare Hieronimus and Sharon Mansur, Donna Costello, Catey Ott Dance Collective, Inclined Dance Project, Jessica Ray, Movement of the People Dance Company, Vangeline, Megan Sipe, Molissa Fenley, Maggie Bennett, Caliince Dance, binbinFactory, Talya Epstein, David Appel, Beau Hancock, A.H. Dance Company, Peggy and Murray Schwartz,  Luke Murphy, BARKIN/SELISSEN PROJECT, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. Films: Life In Security by Keith Johnson & Gregory R.R. Crosby; Emergences by Shantala Pèpe; Surgeon General's Warning by Natalie Metzger; Brothers Keeper by Marta Renzi; Tree by Pyeunghun Baik; Nobody's Darling by Marta Renzi; Seven Fruits by Pyeunghun Baik. 

Post-performance discussion moderators include Wally Cardona, John Jasperse, Pele Bauch, Gina Gibney, Carol Ostrow, and Jonah Bokaer.

Nina Winthrop (Dance Conversations Curator) formed her company, Nina Winthrop and Dancers, in 1991. Her works have been presented in venues throughout New York City and Los Angeles, including Danspace Project, Joyce SoHo, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Mabou Mines' Toronada Theater at PS 122, Roulette and The Flea Theater. Her dance films have been screened in the US and abroad. Nina was awarded a Bessie Schönberg Choreographers' Residency at The Yard in 2004, a Dancenow/NYC's Silo Artist Residency in 2005, and participated in the Schönberg Choreographers Lab at DTW in 2005. She is on the Board of Directors of New Dance Alliance and Danspace Project. A graduate of Bennington College, Nina danced with Wendy Perron, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Sally Silvers and Kei Takei, with whom she toured the USA and Japan, and studied with ERick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham and Deborah Hay.

Taimi Strehlow (Assistant Dance Conversations Curator) is a Program Administrator for the International Peace Institute. Before entering the dance world, she was a television producer with A&E, The History Channel and PBS. Her film, Big Known Names received the best documentary prize at the 2007 Red Bank International Film Festival. Taimi holds degrees from Dartmouth College, New York University and CUNY/Zicklin School of Business.

The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the premieres of Anne Nelson's The Guys; six plays by A.R. Gurney (Post Mortem, O Jerusalem, Screenplay, Mrs. Farnsworth, A Light Lunch and Office Hours); Mac Wellman's Cellophane and Two September; Roger Rosenblatt's Ashley Montana Goes Ashore... and The Oldsmobiles; Elizabeth Swados' JABU and Kaspar Hauser; Karen Finley's Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman; Adam Rapp's Bingo with the Indians; Will Eno's Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations; Dawn by Thomas Bradshaw; The Great Recession, Jonathan Reynolds' Girls in Trouble, Bathsheba Doran's Parents' Evening, and most recently the holiday hit Looking at Christmas by Steven Banks.

For more information on this year's Dance Conversations and artists, visit www.theflea.org.  The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal Street in TriBeCa, close to the N/R/Q/W, 6, J/M/Z, A/C/E at Canal, or the 1 train at Franklin.