Part of the Artists-in-Residents (AIRs), a group that stemmed from Performance Space’s 02020 project, Stev reckons with the events that transpired within and around the building that houses Performance Space New York. Nestled between two historical events; the 2020 uprisings and the global pandemic, the AIRs found themselves welcomed into the space during this period of civil unrest. Months later, relationships eventually frayed and distrust had taken root between the institution and the AIRs.
As a mode of reflection on this moment, Stev offers us an evening-long audio/visual collage incorporating movement and live paint by Alexa Marcel Ram that seeks to explore the stories of the “Artist-in-Residents” as a means of chronicling their history and future prospects. Cascading images are juxtaposed alongside audio samples that showcase the vast probability and connections born from, and interlaced by, mere chance encounters. Subsequently, embarking on a journey that examines how lessons from that calendar year can build meaningful and long lasting support for those who reflect the spirit of the original AIR’s while seeking ways to make strides in helping ease the various adversities facing them.”
Archives: Shows
Open Movement
In its third season, Open Movement is continuing its open format of carving out space for free shared studio time and Artist led movement workshops every Sunday in Performance Space New York’s theaters. This season’s Open Movement exists in 3 parts:
First, come move your body however you like at Open Movement Studio. There will be music playing, lights will be contributing to the atmosphere and you can come and go as you please. This is a shared studio where people stretch, draw, write, lay on the floor, noodle, dance and rehearse with others and by themselves. Bring friends and family, make friends and family. This is an opportunity to be grounded in your body and just feel. Many participants refer to this as “church”.
In the second part of Sunday at 4pm, participate in movement concept WORKSHOPS led by artists and practitioners. These workshops have something different to offer every week as each artist or practitioner shares a two hour participatory practice, exploration or sequence of actions. Some lend themselves to performance ethos of shared practices as others ground in wellness ontologies while others are experiments in the human condition. All are of the body and within community.
This year, sprinkled in is a call for experimentation and poetic sentiment around the body’s relationship to science as it merges with the mystical or spiritual. Open to broad interpretation, the Open Movement ethos is expansive and can go beyond the typical practices of “dance”. Check the schedule and Instagram every week for specific details.
The third part of Open Movement is the new, WIP FEEDBACK FRONT. This is a showcasing of artist works in progress. Throughout the year we will have five events where 2 artists or artist groups will show us what they are working on. This is a performance event with wine and drinks served in a casual atmosphere. Built within the event is an opportunity to write feedback for the artists anonymously if you choose. WIP FEEDBACK FRONT is an opportunity for New York artists and audience members to witness and experiment with the living experience of performance in its broadest form.
All of this is meant for all people, “non-dancers” welcome. A major component of the ethos is to utilize empty space for people to reconnect, ground and expand within themselves and with others, wherever we are at the moment.
Working from combined somatic acting related practices – we will explore building narrative through the body, and repetition as meaning mining.
A melange of contrasting elements found within body language and movement qualities dating from the ancient Greek theatre times to current forms of expression, including folklore dance, sensual floor flow and more.
Fact or fiction. Everything I say is the truth, and everything I say is a lie. Let’s use our bodies to unfurl into language and collectively ask: are you being f*ing for real right now?
This workshop is a playful and provocative step into my recurring dance nightmare: I am put onstage with a dance company in front of hundreds of people, and everyone except me knows the choreography. We will draw from that fear and learn how to use forgetting to our advantage. I will introduce improvised scores and memory games and choreographic tools that ask us to make something out of our disjointed memories. We will also employ weight, tension, rebound, speed, and rigor. We will make complex choreographies from empty beginnings. We will find new ways to be brave in a scary field.
THERE’S A CRACK IN MY VESSEL methodology emphasizes a soothing focus on the
entire body, uncovering fluid and dynamic pathways to understand and challenge our
potential. In this 3 day workshop, we will identify, unlock, crack and explore focal points in our vessel as well as our environment, delving into our own performative alchemy. Through guided meditation and continuous motion exercises, we allow light and matter to travel dimensions, gaining insights into our personal history and future desires. In the durational practice of intuitive improvisation we construct ideas of dimensional movement cartography as well as lucid cinematography, creating an empathetic centrifuge experience between ourselves and the present moment.
