Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival to Present TRAPPED and INDIAN LETTERS

Works & Process at the Guggenheim will present the Underground Uptown Dance Festival, a festival of commissioned street and social dances taking place in the subterranean Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater at the Guggenheim from January 10-16, 2024 and at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall on January 12. Rare in the field of dance, let alone in the creators' traditions, beyond presenting fee, all projects will have received longitudinal support. With some spanning four years, across multiple residencies Works & Process will have provided living wage fees, 24/7 devoted studio access, adjacent housing, access to health care insurance enrollment, performance fees, and iterative performance opportunities. Inspired by the circular architecture of the Guggenheim, the cyphers prevalent in street dance, and social environments where these performing art traditions were germinated, the works being presented weave audiences and artists together. These commissions endeavor to amplify the innate qualities of dance to physically connect and facilitate the embodiment of joy and community.

WORKS & PROCESS Uptown Dance Festival AT THE GUGGENHEIM

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Peter B. Lewis Theater, 071 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10128

Choose-What-You-Pay tickets available at www.worksandprocess.org.

Passion Fruit Dance Company: Trapped by Tatiana Desardouin (highlights)

Preeti Vasudevan & Amar Ramasar's Indian Letters (in-process)

Jan 15, 7 pm

New York-based choreographer Tatiana Desardouin and Passion Fruit Dance Company bring bold street and club dance styles to the stage. Trapped features moving testimony from four women of different backgrounds and life stories, revealing both their pain and paths to joy. While the piece explores difficult social issues faced by women, it conveys a broad message of hope and celebration and is an invitation to unfold and release mental blocks.

An immersive live and digital-theater project, Indian Letters is a collaboration between Preeti Vasudevan, Artistic Director of New York-based arts organization Thresh, and Amar Ramasar, a former principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. In this in-process showing, both dancers rediscover themselves through a dynamic dialogue of cultural exchange. By asking the question, "Where is home?" they cast new light on issues of race, assimilation, faith, and identity in the twenty-first century.

Trapped was commissioned by Works & Process and premiered in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenhiem Museum. Trapped was developed in a Works & Process Bubble residency at Bridge Street Theatre (2021) made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Indian Letters has been developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022 and 2023) and The Yard, in partnership with Circuit Arts (2023).

The Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival is part of JanArtsNYC, one of the city's largest and most influential arts gatherings for which more than 45,000 performing arts leaders, artists, and enthusiasts from across the globe converge in New York.

Championing creative process from studio-to-stage, Works & Process has made a long-term investment in all of the artists and projects featured in the festival. Recognizing that presenting alone is not enough, all projects have received sequenced Works & Process LaunchPAD and bubble residency support providing industry-leading residency and performance fees, residencies with 24/7 studio space, on-site housing, transportation, and health insurance enrollment access. Celebrating the iterative nature of live performances, the public has been invited to explore steps in the creative process through public presentations at residency centers as well as in New York City at the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and SummerStage and in venues nationally as commissions start to tour. These commissions endeavor to amplify the innate qualities of dance to physically connect and facilitate the embodiment of joy and community.

ABOUT WORKS & PROCESS

A non-profit without walls, Works & Process champions performing artists and their creative process from studio to stage. We platform artists from the world's largest organizations and amplify underrecognized performing arts cultures. We provide rare, longitudinal, and fully-funded creative residencies, and commissioning support. We present at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Each summer Works & Process curates and presents free dance programs with City Parks Foundation's SummerStage and NYC Parks.

Works & Process LaunchPAD "Process as Destination" provides artists multi-week residencies with 24/7 studio availability, on-site housing, health insurance enrollment access, industry-leading fees, and transportation to residency partners spanning counties in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.