New Dance that Abandons Boundaries Comes to Grand Performances

Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) curates No Side Now, an evening of new experimental dance, presented by Grand Performances as part of its free summer concert series in Downtown Los Angeles. Four L.A. based choreographers celebrate dance's capacity to deflect, refract and repurpose a viewer's presumptions in works that abandon boundaries and blur binaries. Featuring Milka Djordjevich, d. Sabela grimes, Amy O'Neal and Micaela Taylor, the performance takes place at 8p on Friday, August 4, 2017. Like all Grand Performances events, the program is free to all.

Inspired in part by the open, circular stage of California Plaza's Marina Pavilion, the artists in this program present multifaceted dances that resist constraints, and revolve around the complex ways our identities are expressed and perceived, contained and re-framed. Their works draw upon movement styles from wide-ranging sources, including street dance, studio practices and girlhood games, to construct spacious new visions of what we can, and do, embody.

Full project descriptions and artist information follows these event details.

DETAILS
:: No Side Now // Milka Djordjevich, d. Sabela grimes, Amy O'Neal & Micaela Taylor
:: Friday, August 4, 2017
:: 8p
:: 350 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, California 90071
:: Free to All. No tickets required-arrive early for best seating.

Milka Djordjevich // ANTHEM (excerpt)

"Choreographer Milka Djordjevich and musician Chris Peck have successfully created a rich, multi-faceted collaboration . . . a highly considered equilibrium." -Brooklyn Rail

Questioning contemporary dance's predisposition towards neutrality, authenticity and the de-sexualization of the female body, ANTHEM embraces theatricality, virtuosity and the performance of invented female personae. Four dancers strive to perform multiple contradictory tasks, while gradually taking on gender-bending alter egos. Set to an original score by Chris Peck, ANTHEM attempts to dismantle the gaze through its reclamation, with dashes of pizzazz and a deadpan sense of humor.

Milka Djordjevich is a dance artist motivated by a desire to blur the distinction between "dance" and "non-dance" by attempting to un-choreograph choreography and to choreograph spontaneity. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at venues including REDCAT, Machine Project, HomeLA (Los Angeles); the Kitchen, 2010 Whitney Biennial, American Realness Festival, Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project (New York); and at venues in Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, Vienna, Milan and more.Djordjevich was a Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a danceWEB Europe Scholar.

• • •

d. Sabela grimes // ELECTROGYNOUS (excerpt)

"One of a mere handful of artists who make up the vanguard of hip-hop fusion." -Los Angeles Times

Through a synthesis of ancient AfroFuturistic soundscapes, video projection and kinetic poetics, ELECTROGYNOUS circulates speculative realities that counter historically imposed notions of femininity and masculinity. Imagining the inclusion of liberated Black bodies at the center of the work's "now," ELECTROGYNOUS renders a dynamic testament to the multiple worlds that Black people simultaneously inhabit.

d. Sabela grimes is a choreographer, writer, composer and educator whose interdisciplinary performances reveal physical and meta-physical efficacies of Afro-Diasporic cultural practices. A 2014 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow, his AfroFuturistic dance theater projects consider invisibilized histories and grapple with constructed notions of masculinity and manhood, while conceiving a womynist consciousness. His continually evolving movement system, Funkamentals, focuses on the methodical dance training and community building elements evident in black vernacular and street dance forms. He is currently Assistant Professor of Practice at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.

Amy O'Neal // OPPOSING FORCES: SOLO REMIX

"O'Neal synthesizes complex themes with a cohesive, penetrating aesthetic." -City Arts, Seattle

In OPPOSING FORCES: SOLO REMIX Amy O'Neal takes to the stage with her signature curiosity, vulnerability and force to reflect on, and reexamine, her most recent group work, Opposing Forces, developed in collaboration with a company of b-boys. Following its multi-city U.S tour, O'Neal remixes and recasts her original choreography, which confronted fears of the feminine in the hyper-masculine world of breaking, into a solo that navigates the complexities of physical, cultural and creative power.

Amy O'Neal is a physically multilingual movement artist based in Los Angeles. As a dancer, choreographer, movement director and educator, she equally participates in street and club dance culture, along with contemporary dance and performance. She is passionate about the intersection of these forms, while honoring their unique and complex histories. A sought after artist for eighteen years, she teaches and performs nationally and internationally, choreographing for stage, commercials, live music shows, galleries, dance films, and music videos. Her work is an amalgam of her diverse movement and life experiences presenting social commentary with dark humor and heavy beats.

Micaela Taylor // POPMADNESS

"When Taylor is moving, it is difficult to watch anyone one else." -See Dance

Micaela Taylor and her company The TL Collective have gained a reputation for formal precision and a distinctive movement style that freely interwinds contemporary dance with theatrical hip hop and popular forms. In POPMADNESS, Taylor and her dancers forge a hip, millennial fusion of shape, line and gesture, with a virtuosity fueled by the energy of a generation-one wired for infinite intersections and far-reaching connections.

Micaela Taylor is a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer from Los Angeles, where she trained at Marat Daukayev School of Ballet and Los Angeles County High School of the Arts. She graduated from Cornish College of the Arts and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance in 2014. Upon returning to Los Angeles, her choreographic passion led her to found her own company, The TL Collective, in 2015. Her distinct movement style, which incorporates hip hop and contemporary techniques has emerged as a style she describes as "Contemporary Pop." Taylor has been commissioned to choreograph and teach by a range of regional companies, and her work has been presented internationally, and on the West Coast at Highways Performance Space, Gelsey Kirkland Performing Arts Center and Raymond Kabaaz Theatre.

ABOUT GRAND PERFORMANCES
Celebrating its 31st year, Grand Performances' mission is to inspire community, celebrate diversity, and unite Los Angeles through free access to global performing arts. Hailed as the "Best Free Outdoor Summer Concert Series" by Los Angeles Magazine and called "a grand gift to the public... democracy in musical action" by the Los Angeles Times, Grand Performances presents high-quality music, dance, theater, and more during the summer at the breathtaking California Plaza in the heart of Downtown as well as at other venues throughout the year including the Los Angeles State Historic Park and LAX.

Follow @GrandPerformances on Facebook, @GrandPerfs on Twitter and Instagram and our Youtube Channel at youtube.com/grandperformances.
grandperformances.org

ABOUT LOS ANGELES PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) is dedicated to supporting Los Angeles' unique contemporary performance community. Founded by Miranda Wright in 2010, it is comprised of independent artists who create groundbreaking theatrical experiences through innovative approaches to collaboration, technology, and social engagement. By contributing to a shared knowledge, resources, and conversational critique; artists within this network will transform the cultural landscape of Los Angeles and beyond.

losangelesperformancepractice.org

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