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New York Live Arts
Announces 2012 Spring BASH
in support of Fresh Tracks
Honoring Elizabeth Streb and Juliana F. May
April 2 at 7pm
New York, NY, – On Monday, April 2 at 7pm,
New York Live Arts will host a Spring BASH to support its
Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency program for emerging
artists. Hosted by Honorary Chairs Christine Quinn and
Gloria Steinem with Co-Chairs Eric Anderson and Judith Zarin
at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers, the BASH will recognize
two extraordinary artists who received early support through
the Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency program begun by
Dance Theater Workshop in 1965 and now continued by New York
Live Arts. Elizabeth Streb, who participated in the program
in 1979, will receive The David R. White Award, and Juliana
F. May, a 2005 participant, will receive The Jeff Duncan
Award for Emerging Choreographers. This is the inaugural
presentation of both awards.
The Spring Bash will feature downtown DJ Chrissie Miller,
together with dancing, cocktails and interactive
performances that showcase the range and aesthetic
sensibility of New York Live Arts, one of New York’s
preeminent producers and presenters of dance and
movement-based art, led by Executive Artistic Director Bill
T. Jones.
”Fresh Tracks gave Arnie Zane and me an important early
boost to our careers with an opportunity to develop our work
and present it to a thoughtful and enthusiastic audience,”
said Jones. “It is an honor to continue this program under
the auspices of New York Live Arts, and a special pleasure
to recognize two talented choreographers whose work was also
nurtured by Fresh Tracks.”
Once called the Evel Knievel of dance,
Elizabeth Streb's choreography, which she calls "POPACTION,"
intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, boxing,
rodeo, the circus, and Hollywood stunt-work. The result is a
bristling, muscle-and-motion vocabulary that combines daring
with strict precision in pursuit of public acts of "pure
movement." In 2003, Streb established S.L.A.M. (STREB Lab
for Action Mechanics) in Brooklyn, NY. S.L.A.M.'s garage
doors are always open for the community to come in and watch
rehearsals, take classes, and learn to fly. Streb is a
recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation 'Genius' Award (1997) and a member of the New
York City Mayor's Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission.
Streb is also a member of the board of EMC Arts and a member
of the Atlantic Center for the Arts National Council. She
holds a Master of Arts in Humanities and Social Thought from
New York University, a B.S. in Modern Dance from SUNY
Brockport and two honorary doctorates (SUNY Brockport and
Rhode Island College). She is the recipient of numerous
other awards and fellowships including the Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1987; a Brandeis Creative Arts Award in 1991;
two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie Awards) in
1988 and 1999 for her "sustained investigation of movement";
and over 20 years of on-going support from the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Juliana F. May is a New York City-based choreographer who
has created eight works, including four evening-length
pieces with commissions from DNA, Dance Theater Workshop (DTW),
Barnard College at Columbia University, The Chocolate
Factory, Joyce SoHo, The International Contemporary Ensemble
(I.C.E.) in Chicago, Illinois, and The Repertory Project, a
Cleveland-based company. May’s history with DTW began as a
Fresh Tracks artist in 2005. In 2006 she was a Studio Series
residency artist where she showed The Endless House and in
2008 she presented Hydra Cashier on DTW’s season. May’s
fifth project with DTW, Gutter Gate, premiered in spring
2011. May has also been an adjunct professor at Barnard
College as a part of DTW’s and now New York Live Arts’
Barnard Project, a partnership that pairs curated DTW/Live
Arts artists with dance students from Barnard College and
Columbia University in a semester-long residency
environment.
The David R. White Award is named in honor of
the visionary leader whose nearly 30 years of dedication to
Dance Theater Workshop established the organization as one
of the world’s most influential centers for the performing
arts and creative development. The award celebrates artists
whose tenacious spirit and clear vision exemplify the
intellectual and creative rigor that characterized David’s
work with Dance Theater Workshop—work that he still
continues within the broader field of dance and performance.
The Jeff Duncan Award for Emerging Choreographers is named
in honor of one of Dance Theater Workshop’s founders, Jeff
Duncan, in whose studio at 215 West 20th Street the Fresh
Tracks program found its origins in 1965 as “Saturdays at
Nine,” a program that presented new works by young
choreographers.
Previous Fresh Tracks artists include: Jeff Duncan (1965),
Deborah Jowitt (1968), Wendy Perron (1970), Alice Teirstein
(1974), Bill T. Jones (1977), Bebe Miller (1978) Elizabeth
Streb (1979), Tere O'Connor (1984), Amy Sue Rosen (1986),
Ron Brown (1987), Reggie Wilson (1989), RoseAnne Spradlin
(1990), Rosane Chamecki (1991), Maura Ngyuen-Donohue (1995),
and more recently, Ivy Baldwin (2000), Juliana May (2005),
and Vanessa Anspaugh (2010). Learn more about Fresh Tracks.
For more information on the Spring BASH, please contact
Gretchen Weber, Development Associate, Special Events at
212.691.6500 x377 or
gweber@newyorklivearts.org
About New York Live Arts
New York Live Arts strives to create a robust framework in
support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists
through new approaches to producing, presenting and
educating. In addition to our deep commitment to individual
artists at all stages of their careers, we strive to create
rich, meaningful experiences for our audiences by engaging
them in ways that are intimate and thought-provoking. With
our audience, we seek to become a place for dance that is
vital to the fabric of social and cultural life in New York,
the United States and beyond.
Formed in February 2011 by a merger of Dance Theater
Workshop and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, New
York Live Arts is a re-imagining of the legacies of these
two extraordinary organizations. New York Live Arts is
located at 219 West 19th Street in New York City and is led
by Bill T. Jones as Executive Artistic Director, Carla
Peterson as Artistic Director, and Jean Davidson as
Executive Director and CEO.
www.newyorklivearts.org
Funding Support
Lead support for New York Live Arts is provided, in part, by
Ford Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, New
York State Council on the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies,
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, New York City Department
of Cultural Affairs, The Rockefeller Foundation, Booth
Ferris Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Trust for Mutual
Understanding, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Shubert
Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The New York Community
Trust, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Jerome Robbins
Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation,
The Jerome Foundation, William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill
Foundation and The Scherman Foundation.
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