New Dance Alliance Announces 31st Annual Mix Festival, 6/8-11

New Dance Alliance is pleased to announce the lineup for the 31st annual Performance Mix Festival. "The most elaborate festival of the unpredictable" (The New York Times), the 2017 festival will feature works by 20 local and international dance artists, as well as Performance Mix's annual community breakfast, a dance party, and more. The festival runs June 8−11, 2017, at University Settlement.

Curated by New Dance Alliance Founder and Director Karen Bernard, this year's festival brings together an extraordinary group of artists with diverse approaches to performance, inviting audiences to engage with the unexpected and to experience some of the newest voices in experimental dance.

A schedule of performances and events follows. Opening night reception following the 8pm performance on June 8. Dance party following 7pm performance on June 10.

Tickets range from $15−$25 and can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2895045.

Performances will take place at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (at Rivington Street) on the Lower East Side. The Breakfast Mix and Workshop will be held at New Dance Alliance Studio, 182 Duane Street, in Tribeca.

For more information about the festival, visit: www.newdancealliance.org/performance-mix-festival.

Schedule of Performances and Events

Thursday, June 8

Two programs: Tickets: $15 one program / $20 both programs

7:00pm: Shared program: Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias | Anya Liftig

Building on their critically acclaimed works over the last six years, Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias' ODE2FOOL questions the notion of artistic devotion by excavating the dances that exist in their dreams, the ones that have yet to be realized. Part opera, part confessional, ODE2FOOL acts as an ontological study of connection, commitment, and resilience, and follows three performers as they uncover the deeper currents of their artistic motivations.

Anya Liftig, known for her intriguing multidisciplinary performances, will present a new iteration of her Face Ballet. Performed in a tent onstage, Liftig's "face dance," which is projected on the walls of the tent using light and a live feed from her camera, creates a striking choreographic shadow dance.

8:00pm: Clara Furey/Par B. L.eux

Co-created and performed by acclaimed Montreal artist Clara Furey and Belgium-based artist Peter Jasko, Untied Tales (the vanished power of the usual reign) is a reimagining of Hansel and Gretel-a haunting, hallucinatory piece that is at once poetic and somber. With a constant feeling of urgency, it reminds us of our final, unavoidable destiny, while the two dancers-in turn children, brother and sister, man and woman-embody continuity and rupture, proximity and distance, light and shadow, hope and terror. This U.S. premiere is a must-see before the work heads to the Venice Biennale.

Opening night reception following the performance.

Friday, June 9

Breakfast Mix and Workshop: Free admission. Two programs: Tickets: $15 one program / $20 both programs

10:00−11:30am:

Breakfast Mix - Meet the Artists

Free admission, reservations recommended

Breakfast and convivial gathering to meet this year's international artists: Clara Furey (Canada), Peter Jasko (Slovakia), and Societat Doctor Alonso (Spain).

11:30am−2:00pm:

Internal Playwright: A workshop with company members of Societat Doctor Alonso

Free admission, reservations required

This workshop, based in physical theater, does not address how to learn to choreograph as such, but on a more fundamental level, how to make decisions through the practice of observing and embodying an action. The workshop is open to dancers, actors, and anyone interested in the creative process in the performing arts.

Both events will be held at the New Dance Alliance, 182 Duane Street, in Tribeca.

7:00pm: Shared program: Barbie Diewald | Thea Little

Choreographer Barbie Diewald's Eighteen Refrains Re: Rhoda is performed by five dancers with live interactive electronics byJazer Giles. Drawing from Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves, with interweaving threads of cicadas, Beethoven's late quartets, origami fortune-tellers, and a catalogue of impossible physiological tasks, the dance comprises five transparent solos, each taking on vestiges of the others.

Thea Little's work Successful is based on research into five different personalities (Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Björk, and David Bowie) as impetus for the voices, words, facial expressions, and physical movements in the piece. The work explores the artist's intrigue with the idea that the ambitions and egos of artists and politicians overlap in comic ways.

