DANCE NOW and Arts On Site present, “Encore! DANCE NOW’s Digital Season on the Arts On Site Stage” an outdoor performance on East 3rd Street between Avenues A & B. The program is co-curated by Robin Staff and Chelsea Ainsworth, featuring artists that represent the synergy between the two organizations and highlight the best of DN’s seasons past and to come.
This outdoor, socially distanced event will feature both live and digital works, including short dances by Sarah Chien, Dual Rivet (Chelsea Ainsworth & Jess Smith), Jasmine Hearn, Jamal Jackson Dance Company, Alice Sheppard, Amber Sloan, Nicole Vaughn-Diaz, and Maleek Washington.
This performance has been created to adhere to current COVID-19 restrictions. The performance is located outside and all guests are required to practice social distancing and follow other safety protocols. The program is roughly 45-minutes long. Seated and standing room tickets are available, with Arts On Site’s nearby studio space acting as an alternative location in case of rain.
DATE/TIME/DURATION:
June 18th at 6:00PM EST
(Arrive at least 15 minutes before performance (5:45pm))
Program is roughly 45 minutes in length
ABOUT DANCE NOW:
Since 1995, DANCE NOW (DN) has been committed to supporting a diversity of voices and artistic visions. We have presented 1000+ choreographers and companies over the past 25 years at various traditional and non-traditional venues in New York City. DN has also produced more than 30 evening-length works for our Dance-mopolitan Series at Joe’s Pub at The Public. These critically acclaimed works have grown from bite-size gems made for our signature DN Festival.
Today, DN offers an interdependent network of performances, creative development support, and educational opportunities, serving a wide-ranging roster of multi-generational artists. We provide dance makers from all over the country with these paid performance, commissioning, teaching and residency opportunities through DN Joe’s Pub (NY), DN Raw (NY), DN SteelStacks (PA), DN Silo (PA), DN Boston (MA) and DN Online.
DN’s focus on sparking creativity through the unconventional continues to direct us as we move forward in this now digital world and our goal of returning to live performances.
ABOUT ARTS ON SITE:
Arts On Site is a women-led nonprofit arts organization dedicated to providing artists with affordable studio rentals and opportunities to create and perform new work. In 2016, Arts On Site NYC was established as a nonprofit organization to support the development of artists and community, opening up two studio spaces in the East Village to offer affordable studio rentals and provide space for community events. The Arts On Site NYC studios are a home for artists from all art forms. In 2017, Chelsea Ainsworth and Kyle Netzeband purchased 20 acres of land in upstate New York to begin construction of AOS R&R and launched the Artist R&R Residency Program, sponsoring artists to participate in a week-long residency to develop new works of art. In 2020, Arts On Site closed the studios for 6-months and continued to hold virtual Performance Party Events. In the Fall, Arts On Site transitioned into a women-led organization that hosts residency and low-risk performance spaces.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
SARAH CHIEN creates improvised works with collaborators from dance, music, circus and theatre. She has performed her own and collaborative projects in Greece, Slovakia, Spain and Italy. In New York, her work has been shown at Joe’s Pub, University Settlement, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Triskelion Arts, The Kraine, Arts on Site, The Brick, Eden’s Expressway and Chez Bushwick. Her ongoing performance projects include ∞therside collective, an international improvisation collective of which she is a founding member;¡Spontaneous Combustion!, an all-improvised performance party series on her homemade rooftop dance floor, and Songs Stuck in My Body, her touring dance-theater solo show.
DUAL RIVET (CHELSEA AINSWORTH & JESSICA SMITH) Chelsea Ainsworth and Jessica have been making and presenting work since 2017. The work focuses on highly athletic movement as well as physical partnering, which they have been sharing and teaching around the country. They come from an international background of creating and performing work in places such as England, France, Germany, Japan, Philippines, West Africa, Canada, and the United States. Jessica and Chelsea have performed at venues such as West End Theatre, Kittery Maine, Musikfest Pennsylvania, Peridance Capezio Center, CreateArt, and Arts On Site. They have set work on companies such as the Peridance Youth Ensemble and Mixt Company Connecticut. They are currently on faculty at Peridance and Steps. Chelsea and Jessica are also directors of a multi-disciplinary arts organization, Arts On Site, in New York City.
