Saturday, August 26, 2023
Starts at 5:45pm
On the sand at Beach 108th Street.

The shoreline of Rockaway Beach with the ocean as the backdrop will become the stage for a new arrangement of Merce Cunningham’s iconic work Beach Birds (1991) and a response by choreographer Sarah Michelson.

ABOUT SARAH MICHELSON
Sarah Michelson’s work has been presented and commissioned by The Whitney Museum, MoMA, The Walker Art Center, Movement Research, The Kitchen, PS 122, Performance Space New York, LMCC’s River to River Festival, Danspace Project, David Zwirner Gallery, Bard Fisher Center, Chapter Arts Cardiff Wales, Venice Biennale, SommerSzene Salzburg, Tanz im August Berlin, ICA London, ArtCenter, ODC Theater, Kampnagel, Tanzhaus nrw, and Zuercher Theater Spektakel.

Michelson was awarded two Bessies for choreography and one for Visual Design; a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2012 Bucksbaum Award, a Doris Duke Artists Award 2012, a Guggenheim Fellowship 2009, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award 2008, the 2006 Alpert Award in Dance, a NYFA Fellowship; and support from Creative Capital, Jerome Foundation, NYFA BUILD, Mid-Atlantic’s USAI, AMC Live Music for Dance, MAP Fund, NEFA’s National Dance Project, NPN, Sophie and Leonard Davis Fund, Yellow House Fund, and Arts International.

Saturday, August 26, 2023
Starts at 5:45pm
On the sand at Beach 108th Street

The shoreline of Rockaway Beach with the ocean as the backdrop will become the stage for a new arrangement of Merce Cunningham’s iconic work Beach Birds (1991) and a response by choreographer Sarah Michelson.

BEACH BIRDS (a new arrangement)
Choreography: Merce Cunningham
Costumes: After the original design by Marsha Skinner
Arranged and staged by: Patricia Lent and Rashaun Mitchell
Beach Birds (1991) by Merce Cunningham © Merce Cunningham Trust.

Beach Sessions Cast
Arielle François
Christian Allen
Claude Cj Johnson
Chaery Moon
Marc Crousillat
Morgan Griffin
Nyah Malone
Ryan Pliss
Sarah Cecilia Bukowski
Hannah Straney
Sienna Blaw

Beach Birds, with choreography by Merce Cunningham, music by John Cage (FOUR3 ) and design by Marsha Skinner, was first performed by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on June 20, 1991 at Theater 11 in Zurich, Switzerland as part of a citywide James Joyce/John Cage Festival. The dance had a cast of eleven dancers, and a duration of 28 minutes. Beach Birds remained in the repertory until 1996. It was performed nearly one hundred times in forty-two cities worldwide. In December 1991, Elliot Caplan and Cunningham adapted the dance for film. Beach Birds for Camera, a work for fourteen dancers, was first screened in Paris, on November 15, 1993.

This arrangement of Merce Cunningham’s Beach Birds (1991) was developed in part during an artist residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City. www.bacnyc.org 

ABOUT MERCE CUNNINGHAM TRUST
The Merce Cunningham Trust, established in 2000, preserves, enhances, and maintains the integrity of Cunningham’s artistic work and processes, and makes his works available to the public. The Trust looks toward a vital future, facilitates access to and experience of Cunningham’s work, trains dancers in his technique, provides stagers with vital resources to develop their craft, supports the development of audiences for his work, and fosters creativity connected to this legacy.

The Trust licenses Cunningham dances to leading dance companies and educational institutions worldwide, and partners with cultural organizations for activities that celebrate Cunningham’s artistic achievements. Trust programs also include daily Cunningham Technique® classes, Cunningham Fellowships which support the investigation and reconstruction of Cunningham work, an arts & rights management internship, and the Barbara Ensley Award established to support young BIPOC dancers launching their professional careers.

