UPCOMING | Dramaturgy in Dance | Online FREE Event

Thrilled to be joining such a talented group of folks to talk about the complex topic of dramaturgy in contemporary dance. Humbled to be invited by the powerhouse Melanie George

Art + Action Talk : Dramaturgy in Dance

Feb 23 | 7p EST

Art + Action Talk: Dramaturgy in Dance

with Stephanie Acosta, Pele Bauch, and Katherine Profeta, moderated by Melanie George.

Dramaturgy in Dance brings to together a group of artist-dramaturgs working in dance and dance theatre to discuss the methods and materials of dramaturgy in our field. The group represents a range of aesthetics and practices happening in the field today.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Melanie George – Artist Moderator
Melanie George is a dance educator, choreographer, scholar, and dramaturg. She is the founder and director of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-In-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by David Neumann & Marcella Murray (on the Obie Award winning Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed), Raja Feather Kelly, Ephrat Asherie, Susan Marshall & Company, Machine Dazzle, and Urban Bush Women among others. A highly sought after teacher and choreographer of the neo-jazz aesthetic, Melanie is a featured in the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance. Melanie has presented her research on jazz improvisation and pedagogy throughout the U.S., in Canada and Scotland, and founded the global advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com. She is the former Dance Program Director at American University, and has guest lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School, among others.

Art + Action Talk, curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, is Gibney’s online talk show for discerning fans of dance, the creative process and all the ways art plays a vital role in society.

Good Day God Damn | WORLD PREMIERE | Chocolate Factory Theater

IT IS HERE AND I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! THIS IS IT! THE ONE WE BEEN CHURNING ON! DO NOT MISS!

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

GOOD DAY GOD DAMN 
March 19, 20, 21 + 26, 27, 28 
The Chocolate Factory Theater 
GET TICKETS HERE 

​Tickets are going fast and there is limited seating so don't come cryin' to me later! This is the one, the one we've been workin on, churning on, evolving, this baby is it and she is HERE!  If you saw other works in progress fear not THIS IS A WHOLE NEW WORK and you DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT!  

Living in gratitude for this dark, absurdist, genius cabal of collaborators including Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Angie Pittman, and Jessie Young, and joining us on stage, the operatic alien Alexa Grae is brining us sonic reaches and vocal gateways and light portals by Shana Crawford.

_________________________________________________________________________________

[WORLD PREMIERE] THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY THEATER PRESENTS

Stephanie Acosta Good Day God Damn

March 19-28, 2020 ; Thursdays - Saturdays at 8pm

The Chocolate Factory Theater5-49 49th Avenue, LIC NY 11101

In a multi-frame assemblage of video projection, the cinematic lens, and the theatrical frame, the performers of Good Day God Damn - four dancers, an opera singer, and an ill fated screeching director - move as an organic sentient mass through multiple atmospheres and states, exploring ideas of the cinematic thriller and extraterrestrial hope in an attempt to disassemble, rebuild, and hold onto the very notion of survival in an absurd multi-crisis reality, asking: what does it mean to get through it? Dissonant sounds and images give way to choral moments in a darkly thrilling and dynamic disarray.Created and directed by Stephanie Acosta.

Performers: Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Angie Pittman, and Jessie Young. Sound and vocals: Alexa Grae. Lighting Design: Shana Crawford. Projection Mapping: Ryan Holsopple.Good Day God Damn began its development as part of a Creative Residency at The Chocolate Factory Theater in September 2018, curated by Blaze Ferrer.

Podcast | Movers and Shapers

Excited to have had a chance to chat about dance, performance, curation and my art journey recently. Invite me on your podcast! Invite me to your panel, gallery, class, riot! I'm ready to chat about the work we make, how we all make it, and why.