THERE’S A CRACK IN MY VESSEL methodology emphasizes a soothing focus on the
entire body, uncovering fluid and dynamic pathways to understand and challenge our
potential. In this 3 day workshop, we will identify, unlock, crack and explore focal points in our vessel as well as our environment, delving into our own performative alchemy. Through guided meditation and continuous motion exercises, we allow light and matter to travel dimensions, gaining insights into our personal history and future desires. In the durational practice of intuitive improvisation we construct ideas of dimensional movement cartography as well as lucid cinematography, creating an empathetic centrifuge experience between ourselves and the present moment.
GARBAGE TEXTS is a workshop about words and what we do with them. Engaging in intuitive writing exercises, we’ll dip below the surface of meaning and dig into our individual undergrounds. We will then exchange words with each other, listening to our inside voices made outside. As we let go of legibility and punctuation, our words will slip in and out of coherence and into and out of pure acoustical presence. From there, we will trawl the formless space between sound and movement and make some shapes. Everyone of all abilities and experience is encouraged to attend.
This workshop explores the relationship between the mind and body, emotions and
movements, by applying sense memory practice in method acting as a tool to create
movement. The practice aims to approach movement through basic acting practice, exploring and experimenting with how feelings and imagination can stimulate and trigger movement. The workshop includes activities that expand sensations and emotions through memories, creating movement from within, ultimately “dancing” from the inside out.
With the physical and emotional awareness that the sense memory practice brings to the
participants, the practice can be applied to contact improvisation, expanding the exploration from self to others. Participants are required to prepare an object in mind that has a certain memory linked to it for
the workshop.
Fame, Center Stage, Step Up (1 & 2 only), Honey, You Got Served, Save the last dance, black swan and more! Dress in your most cliche dance rehearsal outfit (open to interpretation) and prepare to sweat while being incandescently happy!
This workshop will explore what we carry, and how we are carried. The body is a carrier and we are a carrier of the body, of time and in time, together. Through our physical bodies we will gather information around the sensation of carrying and being carried. How can I carry you? How can I let myself be carried? Carrying is knowledge, with/in.
(BLACK) childhood experiments is an open framework centering Black improvisation performance to excavate childhood memories within the body. Using somatic practices, popular Black music / text from childhood and otherwise possibility to imagine space outside of everything complexed.
In this movement workshop we will focus on the body in relation to time.
Come explore relational and somatic configurations through the lens of food and eating customs. We will be using movement and performance techniques to reframe gestures in cooking, intimacy as recipe, state changes, identifying with ingredients, and thinking with the tongue — engaging lymbic, digestive, familial, and socio-political food systems.
A two hour immersion of teachings and practices which explore our internal collaborative systems and a unique sequencing of movements to put us deeply in touch with them. This workshop will include breathework, moving meditations and choreography to organize and expand the majestic spirit and dynamic energy within us.
From the other World is a pop-fantasia womb formed from the footworks of folk dance, an improvisatory architecture for bodies lingering in their failed-to-becomings in the world. Through a guided workshop of generative footwork and improvisatory formations, participants will explore modes to reconnect and sit with former lives and feeling.
How to awaken memories of pleasure in our body?
How to influence matter without physical contact?
This experience proposes exploring and activating states of pleasure in the body through intention and physical and energetic movement.
Invoking and awakening the Venusian memories in our being,
commanding and cultivating this energy collectively through a psychomagical act.
The universe doesn’t work logically, why should we?
We are complex beings, but we can live lightly,
less tense in body, mind and spirit.
This is a magical, artistic and therapeutic possibility, it is an experiment with the body and the energy. Let’s play!
A direct translation of my personal practice we will be navigating various states within a spectrum of our fantasies and the ordinary. Excavating through durational movement and somatic tasks we ask “How does exhaustion influence dynamic approaches to our overall desires?” We strip the stakes of rigor and move from a place of intentionality within our perceptive “mistakes”.
We have an infinite toolbox of movement stored in our bodies that can be utilized as a way to communicate through our bodies and in relation to others. How can we access that information and embrace our multiplicity? We accept, embody, embrace and utilize “failure” as a means to soften, ignite, support, and redefine our perception of “failure”. The goal then becomes how do I consistently direct my “mistakes” maintaining intentionality behind recovery, risk-taking, and workshopping. Our core is “I will always be okay” and, “say yes to your choices.”
