Two friends, choreographer/artistic director Nicholas Leichter and playwright/actress Eisa Davis come together and invite the audience to join in on their conversation.
Leichter and Davis will discuss the use of movement and music to interpret ever changing cultural narratives. Leichter will perform excerpts from his recent works.
About the Artists:
Nicholas Leichter
Nicholas Leichter has taught nationally and internationally, and served on faculty at the Tisch School of the Arts and the American Dance Festival. He has choreographed over 25 works for his company, including Carmina Burana and Rite of Spring commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Sweetwash with Eisa Davis. Recent commissions include Connecticut College, Wayne State University, The Barnard Project, University of North Carolina School of the Arts and je danse donc je suis in Burkina Faso. Leichter has been artist-in-residence and guest artist at many institutions including CSU Summer Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Hollins University, George Washington University, University of Houston, Muhlenberg College and Idaho State University. He received the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award, Choreographer Fellowship from NYFA, National Performance Network/Network of Cultural Centers of Color Artist-of-Color Residency Award at Sacramento State and Copperfoot Award for Choreography.
Eisa Davis
Eisa Davis was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher. She wrote and starred in Angela’s Mixtape and was named a Best of 2009 by The New Yorker. Other plays include Ramp, The History of Light, Paper Armor, Umkovu, Six Minutes, Warriors Don’t Cry and Hip Hop Anansi. She was a resident at New Dramatists, winning the Helen Merrill Award and the Whitfield Cook Award. She received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. Davis received an Obie Award for her performance in Passing Strange and is featured in the films Welcome to the Rileys, Robot Stories, The Architect, Confess, Happenstance, Pretty Bird, Apparition of the Eternal Church, Brass Tacks, The Stare and This. She appeared in The Wire, Law and Order, Damages and Mercy. She will also appear in the new NBC series, Smash. Her recent album is titled Something Else.
http://www.651arts.org/
