Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Gus Solomons Jr and Abdel R. Salaam Conclude The American Dance Guild Virtual Festival

Reaching into its archival treasure trove of rarely seen recordings of past events, The American Dance Guild continues their virtual offering 10 Years Over 10 Weeks, a rich collection of video performances of honorees and guest artists over the last ten years of ADG Performance Festivals.

The video stream, which runs for ten weeks, features works by 25 dance luminaries from ADG Festivals 2009-2019. Each of the Festival artists appear sequentially by year, running for one week. The live festival has been postponed this year in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The American Dance Guild's 10 Years Over 10 Weeks is available to stream on Vimeo and through the ADG website. The showings are free, with donations welcome. The full 10 Years Over 10 Weeks lineup is below.

Dec. 14 through Dec. 20, the 2020 ADG Virtual Festival will conclude with WEEK TEN, SHAPING THE NOW: DANCE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES, a tribute to 2019 ADG Lifetime Achievement Award Winners Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Gus Solomons jr and Abdel R. Salaam. Video footage for the Festival's final week will be live from 10am Monday, Dec. 14 until 11:59pm Sunday, Dec. 20, ET.

To be shown on WEEK TEN:

Jody Gottfried Arnhold

PS DANCE! (Trailer)

Executive Producer: Jody Gottfried Arnhold
Produced and Directed by: Nel Shelby
Consultant: Joan Finkelstein
Edited by: Loren R. Robertson
Music Composed by: Bob Novak and Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal
Production Company: Nel Shelby Productions
Funding for this film was provided by the Arnhold Foundation

Jody Gottfried Arnhold, MA, CMA, Founder of Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at 92Y, is a luminary in dance education and an advocate for dance. She created DEL in response to the need for a practical and focused dance pedagogy program. Through DEL, Jody aims to inspire and prepare teachers to work with children and teens. She continues these efforts as Executive Producer of the NY Emmy nominated documentary, PS DANCE!: Dance Education in Public Schools, to raise awareness and advocate for her mission, Dance for Every Child.

Teaching dance in NYC public schools for more than 20 years, has provided Jody with the experiences that continue to guide her dance education efforts including supporting the dance program at the New York City Department of Education, creating the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College, and serving as the visionary benefactor behind the Doctorate in Dance Education at Teachers College Columbia University. Jody supports and champions many NYC dance companies including Ballet Hispanico where she is Honorary Chair. She also supports and mentors countless dance teachers many of whom now lead the field.

Jody serves on the Advisory Committee for Arts Education at New York City Department of Education and was Co-Chair of the Committee that created the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Dance K-12. She is on the Board at 92Y, Hunter College, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and on the Advisory Committee of Dance/NYC. She has received National Dance Education Organization's Visionary Award, Education Update's Distinguished Leader in Education Award, and Teachers College Distinguished Alumni Award. Jody has received the Floria V. Lasky Award, Dance Films Association's Dance In Focus Award, and the New York State Dance Education Association Outstanding Leadership Award. She has been honored by Lincoln Center Education, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Jose Limon Dance Foundation, Dancewave, and NYC Arts in Education Roundtable for her contributions to dance and dance education.

Jody holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an MA in Dance Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and is a Certified Movement Analyst.

ABDEL R. SALAAM/Forces of Nature

Memorial T "19"

Choreography, Costumes & Set Design: Abdel R. Salaam
Music: Sauti Sol, Daniel Pemberton
Sound Design: David Lawson
Performers: Kourtney Charles, Ferrin Coleman, Omari Contaste, Jude Evans, Thea Grier, Paris Jones, Faith Mondesire, Imani Nzingha, Maya Petty, Jae Ponder, Jasmine PooleKeith Tolbert, Jamaine Victor

A tribute to our Ancestors.

E.R. (Excerpt)

October Ashes...Fallen Doves (1996)

Choreography, Lighting, Costume & Set Design: Abdel R. Salaam
Original Lighting Design by: William H. Grant II
Music: Michale Wimberly and Abdel R. Salaam
Performer: Courtney LewisE.R. illustrates the almost "surgical" dismembering of his mother's life during her tenure in a hospital emergency room as she oscillates through the roles of caregiver, patient, healer of the infirmed.

A QUESTION OF MODESTY (Excerpt)

Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross (2005)

Choreography, Costume & Set Design: Abdel R. Salaam
Lighting Design: Abdel R. Salaam and Temishia Johnson
Musical Direction: Abdel R. Salaam
Musicians: Frank Malloy III, Frank Malloy IV, Kweku Sumbrey and Abdel R. Salaam
The Villagers: Ferrin Coleman, Omari Contaste, Jude Evans, Cimone Grtaves, Fritzlyn Hector, Paris Jones, Qwadasia Lovett, Imani Nzingha, Jae Ponder, Artrese Reid, Shawndele Strafford, Tricia Tait, Daaimah Talib-Din, Keith Tolbert, Jamaine Victor, L. "Mimi" Woods
We journey to a small village in West Africa during the time of the Middle Passage where the religions of Islam and Christianity attempt to imprint a different construct of modesty onto traditional societies, their indigenous belief systems, and cultural practices.

