Studies Project: Interdisciplinary Responses to the Political Moment

January 22, 2020.  Organized by André Daughtry This panel intends to speak to an illegibility of the spiritual black body to predominantly white audiences in performance with artists whose work addresses an "epistemic absence” in the performance community. Noting that Experimental performance can be extremely innovative when probing the multiplicitous issues surrounding identity, guest artists will discuss how they address normative approaches to performance – like the performer/spectator bifurcation –when the performers exhibiting work were often raised in spiritually infused movement traditions as participant-observers not as “audience”   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronted and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org

December 8, 2019.  Moderated by Ni’Ja Whitson Panelists: Cheryl Clark, Martha Eddy, Kayvon Pourazar, and Sangeeta Vallabhan. This Studies Project explored how social injustices impact people’s lives and communities; who has access to healing and somatic practices; how we as somatics practitioners are working with offering trauma-informed approaches to our communities. This event brought together artists and practitioners whose individual somatic and trauma-informed practices were generated from their personal journeys, commitment to healing themselves, and process of sharing their research to hold space for others. Through this conversation we attempted to address how to generate more inclusive, collective and fully accessible healing spaces. This Studies Project was a part of the Movement Research Festival Fall 2019: ComeUnion. It took place on December 8, 2019 at Movement Research on First Avenue in New York City.    Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronted and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org

December 11, 2019 Moderated and Organized by Rebecca Fitton Participants: Alexis Convento, Zavé Martohardjono, and Mena Sachdev A community discussion aimed to amplify the diverse reality of the blanket term “Asian-American.” Led and organized by movement artists who self-identity as Asian, this Studies Project focused on reframing American Asian-ness, reclaiming the Asian moving body outside of “model minority” and confronting other racial signifying terms such as POC, ALAANA, MENA, AAPI, etc. and their relationships to this conversation. The conversation focused on the broad understanding of Asian-ness in the U.S. in reference to Asian-American and how it can erase the full spectrum of narratives aligned with self-identifying as Asian, in part due to colorism, border politics and ideals of a “model minority” only allowed to succeed on an intellectual level. This Studies Project took place on December 11, 2019 at Movement Research on 1st Avenue in New York City.   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org

October 21, 2019 Organized by Raha Benham.  This gathering aimed to incite, inspire and generate conversation, questions and action in this time of unprecedented global ecological and economic crisis. Asking a series of timely questions as artists residing in a country with the most historically and presently destructive policies globally, as well as the most rampant use of energy and resources, we consider: How are we responsible? What does our art making have to do with this crisis? What are our options for engagement, and what will we choose to do together? Please join us to consider these urgent questions. The quote “Another world is not only possible...” in the title of this Studies Project is by Arundhati Roy. This Studies Project took place on October 21, 2019 at Movement Research on First Avenue in New York City.   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronted and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org  

February 26, 2019  Organized by Diana Crum, with invited guests: Becky Serrell Cyr, Nicholas Leichter, Olivia Occelli. Kids Need Dance-- focuses on pedagogy and how radical methods of supporting childhood development intersect with teaching dance. Readings, shared beforehand with participants and centering on the intersections of making, learning, and cultural traditions in the U.S, will help anchor the conversation. Join local educators, artists and activists to consider and discuss. This Studies Project took place on February 26, 2019 at Movement Research Courtyard Studio on 1st Avenue and 9th Street in New York City.   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org

October 15, 2018 The AoCC will host an intimate gathering, creating space for immigrant performing artists to share personal stories, cuisine, reflections and resources with the community in an effort to form lasting bonds and cultivate relationships to each other and local art organizations. Artists will engage in a conversation about the struggles of immigration and the effects on the body in the performance practice while tasting tapas and small appetizers from various cuisines. Food sharing is a universal form of expressing fellowship. "Immigrants for immigrants: taste of home" is an opportunity to create a platform to support each other and grow as a community. LOCATION UPDATE: This workshop was held at Movement Research, 122 Community Center (150 First Avenue) in the second floor studio. 122 Community Center is a fully ADA compliant facility. Participants: Alicia Ehni, Maira Duarte, Richard Morales, Vanessa Vargas   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org