JASMINE HEARN is from the occupied land of the Karankawa and Atapake people, now known as Houston, TX. A performer, director, choreographer, organizer, teaching artist, and a 2017 Bessie award winning performer with Skeleton Architecture, they have crafted and shared solo and collaborative dance theater performances rooted in identity, memory, and the facilitation of creative space for feelings and fantasy. Jasmine's commitment to dance is an expansive practice that includes performance, collaboration, sound, and garmentry. They are currently a company member with Urban Bush Women and a 2019 Jerome Foundation Jerome Hill Fellow.
JAMAL JACKSON DANCE COMPANY (JJDC) was founded in 2004 with the purpose of fusing various traditional African dance styles with Modern techniques and diverse contemporary music styles in order to create a new, unique technique that is relevant to a multifarious community. The movement and story- lines of JJDC choreography focus on redefining ideas of community and blurring divisive lines, while still celebrating the beauty of individual cultures. Jackson has a strong desire to not only entertain and educate an audience, but to pass on dance tradition to people of all ages.
ALICE SHEPPARD trained with Kitty Lunn, performed with Infinity Dance Theater, and then became a core company member with AXIS Dance Company. Alice is the Artistic Director of Kinetic Light, a project-based ensemble, working at the intersections of disability, dance, design, identity, and technology to create transformative art and advance the intersectional disability arts movement. A USA Artist, Creative Capital grantee and Bessie Award winner, Alice creates movement that engages intersectional disability arts, culture, and history, challenging conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and such journals as Catalyst.
AMBER SLOAN is a New York City-based choreographer, performer, teacher, curator, and producer. Her work has been presented by Centro Cultural Los Talleres in Mexico City, The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, the EstroGenius Festival, Roulette Theater, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Arts On Site, Soaking WET at the West End Theatre, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Spoke the Hub, 92Y, Green Space, Dance Safari, as well as a 19 year commissioning relationship with the DanceNow Festival. She is the 2021 NJ Emerging Commissioned Choreographer for Dance on the Lawn. As a performer, Amber has been a member of The Bang Group since 2002 and has performed in works by James Waring, Doug Elkins, Keely Garfield, Sara Hook, and Stephan Koplowitz. She teaches dance composition at the Ailey School, serves on the board of Dance Omi, and co-directs Women in Motion. Amber is the Community Developer at Arts On Site and a founding member of the Dance Rising Collective. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was honored with the 2015 Beverly Blossom/Carey Erickson Alumni Dance Award.
NICOLE VAUGHN-DIAZ is a NYC based choreographer and performer, as well as a current member of, Kate Weare Company. Additionally, she has performed works by Sasha Waltz, Kate Hilliard, and is a current guest artist with ODC Theater of San Francisco. Vaughan-Diaz's choreographic work has premiered at venues including: Judson Memorial Church, The Public Theater, and Arts on Site. In 2019, Vaughan-Diaz was awarded the Challenge Winner Award for the 24th Annual DanceNOW Festival at Joe’s Pub, and has been supported by the Connecticut based residency, The Dragon’s Egg.
MALEEK WASHINGTON A native New Yorker Maleek Washington is a performer, choreographer, and teaching artist at Broadway Dance Center. Previously Maleek has worked with Sia, Kyle Abraham, Rihanna, ASAP Rocky and currently a collaborator with Camille A Brown and Dancers. With multidisciplinary, experiential performance works that investigate the people, practices, and spaces shaping Washington's black identity, he is proud to present his art in 2017 at the Boston Dance Festival, Pepatian and BAAD!, Periapsis Dance and Music Noesis, and at the legendary Movement Research at Judson Church in Spring 2018. Washington is also a 2017-18 Dancing While Black top 10 choreographic finalists. Gibney granted Mr. Washington an evening length show in 2019.
