Rachael Felt Curation Project Histories of Dance Final December 9, 2018 (Re)Joyce Assembly: The Joyce Theatre’s Spring 2019 Season 1. Presenting Venue: The Joyce Theatre a. I selected The Joyce Theatre in New York City because I want my performance season to have the flare of a well-respected performance venue, but without drowning the opportunity of bringing in emerging artists. i. The Joyce Theatre sits in the Chelsea neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The address is: 175 8th Ave, New York, NY 10011 ii. The demographics of Chelsea is generally a community of socialites, trendsetters, and trailblazers. Chelsea residents are primarily whitecollar non-family households and businesses range from tech startups to high-end food and drink. b. Mission Statement of The Joyce Theatre i. “To serve and support the art of dance and choreography, to promote the richness and variety of the art form in its fullest expression, and to advance the public interest in, and appreciation of, dance and the allied arts of music, design, and theater.” ii. (Re)Joyce Assembly reflects Joyce’s dedication to variation and advancing public interest. I strategically selected artists of varying genres, performance experience and content because Joyce is responsible to curate inclusive seasons that encompass the dance community at large. Since the community is generally affluent, it is essential patrons who support the arts view a range to expand personal taste. 2. Curatorial Vision a. (Re)Joyce Assembly aligns with our mission advance public interest through a full breadth of performative energies. The Joyce Theatre Foundation is dedicated to crafting two-way relationships between patron and performer and prioritizes elevating artists of all races, genders, abilities, sexual orientations and genres. We have titled the spring programming (Re)Joyce Assembly as a tribute to our community which has grown alongside the foundation since established in 1982. The season is a combination of established connections, such as our longstanding relationship with the Martha Graham legacy, and new relationships between commissioned artists Emma Portner, Bill Shannon, and Kalenna Miller. Assembly, defined as a company of persons gathered for deliberation, captures our curatorial vision to capture developing thoughts and ideas under one roof. In partnership with our two off-site locations, Invisible Dog Art Center and Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, (Re)Joyce Assembly’s 14-show agenda encompasses social activism, western and non-westernized forms, outstanding female leadership, and a variety of cross-collaborative genres. b. Big-names and expendable resources dominate many performance climates, and it is our responsibility to celebrate diverse voices and curate according to brewing research, whether it is developing in a small living room or grand theatre. The Joyce Theatre is pressured to deliver high-quality thought-
provoking work to the surrounding community of innovative creatives. Instead of showing a glitzy sliver of the dance community, the Joyce Foundation must celebrate the whole damn pie. c. I curated the season as an outside entity tasked to balance new and old Joyce relationships for the spring season. My personal taste influenced the three new commissioned works, by Emma Portner, Bill Shannon, and Kalenna Miller, but the trajectories of each artists career align with the organization's mission to advance social activism, LGBTQ+ artists and women in leadership. The eleven additional performances are a mix of rising artists and established names within the industry. I think it is important to grant rising artists an opportunity to benefit from platform and association within the season. Again, to uphold the Joyce Theatre Foundation's responsibility to create a holistic representation of the current dance community. 3. Title of Season/Exhibit/Festival a. (Re)Joyce Assembly features works from across styles, practices, and performative energies. The season is curated into four sections, commissioned artists, international companies, across the United States and New York City Neighbors. b. (Re)Joyce: reflective of the Theatre’s namesake and suggesting (re) as a return to the institution's roots, made for dancer by dancers, and celebrating the community. c. Assembly: defined as the act of gathering for a common purpose reflects the season's mission to elevate community sharing space. I am inspired by academic assemblies and how they are created to share specific messages in a focused environment. It also suggests there are more lessons to be learned despite the status of performer and audience member. The word, to me, reflects a call to action for shared energy and focus towards the crafted voice(s). d. Collectively, (Re)Joyce Assembly is about celebrating the Joyce Theatre’s effort to highlight creative voices, relationships, and influences under one community initiative. 4. Performance Season (Re)Joyce Assembly //Presented by the Joyce Theatre Foundation January 24-26, 2019 Malpaso Dance Company (Havana, Cuba) Ocaso by Osnel Delgado Indomitable Waltz by Aszure Barton Face the Torrent by Sonya Tayeh “Malpaso is committed to working with top international choreographers while also nurturing new voices in Cuban choreography.” For more information, please visit: malpasodance.com *Associate Company of Joyce Theater Productions
February 1-3, 2019 Camille A. Brown & Dancers Ink For more information, please visit: www.camilleabrown.org
