Image description: Sofia wears maroon velvet pants, a maroon cape that reveals a bare belly, and blue/yellow/tan sneakers. Sofia is facing the camera with right leg plants and left extended forward and low, arms plastered to hips. Sofia is white with shoulder length brown wavy hair. Behind Sofia is a grey house and large green trees and bushes. Sofia stands on cement. Photo by Em Papineau
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Sofia Engelman
Co-Initiator, Director, Steering Committee Member Sofia Engelman is a dance maker-performer, writer-editor, administrator-advocate, and educator-facilitator who lives and works on Munsee Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY. Sofia's current focuses include advocating for young people, collective curation, and archiving/honoring. Sofia has presented solo works and collaborations with life and creative partner Em Papineau at festivals including FRESH Festival, EstroGenius Festival, AS220's Providence Movement Festival, Queer Spectra, and Dancing Queerly Boston; music/DIY venues such as 10 Forward and Flywheel; and other spaces Sofia loves dearly including Judson Church, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Ponderosa, School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, The Living Room, Green Street Studios, Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, Harvard University, The Dance Complex, Ponderosa, and Smith College. Sofia has had the honor of performing under the direction of Michael Figueroa, Alice Gosti, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and Tyler Rai. Among other administrative roles, Sofia is Communications Manager and Contributing Editor at Contact Quarterly. www.engelmanpapineaudance.com |
Image Description: A close-up, excerpted shot of an Asian woman's head and upper torso in the right-hand side of a black background, dotted with falling cork. She is leaning backwards with body facing sideways to viewer and face upturned, arm extended up the diagonal through gently extended fingers. She is wearing a mottled plum chemise with flat straps and her black hair is gathered in a ponytail and falling with gravity. Photo by Zachary Handler
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Adriane Fang
Steering Committee Member Adriane Fang was a member of Doug Varone and Dancers from 1996-2006 and has worked with several other choreographers including Colleen Thomas, Wally Cardona, Elizabeth Shea, and Christopher K. Morgan. She has taught at Taller Nacional de Danza in Costa Rica and the Damansara PAC in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and choreographed dances for groups such as Compañia Ceibadanza in Ecuador, Shenandoah University, and James Madison University. Currently on faculty at the University of Maryland, Adriane is the recipient of a 2007 New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for her performance with Doug Varone and Dancers. |
Image Description: Nadia Issa kneels down while looking upward. They are wearing a sleeveless red dress and are in a performance space.
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Nadia Issa
Steering Committee Member Nadia is an Afro-Dominicanx and Lebanese, Queer Artist-Academic. Nadia recently graduated from Hampshire College where they studied Dance, African(a) Studies, and Anthropology. Currently, Nadia is a first-year Master of Theological Studies student at Harvard Divinity School in the African and African American Religious Studies Area of Focus. Nadia has received training from and performed in dance works by William McLaughlin, Sheryl Thomas, Cristal Brown, Fredrick Earl Mosley, Vincent Hardy, Heidi Cruz, Princess Mhoon, Bronwen MacArthur, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Bebe Miller, Bárbara Balbuena, Yeniselt Galata Calvo, Eva Despaigne-Trujillo and Obini Batá, Camille A. Brown and Emilio Hernández González of the company Raíces Profundas to name a few. Nadia’s dance choreography has been shown at Boston University, Hampshire College, and Havana, Cuba. Nadia is currently a Company Dancer with Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE). Nadia is all about cultivating art and research that challenges and dismantles white supremacy. Nadia continues to work through the lens of Traditions and Religions of Afrikan origin, Survival, Blackness, and the Black Caribbean Diaspora within dance and written works. Nadia recognizes that dance is an embodied tool of ritual and resistance in their research and training. Through dance and ethnographic research, Nadia has been able to navigate and communicate Blackness, queerness, and the sacred. |
Image description: A full body image of a woman in motion wearing layered clothing. Photo by Jonathan Hsu
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Lindsey Jennings
Class Monitor, Graphic Designer Lindsey Jennings is a Brooklyn based dancer and creative, originally from rural Illinois cornfields. She received her BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2020, where she was fortunate to perform in works by incredible artists such as Jennifer Monson, Kendra Portier/BANDPortier, Abby Zbikowski, and many more. Her collage practice is very central to her work as a dancer, dance-maker, arts administrator, and teacher. More info at www.lindseyjennings.com |
Image Description: Kyle wears all grey and and is in a space with white walls and a dark grey Marley floor. He spokes his arms downward as his left leg (to our right) follows behind.
