Press Release:
Outer/Space Creative Residency Artists Announced

Dance Theater Workshop Awards
Ten Creative Residency Grants

New York, NY, September 15 - As part of its Outer/Space Program, Dance Theater Workshop announced today that it has awarded creative residency grants to ten choreographers. The artists selected for the 2009-2010 Outer/Space Creative Residency Program are: Daniel Charon; Elena Demyanenko; Nancy Garcia; Sam Kim; Annie Kloppenberg; Juliana F. May; Stochastic Ensemble (Margaret Paek); Peter Sciscioli; Mary Sullivan (Dance Theater Workshop Van Lier Fellow); and Tara Aisha Willis (Dance Theater Workshop Van Lier Fellow).

Each choreographer will receive 100 hours of free rehearsal space at their host studio as well as a stipend during a six-month period.  In addition, the artists participate in professional development workshops and Dialogue sessions led by Alejandra Martorell, which provide a unique opportunity for the grantees to come together to discuss creative process, exchange ideas, and examine trends with a group of peers. Creative Residency artists and advisors are selected by a panel comprised of Dance Theater Workshop staff and representatives from the host studios.

The studios selected for the 2009-2010 Outer/Space Creative Residency Grants include Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Park Slope, Brooklyn); Cave Organization (Williamsburg, Brooklyn); BRAZIL (Bushwick, Brooklyn); Green Space (Long Island City, Queens); and TOPAZ ARTS (Woodside, Queens). Each of these studios received funding to host the Outer/Space creative residency artists.

In addition to the Creative Residency components, Union St. Dance (Park Slope, Brooklyn); Spoke the Hub (Park Slope, Brooklyn); Chez Bushwick (Bushwick, Brooklyn); Dancewave (Park Slope, Brooklyn); Triskelion Arts (Williamsburg, Brooklyn); Green Space (Long Island City, Queens); and Topaz Arts (Woodside, Queens) received grants through the Rehearsal Subsidy Program.  Studios that receive funding in this category will offer 1000 hours of subsidized rehearsal space to the greater dance community at the rate of $10/hour or less throughout the 2009-2010 calendar year.

About the Creative Residency Artists

Daniel Charon has been a continual voice in the New York City dance scene, creating and presenting his own choreography since 1995. His work has been shown at many venues and as part of various festivals. He has presented two full evening concerts at Joyce SoHo and has been commissioned to choreograph new work for numerous dance companies. Daniel recently received a Choreographers’ Project Fellowship from Summerstages Dance Festival. As a dancer, Daniel was a full-time member of Doug Varone and Dancers from 1999-2009 where he served as dancer and rehearsal director and before that danced with the Limón Dance Company for three years. He has also guested with several other dance, opera, and theatre companies. Daniel teaches regularly at various studios in NYC and has staged the works of José Limón, and Jirí Kylián and continues to stage the works of Doug Varone at various schools and companies. Daniel is from Moorhead, MN and holds a BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Elena Demyanenko is a Russian-born graduate of the Academy of Theatrical Arts (Moscow) and has been dancing and choreographing in New York City since 2001. Elena was a member of Stephen Petronio Company from 2003-2008. Among the performances with the company, she has appeared at the Dance Umbrella Festival (London), The Joyce Theater (NYC), San Francisco Performances, UCLA Live!, New Art New Mexico, UC Santa Barbara, and the Dublin International Dance Festival. Elena is currently making dances with Pavel Zustiak, Kota Yamazaki, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, and Jimena Paz as well as developing her own projects. Her choreography has been presented at various downtown venues including BRIC, Wow Theater, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance New Amsterdam and Dixon Place. In 2009 she was involved in Martha Clarke’s production of “Garden of Earthly Delights” at Minetta Lane Theater. Elena has taught internationally at many festivals and frequently in NYC schools including Dance New Amsterdam, Harkness Center for Dance, and Baryshnikov Arts Center. For the past few years Elena has worked simultaneously on dance films. In 2007 she was the recipient of EMPAC Dance Movies Commission as well as being nominated for the 2009 Dance on Camera Jury Prize for her work on Kino Eye. Her second dance film Vienna was screened on the opening of the New Galapagos Art Space in 2008. In April 2009 Elena accepted an invitation to join Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Nancy Garcia is a New York based choreographer/musician/artist. Currently, she’s developing a newly commissioned work, I need more, to premiere at The Kitchen on November 5th - 7th, 2009. Incorporating live music and video, the performance coincides with the release of Garcia’s solo album, Be the Climb, composed specifically to be integrated into the dance and vice versa. The album will be released on Thurston Moore’s record label Ecstatic Peace. Offering the possibility of experiencing one, overarching choreography through both forms, the project includes set design by Xavier Cha and lighting design by Joe Levasseur. Born into a Cuban family and raised in Miami, FL, Garcia started making dances and music in 1998. After attending New World School of the Arts as a Dance major and receiving her BA in English from Florida International University, she moved to New York to study at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio where she studied as a Merit Scholarship student within the Professional Training program. In 2008, she received a Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications program within New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Over the past decade, her work has been shown at several venues throughout the US and abroad in Japan and the United Kingdom, including Greene Naftali gallery, D’Amelio Terras gallery, KS Art gallery, The Cooler (RIP), Tonic (RIP), New Langton Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Live Sh*t at The Chocolate Factory, Movement Research Festival, and Dixon Place. She has also been featured in festivals such as All Tomorrow’s Parties and No Fun Fest, and recorded and performed for several years with her band Monotract. As a teaching artist, she has been a member of the Visiting Artist Faculty at the MFA Department at Parsons the New School for Design and of the Movement Research Festival Faculty. For more information, www.nancygarcia.org.

