2018-19 Residency Artists

Show Box L.A. / we live in space
2018-19 Residency Program

Show Box L.A. is pleased to announce the seven artists for our 2018-19 Residency Program For Choreographers:  Gayle Fekete, DaEun Jung, Kara Mack/Africa in America, James MahKween, Meena Murugesan, Jillian Stein, and Sadie Yarrington.

Residencies will take place at we live in space, a studio in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of South LA. Over the course of the year, there may be open rehearsals, informal showings, classes, artist talks, or other events where the artists will share their creative process and varied approaches to choreography and dance-based performance work.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Gayle Fekete is the Head of Dance/Professor in the Department of Theatre and New Dance at Cal Poly Pomona.  Gayle has been associated with Urban Bush Women NYC as guest artist and consultant on numerous international residencies and summer institutes. She is on the consultant team for Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Centre NYC. Gayle Fekete presents and produces festival and immersive performance projects in the Los Angeles area, and has produced and facilitated numerous CSU Summer Arts Dance intensives. She is a creative consultant/dramaturge for independent performance practice. Currently, she is exploring site specific, interactive media and interdisciplinary performance collaborations. Her interests include dancetheatre, choreography, installation architecture, and performance practice that challenges class, race, culture and identity. She also is an independent producer and performs with PRISM, Mechanism Dance Theatre, Rennie Tang/Architect, Opera Del Espacio, and The Market Gallery Studio in Los Angeles. Fekete is an active voice regionally and has served on numerous grant panels including NET, DCA, and COLA.

DaEun Jung is a dance maker, dancer, and dance instructor. Rooted in Korean culture and with a thorough background in Korean dance (including six years of specialized training at Gugak National Arts School in Seoul), DaEun’s dances reveal her body memory of her past and present. Her works have been presented at art and community venues, including Electric Lodge, Highways, REDCAT and the Korean Cultural Center in LA. DaEun is currently experimenting with liberating her Korean classical movement vocabulary from its cultural context.
Previously, she performed in Asia, Russia, Europe and North America as a dancer with the internationally renowned Korean dance company, GPDC. She had also worked for the rhythmic performance group PMC, presenting more than 1,000 shows to worldwide audiences. She recently completed her MFA in Choreography at UCLA, where she received the Westfield Emerging Artist Award and Evelyn and Mo Ostin Performing Arts Award.

Kara Mack/Africa in America   Kara Mack is a star choreographer, and mastermind behind the Grammy’s African dance blowout by rap icon Kendrick Lamar for his 2016 Grammy Performance. The South Carolina-born singer, dancer, choreographer, and producer has blazed stages from the Grammy’s, NAACP Image Awards, BET Awards and has collaborated with renowned choreographers Fatima and dozens of A-listers. Her innovative choreography has earned her many accolades and has been featured in major original productions. Kara Mack is also the Founder/CEO of the brand Africa in America, and has taught at many schools including the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Africa in America represents as a primary resource for professional African dance, music-based artists and art participants who are interested in the growing culture here in America while blending state-of-the–art visuals and using the cutting-edge fashions of today. These styles include the arts from North and South America, the Caribbean, West, Central, and Southern Africa. Since African-based arts have held a huge part in social justice both in America and the Diaspora, “Africa in America” also is committed to continue this path by keeping our audience aware when it comes to community and organization building, grant and work opportunities, and many other ways that may inspire art locally and nationally.

James MahKween is from Atlanta, GA. He graduated with a BFA in Musical Theater from American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). After graduating, MahKween has been setting and reaching goals. He has performed with Lula Washington Dance Theatre, JazzAntiqua, and Kouman Kele African Dance and Drum Company,and BrockusRed. Recently, he has been seen at The Hollywood Bowl performing for the Annual Jazz Fest. He also has a dance company called Eternity Dance Theatre. His choreography has been shown at NAACP ACT-SO 2014 & 2015, Highways Performance Space, The Luckman Theater, Friendship Concert, DANCESCAPE, DanceSpot LA, Tri-Art Festival, Sol-Cal Dance Invitational, Carnival Choreographers Ball, and HHII Dance Festival. MahKween has also produced his own choreography showcase REFLECT.