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is the repository of decades of Cunningham’s manuscripts and records, choreographic notes and thousands of films and videotapes. The Walker Arts Center is the home of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s costumes, theatrical objects, and décor. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Baryshnikov Arts Center have aligned with the Trust in offering awards in Merce Cunningham’s name, supporting contemporary artists. www.mercecunningham.org

On Saturday, August 20, 2022 starting at 5:30pm, Trisha Brown Dance Company will traverse the shoreline from Beach 97th Street to Beach 110th Street with Trisha Brown: In Plain Site, a program highlighting a selection of seminal Early Works by Trisha Brown specifically chosen to respond to the beach and its shoreline, culminating in a re-staging of Brown’s iconic Opal Loop (1980). Audiences are invited to follow the dancers as they move along the various sites of Rockaway Beach.

This program celebrates Brown’s ongoing source of inspiration - the natural world and its properties. Whether on a traditional stage or an outdoor public space, Brown’s dances always achieved vastness and atmosphere that extended well past center stage and the moving body. Fluidity, chaos, pressure, gravity, and the organic are always considered in the choreography, sound and set design. By bringing these dances to the beach, the amalgamation of the natural world, these elements become active collaborators of the work.

The evening before, on Friday, August 19, 2022 at 7:30pm at the Arverne Cinema, Beach Sessions is partnering with the Rockaway Film Festival to present the historic experimental opera Einstein on the Beach, a 4hr30min production originally created in 1976 by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass. The non-narrative opera moves through the span of Einstein’s life, from steam engines to space travel, and breaks all the theatrical rules of opera through with its repetitive motives and rhythmic structures.

These iconic works and instrumental voices illustrate the expansive capacity a landscape can provide, uplifting the beach as an allegorical and fundamental frame heightening the sensory experience. These works interpret the vastness of the beach through time, space and movement, reminding us there is no greater stage than the world around us.

This season’s programming continues to support Beach Sessions’ commitment to presenting free public performances in the Rockaways, and offering beachgoers and Rockaway locals a unique cultural experience at the City’s popular summertime retreat. Both programs are free and open to the public. Audiences are invited to come in and out as they please.

Beach Sessions Dance Series is curated and organized by Sasha Okshteyn. This program is funded by the 7G Foundation and Rauschenberg Foundation with in-kind support from The Rockaway Hotel and NYC Ferry.

Trisha Brown: In Plain Site
Leaning Duets II (1971)
Figure 8 (1974)
Group Primary Accumulation (1973)
Scallops (1973)
Leaning Duets I (1970)
Spanish Dance (1973) Music: “Early Morning Rain”, written by Gordon Lightfoot and performed by Bob Dylan
Solo Olos (1976)
Accumulation (1971) Music: Grateful Dead, Uncle John’s Band
Opal Loop (1980)

*Program order and content subject to change

Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer: Trisha Brown
Associate Artistic Director: Carolyn Lucas

Dancers
Christian Allen
Cecily Campbell
Leah Ives
Amanda Kmett’Pendry
Patrick McGrath
Jennifer Payán
Hsiao-Jou Tang
Spencer Weidie

Barbara Dufty, Executive Director
Anne Dechêne, Programming Director
Angelina Pellini, Production Stage Manager

www.trishabrowncompany.org

The Trisha Brown Dance Company is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Major support of the Trisha Brown Dance Company provided by the Imperfect Family Foundation. Additional funding provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Rolex Institute, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Hyde & Watson Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Hampton Family Foundation of Oregon Community Foundation, and Pathways Projects Institute. TBDC also extends special thanks to Trisha Brown Company Board Chair Dorothy Lichtenstein, The Trisha Brown Company Board of Trustees, and the Company’s Individual Donors.