February 14-16, 2019 Kalenna Miller (Minneapolis, MN) & Tap City (New York, NY) Kalenna Millier premieres two new tap works for her company Kalenna Miller Dance based in Minneapolis, MN in partnership with Tap City: the New York City Tap Spring Festival February 22-24, 2019 Reggie Wilson / Fist And Heel Performance Group (New York, NY) Citizen: Performance by Yeman Brown, Raja Feather Kelly, Clement Mensah, Anna Schon, and Annie Wang. “The choreography of Reggie Wilson displays rigor, structure, and craft in a postmodern dance vernacular. His choreography expands the limitations of textbook definitions of ‘black dance’ and range from strict dance pieces to full, all-inclusive performance art pieces with arranged vocalizations, text, and the inclusion of other media.” Trailer: https://vimeo.com/190621924#at=1 For more information, please visit: http://www.fistandheelperformancegroup.org/ Presented in The Joyce Theatre’s partnering off-site venue Invisible Dog Art Center March 7-9, 2019 Gallim Dance Company (New York, NY) World Premiere of To Create A World by Andrea Miller “The piece is a culmination of research that began at the ancient Temple of Dendur and resulted in a unique movement language that takes audiences from a pre-human past to a post-human future.” For more information, please visit: www.gallim.org March 14-17, 2019 Martha Graham Dance Company (New York, NY) NEXT@Graham, Choreographing Artist TBA
Next@Graham is a festival of works by choreographers chosen through a competitive application process. The Joyce Theatre is proud to guest-host the series unique to the Graham legacy. For more information, please visit: http://www.marthagraham.org March 22-24, 2019 TU Dance & Bon Iver (St. Paul, MN) Come Through “Come Through features new music from Justin Vernon, of two-time Grammy Award®–winning indie folk band Bon Iver, and new choreography from TU Dance, a diverse 10-member company founded by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands and known for works that combine the language of modern dance and classical ballet with African-based and urban vernacular movements.” For more information, please visit: http://www.tudance.org/ Presented in The Joyce Theatre’s partnering off-site venue Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater March 29-31, 2019 Ballet Black Featuring Cira Robinson Work TBA Ballet Black presents an evening-length work with soloist Cira Robinson. Robinson started her career in NYC and sparked recent conversation about diversity and inclusion in New York Times feature by Alex Marshall. For more information, please visit: https://balletblack.co.uk/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/arts/dance/brown-point-shoes-diversityballet.html April 4-6, 2019 Rosie Herrera Dance Theater (Miami, FL) Make Believe “Make Believe uses religious iconography to explore themes of love and romance. In it, we explore religious spectacle and how these rituals are unified by themes of paganism, magic and celebrity worship. Make Believe deconstructs what it means to believe in magic and how that bleeds into our constructions of spirituality and our understanding of romance.” Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtbYYJdo3bc For more information, please visit: http://www.rosieherrera.dance
April 19-21, 2019 Bosoma Dance Company (Boston, MA) Work TBA For more information, please visit: http://www.bosoma.org/ April 26-28, 2019 Bill Shannon New Commissioned Work For more information, please visit: http://www.whatiswhat.com/ May 3-5, 2019 Grupo Corpo (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) Gira Dança Sinfônica Suíte Branca
For more information, please visit: www.grupocorpo.com.br/en May 10-12, 2019 Emma Portner (Ottawa, Canada) Rising artist amongst the digital dance community premieres a newly commissioned work May 16-19, 2018 Venezuela by Ohad Naharin (Tel-Aviv, Isreal) Performed by Batsheva Dance Company “Venezuela, with its wonderful dancers, is a fascinating and multifaceted piece that contains a surprise that remains with the viewer long after leaving the theater.” (Yael Efrati, Timeout, May 2017) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsHjQbNeEIU For more information, please visit: www.batsheva.co.il ### 5. Funders a. The following donors have been selected for the performance season because each one has an established relationship with The Joyce Theatre Foundation and the New York City performing arts community at large. The angle for the National Endowment for the Arts is the combination of domestic and international companies that will travel to New York City for the season.
i. Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (New York, NY) Mission: to support artists with the creation and public performance of their work ii. National Endowment for the Arts (United States) Mission: “...funds, promotes and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.” iii. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (New York, NY) Mission: “The Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies.” iv. The Mertz Gilmore Foundation (New York, NY) Mission: “... independent grantmaking institution that supports and promotes vibrant communities, the performing arts, and a sustainable environment.” 6. Visual Representation 10 points a. (Re)Joyce Assembly would include a strategic communications campaign encompassing performance marketing and revamping the Joyce brand. b. The season will start a rebrand for the Joyce social media platforms. Content will carry over the black, and white artist features with more color and userinteraction, ex. Takeovers and live videos. c. Taking inspiration from surrounding theatres with more of a colorful presence: @bam_brooklyn @danceplacedc d. Hashtag: #rejoyceS19 e. (Re)Joyce Student Ticket campaign to encourage young patrons and artists to engage with the spring season. f. (Re)Joyce Season Tickets: offering patrons a package deal to purchase an acclaimed name artist, such as Batsheva, Dance Theatre of Harlem or Martha Graham, is a package with two other performance. The campaign will encourage cross-viewership and audience retention. 7. In Class Presentation (Attached)