Dancing While Black

presented in partnership with BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance

We will come together to share age old traditions located in the preparations and care takings of our homes. This gathering is inspired by Nia Love’s need to reconnect and redirect her diet after age 50 (women of the yam). We will share food, recipes, stories and heirlooms.

Bring a family dish to share, if you can (those not requiring refrigeration is best). Dishes should highlight foods own natural flavors without additives (no sweeteners). Bring the recipe – we will look at the ingredients and their geographical knowledge, mental and physical health advantages and discuss what about these dishes have been gained or lost over generations. Bring a family heirloom to show and discuss and come prepared to share a story that united/brought you closer to your ancestors. Dress in comfortable clothes you can move in. Wine and beer available for purchase.

Curated by Paloma McGregor

Featuring work by the 2016/17 Dancing While Black Fellows:

• Melanie Greene (Friday)
• Katrina Reid (Friday)
• Brittany Williams (Friday)
• Kesha McKey (Friday & Saturday)
• Maritza Mercado-Narcisse (Saturday)
• Joya Powell (Saturday)
• Jaimé Dzandu (Saturday)

Witness experiments, early constructions and visions in progress from the 2016-17 Dancing While Black Fellowship class. These seven emerging artists from New York City and New Orleans have spent the past six months building community and sharpening their aesthetic swords – through workshops with master teachers, communal dinners and studio sharings. The Fellowship, a program of Angela’s Pulse, is part of Dancing While Black founder Paloma McGregor’s ongoing commitment to community building and centering the voices and visions of Black dance makers.

Stay after each performance for a post-show conversation with the Fellows.
Can’t make it? Join the dialogue and get a glimpse behind the scenes by following #DWBhands.

Tickets: $16 – General, $10 – Low Income [BUY]

Curated by Paloma McGregor

Featuring work by the 2016/17 Dancing While Black Fellows:

• Melanie Greene (Friday)
• Katrina Reid (Friday)
• Brittany Williams (Friday)
• Kesha McKey (Friday & Saturday)
• Maritza Mercado-Narcisse (Saturday)
• Joya Powell (Saturday)
• Jaimé Dzandu (Saturday)

Witness experiments, early constructions and visions in progress from the 2016-17 Dancing While Black Fellowship class. These seven emerging artists from New York City and New Orleans have spent the past six months building community and sharpening their aesthetic swords – through workshops with master teachers, communal dinners and studio sharings. The Fellowship, a program of Angela’s Pulse, is part of Dancing While Black founder Paloma McGregor’s ongoing commitment to community building and centering the voices and visions of Black dance makers.

Stay after each performance for a post-show conversation with the Fellows.
Can’t make it? Join the dialogue and get a glimpse behind the scenes by following #DWBhands.

Tickets: $16 – General, $10 – Low Income [BUY]

Moderated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa with panelists Charmaine Warren, Paloma McGregor, and Ni’Ja Whitson

The Skeleton Architecture is a vessel of Black womyn and gender nonconforming artists rooted in the rigor and power of the collective in practice. We create, organize, advocate, gather, curate, perform, play, challenge, and teach through the deep of our ancestral knowledges toward the liberated future of our worlds.

we (been) here is a communing of members of The Skeleton Architecture to explore embodied archive, communal selfhood, and the divine everyday. Inspired by Dr. Kariamu Welsh Asante’s description of Africanist memory as “a conscious and subconscious calling upon the ancestors, gods, mind to permit the flow of energy,” we will move, sit, talk, write, draw, conjure and vision, through both private and public practices.

Presented in partnership with EYA Projects, Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black and Gibney Dance.

At this public form, we will discuss lineage, Black magic(k) and why collectivism matters now. Panelists will respond to a passage from Audre Lorde’s essay “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”: “These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.”

Click HERE to RSVP.

The Skeleton Architecture is a vessel of Black womyn and gender nonconforming artists rooted in the rigor and power of the collective in practice. We create, organize, advocate, gather, curate, perform, play, challenge, and teach through the deep of our ancestral knowledges toward the liberated future of our worlds.

we (been) here is a communing of members of The Skeleton Architecture to explore embodied archive, communal selfhood, and the divine everyday. Inspired by Dr. Kariamu Welsh Asante’s description of Africanist memory as “a conscious and subconscious calling upon the ancestors, gods, mind to permit the flow of energy,” we will move, sit, talk, write, draw, conjure and vision, through both private and public practices.