Movement Carrying Systems (MCS) is a research based movement workshop that inspects how we move our bodies in relation to spatial architectures (formal space, implied spatial hierarchies, crowds, other bodies & sentient beings). MCS considers how these interactions create, propose and perpetuate complex systems of knowledge making.
How can we acknowledge and interrogate these tangled systems through the rigorous work of movement: gesture, posture and rhythm?
Participants rest, talk, engage and move together, using each other as guiding posts and learning modules. The class explores movement in the body that quirks, glitches and side-tracks from embodied, or inscribed actions — a deviation from what is assumed for our bodies to do and participate in.
No prior movement experience is required. Alexsa encourages a space for all folx to come and center their own practices while engaging with and encouraging the work others bring into the space.
How do you stand tall in a room full of people? How do you protect your energy? How do you bring in purpose with your every word and action? You must know yourself. Or at the very least, know of your essence, your most internalized driving force.
This is a Workshop by comedian, writer, performance artist, musician and filmmaker River L. Ramirez on finding your essence and letting that guide you through whatever medium you are currently exploring.
There will be guided meditation, writing prompts, and some playful group exercises.
ASL and Audio Description will be provided for this event.
Please note: This is a masked event and a negative covid test result is required for entry. There will be limited tests available on site, if you can, we recommend getting tested prior.
Kin Class, an ongoing education series founded by the artist Kinlaw, offers a unique blend of workshop, masterclass, and support group for artists of all levels. This season’s “Anchors Edition” for Performance Space’s Open Movement focuses on the anchor archetype, encouraging exploration of grounding techniques and play to enhance artistic practices. While coming with a developing performance idea is welcome, it’s not mandatory. The goal is to bring fresh perspectives to performance pillars, fostering curiosity and revitalizing stagnant approaches. This workshop is for all levels.
Improvisations across the earth. Touching earth and sky. Plucking stars and petals. The American Raga. Anti-colonialist body. Anti-colonialist body movement. Deconstructing the Classical. Unrefined and accessible Classical Indian dance. Global family and global futures. Sweeping. Dusting. Cleaning off the soot of Empire. Polishing the righteous heart.
Bhumi Pranam. Earth Blessing. We thank the earth for letting us stomp on her. We sweep the dust of the earth across our forehead in gratitude for being here.
When we stomp – we are not passive acceptors of this life. We are saying I am here on this earth. I have located my body in time and space – do you hear my feet? Whether our feet are pounding with thunderous rage or blissful satisfaction, we take up space and assert our aliveness.
We add breath and sound to the stomping. We ask how does this conversation between my feet and the earth affect my interiority and my experience of my body? How does this experience of my body affect all that is around me?
During this time, we become witnesses of rage, allowing it to energize us into change. Rage is fuel, and anger is the messenger; let us listen together to evolve into relief. We will reach explosive states of complete and honest action through the escalation of movement and vocal intensity.
Young Boy Dancing Group workshop consists of choreographic instructions with a clear and substantial goal; to be part of a group, to dance together, to embody feelings, to explore a sense of safety in stillness with one another and to produce collective highs. Rather than a series of exercises, the workshop is offered to the participant as an intimate journey with a punk attitude towards modern dance and the possibility to allow ourselves to use vulnerability to dive deep into raw emotions.
what is a world?
how do we embody?
what is a connect?
how do we merge?
NETTLE Somatic Herbalism + Movement Workshop
Practice includes sensory meditation, self-determined movement and an immersive herbal knowledge share on folklore and medicinal actions. Nettle guides as we meditate + move to awaken body awareness. Feel the entanglement of our “internal” + “external” worlds. Ground gently or dissolve into ecstatic unity. We are Nature.
Bring Nettle in any form (fresh sprig, tincture, tea…) or buy a bottle + sprig at the workshop for $10. Optional guided urtication (stinging)!
No prior experience required. Learn with your body!
Centers access for those living with complicated body experiences. Standing optional.
The capital D is nonetheless still so misunderstood in terms of its form, function, and value within the arts. If Dance is to be considered with a gravitas equivalent to other practices (such as video, painting, sculpture, etc.), then hierarchical divisions within the culture of Dance and the expanded fields of performance/choreography must be retired.
In The D Word workshop, we will strip the boundaries around Dance’s position in the arts by discussing personal takes and later moving on to improvisational and task-based exercises.