Meena Murugesan is a choreographer, dancer, and video artist based in Los Angeles. Meena creates experimental non-linear narratives with moving images at the intersection of live performance, video art, and activism. Rooted in the movement practices of bharata natyam, improvisation, and somatic bodywork, Meena centers ritual funk, Tamil folk, non-vedic, non-brahmin, melanated consciousness as an ethical and creative practice. Meena is currently dancing with taisha paggett/WXPT, and designing multi-channel video installations for live performance with choreographers Marjani Forte-Saunders, d. Sabela grimes, Embodiment Project, Lionel Popkin and others, and is working on two personal movement and video projects. www.meenamurugesan.com

Jillian Stein (b. 1982) is a Los Angeles based artist. Her artistic practice stems form the idea of the paradoxical body.  Stein received an MA (2009) and her  professional  diploma for choreological studies and contemporary dance performance (2003) from the Laban Institute in London, UK. She graduated cume laude with a BFA from Arizona State University (2004). She has presented her own work at We Live In Space, Los Angeles, CA (2017), BAMPFA (2016), the Hammer Museum (2016), Pieter Performance Dance Space, Lincoln Heights, CA (2015), REDCAT Theater, Los Angeles, CA (2013), homeLA, Los Angeles, CA  (2013), UCSD Gallery, Los Angeles CA (2011), the PLACE!, London, UK (2009) and LABAN theatre, London (2008). Her work has been included in exhibitions at  L.A.C.E. Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2012), the LASH, Los Angeles CA 2013,  Top 40, Los Angeles CA (2014), and WOAH Los Angeles, CA (2013). She has performed for several artists including Silvia Palacios Whitman, Flora Wiegman, Simon Vincenzi, Alexandra Bellar, and was an original member of the Sunland Dancers, directed by James Kidd from 2013-2016.  jilstein.tumblr.com/CV

Sadie Yarrington is a Los Angeles based performer, choreographer, director and educator. In 2011, she received a BFA in Dance and BS is Anthropology from the University of Michigan. She trained internationally with Oyu Oro Afro Cuban Experimental Dance Ensemble (Cuba), Ballet Lab (Australia) and Buzz Dance Theater (Australia). Since moving to Los Angeles she has performed works by Dianne McIntyre, Stephan Koplowitz, Grace Phelan and Invertigo Dance Theatre. Her choreography has been presented at the American Theatre of Actors (NYC), Brand Library & Arts Center, Descanso Gardens and most recently during The Music Center’s Sleepless. Sadie is an avid educator and creates a safe space for students to discover their own connection to movement. She is on faculty at Inner-City Arts (DTLA) and New Roads School (Santa Monica), and teaches dance workshops to physically and neurologically diverse groups. Sadie’s most current work, “Muscle Memory”, explores how past experiences live, or can be triggered, in the body. As a choreographer in residence at We Live In Space she plans to engage the community in the development of the work, break the fourth wall and challenge her choreographic process.

The 2018-19 Residency Program is supported in part by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

photo credits:
Gayle Fekete – photo by photo by JonMarc Edwards
Meena Murugesan – photo by  d. sabela grimes
Sadie Yarrington – photo by George Simian
Kara Mack – photo by Robert Atkins
James Mahkween – photo by Mathias Foley
DaEun Jung – photo by  Ella Gabrial
Jillian Stein – photo courtesy the artist

 

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we live in space

The dance floor is installed, and the studio is open.

– July 2016

 

2017-18 Residency Artists

Show Box L.A. / we live in space
Announces the 2017-18 Residency Program For Choreographers
Supported by An Art Works Grant From The National Endowment For The Arts

We are pleased to announce the six artists for our 2017-18 Residency Program For Choreographers :  Jahanna Blunt, Stacy Dawson Stearns, Jessica Emmanuel, Sebastian Hernandez, Maria Maea, and Wilfried Souly.  

The residency program is supported by an Art Works Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is one of 78 projects nationwide to be awarded by the NEA for Arts Projects in the field of Dance. We are honored to receive this support, particularly at this time when the future of the NEA is so uncertain.

Residencies take place at we live in space, where the artists are provided with free studio space and a stipend. Over the course of the year, there may be open rehearsals, informal showings, classes, artist talks, or other events where the artists will share their creative process and varied approaches to choreography and dance-based performance work.

Art Works grants focus on funding the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and strengthening of communities through the arts.

“The arts reflect the vision, energy, and talent of America’s artists and arts organizations,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support organizations in serving their communities by providing excellent and accessible arts experiences.”