8:00pm: Clara Furey/Par B. L.eux

Co-created and performed by acclaimed Montreal artist Clara Furey and Belgium-based artist Peter Jasko, Untied Tales (the vanished power of the usual reign) is a reimagining of Hansel and Gretel-a haunting, hallucinatory piece that is at once poetic and somber. With a constant feeling of urgency, it reminds us of our final, unavoidable destiny, while the two dancers-in turn children, brother and sister, man and woman-embody continuity and rupture, proximity and distance, light and shadow, hope and terror. This U.S. premiere is a must-see before the work heads to the Venice Biennale.

Saturday, June 10

One program: Tickets: $25

7:00pm: Societat Doctor Alonso

Well known in Spain as performance pioneers, Catalan company Societat Doctor Alonso will present the New York premiere ofAnarchy, an experiment in chaos and order, a performance where the audience takes part by playing guitars from the seats.Semolina Tomic, the performer, executes the choreography that explores the musicality of movement as the piece navigates control, chaos, order, and the question of who "owns" art. Societat Doctor Alonso combines dance and theater in creating a performance language fundamentally concerned with displacement.

Party following the performance with tapas, drinks, and dancing with DJ's Black Lotus and Brianna Diana.

Sunday, June 11

All-Day Extravaganza (12:00 to 5:00pm)

All-day pass: $20

12:00pm: Xan Burley + Alex Springer/the Median Movement, Beatriz Albuquerque, Lisa Parra*, Julio Ulises Medina

Brooklyn-based performers and collaborators Xan Burley and Alex Springer will present their latest duet, You being Me being You and the Eye. The work reveals layered attempts at newness, at defining a voice in all its forms. Part field study, part composed duet, this two-fold work aims to examine and develop movement signatures through mimicry and embodiment.

Portuguese interdisciplinary artist Beatriz Albuquerque explores notions of surveillance and voyeurism in Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Referring to Marilyn Monroe's famous 1962 sung address to President Kennedy, the video work views the star as Western culture's Aphrodite.

In her new solo, Sabor a mi..., choreographer Lisa Parra explores transformation by bridging ideas of original and copy within the context of culture, gender, and identity. The piece is inspired by images and music from an archival feed of historical portraits of Mexican-American youth culture in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles dancer-choreographer Julio Ulises Medina's I Gotta incorporates a series of b-boy "power moves" into a choreographic score with interspersed text. The dance exposes undercurrents of sexuality and hyper-masculinity in the b-boy practice, illuminating the dancer's ability/vulnerability.

* * * * *

1:00pm: Angie Pittman, Eli Tamondong, Martita Abril

Dance artist Angie Pittman's Sequined Kisses... engages classic feelings and states like love and joy in a personal ode to resiliency and brokenness. The work presents the body not as whole but as a form that is kaleidoscopically changing and ever shifting.

Eli Tamondong's VOID is a choreographic hybrid of dance, spell-work, and confessional. Taking cues from anime, drag, ritual, and personal history, the work tumbles through the presentational and performative, deconstructing identity politics that hide a deeper unknown.

Martita Abril's Bifur/cación is the reflection of a life lived at the confluence of cultures. Born and raised on the border between Tijuana and San Diego, the choreographer-performer's work is inspired by being divided into distinct social identities, where the sense of home is found only at the point of division, being both and neither at the same time.

* * * * *

2:30pm: Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias, Hortense Gerardo, Sônia Lopes Soares

Julian Barnett and Jocelyn Tobias' ODE2FOOL questions the notion of artistic devotion by excavating the dances that exist in their dreams, the ones that have yet to be realized. Part opera, part confessional, ODE2FOOL acts as an ontological study of connection, commitment, and resilience, and follows three performers as they uncover the deeper currents of their artistic motivations.

Hortense Gerardo's film work Infinite Corridor is a performative meditation on bipedal ambulatory locomotion from apes to protohuman automatons. Taking its title from the famed MIT hallway, the film's two parts explore an evolutionary spectrum of movement, human and nonhuman, cultural and artistic.

Brazilian choreographer and performer Sônia Lopes Soares will present an excerpt from I'd rather the ocean in which a group gets together with the objective of performing a dance piece at the peak of the Himalayas. A work about dance, high altitude, artificial breathing, and human vulnerability.