Movers and Shapers A Dance Podcast no.85 hosted by the ever curious Erin Carlisle Norton. Here's me talking about my swirly trajectory, history, practice, peeves and the joy of multitasking. You can also hear it HERE

One of the really great things about Erin’s comprehensive archive is that we hear the lived experience not just the work, you hear artists speak to how the work got made, how the life in this work is being lived. Artists can forget to think of themselves or each other as three dimensional beings, which is wild to me because so much of my practice is those corners and creases where life and dreams meet. It was a pleasure to sit and chat with her. Check out the full archive and listen up!

This Bridge Called My Ass | Montpellier Danse , France

So thrilled to have shared our strange, loud, writhing, baby with new audiences at Montpellier Danse this summer! The incredible opportunity to translate the work in scale and to see it’s form on reapproach was such a gift. Tuçe Yasak (lights) and Sarah Lurie (tour/tech magician) created a world that expanded our plain without shifting our scope, I mean LOOK AT THAT LIGHT FEST, And getting to throw micro dance parties in the courtyard before the rest of the fest arrived was an added bonus. Continuously in gratitude to have built this work with Miguel Gutierrez and this full team of creators.

\\\ COMING SOON \\\ Touring continues this Fall and Winter so catch us, book us, check it!

This Bridge Called My Ass is touring these brown buns all over starting with

• TBA Festival (7-8, Portland) this September,

• San Fransisco in October - dates TBA

Keeping you warm in January 2020:

• Walker (16-18, Minneapolis) followed by the

• Wexner (24-26, Columbus)! So thrilled to keep connecting with these humans and sharing this strange unpacking with more audiences.

Podcast | State of the Arts - talking DanceNYC 2019 Symposium

Listen to Remi Harris and I fall in love with Savona over dance and NYC’s wonders HERE or click below for our “lively” lovely chat! Talkin’ Dance/NYC Symposium 2019

Listen to "State of the Arts NYC 4/16/2019 with host Savona Bailey-McClain" on Spreaker.

More from the grand Savona Bailey-McClain’s State of the Arts NYC HERE

State of the Arts NYC is a weekly radio show where various sectors of NYC’s arts worlds converge to report and analyze the dynamic state of the arts and its participants. Hosted by Savona Bailey-McClain, long-time Executive Director of the West Harlem Art Fund (WHAF), she confronts, analyzes and celebrates victories, challenges and changes in the country’s dynamic creative capital. Reports from the field; from the far-flung fringes; from center stage and from behind the scenes—the host Savona Bailey-McClain draws on her 20 years’ in the trenches to bring you snapshot after snapshot in living color. State of the Arts NYC can be heard on iTunes, Radio Public, Youtube, Mixcloud and BRIC Radio.

And check her other magical works HERE or read an inspired interview with Savona HERE!

This Bridge Called My Ass | NY Times + Opening!!! - NY

It is unbelievable, that after what feels more like a lifetime than a year, 3 residencies, 2 countries, countless applications, successes, failures, we prepare to open and share what we have created with you. Continuing to collaborate with Miguel Gutierrez and this band of talented creators has come or created a moment of great searching and growth and I’m so very thankful this mad world is resisted in these rooms of mad love.

THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY ASS

Opens Jan 9th as part of American Realness 2019 at the Chocolate Factory

In This Bridge Called My Ass six Latinx performers – Alvaro Gonzalez, John Gutierrez, Miguel Gutierrez, Xandra Ibarra, Nibia Pastrana Santiago, and Evelyn Sanchez Narvaez – map an elusive choreography of obsessive and perverse action within an unstable terrain of bodies, materials and sound. A formal logic binds the group and propels them to create a constantly transforming world where their togetherness retains autonomy to complicate the idea of identity. Clichéd Latin-American songs and the form of the telenovela are exploited to show how familiar structures contain absurdity that reveal and celebrate difference.

Grab tickets HERE! <—-Update we are SOLD OUT but there will be a waitlist nightly beginning at 7:15 so be there early and get in! We have a limited and strict capacity so get on in here early all!

