Image Description: A graphic with a thick teal border, green floral print on the right, and a blue sky with the faint texture of clouds in the background of the left half. Text throughout the graphic reads: “freeskewl OUTSIDE // Performance Sunday, May 15th at 6PM ET in Prospect Park (Concert Grove Pavilion) with work by The School of Hard Knocks (Yoshiko Chuma + Chris McIntyre), Xan Burley + Alex Springer, Sofia Engelman + Em Papineau, Dancewave Youth Company / Rena Butler. get your tix on freeskewl.com” Design by Lindsey Jennings.
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May OUTSIDE // PerformanceSunday, May 15 at 6pm ET
A live outdoor performance at Prospect Park's Concert Grove Pavilion featuring work by The School of Hard Knocks (Yoshiko Chuma + Chris McIntyre), Maria Bauman, Xan Burley + Alex Springer, Sofia Engelman + Em Papineau, and Dancewave Youth Company/Rena Butler. To attend from afar, tune in on Instagram Live. DIRECTIONS: Prospect Park's Concert Grove Pavilion (Brooklyn, NY // Lenapehoking) .2 miles from Prospect Park stop, an accessible station on B, Q, S .2 miles from Lincoln Rd B43, B16, B48, B41 stops 1.0 miles from Grand Army Plaza stop on 2, 3, 4 1.0 miles from Winthrop Ave stop 2, 5 1.1 miles from 15t St - Prospect Park on F and G PAYMENT: Sliding Scale beginning at $5. 10% of event income will be donated to The Lenape Center. COVID SAFETY: Masks are required while in the audience at this outdoor event. Full vaccination is required for everyone ages 5+. Artists will not be masked while performing. ACCESSIBILITY: This event is reachable by public transportation and in close proximity to an accessible train station. There are no steps at the location. Prospect Park's Concert Grove Pavilion is on solid ground. ASL translation will be provided. There will be limited folding chairs available, as well as open space for standing, wheelchairs, and sitting on the ground. Please be in touch at freeskewlteam@gmail.com with any questions and/or any access needs. |
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Image Description: Yoshiko Chuma is pictured from the eyes up with the bottom of her face veiled by red fabric. She has short, dark hair that covers her forehead and her eyes are looking into the distance. The background wall is white.
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The School of Hard Knocks was founded by Yoshiko Chuma in 1983 during a tumultuous time in New York's East Village. The name was inspired by the American idiom meaning "to learn things the hard way..." The School of Hard Knocks favors abstract art and discourages efforts to interpret the work, saying that, "What we do is ambiguous. We don't have a statement. If we had a statement, we would be a writer."
Chris McIntyre is a trombonist, voltage controller, composer, and conceptualist who works in various musical contexts (from improvisative to interpretive.) He makes scores and strategies for various media and instrumental forces, experimenting with recorded and synthesized sound and using transformational structures to create a narrative of evolving sonic states. www.facebook.com/yoshiko.schoolofhardknocks |
Image Description: Alex, wearing a long hot pink gown and black gloves and sneakers, extends his right leg out to the side as if he is falling. He grips Xan’s hand and waist. Xan, in a mint green gown and black gloves and sneakers, is raised up on the balls of her feet, holding Alex’s right arm and extending her left arm downward. She looks up and to the left. Photo by Derek Fowles
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Xan Burley + Alex Springer were Brooklyn-based until 2018, received MFAs from Smith College (2020), and are currently Assistant Professors at the University of Florida. They performed with Doug Varone and Dancers until 2017 and have worked on projects with Alexandra Beller, Jeanine Durning, Shannon Gillen, Angie Hauser, Heidi Henderson, and Donnell Oakley, among others. Their choreography has been presented by venues such as Movement Research, Danspace Project, Joe’s Pub, 92Y, American Dance Festival, and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought. Artist residencies include the Marble House Project, University Settlement, Center for Performance Research, and Jacob’s Pillow, among others. Past teaching includes the Bates Dance Festival, Gibney, SUNY Purchase, the University of Maryland, and Wesleyan University. www.xanandalex.com
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Image Description: Sofia and Em are seen in movement in a black space. Sofia is lying on her side looking upward as Em throws their legs over Sofia's side. photo © Derek Fowles
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Em Papineau + Sofia Engelman are life partners, organizers, and choreographic collaborators based in Lenapehoking // Brooklyn, NY. Our current focuses are structural transparency (in performance and institutions alike), accessibility, queering, relationality, and community care. We have held choreographic residencies at The Living Room, Ponderosa, The Dance Complex, MOtiVE Brooklyn, The Floor on Atlantic, and School for Contemporary Dance & Thought. In addition to presenting our work at these residency spaces, we have performed at FRESH Festival, EstroGenius Festival, Providence Movement Festival, Queer Spectra, WestFest, Dancing Queerly Boston, Judson Church, Green Street Studios, Arts On Site, BAAD, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and various music/DIY venues. We have received support from NEFA, NYFA, FCA, and The Northampton Arts Council and individual performance credits include works by Kathleen Hermesdorf, Michael Figueroa, Tyler Rai, Alice Gosti, and ChristinaNoel Reaves. We are Co-Directors of freeskewl. www.engelmanpapineaudance.com
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Image Description: (Left) The colorful front entrance to Dancewave in Gowanus, Brooklyn. (Right) Photo of Rena Butler in red by Jayme Thornton.
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Dancewave Youth Company is a rigorous dance training program that builds ability, artistic integrity, and leadership skills. Our dancers gain the opportunity to grow through an increasingly challenging program that incorporates contemporary and ballet technique classes, rehearsals with renowned choreographers, and a variety of performing opportunities. Our proven effective training, based on the Dancewave Culture Model, provides young artists with leadership development, individual mentoring and restorative whole-person education. Rena Butler danced with companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (also a choreographic fellow), AIM by Kyle Abraham, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Manuel Vignoulle/M-Motions, The Kevin Wynn Collection, and Pasos Con Sabor Salsa Dance Company. Currently, she dances for Gibney Company, and was recently named its Choreographic Associate. In 2019, she was the recipient of the prestigious Princess Grace Award for Choreography, and has been spotlighted in Dance Magazine’s On The Rise feature. dancewave.org
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Image Description: A person with Black curly hair tilts her body with full momentum to her left so that she is on one leg with her torso parallel to the floor. She is looking up towards a high ceiling with bent arms and right leg in the air folded inward.
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Maria Bauman is a two-time Bessie Award winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She is also a sought after public speaker and facilitator on race equity and community-building as and with arts. Her company MBDance's community engagement and performance-rituals particularly center Black Queer people without tragedizing or tokenizing us. Bauman is also co-founder in 2014, with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice, of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), a grassroots organizing body of artists dismantling racism in our own practices and institutionally fields.
In 2021, Bauman was a BRIClab Fellow, granted a Petronio Residency Center award and a Red Tail Arts Fellow. She was a 2020 Columbia College Dance Center Practitioner-in-Residence, 2019 Gibney Dance in Process residency award winner, 2018-20 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney. She's been recognized by Dance NYC's Dance Advancement Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council and Jerome Foundation. While formal accolades are affirming, some of the best approval Bauman has gotten for her dance work was from a group of Black and Brown queer teenagers at camp in Connecticut who, upon seeing her dance exclaimed "Oooo, she bad!” www.mbdance.net |