* * * * *

4:00pm: Melanie Greene, Ori Flomin, Ashley A. Friend*, Alice Klugherz*

Melanie Greene's Sapphire is a time-traveling golden goddess, moving through a collage of considerations that police and celebrate the African-American female body and experience.

Ori Flomin's One by one is an excerpt from a new exploration of solos that share the space, interact, and disturb each other. Each solo aims to challenge the dancers' ideas of extreme and tension and how they get tangled and untangled in their own bodies. The performance will feature Madeline Wilcox and Joey Loto.

In Ashley A. Friend's Outside The Outside viewers are transported to a universe where the performer moves with detailed prophetic insight, peculiarly paired with cultural commentary. The audience members find themselves visually and aurally navigating the stage, perceiving unconventional and captivating methods of dance and narrative.

Alice Klugherz, a part of the downtown dance and performance scene since the1980s, will present HaikDreams, in which "a gaggle of vibrant crones discuss the ironies of death."

*LiftOff Creative and Project Development Resident Artist

About Performance Mix Festival

In 1986 New Dance Alliance (NDA) created the Performance Mix series now known as the Performance Mix Festival to advance emerging methods, techniques, and trends of innovative dance. Of the many dance festivals in New York, NDA's Mix stands alone in its commitment to: 1) offering artists comprehensive career and artistic development support; 2) presenting risk-taking art by emerging and established artists at a critical experimental phase of their development; and 3) providing programming for audiences interested in the creative process of experimental dance and performance. The festival has grown to include artists from around the globe, including South Africa, Canada, Europe, and South America. Director Karen Bernard has been invited to many festivals across Canada and Europe, forming relationships that have broadened her curatorial process and widened the Festival's scope. By bringing her expansive awareness of culture into an intimate setting, Bernard cultivates an important international sharing of creativity.

About New Dance Alliance

Incorporated in 1989, New Dance Alliance (NDA) is an arts service organization whose mission is to actively promote emerging forms of innovative dance, music, video, and interdisciplinary performance. NDA's initial aims were to support an artistic community that had limited institutional resources, and to provide that community with increased opportunities for sharing experimental works with the public. Today, NDA's goals remain deeply rooted in those founding principles, and have also expanded in response to current artistic challenges and goals. NDA's expanded programming includes initiatives that foster national and international artists, and promote increasingly diversified audiences through annual events, retreats, educational panels and performances. Its four main programs are: Performance Mix Festival, LiftOff: Residency and Workshop, Subsidized Rehearsal Space, and Karen Bernard/Solo. Collectively, these programs support the work of more than 100 experimental artists, and bring in 2,500 audience members each year.

This season New Dance Alliance has received support for the Performance Mix Festival from the following foundations and organizations: Bank of America Traveling Gift Fund, Bernstein Family Foundation; Cultural Services of the Quebec Government, New York; New York Community Trust Fund; the Harkness Foundation for Dance; the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation; as well as the retreat center Earthdance.

New Dance Alliance has received support from the following public funds: the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts, and NYSCA's Electronic Media and Film Presentation Funds grant program, administered by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes; and from generous individual donors.

About University Settlement's Performance Project

A Home for the Next Generation of Citizen Artists

The Performance Project answers the call to mentor, encourage, and diversify our art makers, leaders, educators, and students. University Settlement is a 130-year-old cultural kitchen that is deeply rooted in its community, and the arts are represented across its entire body of work. Its creative community development approach fosters a sense of belonging, reciprocity, and possibility for creative leaders from all walks of life at every stage in their development. Since 2007, the Performance Project has been offering local young artists and professional emerging artists opportunities to connect, create, and publicly present new work. The Performance Project supports artists who are interested in how live art can heal, empower, and activate; artists with a commitment to organizational and creative practices that promote trust, imagination, and power-sharing.

University Settlement's incubator for the next generation of citizen artists is fueled by its distinct, yet connected, cohorts: the Artist-in-Residency for Professional Emerging Artists, The Play Tank Fellowship for Young Adult Artists, and an annual Group Performance Intensive for Young Artists. The organization also hosts other community ensembles and dynamic guest artists seeking an affordable and supportive opportunity to self-produce their work. To learn more about the Performance Project, please visit www.universitysettlement.org.

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