Movement Research Studies Project, "An Artist Conversation between Nelisiwe Xaba and David Thomson" - December 1, 2015
Part of Movement Research Festival Fall 2015: vanishing points, curated by Beth Gill and Cori Olinghouse

This event was an informal introduction to choreographer Nelisiwe Xaba who is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and was a participating artist in the festival. David Thomson led a live interview and discussion with Xaba around the political and aesthetic resonances in her work.

Movement Research Studies Project, "Dancer as Agent" - November 10, 2014
Conceived by Cecilia Roos in partnership with Iréne Hultman
Panelists included Hilary Clark and Juliette Mapp

Within the field of dance, the creation process often demands that dancers develop methodologies, movement vocabularies and conceptual frames. Previously seen as the exclusive domain of choreographers, dramaturges and directors, these procedural boundaries are now shifting and eroding creative hierarchies in live performance. This has produced new, mostly undocumented relationships to working processes and bodies of knowledge. The Dancer as Agent began in 2013 as a conference held at University of Dance and Circus (DOCH) in Sweden. This conversation focused on some of the topics that emerged from that conference.

Movement Research Studies Project, "what we talk about when we talk somatics: a sharing of practices leading into conversation" - November 10, 2015
With Justine Lynch, Antonio Ramos, Shelley Senter and RoseAnne Spradlin
Moderated by Levi Gonzalez

What does the term “somatics” even mean? Can we arrive at consensus around this as an idea, a value, a practice? This event brought together artists/practitioners of various backgrounds and areas of study to lead the group in experiential practices which evolved into a collective discussion on the term “somatics” and the impact and resonance of this way of learning and being in the world.

Movement Research Studies Project, "What I've Learned about Choreography from Watching Movies, Films (and TV)" - October 6, 2015
Conceived by Melinda Ring
Moderated by Ryan Hill
With panelists Layla Childs, Tere O’Connor, Melinda Ring, Sonya Robbins and Larissa Velez-Jackson

How do the things we watch inform our dance making? What have our (guilty) pleasures, high and low, taught us about form, timing, structure, etc? Does our connection to TV, film and movies keep us attuned to this moment’s mind-image zeitgeist, and conversely, does a lack of attention to these mediums create a gap in relevance of this art form to contemporary culture? Panelists discussed their perspective on these questions followed by a group conversation with everyone present.

Movement Research Studies Project, "Placing Performance," Part of Movement Research Festival Spring 2015: LEGIBLE/ILLEGIBLE - May 12, 2015
Moderated by Sarah Maxwell
With panelists AUNTS, Megan Bridges and the Spring Festival co-curators, Layla Childs, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and Samita Sinha.

What words do we use, arrange, invent, and discover to talk about the particular communicative power of performance work? How does geographic location and environment influence the creation, languaging, and understanding of dance and performance? How do digital/ virtual sites affect the consumption of dance as a living, complex, emotionally dense form? This conversation covered topics concerning locality, environmental and digital influence, and curatorial process.

Moving Dialogue: A Bucharest/New York Dance Exchange
Dance Theater Workshop Showing

Thursday October 28. 7:30pm.

DTW Studios, 219 West 19th Street.

This was a post-performance discussion as part of Moving Dialogue: a Bucharest/New York Dance Exchange presented by Movement Researcj, Romanian Cultural Institute New York, National Dance Theatre Bucharest, Dance Theatre Workshop and the Gabriella Tudor Foundation. In this open showing Madalina Dan and Vava Stefanescu presented works in progress as a culmination of a residency in the DTW studios. The discussion was moderated by John Jasperse. 

Movement Research Studies Project, "Vulnerable Bodies and the Embodiment of Resistance"
Conceived by 2012 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Cristiane Bouger (Brazil/USA)
With panelists Dominika Laster (Poland/USA), Mariangela Lopez (Venezuela/USA), Marcos Steurnagel (Brazil/USA), and Tan Temel (Turkey)

Drawing from artistic practices that reveal or subvert the strenuous adversity of social control, this panel aims to address a myriad of perspectives on the embodiment of political resistance.

