Baryshnikov Arts Center Announces Spring 2021 Digital Season

Baryshnikov Arts Center has announced the Digital Spring 2021 season of free online presentations, featuring premieres of new works commissioned by BAC. Through the BAC Artist Commissions initiative, which was established September 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, BAC has continued supporting the development of new work by providing resources for artists to realize their creative visions specifically for online presentation. The resulting projects from seven mostly New York-based artists innovating in dance, music, and multimedia will be released beginning February 1, 2021 and continuing through June 21, 2021 at bacnyc.org. The spring also includes the fourth installment of PlayBAC: Performances from the Archive, a series of video recordings from 15 years of live performances presented at BAC.

The Digital Spring 2021 season launches February 1 with one of the seven BAC-commissioned works, which will be released on Mondays at 5pm EST and free and available to watch on demand at bacnyc.org for two weeks. A schedule of live-streamed conversations with the artists to discuss their projects and creative processes will be announced in conjunction with the premieres.

The first premiere, available February 1-15 is Vibhanga, a work conceived and choreographed by classical Indian dancer Bijayini Satpathy, who performs to a reimagined score of traditional South Indian music. The program offering includes a live-streamed conversation with Satpathy, who is based in Bangalore, hosted by contemporary dance choreographer Mark Morris. Free registration for the live Zoom conversation on Wednesday, February 10 at 8PM EST will be available beginning February 1 at bacnyc.org.

Next, February 15-March 1, music and sound artist Justin Hicks premieres Use Your Head For More. Presented as a series of audiovisual portraits, the work incorporates the transcript of a conversation between Hicks and his mother in a performance of found sound and personal archive.

Choreographer Mariana Valencia's brownout, a visual essay of movement and sound scores, premieres March 1-15. Shifting the frame from one camera lens to the next, the work explores changes in electricity, visibility, and perception.

Next, the March 15-29 premiere of Museum of Calm by Holland Andrews is a vocal music, meditation, and performance art video. Filmed at BAC's John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio in November 2020, the work generates interior worlds to offer strategies for survival in a reforming society.

The premieres continue May 3-17 with choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland's Kolonial, performed within a large scenic installation on the stage of BAC's Jerome Robbins Theater, filmed in December 2020. The work of dance cinema examines behaviors of self and community through transparent COVID barriers of isolation.

Next is multimedia artist Tei Blow premiering May 17-31 The Sprezzaturameron, a digital installation with music and video by Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, of which Blow is a founding member. To be filmed at BAC's Jerome Robbins Theater in January 2021, the work follows a group of artists who confront the precarious nature of art-making in an apocalyptic near-future.

The final premiere June 7-21 is STELLAR by choreographer Kyle Marshall-to be filmed at the Jerome Robbins Theater in March 2021. This dance of speculative fiction features five movement artists performing choreography based on virtual improvisation sessions led by Marshall.

Rounding out the season of digital offerings is the fourth installment of PlayBAC: Performances from the Archive, featuring never-before-seen, high-quality recordings of live performances at BAC. The new PlayBAC series kicks off April 8-15 with the 2019 N.Y. Premiere of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Verklärte Nacht, a powerful duet by the renowned Belgian choreographer presented in the Jerome Robbins Theater. The series continues April 15-22 with BAC Salon: Szymanowski, Berio + Debussy, a 2018 concert performed in the intimate Howard Gilman Performance Space featuring the refined Tesla Quartet and Canadian soprano Alexandra Smither in what was her first New York appearance. PlayBAC Series 4 concludes April 22-29 with the celebrated Chilean theater company Bonobo performing the U.S. Premiere of Tú Amarás, a timely work of political theater developed in residence at BAC and presented in the Jerome Robbins Theater in February 2020. PlayBAC videos-which include special introductions from Mikhail Baryshnikov and the featured artists-are free and available to watch at bacnyc.org beginning at 5PM EST on Thursday until the following Thursday at 5PM EST.

BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER: SPRING 2021 DIGITAL SEASON

DANCE

Bijayini Satpathy

Vibhanga

(Digital World Premiere)
February 1 - February 15 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 14 minutes

In Conversation: Bijayini Satpathy with Mark Morris

Wednesday, February 10 at 8PM EST
Live on Zoom
Free / Registration required at bacnyc.org

Bangalore-based dancer Bijayini Satpathy's first choreographic endeavor, Vibhanga, is a non-narrative solo set to a reimagined traditional South Indian music score. Drawing from the curvilinear tendencies of the Odissi dance form and influenced by explorations of rhythm, the work reveals the layered complexities of the classical movement technique.

Concept and Choreography: Bijayini Satpathy

Composers: Dhaneswar Swain, Srinibas Satapathy
Performer: Bijayini Satpathy
Musicians: Roopa Mahadevan, Sai Raman, S. Kavichelvam, Vishveshwar, Srinibas Satapathy
Lighting and Set Designer: Sujay Saple
Cinematography: Mahesh Bhat
Additional Cinematography: Vanmayi Shetty and Allan Mathew
Film Location: Bangalore International Centre, Bangalore, India

Vibhanga is part of a larger work, Abhipsaa, co-commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center and Duke University.

Bijayini Satpathy was a 2014 BAC Presents Artist and was a collaborator of 2016 BAC Space Resident Artist Surupa Sen.

MUSIC

Justin Hicks
Use Your Head For More

(Digital World Premiere)
February 15 - March 1 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 30 minutes

Presented as a series of audiovisual portraits, Use Your Head For More regenerates the transcript of a conversation between composer Justin Hicks and his mother, engaging found sound and personal archive in a performance of reimagining, remembering, and reminding.

Creator/Performer: Justin Hicks
Artistic Collaborator/Editing: Breck Omar Brunson
Artistic Collaborator/Lighting: Tuce Yasak
Additional Vocals: Jade Hicks
Additional Vocals: Jasmine Hicks
Camera and Styling: Kenita Miller-Hicks
Audio Mix: Sean Davis
Film Location: The artist's home in Bronx, NY

Justin Hicks was a collaborator of 2014 BAC Resident Artist Kaneza Schaal and 2019 BAC Space Resident Artists Mallory Catlett and Aaron Siegel.

DANCE

Mariana Valencia
brownout

(Digital World Premiere)
March 1 - 15 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 30 minutes

brownout is a solo created, directed, and performed by Mariana Valencia that uses a series of movement and sound scores to play with narrative, abstraction, and inference. Generating a visual essay through the "stage" of the camera, shifting the frame from one lens to the next explores changes in electricity, visibility, and perception.

Creator, Director, and Performer: Mariana Valencia
Audio Editor: Tatyana Tenenbaum
Film Location: Hudson Hall in Hudson, NY and Coxsackie, NY

MUSIC

Holland Andrews
Museum of Calm

(Digital World Premiere)
March 15 - 29 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 20 minutes

Museum of Calm is a solo by extended-technique vocalist, performer, and composer Holland Andrews. Integrating vocal music composition, meditation, and performance art video, the work generates interior worlds to offer strategies for navigating through chaos, accessing freedom within fantasy, and sustaining the energy required to survive in a reforming society.

Creator and Performer: Holland Andrews
Filmmaker: Tatyana Tenenbaum
Film Location: BAC's John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio

Holland Andrews was a collaborator of 2017 BAC Presents Artist and BAC Resident Artist Dorothée Munyaneza.

DANCE

PlayBAC Series 4 (Installment 1)
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker / Rosas

Verklärte Nacht (N.Y. Premiere)
Filmed January 2019 I Jerome Robbins Theater
April 8 - 15 (Thursday at 5PM EST - Thursday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org

Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) is set to composer Arnold Schönberg's late Romantic score based on an 1866 poem by Richard Dehmel about a woman who confesses to the man she loves that she is pregnant with another man's child. Originally choreographed in 1995 for an ensemble, this 2014 reconstruction is derived from a process of reduction, concentrating the poem's dramatic structure in an evocative dance for three performers from which the narrative lines and expressive modulations emerge.