REPOSE

August 29, 2021

Performers: Toni Carlson, Maggie Cloud, Marc Crousillat, Brittany Engel-Adams, Moriah Evans, Daria Faïn, Lizzie Feidelson, Melanie Greene, Iréne Hultman, John Hoobyar, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Burr Johnson, Niall Jones, Sarah Beth Percival, jess pretty, Antonio Ramos, Alex Rodabaugh, Carlo Villanueva, Anh Vo, Kota Yamazaki, Andros Zins-Browne
Music: David Watson (composition, live sound & bagpipes) with Sam Kulik (tuba) and Ian Douglas-Moore (live sound)
Dramaturgy: Josh Lubin Levy
Choreographic Assistance and Studio Management: Lydia Okrent
Costumes: The Bureau for the Future of Choreography and Amber Evans
Curation and Production: Sasha Okshteyn

On Sunday, August 29th from 1pm-7pm, Evans’s REPOSE travels the 1.4 mile shoreline between Beach 86th Street and Beach 110th Street. REPOSE borrows from the social and physical choreographies inherent to the beach—from the sun-bathing bodies lying in repose, to the posturing of the self in forms of commercialized leisure sanctioned by the Parks Department that police and maintain the shoreline. By mirroring these actions, REPOSE both imposes on, and blends into, the beach’s elemental composition, landscape, and communities. As the work travels with an evolving cohort of 21 (or more!) dancers, the public is invited, wittingly and unwittingly, to participate. Various instructions and scores for participation will be released online and in print prior to and available on August 29th. At 6pm at Beach 110th Street, experimental musician/composer David Watson will create a new composition activating the beach through sound including live performance and processed field recordings. The beach-as-stage that REPOSE has made use of throughout the day will conclude with a sonic sunset.

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Kayla Farrish
Let it Out

This phrase carries the space, weight, memory, sensation, and bursts I feel, and is felt as we're fighting for social justice and humanity. #BlackLivesMatter.

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Gillian Walsh
LONELINESS

Learn any 10-15 seconds of this Britney video slowed down to 1 minute (or more.) Take a moment to slow your breath before you begin. Close your eyes and feel your interior processes as you move slowly. If you’re at the beach, your feet should be in the wet sand or shallow water. Feel the largeness of the sky, the largeness of the ocean, the ground beneath you. Feel your heart, and start to feel the relationship between your interior world and the outside world, the natural world. Expand into the cosmic holding field. Take your time. Feel the temperature and texture of the air on your skin, feel your eyeballs heavy, brain heavy, pelvis heavy, your feet are open portals. There can potentially be a sense of stillness here. Dance from the stillness if you feel it ; )

Britney is under a legal conservatorship and has no rights. She often appears on social media dancing and modeling from home with the disturbing appearance of complete incoherence. Many say she is heavily medicated against her will, so that her handlers can control her more easily. She cannot do anything without written permission including driving, shopping, dating, or anything concerning her daily life, children or career. She is exploited and her money is not her own. She does not have custody of her children. Britney has always loved to dance. She’s one of the most iconic dancers of her generation. #freebritney #dancetorture

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Katrina Reid
A Full Moon Release Score

Created by @kattyrealness
Filmed by @paul.notice at Coney Island
Song: Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Moriah Evans
Dance Hard to Propose Bodies that Function as Direct Threats to the Social Drama of Comprehensibility!

Fourteen directional steps move through space with a basic step together action.

The sequence happens repeatedly in four quadrants: front right; front left; back right; back left.

Learn the sequence alone or do it with a partner.

Mirror or oppose the quadrants into various combinations.

Do it and Undo it!

Feet: Moriah Evans and Maggie Cloud
Text & Voice: Moriah Evans

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Jack Ferver
beach, 2020

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Gerard & Kelly
Clock Score

This practice requires a bit of space. Create twelve movements, each movement corresponding to the number and the position on the face of a clock: 12 is directly in front of you, 6 is behind you, etc. The movement for each of the twelve numbers should respond to what that number feels like to you. What does 12 feel like to you? How can you embody that sensation?

Use an oscillating movement somewhere in your body to establish a consistent rhythm, like a metronome. The time measure for your clock might be a 4-count that oscillates in the hips. Each clock has its own measure, or time signature.

