Witness: Insights & Insistence
Friday, January 8, 2021 from 1pm to 2.30pm ET
A Zoom conversation led by the illustrious Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Founding Artistic Director, Urban Bush Women) with Artistic Directors: Ana Maria Alvarez (CONTRA-TIEMPO); Kyle Abraham (A.I.M by Kyle Abraham); Reggie Wilson (Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group); and Ronald K. Brown (Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE).
You are invited to witness a teaching moment as Jawole, endowed with powerful artistic mastery and perspective, engages these four compelling leaders to reflect on their beginnings, share insights on their current work, and collectively dive into ‘futuring’.
The conversation will be followed by a short Q & A.
RSVP to info@lotusartsmgmt.com – You will receive the Zoom link on January 8, a few hours before the event.
This conversation will be recorded and available for viewing until 11.59pm ET on Tuesday, January 12.
***All events for presenters only ***
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Ana Maria Alvarez, CONTRA-TIEMPO
Founding Artistic Director Ana Maria Alvarez, a 2020 Doris Duke Artist and an inaugural Dance/USA Artist Fellow, is a prolific choreographer, skilled dancer, masterful teaching artist, movement activist who has achieved multiple accolades for her dynamic works. Alvarez received a BA in Dance and Politics from Oberlin College and an MFA in Choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. Her thesis work exploring the abstraction of Latin dance, specifically Salsa, as a way to express social resistance as related to the U.S. immigration battle, became the impetus for founding CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater in 2005 in Los Angeles.
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women (Moderator)
Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1980 Jawole moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion, and in 1984 she founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change.
She has created over 34 works for UBW, as well as for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and others. Her company has toured five continents and was selected as one of three U.S. dance companies to inaugurate a cultural diplomacy program for the U.S. Department of State in 2010. Jawole was awarded the 2013 Arthur L. Johnson Memorial award by Sphinx Music at their inaugural conference on diversity in the arts and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. Recently, Jawole received the 2015 Dance Magazine Award, 2016 Dance/USA Honor Award, and the 2017 Bessies Lifetime Achievement Award alongside multiple honorary degrees from Columbia College, Chicago (2002), Tufts University (2013), Rutgers University (2013), and the Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA (2017). Jawole also holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Kyle Abraham, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham
Kyle Abraham and his choreography have been featured in O Magazine, Ebony, Vogue, Kinfolk, Document Journal, and several other publications.
Abraham is the proud recipient of a 2016 Doris Duke Award, 2012 United States Fellowship, several coveted Princess Grace awards including the 2018 Statue Award and in 2013, he was named MacArthur Fellow. Recently, Abraham collaborated with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Taylor Stanley on ‘Ces noms que nous portons’, a Lincoln Center and NYCB commissioned solo; and choreographed the music video for Sufjan Stevens’ Sugar. He premiered ‘to be seen’, a new solo for American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Calvin Royal III, for the 2020 virtual Fall For Dance Festival. Abraham is a Visiting Professor in Residence at UCLA, and the Artistic Director of A.I.M, the internationally acclaimed New York-based dance company.
In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled him as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama”.
Reggie Wilson, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group
Reggie Wilson is the Founder/Director of his Fist and Heel Performance Group (founded 1989). His creative works are grounded in research and performances conducted in over 30 countries in Africa and the African Diaspora. This wealth of spiritual and mundane information is combined with post-modern elements to create his unique personal movement/performance style that he refers to as “Post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern Dance.” He is the recipient of numerous awards, grants and fellowships in recognition of his performances and contributions to the dance field. Wilson has successfully managed, curated, taught, lectured, and conducted exchanges, workshops, and community projects with folks of diverse aesthetic and cultural backgrounds, both nationally and internationally.
Ronald K. Brown, Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE
Ronald K. Brown is the Artistic Director of Evidence, A Dance Company founded in 1985. He has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Ballet Hispanico, TU Dance, and Malpaso.Brown has won an AUDELCO Award for his choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, received two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award-winning Broadway and national touring production of The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, adapted by Suzan Lori Parks, arrangement by Diedre Murray & directed by Diane Paulus.
Showcases & Workshops
* Work-In-Progress – Friday, January 8 at 7 pm ET
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham will present excerpts from the following works currently available for touring:
– An Untitled Love- an evening-length ensemble work set to the music of R&B icon, D’Angelo.
– A reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem created in collaboration with noted electronic composer, Jlin and noted fashion designer, Giles Deacon.
– An intimate suite of solos and duets set to the music of Nina Simone.
* Judo – Friday, January 8 at 9pm ETIn Judo, Soon-ho Park views sports as a way to control, mediate, traverse and indeed transcend the violent, churning urges within us. Using this idea, Judo deploys the symbolic meaning of sports as a counterpoint and frame of reference and presents, through the medium of dance, the harmonious play between rhythm, movement and space.
* joyUS justUS – Friday, January 8 at 8 pm ET
joyUS justUS is an evening-length participatory activist dance theater experience that takes on joy as the ultimate expression of resistance. This performance was recorded at NC State LIVE in October 2019, with live music by Las Cafeteras.
* LIVE! Dancing Familias Workshop – Sunday, January 10, 11am to noon ET
Join via Zoom and groove with CONTRA-TIEMPO’s Artistic Director, dancer, and mama artivist, Ana Maria Alvarez, for her full-body dance class: Dancing Familias. Designed for all levels, caregivers, parents, kiddos, or anyone who wants to work that radical joy muscle! Ana Maria will guide the group in a powerful experience rooted in Afro Latin movement and grooving to build connection.
REGGIE WILSON/FIST & HEEL PERFORMANCE GROUP
* An Evening of Selected Works – Friday, January 8 at 6pm ET
“…complexity of traditions within black culture and society is an abiding presence in Wilson’s work.” Carrie Stern, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
An Evening of Selected Works is a selection of Reggie Wilson works, which include an excerpt of CITIZEN performed by Yeman Brown, the riveting solo INTRODUCTION performed by Wilson himself, and a rich exploration called the duet performed by Brown and Paul Hamilton. This performance was recorded at the Bates Dance Festival in July 2019.
* LIVE! The Equality of Night and Day – Saturday, January 9 at 3pm ET
Work-In-Progress from a residency at COCA in St Louis, MO
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” – Angela DavisThe Equality of Night and Day is presented in collaboration with jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran; racial justice advocate, Angela Davis; and foremost expert on African American photography, Deborah Willis. The work comments on the presumptions of equity and balance displaying ease and disruption, peace and rapture, awakening and steadfast effort. The destination: resolute honesty as a reflection of our reality.
* LIVE! Community Class – Saturday, January 9 from 10 am to noon ET
EVIDENCE Community Classes are designed for intergenerational participants with a wide range to no dance experience. The class will introduce the various dance techniques that are incorporated in the vocabulary of Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE by using the virtual space as a means to collect, heal, celebrate, and move as a community.
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Showcases are available for viewing until 11:59 pm ET on Tuesday, January 12.
To stream any of the above showcases or to participate in/observe a live virtual workshop, please RSVP to info@lotusartsmgmt.com
***All events for presenters only ***