Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at Dance Theater Workshop.

Mina Nishimura and Will Rawls attended the dunaPart Platform in Budapest through our international program, The Suitcase Fund!

More about The Suitcase Fund
About dunaPart - Platform of Contemporary Hungarian Performing Arts

“We have to meet the artist halfway, we have to bring something before we can take something away.” – Clive Barnes

Read this wonderful tribute to a critic who brought so much intelligence to dance, and brought dance to wider audiences.

The New York Times
Published: November 19, 2008
By: William Grimes
Anna Kisselgoff contributed reporting.

Clive Barnes in 1975

Clive Barnes, who as an influential critic in Britain and later for The New York Times helped bring dance to a broad audience with an exuberant, highly personal style and who for many years was a theater critic for The Times and then The New York Post, died early Wednesday. He was 81 and lived in Manhattan. Read the rest of this entry »

Better late then never!

Stephen Greco and Trajal Harrell discuss Quartet for The End of Time, sincerity, art, and more.
Worth a watch!

THE GOOD NEWS:
The legislature and Governor Paterson could not come to an agreement on any further mid-year cuts.

As a result, there will be no further cuts to the State Council at this time.

That is good news for those of you who had applications pending for October
and December, but please keep in mind that the state revenues are in free
fall.

TAKE CAUTION:
The upcoming budget for NYSCA will be drastically smaller.  The state budget for next year is to be released on December 16, a month earlier than usual, so getting the message to legislators now is still important.

Click here to find the names addresses and fax numbers of your Assemblymen and Senators.

Below is the letter we sent to Governor David Patterson, Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

To Whom it May Concern:

The New York State Council on the Arts provides an invaluable life-line for the diverse ecosystem of artists living and working in New York State. NYSCA’s dedication to the preservation and development of the vast cultural resources of its citizens ensures that the arts can continue to thrive, from small independent artists to large established organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Village Voice
Published: November 18, 2008
By: Deborah Jowitt

Photo: Yi-Chun Wu

Bebe Miller has been making mysterious dances since the mid 1980s. Their beauty is soul-deep. It resides in dancers’ bones, muscles, and sinews—sometimes blurry, sometimes startlingly clear. Her new Necessary Beauty probes memories—not just real memories, like those that taped voices deliver sporadically, but the process of remembering itself. Read the rest of this entry »

ADVOCACY ALERT
Friday, November 14, 2008

$7 MILLION MID-YEAR CUT TO NYSCA

Dance Theater Workshop is drafting a letter and we recommend that all New York City Artists and Companies do the same. We will post our letter here on Monday.  In the meantime here are the facts:

I.  The Governor’s Announcement

On November 11th, Governor Patterson presented a $5.2 Billion, two-year deficit reduction plan.  The Governor’s proposed budget plan saves $2 Billion in this Fiscal Year and $3.2 Billion in next year’s.  According to a press release issued by the Governor, “the $2 Billion cut for this current fiscal year will eliminate the State’s $1.5 billion current-year shortfall, protect against further declines in revenue in a volatile economic climate, and make a substantial down payment on next year’s deficit.”  Governor Patterson’s plan would provide a $548 million cushion against additional declines in revenue this current year; reduce the 2009-10 deficit from $12.5 billion to $8.8 billion and four year-budget deficit by $47 billion to $35.9 billion. Read the rest of this entry »

Metro New York
By: Elizabeth Zimmer
Published: November 14, 2008

Review. Making a dance about memory is a mine­field, but Bebe Miller’s new “Necessary Beauty” negotiates the past with characteristic élan. Six women share the stage with two large rear-projection screens and, some of the time, chairs.

Onstage at Dance Theater Workshop, video by Maya Ciarrocchi conjures a beach and a Western landscape painting in which a tiny waterfall magically tumbles down cliffs. Strains of a Purcell composition float in the atmo­sphere; snatches of Albert Mathias’s percussion score sweep in.

A lovely fog of action, image and sound carries “Necessary Beauty” through its 80 minutes. The dancers watch us as attentively as we watch them, their stillness erupting into solo and group movement sequences.

Bebe Miller Company
Through Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
Dance Theater Workshop
219 W. 19th St.
$15-$26, 212-924-0077

www.dtw.org

Layard Thompson needs your help!

Please consider taking part in a community effort to co-create an installation set for an upcoming Dance Theater Workshop performance!

Please:

1. SAVE your used disposable paper and plastic coffee and tea cups.

2. CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN your used paper and plastic cups.

3. DEPOSIT your artfully RECYCLED and CLEANED cups in the trash can made by cups in our lobby. (look for image above)

4. CONSIDER how recycling your CUPS can directly transform the objective nature of your reality by participating in a mundane art project.

5. HELP Machine and Layard build the set they aspire to create.

This project and set invites you take part in the creation of a dance by saving your waste. To Layard and Machine, your trash is treasure.

More Info about Layard’s Performances