Nina Westervelt for The New York Times

And check us out in the SUNDAY NY TIMES where Gia Kourlas chatted with Miguel Gutierrez and I about our mad process and snuck in to see what we’ve been up to. It is always such a gift to be seen, and properly quoted no less.

Good Day God Damn - Extracted Excerpt w/ Pies + Performance

Good Day God Damn - Extracted Excerpt

Traveling through the fractured American landscape, looming vibrations push the ground up and the cosmos down as our community-turned-cabal explores domestic terror as self-harm. Through the lens of a thriller our cell flows through domestic borders, mingles with the extraterrestrial and unpacks landlocked limitations through discursive research and rigorous ensemble development.  This live event will include two GDGD ensemble members in person, and many others in absentia.

Performers/Collaborators:  Performing Live Mimi Gabriel + Jessie Young (Developed along with Angie Pittman + Leslie Cuyjet)   Dur. 15 min

. . . . . . . . . . . More Info on Pies and Performance Below. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pie & Performance*winter - Saturday, March 17 - Tickets at door: $10-$20 (sliding scale)

8pm Doors 8:30-10pm | 16 St. Francis Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11216

Pie & Performance gathers artist and audience interested in activating empathy and steeping in togetherness. The performances take place in various rooms, hallways, and corners of a three-story home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. And, there is always pie! Organized seasonally by Amity Jones, Kirsten Schnittker, and Tara Sheena.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*program*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Good Day God Damn - Extracted Excerpt   by Stephanie Acosta | stephanieacosta.org 

Performing Live Mimi Gabriel + Jessie Young  Developed along with Angie Pittman + Leslie Cuyjet

untitled (panorama study II) by Laura Bartczak | laurabartczak.squarespace.com

collaborators: Laurel Atwell, Katelyn Hales, Corinne Cappelletti, Kay Ottinger, Amity Jones

Void: Honest Rituals for Lost Souls (working title)  by Raha Behnam | rahabehnam.com

#myroomchronicles by Evelyn Lilian Sánchez Narvaez

King  by Kyle Marshall | kmchoreography.com

chance realization + history  by Sarah Snider | sarah-gwen.com

Sunday Service with SAME AS SISTER | 07.02.2017 (Queens)

This month's Sunday Service is bringing longtime loves Same As Sister on as curators.  Titled Pairings in Horror: The Visceral + The Visual Impact, the evening will feature live and digital performances by Lamy Istrefi Jr. with Leo Genovese + Mersiha Mesihovic/CircuitDebris,Stacy Grossfield Dance Projects + Gil Sperling, plus a special reading by Rie Yamaguchi-Borden. Each pair will utilize live and digital elements to emphasize the sensory pleasure that best represents their collaboration between disciplines. Set in a haunted house, the artists’ unique interpretations of the shared text will become rooms into their uncanny and unpredictable imaginations, perhaps even nightmares.

About Sunday Service
Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

Landing with Miguel Gutierrez at Gibney Dance

Thrilled to be joining the inaugural group of makers for Landing at Gibney Dance facilitated by Miguel Gutierrez. For the next 6 months I'll be furthering my choreographic game and working with artists like luciana achugar, niv Acosta, My Barbarian, Justin Vivian Bond Michelle Boulé Camille Brown, Ralph Lemon, Juliana May, Ben Prior, and Colin self.

Excited to be back in the movement studio and to show you what's next!

CURRENT SESSIONS - Aug NYC Performance Announced

Excited announce the return of COLLAGE COLLIDE performing as part of The Current Sessions Vol. IV, Issue II.

This August 22 + 24 at the wild project in NYC.*

Jessie Young + Stephanie Acosta will perform with video projections by Acosta as part of a stellar line up.  Collage Collide is an ongoing video and dance collaboration between Young and Acosta examining a continued making through extended time and expanded space. 

Tickets are available HERE

*Collage Collide will show as part of 2 programs: Aug 22 @ 7:30p + Aug 24 @3p