 

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY PROGRAM ARTISTS

Jahanna Blunt, a native of Los Angeles, California, began her dance career as a seven-year-old with Abalaye African Drum and Dance Ensemble. She majored in acting, while continuing to dance throughout her time at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and in college at UCLA’s School of Theater Film and Television. Jahanna has taught African Dance courses for the Los Angeles Unified School District and for the University of La Verne, as well as workshops and studio classes. She has choreographed for the University of Southern California’s theater department, for the Lower Depth Theater Ensemble, and for the renowned JazzAntiqua Music and Dance Ensemble. Jahanna’s performance credits include Global Soul Night at the Hollywood Bowl, the BET Awards at the Kodak Theater, and various concerts at the Ford Amphitheater. Most recently, she has collaborated with her close friends to create Le Ballet Dembaya, a West African drum and dance company, and one of her proudest accomplishments to date. She feels blessed to be able to pursue her passion as a career and looks forward to a bright future.  www.facebook.com/leballetdembaya

 

Stacy Dawson Stearns is a Bessie Award winning (2000) interdisciplinary performer and director, known for her original works as well as her collaborative work with Big Dance Theater, David Neumann, Hal Hartley, Ken Nintzel, and Blacklips Performance Cult. Over the past 23 years, she has performed in 9 countries and in numerous domestic festivals and venues including Jacob’s Pillow, American Dance Festival, Spoleto USA, Walker Art Center, The Whitney, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Classic Stage Company, HERE, Town Hall, City Center, Lincoln Center, Dance Theater Workshop, PS 122, MassMoCA, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, The Performing Garage, Mother, and REDCAT. Grants/Residencies include: Three-legged Race in Minneapolis, MassMOCA, and CHIME (Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange). Commercially, Stacy has choreographed for pop icons Debbie Harry, Ann Magnusen, and the House of Jackie. Film credits include: No Such Thing, Wigstock: the Movie!, and academy award-winner filmmaker Jonathan Demme’s recent performance film of Big Dance Theater’s Another Telepathic Thing.  Stacy has been an instructor at California Institute of the Arts since 2003 (MFA and BFA performance programs), and has taught at New York University, Marymount Manhattan College, and The George Washington University. Outside of higher education performance training programs, Stacy has taught at the Big Sur Theater Lab, Pilates and Arts, Pieter Performance Space, and Caballero School of Dance. She holds a BFA in acting from NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing at Tisch School of the Arts and and MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College.  Stacy’s writings on performance have been published in Native Strategies, Itch Dance Journal, The 53rd State Press Occasional, and the book version of Another Telepathic Thing (pub. The 53rd State Press).
Most recent artistic activity includes: I am the Nude at We Live In Space, (February 2017), The Witch, a collaboration with Jennie Liu/Grand Lady Dance House for Your Motion Says: an Arthur Russel Festival at Pieter PASD (July 2106) B.A.S.E.: a durational rule game with choreographer Laurel Jenkins, performed at the Getty in (August 2016); a rehearsal residency for LOVE GASOLINE! as part of In Real Time: Studio at the Hammer Museum (Jan 3-6, 2017).
Upcoming: Stacy will present her newest work, LOVE GASOLINE!  at REDCAT’s 2017 NOW Festival and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe in August with CAFT (Calarts Festival Theater program).
http://www.impulseintoaction.com/stacy_performance.html

 

Jessica Emmanuel is a Los Angeles based dancer, choreographer, performance artist, educator and curator. She studied Dance & Choreography at the BOCES Cultural Arts Center in New York and is a graduate of The California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Performance & Choreography. Jessica is the founder of Human Stages and a co-founder of the theater based artist collective Poor Dog Group. Her work has been presented internationally at the Bootleg Theater, Live Arts Exchange Festival, the New Original Works Festival at REDCAT, Montserrat DTLA, Highways Performance Space, Zoukak Studios (Lebanon), The Getty Villa, Interferences Festival (Romania), Baruch Performing Arts Center, The Curtis R. Preim Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and The Contemporary Art Museum Santa Barbara. She has choreographed/performed for Poor Dog Group, Heidi Duckler Dance Theater, choreographer Genevieve Carson, Bryan Reynolds, Paul Outlaw and Stacy Dawson Stearns. Jessica has also curated art events at various locations in downtown Los Angeles.
https://jessicaemmanuel.com
http://humanstages.com

 