Of the twelve movements, include at least one movement that interacts with the floor, and one that is in the air. One movement should take two measures (8 counts if your measure is a 4-count). At least one movement should use your body like a percussive instrument (snaps, slaps, taps, etc.) to further articulate the rhythm. Do not include more than one movement that you can name (for example, within the lexicon of ballet). Include one movement that is not a dance.

Now take ten minutes to build your clock, using your body to research and repeat the gestures that correspond to each hour of the day. Remember there is no right or wrong with your clock movements. Trust your feelings. It is not necessary to build your clock in chronological order; if you have trouble finding a gesture for a number, skip it and come back to it later. You might not get to all twelve movements in the first ten minutes. That’s fine, set another timer and continue.

The Clock is a way to keep time using your entire body, all of your senses, and your memory.

Learn and re-post!

As a response to the isolating pandemic and inspired by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s instructional project “Do It (Home),” Beach Sessions has invited choreographers to create original movement scores to be learned and replicated on a social media platform made popular by viral dance challenges. While we all can’t get to a beach and experience public live performance, this summer’s program encourages the viewer to get outside where they can, learn a phrase, and repost on their personal TikTok profile, performing virtually on a stage in front of millions.

Loni Landon
(IBFS) INTERNET BEST FRIENDS

This phrase is performed with my niece Juliet and nephew Remy, and inspired by their obsession and speed of learning the intricate choreography of KPOP and TikTok gestures. I spent the last two days learning the vocabulary of Gen Z, while they picked up this phrase in only 7 minutes.

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19
EPHRAT ASHERIE
HOUSE

This class will introduce students to several foundational elements of house dance, including footwork ideas and the importance of a freestyle approach to the style. The cultural context in which this dance was created and where it continues to thrive will be underscored and celebrated. Be ready to sweat and put in the best kind of werk! All ages and experience levels welcome!

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20
OMRI DRUMLEVICH
GAGA/PEOPLE

Gaga/people classes offer a framework for users to connect to their bodies and imaginations, experience physical sensations, improve their flexibility and stamina, exercise their agility and explosive power, and enjoy the pleasure of movement in a welcoming, accepting atmosphere.Throughout the class, participants are guided by a series of evocative instructions deployed to increase awareness of and further amplify sensation. Rather than turning from one prompt to another, information is layered, building into a multisensory, physically challenging experience. While many instructions are imbued with rich imagery, the research of Gaga is fundamentally physical, insisting on a specific process of embodiment. Inside this shared research, the improvisational nature of the exploration enables each participant’s deeply personal connection with Gaga.

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22
BIBA BELL
INNER SURF OUTER TURF

From the pier to the sand to the sea, this playful, physically experimental class will transform in the movement across surfaces, textures, bodies, and beach zones. Opening up the body, celebrating the day, having fun with each other, this class will groove with moments of solo exploration, group experience, sonic vibrations, and sensorial play. We’ll find warm our bodies and commune on the pier, launch off and get lost in the sand, cool down and flow with the waves. Come, let’s move together - get sweaty, sandy and salty!

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20
DANCE CHURCH
GUIDED FITNESS

Dance Church is an all-abilities movement class that offers a fun and inclusive approach to dancing. Designed for people of all shapes and sizes, backgrounds and identities, Dance Church is a communal space for people who want to move their bodies. The teacher leads this 90-minute class in a series of movement cues, accompanied by a curated playlist of multi-genre pop music. The format is open but guided throughout.

Wear clothes you can sweat in. Most people go barefoot or wear socks. Get lost dancing and sweat (a lot) together—it’s the dance party you wish you had last night.

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21
KARMA STYLZ
VOGUE ESSENTIALS

Learn the Essentials! Learn How to vogue! Step-By -Step in a Fun and Easy to Follow Voguing Class Taught by Choreographer Karma Stylz, from Pose!

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21
CORI KREGE
ACCESSING ZERO

A non-binary, physically charged, existential experience of the digital binary system made of 1’s and 0’s. An animated meditation on the polarity of 1 and 0/everything and nothing.

This class will playfully incorporate ancient Buddhist wisdom, Zero Balancing energy work, ecstatic dance, and meditative stillness, in search for the tangible meaning of Zero. Accompanied by live music.

For its fifth season, the series is changing up the format and hosting daily dance classes of diverse styles, open to the public and taught by new artists who have a teaching practice and artists that have previously presented at Beach Sessions.

Teaching artists include Loni Landon, Cori Kresge, Karma Stylz, Ephrat Asherie, Omri Drumlevich, Dance Church and Biba Bell.

Location: Low Tide Bar, Beach 97th St Concession on the boardwalk.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19
LONI LANDON
CONTEMPORARY

This class produces very visceral movement, challenging the body to push for new ideas in both mental and physical approaches. The class will incorporate improvisation, imagery and investigation of the dancer's own natural way of moving.

For AUNTS @ Rockaway, a collection of over a dozen artists organized by AUNTS will transform the neighborhood and take over three diverse locations - the beach, the boardwalk, and Rockaway’s architectural marvel, The Castle - for a two-day performance with multiple performers, open dance parties, multidisciplinary, body/non-body based, time orientated, finished/experimental/process art. Audiences will be able to join, follow, wander and experience as many as or as few performances as they choose, creating their own experiences through chance encounters.

5:00 pm: Biba Bell, Hustle on the Sand | On the sand at B110 Street
5:30 pm: AUNTS Procession | B110 Street to The Castle
6:00 pm: Evening Performances at The Castle | B117 Street and Newport Avenue

Featuring Artists:
Stephanie Acosta
Chris Braz
Justin Cabrillos
Jessica Cook
Tess Dworman
Lisa Fagan
Wojciech Gilewicz
Lily Gold + mary read
Jasmine Hearn
Zavé Martohardjono + J Dellecave
Katrina Reid
Karl Scholz
Tatyana Tenenbaum
Hilary Brown | HB² PROJECTS + Kristina Hay (Dance) with Lamy Istrefi Jr. (Music)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26:
FLIP IT AND REVERSE IT

2:00 pm: Afternoon Performances at The Castle | B117 Street and Newport Avenue (Same program as 8/25)

4:00 pm: AUNTS Procession | The Castle to B110 Street

4:30 pm: Biba Bell, Hustle on the Sand | On the sand at B110 Street

About AUNTS
AUNTS is about having dance happen. The dance you’ve already seen, that pops into your head, that is known and expected and unknown and unexpected. Dance that seeps into the cracks of street lights, subway commotion, magazine myth, drunk nights at the bar, the family album, and the couch where you lay and softly glance at the afternoon light coming in through the window. AUNTS constantly tests a model of producing dance/performance/parties. A model that supports the development of current, present, and contemporary dancing. A model that expects to be adopted, adapted, replicated, and perpetuated by any person who would like to use it. Where performing can last five seconds or five hours; never a “work in progress.” Where the work of performing is backed by the “land of plenty” rather than “there is not enough.” Where the work of AUNTS defies the regulation of institution, capitalism, and consumerism. AUNTS is about being gracious in this world. http://auntsisdance.com/

BIBA BELL
HUSTLE ON THE SAND

Employing old, new, and imagined versions of the hustle, a popular line dance in Detroit, with its rhythmic patterns and focus on personal style, Hustle on the Sand brings together a group of performers who seek a world-making machine through social dancing.

Performed by Biba Bell, Christopher Braz, Jessie Gold, Jordan Holland, Sam Horning, and Joey Kip

About the Artist:
Biba Bell (b. 1976, Sebastopol) is a writer, dancer, and choreographer based in Detroit. Her performance work has been shown in France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Canada, and across the U.S. She was a Kresge Arts in Detroit Live Arts Fellow and a DAAD guest professor of Experimental Performance in Germany, and is currently an Assistant Professor in Dance at Wayne State University. Her research interests include contemporary choreography, site-specificity, domesticity, artistic labor, intersections between dance and architecture, the performance of home, and dance in visual art contexts.

Saturday, August 26, 2017
ARENA

Arena is a new performance by Madeline Hollander composed of a series of duets featuring beach rake trucks and six dancers. The work presents a choreographic study of dissipative structures and autopoiesis, as well a homage to the contradictions inherent in the documentation of ephemeral art forms. The beach rakes clear pathways that become the stage for the dancers, whose movement patterns are recorded through their tracks in the newly combed sand. The first half of the performance presents dancers following in the wake of the trucks, leaving a legible trail of notation in the sand. The second half presents the reverse - the trucks follow close behind the dancers, erasing all footprints and traces of movement, or existence, as they go. This is repeated ad infinitum until the sun goes down.

Saturday, August 19, 2017
AT NIGHT

A meditation on nature. A duet made in darkness. Dumb luck. Flood insurance. Two solo artists, Jodi Melnick and Jon Kinzel, with decades devoted to defining their own practices, come together to perform At Night in the light of the day. The volatility of the beach will fortify – and disrupt – this collaboration.

Conceived of and performed by Jodi Melnick and Jon Kinzel

Music: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and Jon Kinzel

Decor: Jon Kinzel

Costumes: Jodi Melnick and Jon Kinzel

About the Artists:

Jodi Melnick is a New York-born choreographer and dancer, based in New York, NY. Her work stems from the continual act of creating through a movement based practice. Her performances include Ravel (solo wth musician Kate Davis) Vail International Dance Festival, Vail, CO; Grace Notes, Miller Theater, Columbia University, New York, NY (2015); Fits and Starts (in collaboration with Rashaun Mitchell, Sara Mearns and Sterling Hyltin); Danspace Platforms, New York, NY (2015); Moment Marigold (trio), Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn, NY (2014); Solo, Deluxe Version (quartet), New York Live Arts (NYLA), New York, NY, New York City Center, New York, NY, and The Joyce Theater, New York, NY (2012); and One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures (solo – choreography in collaboration with Trisha Brown), New York Live Arts (NYLA), New York, NY (2012).

Melnick’s residencies and awards include Guggenheim Works in Progress, Guggenheim Museum (2016), Doris Duke Impact Award (2014), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012), a Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant (2010-2011), and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2011). She has been honored with two New York Dance and Performance (Bessies) Awards for sustained achievement in dance (2008, 2001). Melnick received a B.F.A. in Dance from S.U.N.Y Purchase.

Jon Kinzel is a choreographer, multimedia artist, and improviser. He has presented his work, including numerous commissions and solo shows, at a variety of national and international venues: receiving critical praise for his large scale gallery installation Atlantic Terminus (2016) at The Invisible Dog, Responsible Ballet and What We Need Is a Bench to Put Books On (2010) at The Kitchen, Someone Once Called Me A Sound Man (2013) at The Chocolate Factory - Best of 2013 ARTFORUM, COWHAND CON MAN (2015) at Gibney Dance: The Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, and Provision Provision (2015) at La MaMa. He has received support from foundations, fellowships, and residency programs, opportunities to mentor and curate, worked with many influential choreographers, composers, designers, and artists, and been featured in publications such as SCHIZM and the MR Performance Journal. He has taught at Barnard, Yale, GWU, LIU, Tsekh Moscow, Dance House Ireland, Gibney Dance, and the Merce Cunningham Trust. Currently, he is a faculty member at LCE, NYU, and Movement Research.

Saturday, August 19, 2017
FUN YOUNG GOD

Fun Young God tackles the phenomenology of the American rock/pop star as well as various global practices of worship. As a spectacle, two performers have been tasked with studying and exactly reproducing the movements of multiple rock and pop legends, while attempting to channel their own divine/charismatic powers. Through mimicry and infusion the movements of Mick Jagger, Beyonce and others becomes inherently ours; reabsorbed into our collective and individual psyches. Fun Young God is an anthem, a ritual, a placebo, a conjuring, a clinical study, and a blatant exploitation of society's obsession with fun, youth, and holiness. These themes are closely linked by their shared intersections of rigor, danger, innocence, delusion, and splendor.