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Kyle Marshall
Steering Committee Member Kyle Marshall is a choreographer, performer and teaching artist. He recently received the 2020 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award and a NY “Bessie” Award nomination for the production “Colored”. His dance company, Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC) sees the dancing body as a container of history, an igniter of social reform and a site of celebration. Since inception in 2014, KMC has performed at venues including: BAM Next Wave Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Joe’s Pub at the Public, Actors Fund Arts Center, NJPAC, NYC Summerstage, and Roulette. He has also received commissions from "Dance on the Lawn" Montclair's Dance Festival and Harlem Stage. Marshall has been in residence at the 92nd st Y, CPR, Jamaica Performing Arts Center and currently is a Resident Performance Artist at MANA Contemporary. As a teacher, Marshall conducts dance masterclasses and creative workshops at schools including; American Dance Festival, Montclair State University, Ailey/Fordham, County Prep High School and Bloomfield College. Kyle is a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. He also danced with doug elkins choreography etc., and Tiffany Mills Company. Kyle graduated from Rutgers University with a BFA in Dance and resides in Jersey City. |
Image description: A profile view of Anna, placed in the center of the image standing in a field wearing a blue and white striped button down shirt with her hair in a low ponytail with a middle part. Golden sunlight is hitting her face, her arms are raised in front of her, bent at the elbows and fingers extended toward the sky. Behind her is a large Oak tree about 200 yards in the distance and the branches are framing Anna’s head. Photo by Anna Maynard
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Anna Maynard
Co-Initiator I am an interdisciplinary artist living in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, originally inhabited by the Sissipahaw Tribe. I am in the process of locating and learning about the histories of settlement, and relationships held by the people of my blood line dating back to the early 1800’s in what is known today as the Piedmont region. I am currently cultivating a new creative process for myself as something long term, patient, and concerning things that I can touch and that can touch me. I have been “a dancer” for as long as I can remember, and have recently rearranged my life and practice to incorporate studies and musings in painting, textiles, sewing, voice and photography. This, all since, participating in the initiation of freeskewl at the onset of COVID-19. I am excited and touched by the caretaking of the community through virtual teaching, performance and conversation, and hope that it will sustain us until we can be together again. |
Image description: Jennifer is a white woman with a shaved head. She is visible within the frame from her hips to her head. Behind her is a solid black background and she is wearing a pale pink tank. She is looking toward the bottom right corner of the frame with her right arm reaching in that direction and left hand resting on her right shoulder. Photo by Jim Coleman
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Jennifer Nugent
Pedagogy/Poetic Entry Series Initiator, Steering Committee Member Jennifer's practices are profoundly inspired by Daniel Lepkoff, Wendell Beavers, Patty Townsend, Thomas F. DeFrantz, and Paul Matteson. Through performing and teaching she aims to nurture the proposition of physicality as a theoretical and complex language that resides inside a rejuvenating container of possibility; and continues to augment these practices through sharing and refining ideas in front of others—a transmission of spoken and gestural language. Since living in NYC Jennifer has performed most notably with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (NYC 2009-2014), Paul Matteson (NYC 2002-2020), David Dorfman Dance from (NYC 1999-2007), and Martha Clarke (NYC 2007-2008). She is currently a teaching artist at Gibney Dance (NYC), Sarah Lawrence College, (NY), and the online space freeskewl where she hosts a monthly series called Pedagogy/Poetic Entry. |
Image description: Em is a white, queer human of French Canadian descent. Standing in front of a completely black background, Em’s fuzzy red sweater clad torso and head fill the center third of the photograph. Four vibrant balloons frame Em’s face, accentuating the sloppily smeared blue, purple, and red makeup and lipstick they have on. Em’s deep brown eyes gaze slightly past the camera as their mouth is gapes open in an expression of wonderment and awe. Photo by Peter Raper
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Em Papineau
Co-Initiator, Associate Director, Production Manager, Steering Committee Member Em is a dance artist who lives and works on Munsee Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY. Em's solo, With Pulp, has been presented at Queerly Contemporary Festival, as well as Smith College. Em graduated with a BA in Dance and Religion from Smith College. Em has an ongoing collaborative practice with partner Sofia Engelman. Em and Sofia’s first collaborative work, Where the air is light and clear, was presented at the National College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center. Together, they have held choreographic residencies at The Living Room, Ponderosa (Germany), the Dance Complex, and School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. In addition to presenting their work in these spaces, the pair have performed at festivals including FRESH Festival, EstroGenius Festival, AS220's Providence Movement Festival, and Dancing Queerly Boston; music/DIY venues such as 10 Forward and Flywheel; and other spaces they love dearly including Judson Church, Green Street Studios, and Smith College. www.engelmanpapineaudance.com |
Image Description: Hollis and Nattie are standing side by side in blue chambray button up shirts. There are green trees and blue sky in the background. Nattie with dark hair looks into the camera. Hollis with peppered grey and black hair looks into the distance American Gothic style.
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Nattie Trogdon + Hollis Bartlett
POP-UP Practice Initiators, Steering Committee Members Hollis Bartlett + Nattie Trogdon are Brooklyn-based choreographers, performers, practitioners, and partners. They create dance works and research based practices around rigor and repetition, ghosts and vessels, weight (and wait), objectivity and subjectivity, their shared lineage and embodied relationship. Their works have been presented at Gibney (Work Up Artists 5.0), Duo Multicultural Arts Center, No Theme Festival, School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, Exponential Festival, Stuffed at Judson Church, Earthdance, Triskelion Arts, and Dixon Place; and have been artists in residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Dance Complex, Peaceable Barn, The Floor on Atlantic, and NYU Tisch Dance. Their performing and teaching practices are deeply tied into their dance making. Hollis has been a company member with Doug Varone and Dancers since 2011, and also handles the licensing and staging of the company’s repertory. Nattie is a freelance performer, choreographer and arts administrator navigating the field since 2012. Together they instigate POP-UP Practice through freeskewl - a series centered around different ideas of embodied practice. |
Image description: This image frames Ogemdi from right below her clavicle to an inch above her head. Behind her is a tan background. She is wearing a top with black straps and large, round gold earrings. Her earrings match the color of her hair and she is looking slightly to her right which is our left. Photo by Chidozie Ekwensi
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Ogemdi Ude
Reparations Initiative Facilitator Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. As an artist and educator, she supports others in investigating their cultural, familial, and personal histories - how they are embedded in their bodies and influence their everyday and performative movement. Her work has been presented at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Lewis Center for the Arts, La Mama Courthouse, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. She currently serves as Head of Movement for Drama at Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. |