Sebastian Hernandez is an LA native and multi-disciplinary artist who received a B.A. in both Art Practice and Dance and Performance Studies in 2016 from the University of California Berkeley. He makes art that ranges from drawings to paintings and performance art works. Hernandez employs a feminist theoretical analysis, queer theory, browness and notions of collectivity as modes of thinking and generating works that shift and complicate Mexican and Chicano narratives in the contemporaneous social imagination. His art making is influenced by an embedded connection to his indigenous Aztec/Mexica heritage and the history of the brown body in relation to the U.S.-Mexico borderland. Sebastian’s movement based practice is informed by his long standing practice of danza Azteca, Vogue and the more recent wide range of modern dance techniques he acquired at Cal. Sebastian’s work inherently challenges traditional notions of space as he deals with his work’s interdisciplinary nature within both art and dance contexts.
http://alwaysfeelingsomething.weebly.com/about.html

 

Maria Maea practices mirroring
www.mariamaea.com

 

Wilfried Souly is a choreographer, dancer, drummer and Taekwondo expert, originally from Burkina Faso in West Africa, and based in Los Angeles since 2007. He is dedicated to making works that explore, expand, and explode Contemporary African Dance. He trained in African traditional and contemporary dances in the acclaimed company The Bourgeon du Burkina. Willy co-founded Compagnie Tâ (2000), and co-choreographed many dance works, with one selected as a finalist at the fifth Choreographic Encounters of Africa and Indian Ocean in Madagascar, and presented at the Great Barbican Center in London; as well as collaborations with visual artists on Genies de la Bastille, Paris. Willy has collaborated and performed with Robert Battle (USA), Gerardo Delgado (Mexico); Dole Danle, and the French Hip Hop Company E.Go, directed by Eric Mezzino and Gilles Schamber. In 2007, he joined Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project as an Associate Director, co-choreographer and performer. His own works have been presented at REDCAT New Original Works Festival (2014, 2016), the Ethna Negria Celebration at Teatro Balboa in Panama City (2015). the Barnsdall Theater/“For Our Boys”(2016), and at the third Edition of the festival Africa in America at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre. He choreographed and produced the dance film Bayiiri (Home Town) in 2011. Willy has collaborated with many local artists, including Maria Gillespie, Victoria Marks, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre Company, and Viver Brasil Dance Company. He is an Adjunct professor at the UCLA World Arts & Culture/Dance Department since 2009; and also teaches community West African Dance classes at Your Neighborhood Studio in Culver City.
http://www.wilfriedsouly.com/

 

Jahanna Blunt  – photo by Ashley Blanchard
Stacy Dawson Stearns  – photo by the artist
Jessica Emmanuel – photo by Alex Barber
Sebastian Hernandez – photo by Alex Godinez at Human Resources
Maria Maea – photo by Clare Kelly
Wilfried Souly – photo by Drew Mandinach at HomeLA

 

Meg Wolfe: New Faithful Disco

January 28-30, 2016:
Premiere performances at REDCAT Los Angeles, CA

Touring:
PICA/TBA Festival (Portland) – Sept 10 & 11, 2016
DiverseWorks (Houston) – Nov 11 & 12, 2016
Live & On Stage, NPN/VAN (Austin) – Dec 3, 2016
Z Space (San Francisco) – March 2017

ABOUT NEW FAITHFUL DISCO
In Meg Wolfe’s new lushly physical movement work New Faithful Disco, belief is made manifest as energy. A trio of dancers—taisha paggett, Marbles Radio, and Wolfe—feel it, generate it and remix it as they prepare to take on something big. Love, faith, impermanence? Pleasure? Power? Soul retrieval? A queer-love power-trio wrought with awkwardness and contradictions, New Faithful Disco builds communal energy into an accumulated whirlwind propelled by nature sounds and disco rhythms. Bodies are the conduit: the site of intersections where dances are generated, transferred, translated and recycled in an attempt to remix revolution. Disco opens up time, triggers fading histories and provides a backdrop that frames who we are, now.

