Jonah Bokaer Choreography Announces Annual New York City Season

Jonah Bokaer Choreography presents its annual New York City season, unveiling never-before-seen pandemic dances created between 2020-2023, debuting on Thursday, April 6th at 7:30pm. JBC's international multi-ethnic dancers, its staff, its crew, and its Board Of Directors rejoice at the occasion to appear at Florence Gould Hall once again, as the chosen home for New York, French, and diaspora cultures, which include JBC's history with FIAF. JBC was founded in 2002 by Tunisian-American choreographer Jonah Bokaer as the banner program of Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization running the dance company and its programs in New York City, and world-wide. JBC rose quickly to French and international acclaim, often touring abroad 35 weeks annually pre-pandemic, remaining artistically and economically stable since 2002, with innovations in visual choreography.

JBC's return to FIAF's Florence Gould Hall post-pandemic is a resuscitation of local dance program services in New York City, and represents a return home to our audiences, supporters, patrons, and fans. The carefully crafted 60-minute evening includes a truly bespoke program of dances which were created during the outbreaks, lockdowns, public responses, social upheavals, inoculation campaigns, superstorms, regime changes, and economic tides of 2020-2023 - leading to the theme of "Passing" in all possible meanings - yet also leading to an evening of transcendent dancing, solidarity, reflection, and commemoration of live gatherings in the wake of spring. These spring holiday seasons, across cultures, embrace the power of live bodies staged with an unwavering dedication to choreographic craftsmanship.

Company dancers Maximilian Cappelli-King, Isaiah João, Nadia Khayrallah, Raymond Pinto, Hala Shah, Jonah Bokaer, and other visual design collaborators appear live in new dances with visual installations that have been unseen in New York City until this engagement. The seamless run of show showcases this new repertory, totaling 60 minutes, "as tightly choreographed as the gears of a peaceful submarine" says new Vice Chair of Programs Aaron Levi Garvey: JBAF as a nonprofit organization now spans multiple New York State counties, and multiple New York State arts facilities, all with stable dancers, staff, board, and crew who maintained unwavering pandemic continuity without fuss, fanfare, or swerve in mission. The evening's program contains Vesica Piscis, a collaboration with iconoclastic designers threeASFOUR, featuring astonishing full-body masked garments tailored to four dancers, who also appeared in the Vogue Runway debut of the video artwork Vesica Piscis in 2020. The creative team of Vesica Piscis includes visual artist Jessica Sofia Mitrani, creative technologist and filmmaker Alex Czetwertynski, composer Brian Close, producer John Morgan, and more, with ground-breaking XR (Extended Reality) visuals that align with JBC's niche position in the dance world: always fusing choreography with visual innovation.

Celebrating middle eastern heritage in many forms is appropriate for this time of spring, and is consistent with the plurality of JBC dancers. These cultural celebrations are taken further within the work, and with repertory pairings overseen with a strong level of board, staff, and dancer alignment. While in-house curator Aaron Levi Garvey was promoted to the Vice Chair of Programs of the Board Of Directors, alongside other leaders, he guided this season as a resuscitation of a spring programming of JBC in New York City, working closely with dancers Nadia Khayrallah, Hala Shah, and many others, to distill these unseen pandemic repertory creations and frame JBC's activities for public audiences. The program also includes Avodah (2020) passed on to Maximilian Cappelli-King, Softer Distances (2020) passed on to Raymond Pinto, Thank You (2021) reprised with Khayrallah and Shah, and other delightful surprises for New York City performance goers of all ages. Garvey also is a prime move behind the RECESS after party, which benefits the company, in FIAF's Le Skyroom immediately following the program, in celebration of these renowned collaborators.

Always a quiet giant spanning the dance world and the visual art world, Jonah Bokaer carries the second half of the program with the highly anticipated New York City premiere of Fallen Angel (2022), which was commissioned by The Clark Art Institute in an ambitious programmatic move responding to a major museum exhibition entitled Auguste Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern, originated by the Clark Art Institute and guest independent scholar Antoinette Le Normand. Fallen Angel (2022), whose title refers to a Rodin sculpture of the same name exhibited at The Clark, unfolds as Bokaer's most evocative solo to enter the JBC repertory, within a visual installation that he created out of ten massive plinths, of ten different marble shades, forming a fractured landscape which also shows the visual grammar of his career exhibiting in museums. While working with The Clark Art Institute, its head of public programming Dr. Will Schmenner, its head of printmaking Dr. Anne Leonard, and Garvey, the question of choreography and sculpture was prominent alongside the relevance of Rodin's history in America; Rodin's history in French culture; and Rodin's history in dance as well. For the New York City debut Bokaer offers, "Just as the sculpture Fallen Angel is a composite work, so is this choreography, and so is my entire body of work. I have quietly spent America's version of the pandemic honing my craft, keeping my body focused on health in newfound ways, and healing my performing arts organization with a larger and more engaged Board: which our season at Florence Gould Hall also showcases. We have always done well, and danced well, with a hulking scope of work (or two)."

JBC seasons in New York City are funded by the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Prospect Hill Foundations, the Producers Circle of the Board Of Directors, and an increasing base of New York City funders that are growing awareness of the JBC repertory and programs on American soil.

In English. Run time 1 hour without intermission. Child friendly, but most appropriate for ages 12 and up. Benefit Reception for the New York City recovery of Jonah Bokaer Choreography and its dancers in Le Skyroom of the same building onsite, to follow the evening's performance at Florence Gould Hall.