Through movement research and honest conversations we will be brought to new considerations of Dance that go beyond the schoolhouse academia, or fine arts lens, reconsidering the personal, social, and cultural resonances of the D word today.
A ritual dance for Gods in Shintoism. Originally performed at shrines by shrine maidens, but it spreaded into villages and became the origin of Japanese folk dance. Some famous shrines have been performing “Kagura” for more than 2000 years. Also, it is specifically mentioning the process of trance. “There are two major types of kagura: mai and odori. Mai consists of slow circular movement, stressing quiet and elegance, while odori consists of quick leaping and jumping, stressing activation and energy. The two types can be understood as two phases of kagura: mai is a preparation process for trance and odori is the unconscious trance stage.”
Every culture has a dance like this. powwow, whirling Dervish etc, and I think there are some common formulas. It may be geometric patterns or the beats of the music…We may have been doing it unconsciously when we are at the club?
Can we discover something about you and what drives you by creating your own dance ceremony?
Key elements are formation, tempo, and action. If you add meanings that are original to you, it works as an original ceremony.
DIDIDADA is a guided improvisation movement practice and a celebration of nonsensical play. DIDIDADA prioritizes accessibility and silliness to give the mind, body, and spirit a sparkly mega boost through a variety of multidisciplinary exercises. It is about release, getting back into our bodies, and simply dancing for the joy of moving through hyper warm ups, routines, and prompts. Some call it a brain break. Some call it a waking up game. Some call it a dance class. *no choreography ~ open to all skill levels and ages
Generative/Unproductive
With live performances and video interventions by The Glad Scientist, Catrileo + Carrión Community, Theo J Rose, Riven Ratanavanh, Pau Aran Gimeno, stefa marin alarcon, Erica Schreiner, Grace Byron, Samay Arcentales Cajas, Anto Astudillo , and more.*
Generative/Unproductive is not oxymoronic: generative implies an openness that allows for the creation of endless variations of knowns or unknowns—rather than the outcome-focused goals pushed by productivity. In this encounter of moving image, poetry and live performance, Anto Astudillo invites a diverse group of artists of trans, non-binary, epupillán (two-spirit) and queer experience, to collaborate and be part of a multidisciplinary conversation, anticipated as “unproductive”: generating a gender fluidity-advocating ephemeral experience that opposes property and capital ideals by offering a healing and intimate relationship with territory.
Generative/Unproductive brings living organisms (microorganisms and human beings) and varied media together to engage in expanded and contracted “cognitive interactions” -as described by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Each artist constructs variable landscapes where bodies interrelate across disciplines, proposing genderless and gender-variant perspectives that exude organic matter.
*Please note that the artist line-up of this event may change.
Screening of beDevil
Access Provision: Closed Captioning
Inspired by ghost stories she heard as a child, Tracey Moffatt’s visually haunting film beDevil, delves into three tales that explore Indigenous relationships with the unseen world. This largely buried film is the first feature made by an Aboriginal Australian Woman. Each narrative brims with a sense of unease as the ghostly apparitions collide with the living to reveal the unsettling forces that shape our lives.
The film unfolds in three distinct but interconnected vignettes, each peeling back layers of the past to reveal the complex and often haunting relationship between identity and the enduring scars of colonialism and capitalism.
The screening is followed by a conversation with writer Sarah Fonseca.
Wail•Fall•Whale•Fall
Wail Room
Installation
October 26 – 28, November 3 – 5 | 4 pm
The Wail Room invites you to cry. A space to grieve and decompose; it is a listening space. Decompress, decompose, fall to the floor, get horizontal, release.
Free
Wail•Fall
Activation
November 3 – 5 | 7pm
Runtime: 1 hour 15 mins
Tickets
Wail•Fall is an ACTIVATION of the Wail Room, an installation that acknowledges the labor it takes to grieve. This is not about performing grief. This ACTIVATION invites a different ecology of cellular integration to emerge through the act of grieving. In this watery space, perhaps we can echolocate our way to each other amidst all the noise that characterizes modern life. Perhaps we can let the whales take us to the below so we can better see the light above.
Accompanied by electronic cellist, Dorothy Carlos, and performer Camilo Restrepo, mayfield brooks ACTIVATES an embodied sonic watery world that decomposes colonized spatial logic.
Photo by Nir Aireli cropped into heart.