ABDEL R. SALAAM is Executive Artistic Director/Co-Founder of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre (FONDT) founded in 1981. Born in Harlem, New York, Abdel, is a critically acclaimed choreographer and in the past, served as a dancer, teacher and/or performing artist in five continents throughout his 49 year career in the Dance World. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for excellence in Dance including the National Endowment for the Arts, The New England Foundation on the Arts, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Foundation for the Arts, The New York State Council for Arts, The National Council for Arts and Culture and Herbert H. Lehman College. He and his company received the 2013 Audelco Award for Dance Company of the Year. He has served as a choreographer and/or director for the New York Shakespeare Festival, The Billie Holiday Theater, The Apollo Theater, The Winter Solstice at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,

The New York Musical Theater Festival, BAM, Black Dance USA and The Tennessee Performing Arts Festival. Some of his specific commercial credits in theater, film and television include: Measure for Measure, New York Shakespeare Festival (Choreographer); Pecong, Newark Symphony Hall (Choreographer); TUT, New York Musical Theatre Festival, (Director/Choreographer); Ebony Magic: The Life and Legend of Marie Laveau, Aaronow Theater, (Director/Choreographer); JuJu Man, Billie Holiday Theater (Director/ Choreographer); The Liberation of Mother Goose, Billie Holiday Theater ( Director Choreographer); Eclipse; Visions of the Crescent and the Cross, Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Director/Choreographer); Free to Dance, PBS Channel 13 (Choreographer); Expressions in Black; The Story of a People, ABC ( Choreographer); The Richard Pryor Show, NBC ( Dancer); and Black Nativity Fox Searchlight Films ( Performing Artist).

He has created ballets for Philadanco, Joan Miller Chamber Arts/ Dance Players, The Chuck Davis Dance Company, Union Dance Theater (London), Ballet Islenos (Puerto Rico), Sakoba Dance Theater (London), Muntu Dance Theater, The Nashville Ballet, The African American Dance Ensemble and Gywa Maten. Mr. Salaam has served on the faculties of the American Dance Festivals in the United States and Seoul, Korea, Herbert H. Lehman College, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, The Restoration Youth Arts Academy and The Harlem Children's Zone. Mr. Salaam is the creator of the Kwanzaa Regeneration Night Celebration in Harlem, now 38 years old, which was inspired by the teachings of its visionary creator and founder of Kwanzaa, Dr. Maulana Karenga. Mr. Salaam's also the Artistic Director of Brooklyn Academy of Music's Dance Africa, originally founded by the late Chuck Davis in 1977 and is the recipient of the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production of The Healings Sevens.

Gus Solomons jr

PSI Redone (2019)

Made and Performed by: Gus Solomons jr
Text by: Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and John Cage
Gus Solomons jr is a Dancer/Choreographer/Writer. As an undergraduate in Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gus began modern dance training in Laban Technique with Jan Veen at the Boston Conservatory of Music and Graham Technique with Robert Cohan. Upon graduation with his Bachelor of Architecture degree he was hired by Donald McKayle in New York, where he performed as soloist in the companies of Joyce Trisler, Pearl Lang, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, among others, before and after forming his own troupe, The Solomons Company/Dance, in 1972.

Since then he has become a leading figure in postmodern, and experimental dance, creating over a hundred-sixty dances for his own company, as well as dances commissioned by professional companies. His choreography has been seen Off- and Off-off Broadway, NBC-TV series Exploring, and as early as 1968 he created the award-winning dual-screen video-dance, CITY/MOTION/SPACE/GAME, at Boston's Public Television station WGBH-TV.

Drawing on his architectural background, Gus has made many ground-breaking site-specific dances for alternative performance venues: New York City streets and public plazas, Trinity Church, NYU's Bobst Library and Loeb Center, the lobby rotunda at M.I.T., and the Lincoln Center North Plaza. Solomons has been a visiting artist/lecturer at universities in the United States and Canada, and has taught in Buenos Aires, Bagomoyo, Tanzania, and Ekaterinburg, Russia. From 1976-78 he was Dean of Dance at the California Institute of the Arts.

The Solomons Company/Dance has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, NY State Council on the Arts, NY Foundation for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Foundation for Contemporary Performing Arts, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and Harkness Foundations for the creation and production of new works. In 1996, he created a trio company for legendary modern dancers Carmen DeLavallade, Alvin Ailey star Dudley Williams, and himself. Called PARADIGM, the troupe toured and commissioned new dances by choreographers like Geoffrey Holder, Dwight Rhoden, Robert Battle, Larry Keigwin, Kate Weare, Johannes Wieland, and others.

In September, 2000, Solomons won a Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for Sustained Achievement in Choreography and in March, 2001, Solomons was awarded the first annual Robert A. Muh Award from his alma mater, M.I.T. as a distinguished artist alumnus. In 2004, he received the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beineke Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC.

In addition to teaching and dancing, Solomons serves frequently as an adjudicator and panelist for various state arts councils, artistic advisory boards, and private foundations. He has contributed to several books on dance and written for Ballet News, Dance Magazine, Chronicle for Higher Education, Village Voice, and the New York Times. His current reviews are on www.solomons-says.com.

To post a comment, you must register and login.