Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, CUNY Dance Initiative Announce Brooklyn College Residencies

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College presents two residencies as part of CUNY Dance Initiative. The first residency of Maria Bauman/MBDance will run from September 4-October 10, 2014. The second residency of Renegade Performance Group/André M. Zachery will run from October 24-December 19, 2014.

MBDance will offer an open rehearsal and lecture/demonstration on Thursday, September 18 at 3:30pm, and a "Radical Love Fest" interactive workshop on Thursday, October 9 at 6:30pm. Both events are free, and will be held at the West Quad Center Dance Studio at Brooklyn College. Renegade Performance Group will offer open rehearsals and dance technique lecture/demonstrations on Friday, November 14 at 10am and Friday, December 19 at 10am at the West Quad Center Dance Studio, as well as an Artist Forum on Thursday, December 11 at 6:30pm at Woody Tanger Auditorium. For more information on these free events, please call (718) 951-4600.

During its residency, MBDance will develop its latest project, "Attend Me," inspired by a blessing by feminist writer Audre Lorde. The piece is a visual storytelling of radical self-acceptance and self-love, of romantic love, and defiant queerness. The company's lecture/demonstration will look into MBDance's creative process, including a preview of movement phrases that will be part of the finished piece, followed by a Q&A. Bauman will also facilitate what she dubs a "Radical Love Fest," calling upon her extensive experience with arts-based community engagement projects. This participatory session is open to all and will include movement, discussion, free writing, aromatherapy, and other rejuvenating practices.

Maria Bauman founded MBDance in 2007 and has since been showcased at Harlem Stage E-Moves, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, Dixon Place, Kumble Theater, Central Park SummerStage, BAAD!, BRIC, and New York Live Arts. Bauman's choreography is influenced by her extensive study of capoeira and her eight years with Urban Bush Women, where she is now associate artistic director.

Renegade Performance Group will use the residency to continue developing "The Inscription Project," an evening-length multidisciplinary work of dance, sound, and media scheduled to premiere in 2015. The piece explores graffiti and street art as tenants of Afrofuturism and how it informs African American identity in "a technologically and prosthetically enhanced future." Zachery will work with collaborators to film movement sequences, develop costume ideas, and construct the scenic elements to integrate with the performers and video projection. The company's dance technique lecture/demonstrations will focus on a class based in "flying low" work created by David Zambrano, engaging the cranial-sacral connection for seamless floor vocabulary, intelligent shifts of body weight, and fierce aerial movement. The Artist Forum will address Afrofuturism in social and artistic thought, especially its role in the sphere of dance, performance, and the body, and its relevance to current street art and technology in defining a Black identity.

Renegade Performance Group is a Brooklyn-based company that explores urban artistic aesthetics and expressions. Started in 2007 by André M. Zachery, it works collaboratively with artists in various genres. Zachery recently completed an MFA in performance & interactive media arts at Brooklyn College.

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