(NEW YORK, NY – November 14, 2023) Championing creative process from studio to stage, Works & Process amplifies support for performing artists, and simultaneously provides the public with behind-the-scenes access to new works, with programs that blend performance highlights and discussions with the creators to foster greater understanding and appreciation. An organization without walls, through collaborations and partnerships the spring 2024 season will be the biggest ever.
In a philosophy akin to farm to table, Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” offers artists fully-funded creative residencies, with 14 partners spanning Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. In New York City, Works & Process will present at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in partnership with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and SummerStage in summer 2024. The impact will be felt further afield as commissioned projects, created in Works & Process bubble and LaunchPAD residencies tour.
This season features Works & Process’s robust and ongoing support of club, social, and street dance as well as some of the world’s largest performing arts organizations. Our efforts to broaden representation in concert dance are rooted in the belief that concert dance institutions can be more inclusive than previously defined, and that the creative process, through collaboration, can be more robustly funded and resourced. Works & Process embraces the continuum of concert, club, social and street dance, and centers traditions historically placed at the margins.
The season opens as multiple Works & Process LaunchPAD residency projects culminate in the second annual Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival, a crosstown celebration of New York City’s extraordinary club, concert, social, and street dance that will take place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s subterranean Peter B. Lewis Theater and Lincoln Center ’s Alice Tully Hall.
An evolution of our bubble residencies, Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination”, now in year three, continues to provide longitudinal, made-to-measure, and sequenced residencies in three states, supporting artists with industry-leading creative residency fees of $1,050 per artist per week, transportation, health insurance enrollment access, 24/7 studio availability, and on-site housing. Recognizing that artistic process is a continuum, public engagements during the residencies illuminates the creative process with local communities. Culminating performances in New York City provide artists with fees of $400 per artist per performance.
General ticketing starts November 20 at worksandprocess.org.
All programs offer Choose-What-You-Pay or Free Ticketing options.
SEASON AT A GLANCE
Festival
- Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival – Jan 10-16
Guggenheim – Peter B. Lewis Theater
- Company Stefanie Batten Bland: Embarqued: Stories of Soil
- Kayla Farrish’s Put Away the Fire, dear
- Kash Gaines’ Caged Birds
- Lloyd Knight, Jack Ferver, and Jeremy Jacob
- Ladies of Hip-Hop: SpeakMyMind
- Pontus Lidberg’s On the Nature of Rabbits
- Taylor Stanley and Alec Knight
- Passion Fruit Dance Company: Trapped by Tatiana Desardouin
- Preeti Vasudevan and Amar Ramasar’s Indian Letters
- ARRAY’s LEAP: The Reckoning by Francesca Harper, music by Nona Hendryx
Lincoln Center – Alice Tully Hall
- Ephrat Asherie Dance and NYC Club Legends: UNDERSCORED
- Les Ballet Afrik: New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles
- It’s Showtime NYC! – Pyramid
- Ladies of Hip-Hop: SpeakMyMind
- LayeRhythm
- The Missing Element featuring The Beatbox House
- Princess Lockerooo’s The Fabulous Waack Dancers: The Big Show
- MasterZ at Work Dance Family: ALL INCLUSIVE by Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington
- Rokafella and Kwikstep’s Behind the Groove
- Underground Uptown Ball – Leggoh JohVera, DJ BelindZz, and Hype Kitty
Premieres
- Princess Lockerooo’s The Fabulous Waack Dancers: The Big Show – Jan 12
- Ladies of Hip-Hop: SpeakMyMind – Jan 13
- History of the Beatbox House – April 8
- Ryan Ponder McNamara’s Kinetic Grace – Apr 28–30
- Caleb Teicher’s This Is The Part When You Go Woo – May 12 and 13
Highlights and Discussions
- Durante Verzola, A Choreographic Portrait with Dance Lab New York, Angela Lyn, Miami City Ballet, and New York Choreographic Institute – Jan 21 and 22
- Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Philadelphia: The Anonymous Lover, Music by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Libretto by Desfontaines-Lavallée – Jan 25
- Lincoln Center Theater: Corruption by J.T. Rogers, Directed by Bartlett Sher – Jan 28
- Spill the Tea with George Lee: Ten Times Better, Jennifer Lin’s documentary goes from stacks to screen – Feb 7
- Washington National Opera: Turandot, Music by Giacomo Puccini and Christopher Tin, Libretto by Giuseppe Adami, Renato Simoni, and Susan Soon He Stanton – Feb 25
- Paper Mill Playhouse: Gun & Powder by Angelica Chéri and Ross Baum, Direction by Stevie Walker-Webb, Music Direction by Austin Cook, & Choreography by Tiffany Rea-Fisher – Mar 4
- Lar Lubovitch at 80 – Mar 14
- The Metropolitan Opera: El Niño by John Adams – Apr 1
- New Jersey Ballet, A New Era with Maria Kowroski featuring Harrison Ball and Lauren Lovette – Apr 14
- Experiments in Opera: The Lives and Dreams of Nikola Tesla as summoned by the Honorable Spirits of the Grand Gotham Hotel by Phil Kline and Jim Jarmusch, featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo – Apr 15
Rotunda Dance Parties
- Kwikstep and Rokafella’s Behind the Groove – Mar 18
- LayeRhythm – May 20
Works & Process Commissions on Tour
- LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum
- Music From The Sole’s I Didn’t Come to Stay
- Rose: You Are Who You Eat by John Jarboe
- Ladies of Hip-Hop – SpeakMyMind
- Les Ballet Afrik: New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles
Spring 2024 Season
WORKS & PROCESS UNDERGROUND UPTOWN DANCE FESTIVAL
January 10–16
A crosstown celebration of New York City’s extraordinary club, concert, social, and street dance artists uptown in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s subterranean Peter B. Lewis Theater and at Lincoln Center ’s Alice Tully Hall.
Championing creative process from studio to stage and artist care, Works & Process has supported each project long-term with fully funded creative residencies that offer industry leading fees, 24/7 studio space, on-site housing, transportation, and health insurance enrollment access.
The Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival is part of JanArtsNYC, one of the city’s largest and most influential arts gatherings for which more than 45,000 performing arts leaders, artists, and enthusiasts from across the globe converge in New York.
LINCOLN CENTER
Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
Don’t miss this one night takeover of Alice Tully Hall, with activations across the hall. Ephrat Asherie Dance, Omari Wiles’ Les Ballet Afrik, It’s Showtime NYC!, Ladies of Hip-Hop, Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington’s MasterZ at Work Dance Family, The Missing Element featuring The Beatbox House, and The Big Show by Princess Lockerooo’s The Fabulous Waack Dancers take to the stage. Simultaneously, in the lobby Kwikstep and Rokafella’s Behind the Groove, Mai Lê Hô’s LayeRhythm, and the Underground Uptown Ball call for all to jump into the cypher.
Alice Tully Hall – Club and Social Dancing in the Morgan Stanley Lobby
Behind the Groove with Kwikstep and Rokafella
Since 2009, hip-hop legends Kwikstep and Rokafella have curated Behind the Groove, a dance party that invites the community to freestyle to classic dance music without the pressure of competition or bar culture, allowing the dancers to organically engage in social exchange on the floor. Regularly held at the Nuyorican Poets Café, the party will come to the Morgan Stanley Lobby at Alice Tully Hall during the café’s renovation. See popping, breaking, locking, uprocking, house, lite feet, and krumping share the stage.
Kwikstep and Rokafella have received Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support at The Pocantico Center (2023).
LayeRhythm
Embodying the continuum of concert and social dance, LayeRhythm, led by Mai Lê Hô, interweaves a singular mix of play-based freestyle dance, live music, and audience interaction, celebrating the vibrancy of street and club dance cultures. The evening will feature improvisations by musicians, dancers, and emcees, captivating the young and old, from theater- to clubgoers.
LayeRhythm has received Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support at The Church (2023), Sag Harbor (2023) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2024).
Underground Uptown Ball with Leggoh JohVera, DJ BelindZz, and Hype Kitty
Don’t just spectate, participate. After seeing the ballroom legends in Les Ballet Afrik and MasterZ at Work Dance Family perform on stage, go ahead and pop, dip, and spin over to the Morgan Stanley Lobby for the Underground Uptown Ball organized by Hype Kitty. Celebrate LGBTQIA+ culture/individuals and honor the skills and style that have made ballroom the cultural force it is today, while also honoring contemporary dancers of the form. Bling out your heels, bring on the realness, and get ready to “werk” it with DJ BelindzZ and commentating by Leggoh JohVera. Contestants will serve their freshest looks on the runway in four categories: Runway, Face, OTA, and Best Dressed.