Artists and scholars will address works and practices that were informed or influenced by the experience of undergoing the restrictions imposed by dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe. By approaching culturally diverse and unrelated geopolitical contexts, the event aims to give visibility to the bodies and interstices of experience that are not immediately seen by the foreign gaze.

Movement Research Spring Festival, iLand Symposium
Sensing to Know / Analyzing to Imagine
Moderated by Jennifer Monson
With participants Amy Berkov, Kathleen McCarthy, Jason Munshi, Hara Woltz

iLAND SYMPOSIUM Sensing to Know /Analyzing to Imagine was a talk and walk exploring the dual perspective of the artist-scientist. Visual, aural and kinesthetic modes in science and art were explored by participants who have experience as both scientists and artists. The first hour was dedicated to discussing the participants' understanding of the intersection of these seemingly discrete disciplines and the impact of this dual perspective on their current practices. Following the talk, each participant lead a section of a walk to the Brooklyn waterfront, reading the landscape through their particular lens. Moderator Jennifer Monson drew upon her own work, and the insight of 10 years of iLAB residencies, which have developed novel ways of examining New York City's urban environment.

Participants included Amy Berkov - visual artist, tropical biologist and professor of Biology; Kathleen McCarthy - sculptor and restoration ecologist; Jason Munshi-South - professor of Biology; Hara Woltz - visual artist, landscape architect and conservation biologist. Moderated by Jennifer Monson, artistic director and founder of iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance.

Movement Research Studies Project: Artists in K-12 Schools 

Conceived and moderated by Diana Crum

With panelists Lynn Brown, Donna Costello, Randy Luna, Jessica Nicoll, Jules Skloot

What is the role of the dance teaching artist in schools? Many artists make a living by teaching grades K-12 in the NYC school system. Is their goal to share their artistic practice, the ideology behind their aesthetic, tools for making art, historical reference points, movement skills, or something else? Experienced voices from different arenas of dance-in-education and others in attendance shared their questions and ideas, reflected on their practice and how the work of teaching artists impacts education and culture in this city. 

Movement Research Studies Project: Dance and Publish

March 3, 2015

Hosted by Moriah Evans, Editor-in-chief, The Movement Research Performance Journal

Biba Bell and Will Rawls, co-Editors, Critical Correspondence 

As MR's two publications - the Performance Journal (semi-annual print edition) and Critical Correspondence (monthly web edition) - move into their respective 3rd and 2nd decades, the editorial teams hoped to enter into a more robust dialogue with their colleagues in the field. 

The event brought together agents of the dance publishing world in New York and members of the interested public. Buoyed by wine and modest vittles, we broke into three working groups focused on three themes: Design, Circulation and Content. Each working group had auxiliary prompts and exercises to guide a hands-on, brains-on practicum leading to a larger, group conversation. 

In preparation, the hosts asked that attendees bring a clutch of journals, periodicals, catalogs and/or websites that serve as their primary sources for dance content. 

Movement Research Studies Project: being a body out loud

April 7, 2015 

Conceived by Ni'Ja Whitson Adebanjo, Edisa Weeks and Tara Aisha Willis

With panelists Allison Joy, Jumatatu R. Poe and Social Health Performance Club

Living in a body that shouts through the underbelly, a protested or protesting body, a black body, a body of the multitudes, a body of color, a body no one believes, a body of rage or exhaustion, a body on the ground outlined in chalk. Our current moment's choreographies and vocabularies - gestures, chants, dances, collective actions - reveal (and disrupt) practices of living. What experiences do we hold in memory and body, and how do we hold them? With reverence? Power? Performers and writers responded with those in attendance. 