Presented in partnership with EYA Projects, Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black and Gibney Dance.

These workshops are offered as a safer space for Black bodies to collect and center ourselves in particular solidarity.

Roots and Relativity: 10:30 – 11:45 am
Facilitated by Maria Bauman and Samantha Speis

we free/with you: 1:00 – 2:15 pm
Facilitated by Marguerite Hemmings and Angie Pittman

Epic Memory Lab: 2:30 – 4:00 pm
Facilitated by Nia Love, in collaboration with TSA members

Click HERE to register to participate.

On the eve of Dancing While Black’s fifth anniversary season, founder Paloma McGregor and members of the DWB community reflect on the platform’s history and spark a dialogue about its future.

Dancing While Black was founded in 2012 to center Black voices in a field that marginalizes our work, particularly artists whose practices do not fit neatly into the reductive labels predetermined for Black bodies in dance. What power does this growing network of artists have in the current political climate? What practices might we contribute to or borrow from broader social justice movements? How are we visioning deepening our work together?

Space is limited. Register in advance HERE.

ARTIST SERVICES DAY features an array of talks and workshops designed to support working dance, theater, performance artists and their supporters.
Click here to view the full schedule for BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s Artists Services Day

3:00pm Healing Afternoon with Harriet’s Apothecary| $5 Suggested Donation
8:00pm Last Night A DJ Gave Me Life | $10 General

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
– Audre Lorde

Join us for a day honoring the necessity of self-care in the midst of artistic practice crafted in collaboration with healers and visionaries whose movement making is rooted in Black aesthetics and informed by radical community connection.

The afternoon opens with one-on-one sessions and communal experiences shepherded by Harriet’s Apothecary. This intergenerational healing village is led by the brilliance and wisdom of Black Cis Women, Queer and Trans healers, artists, health professionals, magicians, activists and ancestors. As the sun sets, we enter the world of Last Night a DJ Gave Me Life: DJ as Revolutionary, Dance as a Tool of Liberation. This dance workshop, led by Artist Monstah Black, DJ Manchildblack and Theater Artist Ashley Brockington, investigates a structural intervention in the current modality of protest by engaging the body and the beat as tools of liberation. Last Night a DJ Gave Me Lifeis a theatrical experiment where community can develop movement that embodies the call to justice.

Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground, presented by New York-based Angela’s Pulse and New Orleans-based Junebug Productions, engages three generations of Black women choreographers from across the nation with New Orleans communities, culture bearers, and Black college students. Through workshops, site-responsive performance, and work-in-progress showings, collaborators will explore art making practices for social movement building. This cultural exchange is rooted in the past and present legacy of Black creative change-making in New Orleans.

The choreographers – Nia Love (NYC), Jaimé Dzandu and Brittany Williams (NYC), and Onye Ozuzu (Chicago) – spent one week in February teaching workshops across New Orleans, developing site-responsive performance at Xavier University, and sharing works-in-progress alongside local choreographers at Dancing Grounds. This cultural exchange will culminate in April with Dancing While Black: In Our Own Words, a public Story Circle process centering the voices of Black dance makers, followed by a performance at the Contemporary Art Center New Orleans.

Come witness two days of experiments, early constructions and visions in progress from the 2015-16 Dancing While Black Fellowship class. These emerging artists have spent the past six months building community through workshops with master teachers, communal dinners and a public discussion at BAX. The Fellowship, a program of Angela’s Pulse, is part of Dancing While Black founder Paloma McGregor’s ongoing commitment to community building and centering the voices and visions of black dance makers.

Tickets $10 [Buy Tickets]

Learn more about the 2015-16 DWB Fellows HERE.

BAX is the Brooklyn partner for Dancing While Black (DWB) founded by BAX Artist in Residence, Paloma McGregor, and supported by the Surdna Foundation.

