Bill T. Jones, MacArthur Genius Award and National Medal of Arts awardee and Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, and Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director, announced the New York Live Arts' 2018-2019 season today. "We look to artists to reflect, reframe, reimagine, and represent the world to us. We hope that in turn we respond with empathy and, dare we say, compassion," states Bill T. Jones. "New York Live Arts will premiere eight New York and/or world premieres this season including the much anticipated "Y" by Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist RoseAnne Spradlin," says Janet Wong. "We will also bring back Jack Ferver's highly successful 'Everything Is Imaginable,' which premiered at New York Live Arts' this past season. For the 2019 edition of the Live Ideas Festival we will look at Artificial Intelligence and our role in shaping the future," she adds.
New York Live Arts' 2018-2019 season will open with the presentation of
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's Analogy Trilogy, a choreographic work based on oral histories and inspired by W.G. Sebald's award-winning novel The Emigrants. The trilogy was created by
Bill T. Jones with
Janet Wong and will be shown at NYU Skirball Center, September 22 and 23, 2018. All three parts are shown together as a marathon performance for the first time in New York.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will tour Analogy Trilogy to Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, DC. Also on tour is the acclaimed A Letter to My Nephew, which may be seen in Colorado Springs, Detroit, and New Brunswick.
A special highlight of the season is the highly anticipated world premiere of RoseAnne Spradlin's latest work "Y", September 27-29 and October 4-6, at New York Live Arts. Spradlin is Live Arts' 2017-19 Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist (RCA). "RoseAnne developed "Y" during a two-year residency at Live Arts as the 4th RCA," explains
Janet Wong. "RCA is a signature program of Live Arts that supports the development of new work by mid-career artists with a substantial commission, production and administrative support, salary, and health benefits. We hope that this opportunity allows RoseAnne to explore new territories as an artist. We believe strongly in RoseAnne's work which, if we allow it to, takes us beyond words and comprehension."
With a special interest in nurturing, developing, and presenting new work through the Live Feed creative residency program, Live Arts presents seven New York and/or world premieres by
Jennifer Nugent and Paul Matteson, Bill Shannon, DANCENOISE, Molly Lieber and
Eleanor Smith, Netta Yerushalmy, Kota Yamazaki, and
Kaneza Schaal. The incoming roster of Live Feed artists, Yanira Castro, Alexandra Chasin and Zishan Ugurlu, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Raphael Xavier and Abby Zbikowski will present In Process showings.
Live Artery, the annual performance series during APAP|NYC 2019 will begin January 4 will showcase the work of artists from our current and last seasons, the
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and curated guests. A highlight is the return of
Jack Ferver's memorable Everything is Imaginable, January 7-12, featuring
James Whiteside,
Lloyd Knight, Reid Bartelme, and
Garen Scribner.
Now in its 54th year, Fresh Tracks will welcome a
New Group of artists to the legendary performance and residency program with a presentation of their works, a commission and residency, and workshops on marketing, production, and fundraising led by renowned professionals. The artists are mentored by choreographer and Fresh Tracks alumna Juliana May.
Live Ideas Festival, New York Live Arts' annual humanities festival of arts and ideas, will interrogate a future with AI,
Artificial Intelligence, that promises to revolutionize human existence. The festival will bring together experts, thinkers, artists, and policy makers during five days of conversations, performances, and cultural interventions. Live Ideas 2019 will be held May 8-12, 2019.
In addition to performance presentations, Live Arts continues its popular discussion series Bill Chats including conversations with artist/activist Hank Willis Thomas, October 8, 2018, Artistic Director of
The Public Theatre Oskar Eustis, February 4, 2019, and poets
Claudia Rankine and Tracy
K. Smith, May 20, 2019.
Open Spectrum, Live Arts' community dialogues, curated by culture creator Brian Tate of The Tate Group, will continue with Right To Bear Arms: A Conversation on Gun Ownership, November 5, 2018, Brilliant Darkness: A Discussion with Artists on Mental Illness, January 14, 2019, and a talk presented as part of Women's History Month, March 18, 2019.
Live Arts' PRIDE celebration returns with the 2nd annual daylong performance party, embodying the historical importance and unwavering power of LGBTQIA culture. On June 30, 2019, Live Arts Pride celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising and the first WorldPride hosted on United States soil. Queer nightlife and art scene come together under one roof to serve up the city's most colorful and fierce performance, music, and more for a multi-space, back-to-back party for the ages.
Live Arts Plus partners Barnard/Columbia Dances, November 29-December 1, 2018, Ellen Robbins, January 26-27, LUMBERYARD in the City, January 31-February 16, Lang Dance, May 3-4, and Purchase Dance, May 23-25, 2019, return with outstanding new works to Live Arts.
Live Arts celebrates Women's History Month with Dinner Party: 1960s-2000s, March 10, 2019, which interprets themes present in second wave feminism including women at work, porn and the erotic, and sex positivity. Utilizing text from feminist writers such as Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Catherine MacKinnon,
Grace Lee Boggs, and Candida Royale, the party looks at the feminist past, how it has served us and where it has failed, and its power to imagine liberation.
The Ford Foundation Live Gallery will feature an installation by Derrick Adams, a multidisciplinary New York-based artist working in performance, video, sound, and 2D and 3D realms. Adams' practice focuses on the fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface, exploring self-image, and forward projection. The installation set on Live Arts' sprawling 32-foot lobby wall will be on view, free and open to the public, starting in September 2018.
For additional information, please see performance schedule below.
Located in the heart of Chelsea in New York City, New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music, and theater performances in its 20,000 square-foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square-foot studios. New York Live Arts offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of performing artists. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and is the company's sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work for the Company and New York's creative community.
Since its inception, the Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist program has received lead support from The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and has been named for lead donors Jon Stryker and New York Live Arts board vice-chair Slobodan Randjelovi?. The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation continues to be instrumental in one of Live Arts' signature programs for artist development, and its ongoing support is vital to the continuation of the program.
