Kathryn Posin Receives Major Grant and Gives Free NoHo Performance

In the spirit of neighborhood recovery, choreographer Kathryn Posin will present a free performance October 19th at NoHo's Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond Street.

Company member Daniel White will perform Touch Me by Gerald Arpino. Company members Claire Mazza and Alejandro Ulloa will present their duet Through You, and Posin will present an excerpt from her latest work Triple Sextet to Steve Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet.

Speaking about Triple Sextet, the choreographer noted: "My inspiration for Triple Sextet to Steve Reich's Double Sextet is how the piano and vibes of the two sextets interlock in a highly rhythmic way to drive the piece."

A fifty-year NoHo resident, Posin will collaborate for the first time with the iconic Gene Frankel Theater, located next door to her studio on Bond Street. The legendary acting coach Gene Frankel was one of a generation of artists who carved out their lives and work in the same area: artist Chuck Close was housed in the studio just below the Posin Company, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, the punk club CBGB, and dancer/choreographer Daniel Nagrin all created their studios and art on the cobblestoned blocks of NoHo. Local artists are able to carry on their towering artistic legacy today thanks to a CAC and other city grants.

The Kathryn Posin Dance Company has received a City Artist Corps Grant, from a new $25 million recovery initiative designed to help NYC-based working artists who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. New York Foundation for the Arts and the Department of Cultural Affairs, paired with the Mayor's office, will distribute one-time $5,000 grants to over 3,000 artists to help sustain their practice and engage the public across New York City's five boroughs. City Artist Corps Grants was launched in June 2021 by NYFA and DCLA with support from the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), as well as Queens Theatre.

The program is funded by the $25 million New york City Artist Corps recovery initiative announced by Mayor de Blasio and DCLA earlier this year. The grants are intended to support NYC-based working artists who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. It is strongly recommended that a portion of the grant be used to support artist fees, both for the applying artist and any other artists that are engaged to support the project.

Posin has made over 60 works for the Kathryn Posin Dance Company, founded in 1972. Her work has been seen in Nederlands Dans Theater I and II, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Ailey 2, Feld Ballets/NY, Balletmet, Ballet West, Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, the Extemporary Dance Company of London, the National Ballet of Bulgaria, as well as ballet companies in Ohio, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Sacramento, Louisville, Nevada, and Hartford. Her Scheherazade was presented in the National Opera House of Doha, Qatar. Posin was the first international choreographer to make a work for Cloudgate, the National Company of Taiwan.

Posin has been honored with both Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships and has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, LMCC, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, Harkness Foundation, the American Dance Festival, NYFA, LMCC, the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and NYU Gallatin.

For the theater world, she choreographed Andre Serban's The Cherry Orchard at Lincoln Center and the hit rock musical Salvation in New York and Los Angeles. She created the choreography for Liviu Ciulei on Mary Stuart with The Acting Company, David Chambers on Midsummer Night's Dream at Arena Stage, Yuri Yurimen of the Moscow Art Theater at Hartford Stage and Alvin Epstein on The Boys from Syracuse at American Repertory Theater. She worked with Bette Midler, Richard Gere, Tony Shaloub, Jennifer Jason Lee, Carrie Fisher, Meryl Streep, and Joe Morton in these productions.

Posin conceived and designed the Joffrey/New School BFA and was named founding chair in 2000. She has taught full time at UCLA, CALARTS, the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, and for six summers at Harvard Summer Dance School. She studied composition with Hanya Holm, Anna Sokolow and Merce Cunningham. Posin teaches Choreography and World and Global Dance Forms at NYU's Gallatin School.

To post a comment, you must register and login.