Movement Research Studies Project, "Dance and Labor"

April 29, 2015

Organized in dialogue with Movement Research, luciana achugar, Abigail Levine and Kathy Westwater

With panelists David Thomson and Yve Laris Cohen

How is dance labor valued? How has it been valued? How might it be? And how can we affect the value assigned to this labor? These questions were considered across a spectrum of contexts, including individual and institutional, organized and spontaneous, and historical and anecdotal to explore how performance and dance function within our current artistic, economic and labor realities. 

Town Hall Meeting

Movement Research at Eden's Expressway, October 6, 2014.

Co-Hosted and organized by the Movement Research Artist Advisory Council

Moderated by Laurie Berg, Maura Donohue and Kathy Westwater

The Movement Research Artist Advisory Council (AAC) facilitated a public discussion by sharing excerpts and quotes of meeting minutes to spark conversation and invite the public into its ongoing conversation, including threads related to economics, politics, aesthetics and creativity. 

This meeting examined the relationship between dancer and community - academic, geographic, and economic. Speakers and guests discussed economics of class-taking, the limitations and potential of University-Artist relationships, and the value of geographic vs. digital communities. 

This is a Movement Research Studies Project: New Models for Presenting Dance in the 21st Century

February 4, 2014 at Gibney Dance Center 890 Broadway with panelists Travis Chamberlain from the New Museum, Brian Rogers from the Chocolate Factory, Sally Silvers from Roulette, and Lucien Zayan from The Invisible Dog.

New Models for Presenting Dance discussed the dynamic shift the landscape of dance presentation in NYC has undergone over the last five years. New spaces for showing work have opened, museums and galleries are regularly programming performance, and several venues that present multiple artistic genres have become specifically interested in presenting dance. This conversation with a sampling of voices from these venues created a layered portrait of the constantly shifting field of dance presentation, while examining its new directions.

This is a Movement Research Studies Project: FOR WHAT

Moderated by Ursula Eagly with panelists Morgan Bassichis, Justine Lynch, Melanie Maar, Clarinda Mac Low, Alta Starr and Marýa Wethers

December 2, 2014 at Gibney Dance Center 890 Broadway as part of the Movement Research Festival Fall 2014: MATTERING co-curated by Rebecca Brooks and Daria Faïn in conversation with Shelley Senter

FOR WHAT was a discussion led by panelists who enjoy multi-faceted engagement with the cultural field, including healing elements, social justice aspects, performance activations, and various cultural considerations. The discussion was a response to the observation that many artists decide to be of service in some way to the culture and to others and addresses questions such as what are we doing, and what are we doing it for? What does it mean to live/work as an artist at this current time, and how do we position our work in relation to everything else in our lives and our environment? And in what way are our artistic practices necessary to a collective transformation of society?

Studies Project is a series of artist-instigated panel discussions, roundtables, performances and/or other formats that engage issues of aesthetics, philosophy and social politics relevant to the dance and performance community.

This is a Movement Research Studies Project: The Role of Class in Current Dance Practices

Conceived in conversation with Movement Research Faculty

January 20, 2015 at Gibney Dance Center 890 Broadway organized by Movement Research in collaboration with Beth Gill, Lance Gries, Eva Karczag and Gwen Welliver

The Role of Class was a series of brief and intimate discussions with various teaching artists including Julian Barnett, Michelle Boulé, Wendell Cooper, Jeanine Durning, Barbara Forbes, Zvi Gotheiner, K.J. Holmes, John Jasperse, Joanna Kotze, Nia Love, Juliette Mapp, Cori Olinghouse, Janet Panetta, Shelley Senter, Vicky Shick, RoseAnne Spradlin, Karinne Keithley Syers and Jesse Zarrit. These discussions addressed questions and ideas about dance and movement-based class through their own practices and histories. After the discussions attendants were invited to actively participate in smaller group conversations with the opportunity to share insights and proposals.

Photo: Morning exercises on the roof of Itten College, 1931, from "Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus and later" by Johannes Itten