CREATIVE TEAM
Choreographer: Meg Wolfe
Performers: taisha paggett, Marbles Radio, Meg Wolfe
Music: Maria de los Angeles Cuca Esteves
Costume Design: Gregory Barnett
Lighting Design: Christopher Kuhl
Sound Design: John Coleman
Quilts/Robes: Meg Wolfe

New Faithful Disco is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by REDCAT, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), DiverseWorks, Z Space, and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Supported by the NPN Performance Residency Program. For more information: www.npnweb.org.
Development support of New Faithful Disco was given through Show Box L.A.’s Los Angeles Dance & Research Residency Program,which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

SUPPORT NEW FAITHFUL DISCO
Donations to Show Box L.A.’s sponsored projects go directly to the artist, in support of the creation of their works.
DONATE NOW

PROJECT TIMELINE

Fall 2016: Touring to PICA/TBA Festival (Portland, OR); DiverseWorks (Houston, TX); Z Space (San Francisco, CA)

January 28-30, 2016: Premiere performances at REDCAT Los Angeles, CA

January 2016: Week-long Production Residency at REDCAT Los Angeles, CA

February–March 2015: Month-long Creative Residency at Performance Works Northwest Portland, OR

January 2015: In-progress Workshop Performances at FRESH Festival San Francisco, CA

December 2014: Week-long Creative Development Residency at REDCAT Los Angeles, CA

September 2014: In-progress Workshop Performances at Live Arts Exchange Festival Los Angeles, CA

Spring 2014: Creative Research Residency at SkyFish Lake County, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• • •

Photo by Steve Gunther.

WXPT

The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People
taisha paggett with WXPT in collaboration with Ashley Hunt and Kim Zumpfe

Exhibition: October 21-December 6, 2015

An artwork in the form of a school, a school in the form of an artwork.

Visit schoolforthemovement.com for more information.

Currently on view at LACE,  with a curriculum of free classes and workshops open to the public beginning Saturday, Oct 24

LACE presents The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People, a large-scale installation and performance platform by Los Angeles based artist taisha paggett. This project, which takes the form of a dance school, is shaped by the question, “what is a Black dance curriculum today?” The installation itself, developed in collaboration with artists Ashley Hunt and Kim Zumpfe, serves as a temporary dance school, performance space and home for dance company, WXPT (We are the Paper, We are the Trees).

The core of The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People is WXPT itself — a temporary, experimental community of queer people of color and allies, dancers and non-dancers alike. WXPT was conceived by paggett in early 2015 to expand upon the language and methods of modern and contemporary dance practices, to shift the ways dancers of color are positioned within the contemporary field, and to explore questions of queer desire, responsibility, migration and historical materials that inhabit our cultural imagination. The company consists of Joy Angela Anderson, Heyward Bracey, Rebecca Bruno, Alfonso Cervera, Erin Christovale, Loren Fenton, Maria Garcia, Kloii “Hummingbird” Hollis, Jas Michelle, Meena Murugesan, taisha paggett, Sebastian Peters-Lazaro, Kristianne Salcines, Ché Ture, Devika Wickremesinghe and Suné Woods.

The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People will offer a program of workshops, weekly classes and micro-performances initiated by members of WXPT. The curriculum will be open to anyone, blurring lines between audience and participant, while especially encouraging queer people of color to join. Across the bodies of the company and the members of the public who join the school, the curriculum will build an accumulative performance score in weekly increments, culminating in the performance of a “collective movement choir” at the conclusion of the exhibition.

The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People began as a conversation between paggett, Rodney McMillian and Cauleen Smith.

Curated by Robert Crouch

Image (above) courtesy of Clockshop by Gina Clyne.

SUPPORT

The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People is made possible by The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funds come from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support was provided by a grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts.

Development support of The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People was given through Show Box L.A.’s Los Angeles Dance & Research Residency Program, which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jennie Liu & Andrew Gilbert: House Music

ABOUT HOUSE MUSIC
House Music by Jennie Liu & Andrew Gilbert
hosted by Grand Lady Dance House

In House Music, performers Jennie Liu and Andrew Gilbert invite small groups of guests into their stark, movable, ten-by-ten hut, to witness and participate in a commitment ceremony to the creative process. Part travelogue of a creative vision-quest, part biography of an artist relationship, guests are absorbed into an elaborately coded system of interrelating, designed to probe the notion that only within constraints lies the truest freedom. Meticulous live video reveals the personal grounding of this life experiment, supported by a live soundtrack inspired by the socially binding properties of early house music. A container for active meditation on the art of being with each other and with ourselves, House Music offers aesthetic frames to reckon with past mistakes, to examine and deeply feel the transient nature of everything.

Milka Djordjevich + Chris Peck: MASS

ABOUT MASS

MASS is a dance. It is singing and dancing. A song and dance in a black box. A slow dance on a pedestal for three women. With music. It’s also the mass, force and friction against, around and inside that box. It’s a trio of voices tuning, their bodies objectified and recomposed through gradual processes in motion and sound. Like a prayer, it proceeds without manipulation, loving the flaw.