MUSIC

PlayBAC Series 4 (Installment 2)
BAC Salon: Szymanowski, Berio + Debussy

Tesla Quartet and Alexandra Smither, soprano
Filmed September 2018 I Howard Gilman Performance Space
April 15 - 22 (Thursday at 5PM EST - Thursday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org

A program of sumptuous turn of the 20th century masterworks for string quartet by Karol Szymanowski and Claude Debussy-both exemplifying groundbreaking harmonic pursuits of the time-and Luciano Berio's Sequenza III, which incorporates coughing, laughing, whispering, speaking, and singing into one of the great modern feats for solo voice. Performed by the refined Tesla Quartet and Canadian rising star Alexandra Smither in her first New York appearance.

THEATER

PlayBAC Series 4: (Installment 3)
Bonobo

Tú Amarás (U.S. Premiere)
Filmed February 2020 I Jerome Robbins Theater
April 22 - 29 (Thursday at 5PM EST - Thursday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org

A group of Chilean doctors prepares for an international conference on prejudice in medicine, a subject complicated by the arrival of extraterrestrials who have settled on Earth to escape genocide. Making its U.S. debut, acclaimed Chilean theater collective Bonobo addresses violence in democratic contexts, giving new significance to the notion of The Other in contemporary society. Tú Amarás (You Shall Love) reflects on discrimination and marginalization with humor, irony, and sharp political critique.

Tú Amarás (You Shall Love) was developed, in part, during a BAC residency.

DANCE

Stefanie Batten Bland
Kolonial

(Digital World Premiere)
May 3 - 17 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 20 minutes

Kolonial, a collaboration between choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and installation artist Conrad Quesen, is inspired by colonial exposition parks of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean during the 1810s-1940s. The dance cinema work interrogates systems of overharvesting, exploitation, and oppression, examining behaviors of self and community through transparent COVID barriers of isolation.

Direction and Choreography: Stefanie Batten Bland
Direction and Cinematography: Jean Claude Dhien
Scenic Installation: Conrad Quesen
Installation Assistant: Anthony Quesen
Costume Design: Shane Ballard
Hair and Makeup: Damian Monzillo
Musical Composition: Grant Cutler
Performers: Miguel Anaya, Stefanie Batten Bland, Yeman Brown, Rachel Watson Jih, Jennifer Payán, Paul Singh, Latra A. Wilson
Montage: Victoria Roseburgh
First Assistant AD: Victoria Roseburgh
Production Manager: Emma Rivera
Film Location: BAC's Jerome Robbins Theater

Stefanie Batten Bland was a 2012 BAC Resident Artist and BAC Presents Artist.

MULTIMEDIA

Tei Blow
The Sprezzaturameron

(Digital World Premiere)
May 17 - 31 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: 30 minutes

A digital installation built within a game engine with original music and video by Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble (multimedia artists Tei Blow and Sean McElroy), The Sprezzaturameron follows a group of artists who confront the precarious nature of art-making in an apocalyptic near-future, summoning ancestors from the spirit world via a piece of ritual performance art.

Written and Performed by Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble
Company: Tei Blow, Sean McElroy
Music: Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble
Performance, Metaphysical Sculpture: Sean McElroy
Digital Architect: John Blalock
Aesthetic Consultant: Julian Shapiro-Barnum
Location: Partially filmed at BAC's Jerome Robbins Theater

Tei Blow was a 2018-19 Cage Cunningham Fellow.

DANCE

Kyle Marshall
STELLAR

(Digital World Premiere)
June 7 - 21 (Monday at 5PM EST until Monday at 5PM EST)
Free and available on demand at bacnyc.org
Running time: TBD

This dance of speculative fiction created by choreographer Kyle Marshall began as virtual improvisation sessions with five fellow movement artists. STELLAR is inspired by Afrofuturism, the echoes of Jazz, and the stars within us.

Choreography and Scores: Kyle Marshall
Performers: Oluwadamilare Ayroinde, Bria Symoné Bacon, Miriam Gabriel, Myssi Robinson, Ariana Speight
Sound: Kwami Winfield
Costumes: Malcolm-x Betts
Filmmaker: Tatyana Tenenbaum
Film Location: BAC's Jerome Robbins Theater

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