The Surdna Foundation seeks to foster sustainable communities in the United States — communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

Come witness two days of experiments, early constructions and visions in progress from the 2015-16 Dancing While Black Fellowship class. These emerging artists have spent the past six months building community through workshops with master teachers, communal dinners and a public discussion at BAX. The Fellowship, a program of Angela’s Pulse, is part of Dancing While Black founder Paloma McGregor’s ongoing commitment to community building and centering the voices and visions of black dance makers.

Tickets $10 [Buy Tickets]

Learn more about the 2015-16 DWB Fellows HERE.

BAX is the Brooklyn partner for Dancing While Black (DWB) founded by BAX Artist in Residence, Paloma McGregor, and supported by the Surdna Foundation.

The Surdna Foundation seeks to foster sustainable communities in the United States — communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

Master Classes for the Masses are an artistic training and community-building forum where participants can experience the unique aesthetics and teaching methodologies of Black experimental master artists while building their artistic network.

This event is a part of  Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground.

Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground, presented by New York-based Angela’s Pulse and New Orleans-based Junebug Productions, engages three generations of Black women choreographers from across the nation with New Orleans communities, culture bearers, and Black college students. Through workshops, site-responsive performance, and work-in-progress showings, collaborators will explore art making practices for social movement building. This cultural exchange is rooted in the past and present legacy of Black creative change-making in New Orleans.

Under Construction is an experimental space where artists can investigate emerging ideas while engaging in dialogue with audience members to help gain new insights for their developing creative work. This sharing is unique in that it invites the audience to participate in the process of building a new artistic vision in a space that encourages risk taking and innovation.

This event is a part of  Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground.

Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground, presented by New York-based Angela’s Pulse and New Orleans-based Junebug Productions, engages three generations of Black women choreographers from across the nation with New Orleans communities, culture bearers, and Black college students. Through workshops, site-responsive performance, and work-in-progress showings, collaborators will explore art making practices for social movement building. This cultural exchange is rooted in the past and present legacy of Black creative change-making in New Orleans.

Dancing While Black: On Fertile Ground, presented by New York-based Angela’s Pulse and New Orleans-based Junebug Productions, engages three generations of Black women choreographers from across the nation with New Orleans communities, culture bearers, and Black college students. Through workshops, site-responsive performance, and work-in-progress showings, collaborators will explore art making practices for social movement building. This cultural exchange is rooted in the past and present legacy of Black creative change-making in New Orleans.

A conversation digging into issues identified by this year’s cohort of Dancing While Black Fellows.

Directed by BAX AIR Paloma McGregor and supported by the Surdna Foundation.

Learn more about the 2015-16 DWB Fellows HERE.

Space is limited. Register in advance HERE.

ARTIST SERVICES DAY features an array of talks and workshops designed to support working dance, theater, performance artists and their supporters.
Click here to view the full schedule for BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s Artists Services Day

The Surdna Foundation seeks to foster sustainable communities in the United States — communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

Join the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center and the National Black Theater for Open Season 2015, a human rights day event about women and girls in a culture of confinement. This evening of art, conversation and performance will feature contributions from Dancing While Black, Nina Angela Mercer, Ebony Noelle Golden, Aimee Meredith Cox, and other top artists, cultural workers and scholars.

“Unity does not require that we be identical to each other.” – Audre Lorde

Guest curators Ebony Noelle Golden, Jaamil Kosoko and Nia Love invite us to look at the intersectionality of masculinity, feminism, warrior[ism], [black] art and the assumption that these terms can not occupy the same space. The weekend will feature facilitated dialogue, two evenings of performance and Master Classes for the Masses with Darrell Jones and Onye Ozuzu.

Check out the syllabus for our discussions HERE.

