Baryshnikov Arts Center Presents NY Premiere of Joanna Kotze's FIND YOURSELF HERE This Week

Starting off its 10th anniversary Fall 2015 season, Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presents the New York Premiere of Joanna Kotze's FIND YOURSELF HERE, this week, September 17-19 at 7:30PM in the Howard Gilman Performance Space. FIND YOURSELF HERE is a work performed by a sextet of dancers and visual artists who use movement to explore the complexities and possibilities of multi-disciplinary performance.

In 2013, the established New York-based dance artist Joanna Kotze was awarded the New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for her first evening-length work, It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen, which premiered at Danspace Project. That same year, she was invited to develop a work at BAC, joining a growing roster of artists who receive a creative residency and then later perform at BAC. FIND YOURSELF HERE is the culmination of Ms. Kotze's two-year collaboration with dancers and visual artists in an examination of creative process and use of physicality in their respective practices. The resulting evening-length work explores the potential for hybridity across disciplines along a spectrum of tension and harmony, isolation and togetherness.

For the work's New York Premiere, visual artists Jonathan Allen, Zachary Fabri, and Asuka Goto-who also perform in the work-will create an installation designed for BAC's Howard Gilman Performance Space, outfitting the room with video projection and other visual components displayed on the concrete walls and expansive windows to create a densely-layered, inter-disciplinary space. Set to a sound score mixed live by composer Ryan Seaton, the three visual artists, along with dancers Joanna Kotze, Stuart Singer, and Netta Yerushalmy, engage in a movement-based dialogue investigating boundaries and shared concerns of visual art and live performance, and the forums for presenting each.

Reviewed by D.C. DanceWatcher's Lisa Traiger following the work's April 2015 world premiere at American Dance Institute, FIND YOURSELF HERE is "imbued with smart, philosophical underpinnings articulated with attractively designed and executed movement sequences and art-making processes." The production has costume design by Mary Jo Mecca and lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann.

IF YOU GO:

Joanna Kotze
FIND YOURSELF HERE (N.Y. Premiere)
September 17-19, Thursday-Saturday at 7:30PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space (450 W. 37th Street) Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online or by phone: bacnyc.org / 866 811 4111

Joanna Kotze received the 2013 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. Her choreography has been presented at American Dance Institute (ADI), Danspace Project, Bard College's Fisher Center, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out, New York Live Arts Studio Series, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Roulette, Dixon Place, 92nd Street Y, WAXworks, Lu Magnus gallery, Soho20 gallery, Show Room Gowanus gallery, Industry City and the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts (WI). This year, Joanna has created new works on Zenon Dance and James Sewell Ballet, both in Minneapolis, as well as on students at Eugene Lang College (The New School), Barnard, and Purchase College. She has upcoming commissions from Toronto Dance Theatre and Ririe-Woodbury. In February 2016, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa will present Kotze's evening-length piece It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen. Joanna has received support from the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation (2015), the Harkness Foundation (2015), the Jerome Foundation (2014), New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) BUILD grant (2014), Brooklyn Arts Council (2014), Yellowhouse (2013), and two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants (2010, 2013). She was a 2013-2015 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a recipient of a 2014 Process Space residency through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). She has had residencies at Jacob's Pillow (Spring '15), Baryshnikov Arts Center (Fall '13), Djerassi (Fall '13), and the Bogliasco Foundation (Spring '13), and she will be in residence at the Camargo Foundation this fall. Joanna was a 2011-2012 Fellow for Ailey's New Directions Choreography Lab, a 2011 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space resident, and she has worked in residence at Mount Tremper Arts. She was the Fall 2012 boo-koo space grant recipient at Gibney Dance Center and has participated in Sarah Maxfield's One-Shot, a web-based solo performance relay. She was a 2010 Choreographers' Project Fellow at Summer Stages Dance, setting an original work on Summer Stages Dance students at the Boston Institute for Contemporary Art. She has also choreographed several works for Miami University's Dance Theatre. Joanna danced with Wally Cardona from 2000-2010 and has worked extensively for Kimberly Bartosik/daela, Netta Yerushalmy, and Sam Kim. Since moving to New York, she has also danced for Sarah Skaggs, Christopher Williams, the Metropolitan Opera, Daniel Charon, Nina Winthrop and others. Joanna is on faculty at Movement Research and Gibney Dance in New York City. She has taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Eugene Lang College - The New School for Liberal Arts, Long Island University and the American Dance Festival. She has studied Klein technique with Barbara Mahler since 2003, is originally from South Africa, and has a BA in Architecture from Miami University ('98).

Jonathan Allen works in painting, collage, video, and performance. He has exhibited at Lu Magnus, PS122, Exit Art, Socrates Sculpture Park, Artists Space, Bravin Lee, Caren Golden, Oliver Kamm and BRIC Rotunda. He has participated in LMCC's Workspace & Swingspace residencies, has had residencies at Bogliasco, Cill Rialaig, and Blue Mountain Center, and has received grants from Pollock-Krasner, Chenven, Puffin, George Sugarman, and Brooklyn Arts Council. He has collaborated with Joanna Kotze since 2011.

Zachary Fabri received his Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in 2007 in combined media. His multidisciplinary practice mines the intersection of personal and political spaces, often responding to a specific environment or context. His work moves through photography, video, performance, and sculpture. Zachary's work has been exhibited at Sequences Real-time Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland; Nordic Biennale: Momentum, Moss, Norway; Gallery Open, Berlin; The Jersey City Museum; El Museo del Barrio, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Awards include Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art and the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in interdisciplinary work. Recent exhibitions include his exhibition Forget me not, as my tether is clipped at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Performa 13, Art in General and Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond at the Brooklyn Museum.

Asuka Goto received an MFA in Sculpture from Tyler School of Art and a BA and Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from Brandeis University. She has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (both the Workspace and Swing Space programs), HomeBase Berlin, Sculpture Space and the Vermont Studio Center. She is the recipient of several awards including a Joan Mitchell MFA Grant and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Creative Artist Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited at the CUE Foundation, Soho20 Gallery and the 92Y Tribeca in New York, at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT and at the Globe Gallery in Newcastle, England. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and teaches full-time in the Foundation and Fine Arts Departments at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, PA.

Ryan Seaton is a composer, guitarist and saxophonist living in NYC. His band, Callers, has released three critically acclaimed albums and toured extensively throughout Europe, Canada and the United States. In addition, Seaton has been commissioned by many artists including Dark Sky, Here We Go Magic, Joanna Kotze, Ictus and Lance Gries.

Stuart Singer is a Brooklyn-based performer and teacher. He is developing projects with John Jasperse, Beth Gill, Gwen Welliver, Joanna Kotze and Andrew Ondrejcak, and is currently a guest lecturer in dance at Princeton University. He has been making dances with Joanna since 2009.

Netta Yerushalmy's work has been recognized with a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project, The Joyce Theater, American Dance Festival, Harkness Festival, La Mama, Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Curtain-Up (Tel-Aviv) & many others. She has performed with Nancy Bannon, Karinne Keithley Syers, Mark Jarecki, Doug Varone, Ronit Ziv, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and has worked closely with Joanna Kotze since 2009.

BAC is the realization of artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov's long-held vision to build an arts center in NYC that would serve as a gathering place for artists from all disciplines. BAC's opening in 2005 heralded the launch of this mission, establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around the world. BAC's activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by a range of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as the presentation of performances by artists at varying stages of their careers. In tandem with its commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the arts by presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices.