Mariana Valencia's COVERS, SINGLES, SHOUT OUTS Comes to BAX

Mariana Valencia's performance Covers, Singles, Shout Outs is an in-progress research that examines authorship by questioning what gets carried into her work through the modes of proximity, relation and alliance. Through this process Covers, Singles, Shout Outs seeks to manipulate perceptions of life and its collaborators. The work is sourced from various popular and cultural alliances and this particular ensemble of sources builds a choral surround of references. The work proposes a lens for observation that positions our personal and cultural attachment to objects and subjects, and why (or, if?) we choose to live among them. In Covers, Singles, Shout Outs, Valencia invites the audience to traverse a dense field of collective reference.
About the Artist

Mariana Valencia is a dance artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Valencia has held residencies at Chez Bushwick (2013), New York Live Arts Studio Series (2013-14), ISSUE Project Room (2015) and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2016-18). In Los Angeles, she's held residencies at Show Box LA and Pieter Pasd (2014). Her work has been presented at Danspace Project, Roulette, the Center for Performance Research, The New Museum, The Women and Performance Journal, Lec/Dem, Ugly Duckling Presse, AUNTS and The L.A.B at The Kitchen. As a performer, Valencia has worked with musician Jules Gimbrone; video artists Elizabeth Orr, Kate Brandt, and AK Burns and in performances by Em Rooney, robbinschilds, Kim Brandt and MPA. Valencia is a founding member of the No Total reading group a partner of Artists Space Books and Talks and she has been the co-editor of Movement Research's Critical Correspondence (2016-17). Valencia s a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to Artists grant recipient (2018), a Jerome Travel and Study Grant fellow (2014-15) with which she conducted a dance ethnography on the Sonidero dance tradition of Mexico City, a Yellow House Fund of the Tides Foundation grant recipient (2010-13) and a Movement Research GPS/Global Practice Sharing artist (2016/17). As a teaching artist, Valencia has developed performance composition workshops that look at spatial improvisation and authorship through CLASSCLASSCLASS (2010-11) and the Movement Research Summer MELT (2017) program. Valencia holds a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA (2006) with a concentration in dance and ethnography.

Artistic Statement

My choreography encompasses ethnography, memoir, and observations of my cross-cultural identifiers. Comprised of dance, language and timing, my performances inspire algorithmic imagery wherein I intersect urbanity with suburbia, the countryside, and the imaginary plane. Cadence is the relational foundation of my work, where humor confronts sadness, gravity weighs levity, timing works against improvisation. Factual, humorous and grave observations depict my herstorical frame, (delete: from) where I'm in search of the spiritual, in observation of the physical, and in awe of the artificial. My past research has looked to Cumbia, AIDS, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico, Detroit, vampires and Yugoslavia as sounding boards. As a choreographer, performer and writer, I generate animate ethnographies of performance.
For more information, visit events.bax.org/covers-singles
ABOUT BAX
Founded in 1991, BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange, is a community based performing arts center dedicated to developing artists of all ages, from children to professionals. The organization offers community access to arts and culture, supporting the creation of new work by emerging artists, engaging diverse audiences and providing arts education to youth and families. BAX has intentionally constructed an environment where children study and professional artists create under the same roof. Students are mentored by professional directors and choreographers. The organization's distinct focus on developmental process makes it a nurturing incubator for experimental dance and theater artists and is an important advocate for under-represented voices in the New York City performing arts community.

BAX Artist In Residence program began in 1993, with two artists - Reggie Wilson and George Emilio Sanchez - both lived near BAX's first location in the Gowanus and rehearsed there extensively. Their regular presence at BAX led to conversations about their needs as artists, and how BAX could more fully meet those needs. Within a year through their input, BAX identified a need for space, a desire for opportunities to investigate specific aesthetic and cultural concerns, and an interest in curating work by other artists to build community and extend their own artistic practice. With these two artists, we established what would become BAX's Artist In Residence program (BAX AIR). BAX enjoys long lasting and sustained relationships with many former resident artists who continue to develop ideas and programs that become part of the organization.

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange, an organization with a core commitment to social justice, welcomes students, families, faculty and artists. In keeping with BAX's mission to encourage artistic risk-taking and stimulate dialogue among diverse constituencies we intentionally and purposefully support the voices of under-represented individuals and groups of all origins, ages, abilities, races, sexual orientations, genders, and varied immigration status. All our constituents join an organization whose staff and Board are actively engaged in challenging the manifestations of whiteness, able-bodiedness and privilege as part of our ongoing anti-racist efforts and our other anti-oppression, pro-inclusion work.
BAX has a proud history and commitment to developing cohorts that are reflective of our mission and core commitments. In our curation and residencies, we take into account our field's history of racism and discrimination, and take active steps to undo the effects of that history. We believe that this commitment enriches the AIR experience for all members and audiences.

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange receives generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Brad Lander, Astoria Bank, Bay and Paul Foundations, Con Edison, Copper Beech Foundation, Corcoran Cares, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Eileen Fisher Inc., the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Houlihan Lokey, the Jerome Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Scott Klein Team at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, M&T Charitable Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Park Slope Civic Council, the Pritchard Family Foundation, the Scherman Foundation and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

To post a comment, you must register and login.