As a comment on the intangibility of celebrity and faith, this work is presented anonymously.

Performers:

Pierre Guilbault was raised in Vancouver and moved to New York in 2012 after graduating from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a bachelor of fine arts degree in dance. He has a background in ballet and contemporary dance, and has studied film and theater acting in the past. Mr. Guilbault has done extensive work in and around the Merce Cunningham workshops at Westbeth and New York City Center. He is currently working on projects with Ellen Cornfield, Liz Gerring, and Jody Oberfelder.

Cori Kresge is a NYC based dance artist. She has a BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase and the Dean’s Award for “breaking the mold”. In 2005 Kresge received a Darmasiswa International Scholarship, studying Balinese dance in Indonesia. She has been a member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, José Navas/Compagnie Flak, and Stephen Petronio Company. She currently freelances and collaborates with various artists including Esme Boyce, Bill Young, Sarah Skaggs, Ellen Cornfield, Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener, Rebecca Lazier, Wendy Osserman, multi-media artists Liz Magic Laser, Xavier Cha, and film maker Zuzka Kurtz.

Saturday, August 27, 2016
HORIZON EVENT NO. 4

Choreography: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener

Performers: David Botana, Cori Kresge, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener

Costumes: Julia Donaldson

Horizon Event No. 4 is a seance to the elements set against the backdrop of Rockaway Beach. A series of excerpted dances culled from previous choreographies will be reimagined and intertwined with new material. We look back to move forward.

Saturday, August 27, 2016
PARAMODERNITIES #3 Black Modernism, 2016

Choreography: Netta Yerushalmy

Dancers: Jesse Zaritt, Shamar Watt, Netta Yerushalmy

Netta Yerushalmy, a Guggenheim and NYFA fellow, will be presenting an installment from her new project PARAMODERNITIES #3 Black Modernism. As part of a larger project that uses iconic choreographies in order to activate thought around larger issues within Modernist discourses, Yerushalmy presents an excerpt (re-configured for Beach Sessions) from a collaboration with scholar Tommy DeFrantz and dancers Jesse Zaritt and Shamar Watt, which considers and de/re-creates Alvin Ailey’s iconic work from 1960 Revelations. Paramodernities is supported by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Watermill Center, Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreography Lab, Movement Research, and LMCC’s 2016-17 Extended Life program.

Sunday, August 21, 2016
THE MINERALOGY OF OBJECTS, 2015

Created by Laurie Berg in collaboration with Jodi Bender, Bessie McDonough-Thayer and Jillian Sweeney

Original Sound by Karl Scholz

Laurie Berg brings her latest work, The Mineralogy of Objects, out of the theater and onto the beach! Translating Variétés de Minéralogie Object (1939), a shadow box by artist Joseph Cornell, into a collective, kinetic exercise, The Mineralogy of Objects finds inspiration in Cornell’s repetition and transformation of a female silhouette. Berg works with her collection of objects and props, and the driving, visceral effects of a baseline beat, to create a space that is both highly structured and simultaneously fantastical. Created by Laurie Berg in collaboration with Jodi Bender, Bessie McDonough-Thayer and Jillian Sweeney. Original Sound by Karl Scholz. The Mineralogy of Objects premiered at Danspace Project in 2015.

Saturday, August 20, 2016
REPERCUSSION, 2015

Choreographer: Kora Radella

Movement Invention: Matty Davis and Kora Radella with further creative input from Adrian Galvin and Greg Saunier

Dancers: Matty Davis and Adrian Galvin

Drummer: Greg Saunier

Singer: Adrian Galvin

Text for song: Lewis Hyde

Dramaturgy: Will Arbery

Costumes: threeASFOUR

BOOMERANG brings their latest work, Repercussion, a percussively visceral and psychologically dynamic work that explores “active forgetting” based on new writing by MacArthur Fellow and cultural critic Lewis Hyde. Repercussion was made in collaboration with Greg Saunier, drummer and founding member of the internationally-acclaimed band Deerhoof, and the costumes were created by threeASFOUR, recipients of the 2015 Cooper-Hewitt/Smithsonian Museum’s National Design Award. Repercussion was originally commissioned by Dixon Place for a March 2016 premiere in New York City and was subsequently premiered in Paris, France at the Arts Arena at the invitation of Robert Wilson.

