Valerie Green/Dance Entropy Perofmr RITE This Month

Valerie Green/Dance Entropy has announced The Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery will present "RITE" in dedication to Rev. Calvin Otis Butts III (1949-2022) on October 22nd, 2023 at 1:00pm in Celebration Hall, The Center, 127-15 Kew Gardens Rd, Queens, NY 11415. Free admission!

RITE is a 45-minute dance work performed by six men is a physical invocation of our internal struggle with self-image and societal pressure, and the vulnerable journey from Form to Clarity. The dancers’ instinct drives this powerful, trance-based dance, isolating them from one another—they experience both a personal and collective spiritual catharsis, embodying the idea that struggles with each other are really the fight against oneself. Performed by a multicultural cast predominantly comprised of immigrants to the United States, the dancers’ unique personalities helped shape the work as it was being created, and their performances offer witnesses dynamic musings on brotherhood, masculinity, and care. Inspired by shamanic journeying and altered states of consciousness, RITE carves a path through human pain, to show us what else can be waiting for us, as soon as we can release what weighs us down. RITE invites us to contemplate our individual struggles and release our attachments to Body and Thought. You are the one in the way of yourself. Can you get out of your own way?

RITE is choreographed by Valerie Green, featuring Aidan Feldman, Johnny Mathews III, Tsubasa Nishioka, Richard J. Scandola, Ethan Schweitzer-Gaslin, Tyreel Simpson.

Costumes by Irena Romendik.