DANCE NOW Continues 25th Anniversary Season With New Online Events

DANCE NOW is continuing its 25th anniversary celebration with online events featuring new and archival digital works by more than 40 innovative dance makers. All events are available on DANCE NOW's new web platform: dancenow.online.

As a response to the ongoing pandemic and to support its community of artists during this challenging time, DANCE NOW has reimagined its fall festival at Joe's Pub, creating an alternative digital space to celebrate its artists and this landmark anniversary. The series brings new, emerging, and longtime veterans of the festival together to honor DANCE NOW's past, embrace the present, and explore future possibilities for artists and audiences alike. In addition to its existing interactive timeline featuring photos, videos, and interviews, DANCE NOW has added several new facets to the DN Story including Watch Parties, Community Gatherings, and an Institutional Access Pass program.

New in 2021, DANCE NOW will host a Watch Party at 6pm on the day each new chapter is released. Watch Parties will include an informal Q&A with a curator or artist, as well as trivia polls and other interactive elements for audience members. Watch Parties will be available to all ticket and subscription buyers via Zoom. The Chapter 4 release (at 12pm EST) and Watch Party will be on Thursday, February 11, 2021.

DANCE NOW's popular Artist-to-Audience celebrations honor artists with whom DN has had a long-standing relationship. Chapter 4's celebration, honoring Claire Porter and hosted by Deborah Lohse-aka TruDee, will take place on Thursday, February 25, at 7pm via Zoom.

The February Performance Chapter will feature commissioned works by Kate Ladenheim, Alice Sheppard, Subject: Matter, and Maleek Washington and archival works by Adam Barruch and Mark Gindick.

February Program - Chapter 4

Kate Ladenheim's She Dreams in Rose Pixels is a choreographic simulation built in Unity that addresses themes of artificiality, brutality, and endlessness. In this work, glittering bodies endlessly generate in midair, colliding with each other and then falling through a glowing pink world. Eventually, these figures accumulate into a pile hundreds of fake bodies deep. Choreography, virtual design, and programming by Kate Ladenheim. Music by Myles Avery.

Set in a woody glen, marvellous things live here continues Alice Sheppard's experiment in embodiment. Between the rocks and ledges, Sheppard dances with crutch and chair, blades, and crutches in a meditation on body, space, and time.

That Old Feeling is Subject:Matter's first film project. The solo has been constructed from material taken from the company's work aquatic and is intended to be the culminating moment of that show. It features a solo performed by three dancers as they dance wistfully through a photo studio in the countryside.

Maleek Washington's Staying Home: A 2020 Retrospective is an honest and intentional reflection on what happens when we have nothing but time to come back to self. Through contemporary movement, tap dance, and spoken word, audiences are allowed to witness how time in solitude creates a new perspective of self-all while the world takes its own collective look in the mirror. Created in collaboration with Brittany-Laurelle and Sarah Reich.

Ne Me Quitte Pas, set to Jacques Brel's classic song of the same name, was Adam Barruch and Chelsea Bonosky's first collaboration for DANCE NOW in 2011. Known for their highly fluid and gestural work, the duos piece explores the emotional landscapes of two figures caught in a narrative of loss and regret.

Red Balloon by actor, clown, and physical comedian Mark Gindick will also be presented. For a clown dancer, the surprise and awe of a love-at-first-sight red balloon brings on a courtship dance that leads to love's inevitable conclusion.

Artists' bios can be found at https://dancenow.online/events/chapter-4/.

Single tickets are $10 for each monthly performance program and $20 for the monthly performance program and Artist-to-Audience celebration. A subscription package is available for $75 and includes all six monthly performance programs (fall 2020 and winter/spring 2021) and the upcoming Artist-to-Audience celebrations in February, March, and May. Tickets can be purchased at www.dancenow.online.

Proceeds from ticket sales support future artist commissions. Artists creating, performing, collaborating, and teaching in the 25th anniversary season programming will have access to all events for free.

DANCE NOW's New Community Gatherings and Institutional Access Pass Program:

In 2021, DANCE NOW will host Community Gatherings for the dance community. Each gathering is unique to the artist hosting and the participants who share their thoughts and experiences. Artists provide a framework and starting point for the discussion, often sharing snippets of work-in-progress, or techniques they use in their lives and creative processes. Participants each get a chance to respond and share, creating a thoughtful, in-depth discussion. To make sure that everyone present can participate, registration for each Community Gathering is extremely limited.

All Community Gatherings are part of DANCE NOW's IDEA efforts and are FREE to encourage accessibility for all audiences. The lineup can be found here.

DANCE NOW also now offers the Institutional Access Pass (IAP) to educational organizations for the benefit of providing digital performance-viewing experiences and artist engagement opportunities to high school and college students at the lowest possible cost-roughly $1 per enrolled student. The IAP includes invitations to exclusive interactive events hosted by DANCE NOW educators and artists for students and faculty. Those enrolled will have access to all of the works presented during DANCE NOW's 25th anniversary season.