DOUBLING (EXCERPTS)

Choreography: Loni Landon

Dancers: Eloise DeLuca, David Flores, Jon Ole Olstad, and Caitlin Taylor

For its third session, Beach Sessions is excited to premiere new work from Loni Landon Dance Project's DOUBLING, a dance that explores themes of identity and multiple personas. The piece is inspired by a sculpture that is an assemblage of thousands of clippings between layers of glass revealing a single body with two disparate heads. This notion of one person with many heads translates literally and figuratively into the movement of this work, as Loni challenges her dancers in both their mental and physical approaches.

Described by the New York Times as "a revelation, full of detail and surprises," Loni's sophisticated choreography draws you in and doesn't let go. The strength and articulation that she brings out of her dancers initiates a powerful dialogue that keeps you on your toes and watching for the next gesture.

DOUBLING was developed with the support of a 2014 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency at LaGuardia Community College and Inception to Exhibition 2013 Space Grant.

REGGIE GRAY AND FLEXN

Concept by Reggie Gray

The foundation of FLEX is the bruk-up, which came out of Jamaican dancehall in the early 90s. Bruk-up means "broke up", and that means moving your body in all types of awkward ways, even the faces that we make. We dance from a place of the soul; it's emotion-based. It can be graceful, it can be aggressive, it can be anything the dancer wants it to be. Flexing has different styles, like connecting, pausing, gliding, getting low, bone-breaking. But flexing is more than just a dance, it's a culture. The way we talk, the way we speak, the way we dress. - Reggie Gray

LASCIATEMI QUI SOLO

Choreography: Emery LeCrone

Dancer: Kimi Nikaidoh

RITONARE

Choreography: Emery LeCrone

Dancers: Shane Ohmer & Izabela Szylinska

At Beach Sessions this Saturday, rising choreographer Emery LeCrone will give us two mesmerizing sneak-peaks of her upcoming Joyce Theatre program, Lasciatemi Qui Solo and Ritonare, with her dancers Kimi Nikadok, Shane Ohmer, and Izabela Szylinska. Stay after the performance to learn about Emery's process and a Q + A .

For her Joyce debut on August 13-14, the choreographer, who has been described by New York Magazine as "an entrepreneurial choreographic mind and troupe of the future," and whose work has been coined by The New Yorker as "ambitious...expansive, and dynamic," will present a program of past repertory and new works. Beach Sessions is excited to host her previews. Come see it first hand on the sand!

pre-show VIM VIGOR instant creation
Dancer: Shannon Gillen

HORIZON HIGH

Choreography: Shannon Gillen

Dancers: Jason Cianciulli and Lavinia Vago

post show VIM VIGOR instant creation
Dancers: Shannon Gillen, Jason Cianciulli, and Lavinia Vago

The enigmatic mover and insatiable creator Shannon Gillen brings her innovative language, heightened imagination and cinematic imagery to the beach, with the debut of "Horizon High." The piece explores how different the brain operates when exposed to the intoxicating heat one can't escape on the beach. It references the sense of isolation and the internal thought process - that blinding clarity - that occurs when you sit on the beach, blanketed by the sun. Horizon High showcases the seduction of inner life and the disrupting of that space with the interference of another person.

Shannon Gillen is the founder, artistic director and choreographer of New York's visionary new dance company VIM VIGOR, which is currently being launched. In a 2013 Brooklyn Magazine article that named her as one of city's top twenty artists, Gillen was championed for her 'emotionally compelling' work that 'transcends the things it references and achieves a sort of platonic ideal of intelligent and elevated movement'. And L Magazine later wrote that Gillen's dancers 'force you to the edge of your seat, breath held, hands clenched.'