A roundtable discussion on building solidarity and equity within the field, featuring:

• Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, dance scholar and author of The Black Dancing Body
• A. Nia Austin-Edwards, founder of PURPOSE Productions
• Candace Feldman, Associate Producer of 651 Arts
• Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, co-director of anonymous bodies || art collective, independent curator
• Aimee Cox, Moderator

This panel is supported in part by Urban Bush Women through a grant from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Documentation provided by NYU’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

View the full schedule for BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s Artists Services Day here

Dec. 10 is Human Rights Day. Join us at Open Season — an evening of multimedia art and conversation about our country’s culture of confinement. What are the societal conditions that led to the creation of our current system of policing and prisons? The event, created by the Human Rights Project at The Urban Justice Center, includes dance performance curated with Dancing While Black, with support from Urban Bush Women. The evening will also feature film, visual art and the vision and voices of leading thinkers and artists:

• Dr. William Jelani Cobb, UConn Professor and New Yorker contributor
• Bryonn Bain, Poet and New York University Professor
• Esther Armah, Syndicated Radio Host, The Spin
• Taneya Gethers-Muhammed, Brooklyn Public Library
• Lumumba Bandele, NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• Paloma McGregor, Choreographer and Director of Angela’s Pulse

This event is open to all. A $15 donation is suggested, but no one will be turned away for a lack of funds.

FRIDAY, May 30
Come to the Panel, Stay for the Show!

Dancing While Black: Collectivism and Black Aesthetics
This is sure to be a lively discussion featuring Urban Bush Women’s Founder Jawole Zollar, Dance Scholar Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Cultural Anthropologist Aimee Cox and Cultural Critic Greg Tate, moderated by Artist/Organizer Shani Jamila.

Dancing While Black: Collective(s) Action
Featuring bold performance works by Rashida Bumbray/Dance Diaspora Collective, Ebony Noelle Golden/Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Adia Whitaker/Ase Dance Theatre Collective.

SATURDAY, May 31
Come to the Classes, Stay for the Show!

Dancing While Black: Master Classes for the Masses
A rare chance to study with Dance Masters Nia Love (Modern Roots), Adenike Sharpley (Praise Traditions) and Jawole Zollar (How We Got To The Funk).
$10 for ALL THREE classes!

Dancing While Black: Collective(s) Action
Featuring bold performance works by Rashida Bumbray/Dance Diaspora Collective, Ebony Noelle Golden/Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Adia Whitaker/Ase Dance Theatre Collective.

Re: purpose features the work of Pamela Council, Sara Jimenez, Sondra Perry and Patrice Renee Washington, four New York-based women artists who transform common domestic and cosmetic objects in order to expand the possibilities of self-representation. These artists redefine an object’s form and function to reveal its hidden histories and how our identities inform our perception.

Through work that is referential, critical and humorous, the artists negotiate their identities in relation to consumerism, popular culture, and the daily experience of inhabiting a gendered and racialized body. By choosing materials of personal significance, they claim a variety of cultural legacies and champion the legitimacy of subjective interpretation. Their work troubles aesthetic hierarchies and generates a critical dialogue around the lived realities of women of color in the contemporary art world.

In partnership with the artist-driven initiative Dancing While Black, movement-based artists Rashida Bumbray, Ebony Noelle Golden, Paloma McGregor, Sydnie Mosley, and Gesiye Souza-Okpofabri will perform solos in response to pieces in Re: purpose.

Presented in partnership with MoCADA, Human Rights Project and Urban Bush Women

An evening with the founders of Ase Dance Theatre Collective, Dance Diaspora Collective and Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, who have developed potent, virtuosic performance practices rooted in cultivating collectivism. In a field that is so often individualistic or product-driven, how and why are Rashida Bumbray, Ebony Noelle Golden and Adia Tamar Whitaker making contemporary performance work aligned with community building? Join us in experiencing their work and vision.

Join Hemispheric New York Performance Network (HNYPN) Artist in Residence Paloma McGregor for story circles about Dancing While Black with leading Diasporan scholars, writers and artists. Dancing While Black is McGregor’s artist-driven effort to support and illuminate the diverse work and experiences of black dance artists through production, process, dialogue and documentation.

Participants include: Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, Eva Yaa Assantewa, John Perpener, Ebony Golden, Adia Whitaker, Gabri Christa, Nia Love, Marya Wethers, James Frazier, Onye Ozuzu, Shalonda Ingram and Antonio Brown, with additional contributions by Jawole Zollar, Kyle Abraham, Raja Kelly, and Camille Brown.