Feburary 18, 2018 This studies project is organized by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán With panelists Rasha Abdulhadi, Anthony Aiu, Vaimoana Niumeitolu, Melissa Iakowi:he'ne' Oakes, Kaina Quenga Decolonial Design principles resonate across artistic expressions—performative, visual, tactile, acoustic, olfactory, gustatory, terrestrial—and the range of living-creature-made and naturally-occurring compositions. Embedded in each being, each Indigenous constellation of relations, larger system of systems, are organizing principles, rationales shaping their design and interaction. Articulating an interwoven Indigenous conceptualization of choreography, in which Native movement is embedded in a larger set of relations, human motion within a world of motion, this decolonial dialogue seeks to restore our cosmological context.   Gathering together womanist/queer/trans Native North American, Indigenous Pacific, and Palestinian movement makers and multimedia artists, activists and community organizers, critics, and educators, this dialogue illustrates the interlinked nature of our intersectional sovereign movements, our simultaneous struggles for self-determination over our terrestrial, physical, and cultural bodies. This Studies Project took place on February 18, 2018 at 3 pm at Abrons Art Center G05. Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org

May 8, 2018 In this Studies Project participants will engage in a conversation around the notion of (talking about) watching. How do we create the space for feedback in which artists/performers and their work is addressed properly, respectfully, and/or ethically? Can/must this space be crafted collectively? Which ramifications does this have for the role of a moderator?  Additionally, how do existing systems for feedback facilitation (i.e. Critical Response Process, Fieldwork, etc.) break down when interrupted or intervened upon by supremacist ideas of aesthetics and value? Are these systems for facilitation and feedback adequate, inadequate, or beyond repair? What alternatives have been developed? How can we develop further practices of critique in dance and performance that de-center the respondent? Moderated by Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal with panelists Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Jaime Shearn Coan, André Daughtry, Yvonne Montoya, Mark Travis Rivera Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. For more information please visit: www.movementresearch.org  

November 29, 2017 With panelists from Chinatown Art Brigade (est. 2015), South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (est. 1997), and Yellow Jackets Collective (est. 2015). These collectives organize multi-ethnic Asian communities across language barriers in an increasingly gentrified and art market-driven Chinatown, connect and showcase South Asian women artists and creative professionals, and center POC/Queer/Femme/marginalized communities through political education, nightlife events, and queer archiving. In open conversation with attendees, collectives will address: How do we do cultural work? How do we resist institutions? What Asian artist-activist legacies shape our organizing and our histories? What are our communities’ most pressing needs? This event took place on November 29, 2017 as a part of the Fall Festival 2017: invisible material. Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community.   For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org  

November 7, 2017 Collaborators Pramila Vasudevan and Piotr Szyhalski, invite artists, Salome Asega and Jill Sigman, to participate in a facilitated dialogue about the responsiveness of artistic practice to pressing sociopolitical and ecological concerns of our time. Through artist-led presentations that will detail a range of interdisciplinary strategies, this Studies Project will share how arts practitioners are making political interventions while challenging formal expectations around legibility, site-specificity, and linearity. This event took place on November 7, 2017 IN PARTNERSHIP Movement Research works in partnership with local, national, and international organizations to create opportunities that spur interaction and exchange among choreographers and movement based artists through residencies, workshop exchanges, informal showings, and discussions. Pramila Vasudevan’s NYC Residency is made possible by the McKnight Choreographer Fellowship Program, administered by the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts and funded by The McKnight Foundation, in partnership with Gibney Dance Center, The Playground, and Movement Research. Pramila Vasudevan is a 2016 McKnight Choreographer Fellow.   Studies Project is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances, and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community.   For more information on Movement Research please visit www.movementresearch.org