Alice Tully Hall – Starr Stage
Ladies of Hip-Hop
The Black Dancing Bodies – SpeakMyMind (highlights)
“Each woman’s voice stands powerfully on its own.” —Dance Enthusiast
Part of an ongoing performance and documentary effort focused on Black women in street and club dance culture, this session of The Black Dancing Bodies Project continues to explore the power of the “choreopoem”—a word coined in 1975 by playwright and poet Ntozake Shange in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. In this presentation, each member of the collective responds to the question, “If I could speak my mind, what would I say?” A day before SpeakMyMind’s world premiere at the Guggenheim, experience highlights of the work featuring new writings, music, and movement that spans dance styles from African to waacking, vogue, hip-hop, and house—all curated under the direction of Michele Byrd-McPhee.
SpeakMyMind was commissioned by Works & Process, developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), and Office Hours Residency at The Kennedy Center (2023). Iterative performances have taken place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, the National Gallery of Art, SummerStage, Dancers Responding to AIDS Hudson Valley Dance Festival, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
SpeakMyMind is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.
Ephrat Asherie Dance and NYC Club Legends
UNDERSCORED (highlights)
A living archive of five generations of New York City club dancers, UNDERSCORED is a multifaceted project rooted in the stories and memories of the city’s underground club heads. Commissioned by Works & Process and created by the dancers of Ephrat Asherie Dance and club legends ranging in age from 28 to 80, UNDERSCORED is a collaboration that explores the ever-changing physical and musical landscape of New York’s underground dance community. Building on the intergenerational transference of knowledge and culturally reflective movement that happens night after night on dance floors across the city, UNDERSCORED celebrates the lived experiences, stories, and vibes of seminal parties, including David Mancuso’s The Loft, Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and Timmy Regisford’s Shelter as well as the perspectives of legends Archie Burnett, Michele Saunders, and Brahms “Bravo” LaFortune.
UNDERSCORED received lead commissioning and development support by Works & Process, for world premiere at the Guggenheim following Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), Bridge Street Theatre (2021), Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020), and the Guggenheim Museum. Additional residency support provided by City University of New York Dance Initiative, LUMBERYARD, and The Yard.
UNDERSCORED is a 2022 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals for a residency at The Jay and Linda Grunin Center, made possible through support from Mellon Foundation. UNDERSCORED is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Works & Process in partnership with ArtPower at University of California San Diego, The Momentary, and The Yard. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The MasterZ at Work Dance Family
ALL INCLUSIVE by Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington
A legend within the ballroom community, founder of the Kiki House of Juicy Couture, leader of the House of Balenciaga, and the 2022 Latex Ball’s Avis Penda’vis Angel Award winner, Black trans femme choreographer Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington creates dances that are a representation of resiliency, and which foster community in under-resourced areas of Brooklyn. Her Works & Process commission ALL INCLUSIVE fuses street dance, street jazz, ballroom, vogue, and hip-hop. Informed by her own experience as a queer teenager who found refuge from teasing in dance, the work conveys how her gender transition spurred transformative emotional, creative, and physical liberation.
ALL INCLUSIVE was commissioned by Works & Process and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at The Pocantico Center (2023), Bethany Arts Community (2022), and Kaatsbaan Cultural Center (2021). Past performances have taken place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Lincoln Center, OTA Weekly, Jacob’s Pillow, SummerStage, and Dancers Responding to AIDS Fire Island Dance Festival and with NY PopsUp in The Oculus and Coney Island.
Les Ballet Afrik
New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles (highlights)
Ballroom community legend and House of Oricci founding father Omari Wiles brings ball culture to Lincoln Center with New York Is Burning, featuring Wiles’s AfrikFusion, fusing traditional African dances and afrobeat with house dance and vogue. The 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning received critical acclaim for its depiction of the New York drag ball scene and of voguing as a powerful expression of personal pride in the face of racism, homophobia, and the stigma of the AIDS crisis. Just as Paris Is Burning did for New York in the 1980s, New York Is Burning reflects the aspirations, desires, and yearnings of a diverse group of dancers in a city beset by health, racial, and financial crises. Commissioned by Works & Process prior to the pandemic as an homage to Paris Is Burning on the documentary’s 30th anniversary, Wiles’s work centers the artists for whom his dance company serves as a surrogate family.
New York Is Burning was commissioned by Works & Process and received Works & Process bubble residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2021), and a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at The Church, Sag Harbor in partnership with Guild Hall (2022). The work premiered at the Guggenheim and has been featured at Jacob’s Pillow, New Victory Theater, SummerStage, and American Dance Festival.
New York Is Burning is a 2022 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project Finalist.
Princess Lockerooo’s The Fabulous Waack Dancers: The Big Show (premiere)
In the 1970s, a dance form called waacking was born in the underground gay clubs of Los Angeles. Members of the gay community risked their lives to perform such an effeminate, expressive style of dance at a time when being openly gay often resulted in violence and imprisonment. The dance was popularized on Soul Train by Tyrone Proctor and brought to the spotlight on the Diana Ross Tour thanks to Billy Goodson. With the AIDS crisis, waacking became nearly extinct. Today the art form has been re-born as a booming social media sensation and global queer rights movement. In the premiere of The Big Show, performed by The Fabulous Waack Dancers, Princess Lockerooo, the “Queen of Waacking,” honors her mentor, pioneering queer Black waack dancer and Soul Train legend, Tyrone Proctor, who died in 2020, and carries on his legacy through the dance he championed.
The Fabulous Waack Dancers’s The Big Show by Princess Lockerooo received lead commissioning and development support with Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bridge Street Theatre (2022), Watermill Center (2023), and The Pocantico Center (2023), for premiere at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The work is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Works & Process in partnership with ArtPower at UC San Diego, and REDCAT. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).
It’s Showtime NYC!
Pyramid by Cal Hunt and Johnathan “Akuma” Moore (In-Process)
New Yorkers are, by nature, archaeologists. Be it through graffiti, hieroglyphics, or freestyle dance on the street, lived stories are always being shared with those willing to pause and take in the messages. Commissioned by Works & Process, this in-process performance of Pyramid features It’s Showtime NYC!, a company of dancers with a history of performing on New York’s streets and subways, in collaboration with composer and cellist Johnathan “Akuma” Moore.
Both the original musical composition and dance work embody an artistic trade-off, representing a collaboration between composer and company dancer as each investigates the notion, “This is how you sound to me.” Moore’s composition animates each dancer’s daily struggles and triumphs as they become live building blocks of the pyramid. Then through the pyramid’s deconstruction, choreographer and It’s Showtime NYC! Artistic Director Cal Hunt questions, “How do these stories get back into perspective?” By the end of the performance, Moore incorporates layered electronic loops and innovative techniques typically employed by funk bassists into his cello composition, which free up the musician, allowing him to join the performance as a bonebreaker, or flexN artist.
Pyramid was commissioned by Works & Process and has been developed in a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at Bethany Arts Community (2023) and is in residence at NYC PARKS’s Herbert Von King Cultural Center in Bed-Stuy, where the work will also be performed on January 13.
The Missing Element featuring The Beatbox House
Fusing awe-inspiring street dancers from the krump, flexN, and breaking communities with the virtuosic music-making of the world champion beatboxers in The Beatbox House, The Missing Element is a culmination of what happens when performing art forms that traditionally compete with one another collaborate.
The Missing Element was commissioned by Works & Process and developed in Works & Process bubble residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020 and 2021). Past performances have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, Guild Hall, Jacob’s Pillow Gala, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Island, NY PopsUp with Amy Schumer, and the Guggenheim Bilbao’s 25th Anniversary, SummerStage, and the National Gallery of Art.
SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
Kayla Farrish’s Put Away the Fire, dear (in-process)
Jan 10, 7 pm
Choreographer Kayla Farrish’s newest work maps the journey of marginalized characters taking the reins of their own narrative. A dance-theater work set to a score that explores Black American music, Put Away the Fire, dear takes Old Hollywood cinema techniques, such as thriller, film noir, romance, and musical, and revamps and remixes them for a live performance that intentionally disrupts oppressive tropes.
Presented in conjunction with the Guggenheim Exhibition Going Dark.
Supported with a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at The Watermill Center. Put Away the Fire, dear is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.
Pontus Lidberg’s On the Nature of Rabbits (highlights)
Taylor Stanley and Alec Knight (in-process)
Jan 11, 7 pm
Choreographer Pontus Lidberg shares his newest work exploring the resonance of the AIDS epidemic on dance. New York City Ballet dancers Taylor Stanley and Alec Knight showcase a first look at their new work. Denise Roberts Hurlin, Founding Director of Dancers Responding to AIDS, moderates the discussion.
See highlights of Pontus Lidberg’s On the Nature of Rabbits, a La Biennale di Venezia commission and a Works & Process co-commission, prior to its Joyce Theater premiere on March 6th. Inspired by true-life events after the fall of the Berlin wall and at the peak of the AIDS epidemic, in a series of dreamlike scenes, Lidberg contemplates the relationship between childhood mementos and the nuances of desire, as well as the delicate balance between reality and imagination in a time of fear. Visuals by Emmy-Award winner Jason Carpenter add a playful and interactive layer to the dance.
New York City Ballet dancers Taylor Stanley and Alec Knight assembled a cast to start creation on work inspired by Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions. Don’t miss this first look at their creative process culminating from two Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Modern Accord Depot.
On the Nature of Rabbits was commissioned by La Biennale di Venezia, co-commissioned and co-produced by Works & Process and Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support by Bethany Arts Community, The Joyce Theater Foundation with major support generously provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and with the generous support of Orsolina 28 Art Foundation, Dalateatern Falun, The Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, and generous individuals.
Ladies of Hip-Hop
The Black Dancing Bodies: SpeakMyMind (premiere)
Jan 13, 3 and 7 pm
“Each woman’s voice stands powerfully on its own.” —Dance Enthusiast
Part of an ongoing performance and documentary effort focused on Black women in street and club dance culture, this session of The Black Dancing Bodies Project continues to explore the power of the “choreopoem,” a word coined in 1975 by playwright and poet Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf). In SpeakMyMind each member of the collective responds to the question, “If I could speak my mind, what would I say?” In this world premiere, experience new writings, music, and movement spanning dance styles from African to waacking, vogue, hip-hop, and house, all curated under the direction of Michele Byrd-McPhee.
SpeakMyMind was commissioned by Works & Process, developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), and Office Hours Residency at The Kennedy Center (2023). Iterative performances have taken place at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, SummerStage, Dancers Responding to AIDS Hudson Valley Dance Festival, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
SpeakMyMind is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.
Lloyd Knight, Jack Ferver, and Jeremy Jacob (in-process)
Company Stefanie Batten Bland: Embarqued: Stories of Soil (highlights)
Jan 14, 7 pm
Martha Graham Dance Company Principal Dancer Lloyd Knight shares a first look at an intimate and personal solo inspired by the women in his life, his mother and Martha Graham. Knight’s work brings together research in the Martha Graham archive that was facilitated through a fellowship at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division and Works & Process LaunchPAD creative residencies with choreographer Jack Ferver and filmmaker Jeremy Jacob at Bridge Street Theatre, Modern Accord Depot, and Watermill Center. This in-process new work lays bare what it takes both physically and psychologically to pursue a life in dance and explores Knight’s youth, upbringing, and what drew him initially to Graham from an early age.
See highlights from Company Stefanie Batten Bland’s Embarqued: Stories of Soil. A ship mast rises from the stage and reaches toward both our past and our present—recalling slave ships, memorials, and monuments—as meanings unfurl through dance. This dance-theater work, performed by a cast of five, is based on an excavation of self and country that is expressed through textiles, skin tones, labor, land, humor, and moving bodies, offering rich storytelling and a visceral journey toward wholeness, connecting people and places through an unfolding time continuum. The work invites reflection of our shared history and interrogates our relationship with memorialization, revealing post-colonial foundations and mythologies.
Woven into the performances, Jerome Robbins Dance Division Curator Linda Murray moderates a discussion with Batten Bland, Knight, Ferver, and Jacob.
Embarqued: Stories of Soil received commissioning support from ArtYard and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Embarqued was created through critical research and creative residencies provided by ArtYard, Duke Performances at Duke University, and The Yard in Chilmark, Massachusetts, in partnership with Martha’s Vineyard Museum and Martha’s Vineyard African American Heritage Trail. Embarqued was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation. The project has received additional support from Jerome Robbins Foundation, New Music USA, and a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.
Passion Fruit Dance Company: Trapped by Tatiana Desardouin (highlights)
Preeti Vasudevan & Amar Ramasar’s Indian Letters (in-process)
Jan 15, 7 pm
New York–based choreographer Tatiana Desardouin and Passion Fruit Dance Company bring bold street and club dance styles to the stage. Trapped features moving testimony from four women of different backgrounds and life stories, revealing both their pain and paths to joy. While the piece explores difficult social issues faced by women, it conveys a broad message of hope and celebration and is an invitation to unfold and release mental blocks.
An immersive live and digital-theater project, Indian Letters is a collaboration between Preeti Vasudevan, Artistic Director of New York–based arts organization Thresh, and Amar Ramasar, a former principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. In this in-process showing, both dancers rediscover themselves through a dynamic dialogue of cultural exchange. By asking the question, “Where is home?” they cast new light on issues of race, assimilation, faith, and identity in the twenty-first century.
Trapped was commissioned by Works & Process and premiered in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenhiem Museum. Trapped was developed in a Works & Process Bubble residency at Bridge Street Theatre (2021) made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Indian Letters has been developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022 and 2023) and The Yard, in partnership with Circuit Arts (2023).
ARRAY’s LEAP: The Reckoning by Francesca Harper, music by Nona Hendryx
Kash Gaines’ Caged Birds (in-process)
Jan 16, 7 pm
Existing as a film commissioned by ARRAY’s Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP) and a live performance that premiered in 2022 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Reckoning is choreographer and director Francesca Harper’s response to the 2010 killing of 7-year-old Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones at the hands of Detroit law enforcement. In collaboration with composer Nona Hendryx, Harper has created an expressive historical record of injustice as she explores the relationship between erasure and commodification in the media’s coverage of brutality against bodies of color. Dancers from Ailey II and FHP Collective perform in costumes by Elias Gurrola with lighting design by Itohan Edoloyi.
For many young New York City artists, the rambunctious dance tradition of showtime on the subway is their best opportunity to perform in front of a live audience. In tandem with the renegade act of public dance is always the possibility of confrontation and arrest, risks that performer/documentarian Kash Gaines’s cast of artists know all too well. At this in-process sharing of Kash’s new project Caged Birds, commissioned by Works & Process, you’ll hear intimate stories of dancers’ perilous encounters with law enforcement inside and outside the MTA system and see the craft they’ve honed performing on the city’s biggest stage. This performance offers proof that these uncaged birds truly can fly.
The Reckoning was commissioned by ARRAY’s Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP), a propulsive fund dedicated to empowering activists to disrupt the code of silence that exists around police aggression and misconduct. The development of the live performance of The Reckoning was supported by and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) with the collaboration of Gabri Christa and the Movement Lab at Barnard College.
Caged Birds was commissioned by Works & Process, and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2023 and 2024) and Bridge Street Theatre (2023), and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).
WORKS & PROCESS AT THE GUGGENHEIM
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
Durante Verzola, A Choreographic Portrait
with Dance Lab New York, Angela Lyn, Miami City Ballet, and New York Choreographic Institute
Jan 21 and 22, 7 pm
Catch rising star and Miami City Ballet School resident choreographer Durante Verzola in a program exploring the breadth of his work. See excerpts from PAGANINI, In Play, a Miami City Ballet commission prior to premiere; a duet created as part of Dance Lab New York’s More to the Pointe lab exploring who gets to dance en pointe; a collaboration with visual artist Angela Lyn; and excerpts from Strings of Play created at the New York Choreographic Institute. Adrian Danchig-Waring moderates a discussion with Verzola, illuminating his creative process.
Leadership support for this Works & Process program is provided by Charles and Deborah Adelman.
Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Philadelphia
The Anonymous Lover
Music by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
Libretto by Desfontaines-Lavallée
Jan 25, 7 pm
Prior to the premiere of the Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Philadelphia’s co-production of The Anonymous Lover, OPERA America’s President and CEO Marc A. Scorca moderates a discussion with Boston Lyric Opera’s General Director and CEO Bradley Vernatter, Opera Philadelphia’s General Director and President David Devan, playwright Kirsten Greenidge and director Dennis Whitehead Darling, illuminating how they are working together to co-produce this new production. See performance highlights by tenor Omar Najmi and soprano Brianna Robinson.
Written in 1780 by Black virtuoso Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, The Anonymous Lover tells the story of Léontine, a wealthy young widow who is disenchanted with the notion of love until she begins receiving letters from an anonymous admirer. Léontine’s journey culminates in her own happy ending, a worthy romantic comedy for the ages.
Lincoln Center Theater
Corruption by J.T. Rogers, Directed by Bartlett Sher
Jan 28, 7 pm
Before previews, go behind the scenes of playwright J. T. Rogers’s newest play, Corruption, which will open this spring at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Corruption is the story behind the story of the 2009-2011 international phone hacking scandal that exposed the criminal news-gathering techniques of the Rupert Murdoch media empire, and ultimately brought down UK news outlets, senior British politicians, and police officers. New York Times Magazine reporter Susan Dominus moderates a discussion with Rogers and Sher and cast members perform highlights.
Washington National Opera
Turandot
Music by Giacomo Puccini and Christopher Tin, Libretto by Giuseppe Adami, Renato Simoni, and Susan Soon He Stanton
Feb 25, 7 pm
Turandot is one of Puccini’s most fascinating operas. With sumptuous music and eye-popping spectacle, it tells the story of a beautiful, powerful princess and her transformation. It is an opera with many complications, including the fact that Puccini died before he was able to complete it. (Today, it is most often performed with an ending by Franco Alfano.) For Washington National Opera’s new production, the company has commissioned a new ending by Grammy Award–winning composer Christopher Tin and playwright and screenwriter Susan Soon He Stanton. It will premiere in May 2024 at the Kennedy Center. Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director of Washington National Opera, will be joined by Soon He Stanton and Tin to discuss the making of a Turandot for our time: a portrait of a strong woman who overcomes a traumatic past, an experience that leads to the fall of tyranny and the rise of democracy. Singers will perform highlights.
Paper Mill Playhouse
Gun & Powder by Angelica Chéri and Ross Baum
Direction by Stevie Walker-Webb, Music Direction by Austin Cook, and Choreography by Tiffany Rea-Fisher
Mar 4, 7 pm
Before the opening night of Gun & Powder, learn about the true story of Mary and Martha Clarke, African American twin sisters who, passing as white, took extraordinary measures in Texas in 1983 to settle their mother’s sharecropper debt and save her home. Members of the musical’s creative team including writer and lyricist Angelica Chéri (a descendant of Mary and Martha Clarke), composer Ross Baum, music director Austin Cook, director Stevie Walker-Webb, and choreographer Tiffany Rea-Fisher discuss their creative process, and cast members perform highlights.
Rotunda Dance Party
Kwikstep and Rokafella’s Behind the Groove
Mar 18, 8 pm
Since 2009, hip-hop legends Kwikstep and Rokafella have curated Behind the Groove, a dance party that invites the community to freestyle to classic dance music. Without the pressure of competition or bar culture, the event allows dancers to organically engage in social exchange on the floor. Regularly held at the Nuyorican Poets Café, the party will come to the Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda during the café’s renovation in conjunction with the museum’s Member Mondays and presented by Works & Process. See popping, breaking, locking, uprocking, house, salsa, and hustle share the stage in a night spotlighting the music, dancers, and dances.
The Metropolitan Opera
El Niño by John Adams
Apr 1, 7 pm
Prior to the April 23 company premiere of John Adams’s El Niño, Met General Manager Peter Gelb moderates a discussion with members of the creative team, and cast members perform highlights from the powerful score. Eminent American composer John Adams returns to the Metropolitan Opera after a decade-long hiatus with his acclaimed opera-oratorio, an extraordinarily dramatic retelling of the Nativity, which incorporates sacred and secular texts in English, Spanish, and Latin, from biblical times to the present day. El Niño brings together some of contemporary opera’s fiercest champions, all of whom make highly anticipated company debuts: Marin Alsop, one of the great conductors of our time, who has led more than 200 new-music premieres; soprano Julia Bullock, a leading voice on and off stage; and pathbreaking bass-baritone Davóne Tines. Radiant mezzo-sopranos J’Nai Bridges and Daniela Mack take turns completing the principal trio. The moving, fully staged new production also marks the Met debut of Lileana Blain-Cruz, Resident Director at Lincoln Center Theater, who received universal acclaim for her Tony-nominated 2022 production of The Skin of Our Teeth.
History of The Beatbox House
Apr 8, 7 pm
The Beatbox House is a collective of world champion beatboxers including Amit Bhowmick, Chris Celiz, Neil “NaPoM” Meadows, Gene Shinozaki, and Kenny Urban. Beatboxing is growing into a global phenomenon branching out from its hip-hop roots. Through education, performance, and collaboration, the collective is rebranding the art as a new form of music, pushing the boundaries of the possibilities of the human voice. They were recently featured in the New York Times and represented the U.S. State Department with a tour of Indonesia and Singapore through the storied American Music Abroad Program. For one night only, learn more about this growing art form and these pioneering artists.
History of The Beatbox House has received Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support at ArtYard (2024), Chautauqua Institution (2023), and Guild Hall William P Rayner Artist-in-Residence program (2023), and grants from New Music USA and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
New Jersey Ballet, A New Era with Maria Kowroski
featuring Harrison Ball and Lauren Lovette
Apr 14, 7 pm
Join recently appointed New Jersey Ballet artistic director Maria Kowroski as she shares her vision for the company, and see excerpts from Purcell Suite by Harrison Ball and from a new commission by Lauren Lovette prior to its premiere. Ball, Kowroski, and Lovette illuminate their creative process in a discussion moderated by dancer and choreographer Emily Coates, a former member of New York City Ballet and currently Director of Dance Studies at Yale University.
Experiments in Opera
The Lives and Dreams of Nikola Tesla as summoned by the Honorable Spirits of the Grand Gotham Hotel by Phil Kline and Jim Jarmusch, featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo (in-process)
Apr 15, 7 pm
The end of the world is near. New York City barely exists. Nikola Tesla’s ghost sits alone in the crumbling ballroom of the once mighty Grand Gotham Hotel, in which the inventor famously resided in the last years of his life. One by one, other residential spirits join Tesla and act out his dreams in a ritual circus of life, conveyed in a series of 27 vignettes that mix elements of spectacle, absurdity, avant-garde film, blackout comedy, and musical theater. See the culmination of this new opera’s development workshop, incubated in a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at Bethany Arts Community. Members of the artistic team discuss their creative process and highlights are performed.
Ryan Ponder McNamara’s Kinetic Grace
Apr 28, 29, and 30, 7 pm
Initiated by artist Ryan Ponder McNamara, Kinetic Grace is a movement (some call it a cult) centered on the belief that humankind can reach transcendence through dance—from hardcore, gabber, and rave to disco, line dance, and tecktonik. The performers welcome you to this mass for newcomers, in which Kinetic Grace explains its tenets and ask you to join in its sacred revelry. Guided by the Greek muse Terpsicore, the movement has recently added singing to its dancing in an attempt to reach Kinetic Grace.
Kinetic Grace was commissioned by Works & Process, and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Watermill Center (2022), Bethany Arts Community (2023) and The Church, Sag Harbor (2024).
Caleb Teicher’s This Is The Part When You Go Woo
With Michael Benjamin Washington and Ameya Marie Okamoto
May 12 and 13, 7 pm
Be the first to see Caleb Teicher’s performance-presentation exploring the range of relationships that take place in theaters between artists and audiences. Guest performers fill in the blanks in a script by writer Michael Benjamin Washington, with visuals by interdisciplinary artist Ameya Marie Okamoto.
This Is The Part When You Go Woo was developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bridge Street Theatre (2023) and ArtYard (2024).
Rotunda Dance Party
LayeRhythm
May 20, 8 pm
Embodying the continuum of concert and social dance, LayeRhythm, led by Mai Lê Hô, interweaves a singular mix of freestyle dance, live music, and audience interaction to celebrate the vibrancy of street and club dance cultures. In conjunction with the Guggenheim’s Member Mondays, the evening will feature improvisations by musicians, dancers, and emcees, captivating the young and old, from theater- to clubgoers.
LayeRhythm has received Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support at The Church, Sag Harbor (2023) and the Catskill Mountain Foundation (2024).
