AUG 18 | Women’s Right to Vote Centennial
Battery Dance Festival honors the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification, guaranteeing the rights of women to vote by staging past and present choreographic works by women, including the great Jean Erdman who recently passed.
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Program
ANNALEE TRAYLOR
the nearness of you
“the nearness of you” metaphorically depicts four different vignettes that are universally connected through the idea of relationships – whether it’s a relationship to oneself or to another, we all share the innate desire for human connection.
About the Artist
NYC-based creator/choreographer Annalee Traylor’s work has been presented in Los Angeles, NYC, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Texas, and Rotterdam, Netherlands, while her films have been shown in Seattle, Brooklyn, Rome, Minnesota, and at the American Dance Festival. In addition to the presentation of her work at the 38th Battery Dance Festival in NYC and at The Dance Gallery Festival in both NYC and Texas, she has been in residency at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.
ASHLEY MENESTRINA
Combative Echoes | World Premiere
As a singular earthbound human on a planet of billions, it seems no mystery that our energetic forces get bounced back in peculiar ways. In return, what are memories but the reencounter of transient energy?
About the Artist
Ashley Menestrina‘s performance starts in research, incubates in daily routines, and hatches into a fully imagined environment. Influenced by circumstances pertaining to sensation, her work builds with the intention to challenge tradition, to open pathways for audiences of all backgrounds to insert their own stories. Elements of the human condition are often referenced with an overtone, at times sarcastic and brooding.
DORIS HUMPHREY DANCED BY MEGGI SWEENEY SMITH
Quasi Waltz
A lyrical “wisp” of a dance, it plays with the dynamic elements of Doris Humphrey’s technique and expresses the whimsy and romanticism of Alexander Scriabin’s music.
Presented with the permission of the Doris Humphrey Foundation For Dance.
About the Artists
Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) has long been recognized as pillar of the founding generation in American Modern Dance and an innovator in technique, choreography and theory of dance movement. In 1927, Humphrey left the company of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn to found her own studio and performing group in New York with former Denishawn dancer and partner Charles Weidman. Gail Corbin is a leading exponent in the technique and repertory of Humphrey and Weidman. Meggi Sweeney Smith has premiered as a solo artist on both national and international stages for companies including New York Baroque Dance Company, Cohen/Suzeau, and CorbinDances, and has performed with Sokolow Dance/Theater Ensemble, and Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theater, and in works by Wally Cardona, Douglas Dunn, Eleanor King, José Limón, Kate Skarpetowska, and Ernestine Stodelle, among others.
FUTORIAN DANCE THEATRE
Suite of 3 | World Premiere
A suite with the themes of compassion, nurturance and dedication.
About the Company
Futorian Dance Theatre made its debut at Harlem Arts Festival Main Stage in 2017. It features members from the companies of Ailey II, Ballet Hispanico, and the Ailey school among other NYC-based companies.
JEAN ERDMAN BY NANCY ALLISON
Hamadryad
An original adaptation of Jean Erdman’s passionate, lyrical solo celebrating the pure joy of movement, conceived, produced and directed by dancer/choreographer Nancy Allison and filmmaker Paul Allman featuring former Graham principal dancer Miki Orihara.
About the Artist
Born in the early 20th century and raised in Hawaii, choreographer/dancer/ avant-garde theater director Jean Erdman was inspired to create a passionate, lyrical solo celebrating the pure joy of movement during the summer of 1948 while walking through a forest from her cottage in the Maverick Arts Colony in Woodstock, NY to her studio. This original adaptation, conceived, produced and directed by dancer/choreographer Nancy Allison and filmmaker Paul Allman, translates Erdman’s passionate, lyrical solo and features former Graham principal dancer Miki Orihara. In memoriam: Erdman passed on May 4, 2020 at age 104.
KATHRYN POSIN DANCE COMPANY
Triple Sextet, Third Movement
Set to the third movement of Steve Reich’s Pulitzer-winning “Double Sextet,” a third sextet- the dancers – adds to the polyrhythmic interlocking musical network.
About the Company
The Kathryn Posin Dance Company has appeared at The Public Theater, The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Roundabout Theater, NYU, St. Marks Danspace, Symphony Space, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park among many other venues. The company has received support from NEA, NYSCA, Guggenheim Foundation, Harkness Foundation, Doris Humphry Fellowship at ADF, and Jerome Robins Foundation. The company has toured to almost every state in the U.S., Switzerland, Canada, Bulgaria and Greece.
LORI BELILOVE DANCING ISADORA DUNCAN
Revolutionary
This solo comes from Isadora Duncan as handed down through generations of Duncan Dancers. Isadorable Irma Duncan, transmitted the dance to American Duncan Dancer Julia Levien, and then to third generation Duncan Dancer Lori Belilove.
About the Artist
As founder and Artistic Director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation & Company, Lori Belilove maintains a studio and school in New York City. She has toured solo and with her company across America performing in colleges, universities and festivals. Internationally, she has toured to Budapest, Germany, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, West Africa, Italy, and Russia. In Brazil she has established an on-going affiliate Duncan school and performing Ensemble. Last year Lori was appointed Artistic Director of the newly established Duncan Dance Academy in Shenzhen, China, with affiliate branches in 15 countries.
RGWW
Layla Means Night
Inspired by the Persian tale of Shahrzad (Scheherazade), the legendary clever bride immortalized in One Thousand and One Nights, the video opens with the Iranian traditional folktale opening, the equivalent of “Once Upon a Time” delivered in Farsi.
About the Company
Rosanna Gamson / World Wide (RGWW) has created bi-national collaborative projects in Lithuania, Poland and Mexico, and toured in North America since 2000 and in Europe since 2012. The company has led workshops and master classes and been presented and commissioned by museums, theaters, festivals and alternative performance spaces. In California our presenting partners include REDCAT, ODC Theater, the Skirball Cultural Center, the Getty Center, and Grand Performances. RGWW’s North American touring includes Teatro Raul Flores Canelo de CENART and UNAM in Mexico City, the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, PICA’s TBA Festival, the Dance Center of Columbia College, Chicago; and the XXth International Hispanic Theater Festival, in Miami. RGWW is the recipient of six Lester Horton Dance Awards, including a Special Dance Innovator Award to Gamson for her body of work.