Sam Kim makes dances that focus on the margins of culture and behavior, creating space for vulnerability while courting danger.  Since 2002, Sam has created dumb dumb bunny (The Kitchen, 2007), Cult (Dance Theater Workshop, 2007), AVATAR (Mulberry St Theater, 2006), Nobody Understands Me (Dance Theater Workshop, 2004), Placid Baby (Performance Space 122, 2003) and Valentine (Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, 2002).  She recently premiered her latest evening-length work, Darling, at Performance Space 122 this past June.  Darling will tour to Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis this October.  Sam has also created several shorter works since 1997. Sam’s work has been presented and commissioned by venues such as The Kitchen, Performance Space 122, Dance Theater Workshop, and Danspace Project, multiple times, in addition to other progressive venues such as Studio 303 (Montreal), the Unknown Theater (Los Angeles), the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Galapagos Art Space, Chez Bushwick and Movement Research among many others. Sam’s work has been supported by awards from organizations such as The Lucky Star Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation/Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund, the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Movement Research, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center. Sam was a 2004-05 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. She was a 2007-09 Dance Artist-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX). She currently serves as Artist Advisor to the Artist Residency program at BAX.  Sam has also served on the Artist Committee of the Board at Dance Theater Workshop since 2006 and on numerous panels for dance grants and showcases.  Sam is also a certified hatha yoga instructor and creator of Real Feedback, a workshop that gives choreographers the opportunity to engage critically with their work.  She has conducted Real Feedback at Movement Research.  This October she will conduct Real Feedback for Minneapolis choreographers organized by the Walker Art Center. Shortly after Sam’s birth in Seoul, Korea, her parents immigrated to the States, eventually settling in New Brighton, Minnesota.  When she was 17, via accident and an oracular proclamation by a ballet teacher, she began to pursue dance.  In 1991 she moved to NYC to attend Barnard College, Columbia University where she earned a B.A. in English in 1995.  Sam began making dances at 19.  She has been committed to the dance form ever since and now lives and works in Brooklyn as a choreographer and performer.

Annie Kloppenberg’s current creative, choreographic, and theoretical research hinges on improvisation. She holds an MFA from the Ohio State University and a BA from Middlebury College. She teaches and performs regularly with the Columbus-based improvisational trio, Like You Mean It. Recently, she was part of a focus group of international improvisational dance teachers and artists exploring the pedagogical implications of Synchronous Objects, a multi-disciplinary, interactive website based on William Forsythe’s One Flat Thing Reproduced, has presented papers examining spontaneity in the choreographic process at sevaral conferences, and participated in creative research for choreographer Bebe Miller’s Necessary Beauty. Upcoming projects include an evening-length site-specific piece to be created and performed in a choreographic residency in Dublin, OH and creative research in New York City, supported by Dance Theater Workshop’s Outer/Space Creative Residency program.

Juliana F. May, a New York City native, started MAYDANCE in 2002. Recently commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater (Queens, NY) to create Discrete Body Dilemma (April 2009), their newest evening length quintet, May has also been produced by other  New York City dance institutions such as The Joyce Theater, Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam, The Catch Series and Dance Theater Workshop (2005-2008). May’s work has also been featured in dance festivals throughout the United States and abroad including a commission by the International Contemporary Ensemble (I.C.E.) in Chicago, Illinois and The Repertory Project, a Cleveland-based company.  Development of new work takes place in New York City, where the company is based. This fall May will be an adjunct Professor at Barnard College as a part of The Barnard Project at DTW. May has also been the Director of the Lower School Movement program at The Trevor Day School in NYC for the past six years.

Peter Sciscioli is a project-based choreographer and performer living in Brooklyn, and the founder of Peter Sciscioli Performance Projects. Drawing from his background as a dancer, athlete, actor, singer and violinist, he creates work that combines his interest in a kinetic manifestation of dynamics (physical, interpersonal, socio-political) with the body’s ability to express itself in myriad ways. For over a decade, he has been creating dance-based works that frequently incorporate theatrical, musical and visual elements, with a wide variety of collaborators, for concert, site-specific and theater venues. Sciscioli’s work has been presented internationally in Brazil and Honduras, and nationally throughout Chicago and in Alaska, Utah and Vermont.  He has been presented in New York City at such venues as the 92^nd Street Y, Deitsch Projects, Dixon Place, The Duke on 42^nd Street, The Field’s FAR Space, The Flea, HERE, Joyce SoHo, The Kitchen, La MaMa E.T.C., Movement Research at the Judson Church and PS122. In 2005 he was one of four choreographers selected for the Bessie Schönberg Dancers and Choreographers Residency at The Yard, and in 2007 was in residence at the White Oak Plantation and a guest artist at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center. He is also a recent space grantee at BAX. Since 1996, Sciscioli has performed in dance, theater, concert music and opera settings internationally. Highlights include Mary Zimmerman/Philip Glass’s Galileo Galilei at the Goodman Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music and London’s Barbican Theater (Dance Captain); music and work by Meredith Monk at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Spoleto USA Festival, Symphony Space, the Guggenheim and the Whitney museums. Theater: Mike Taylor’s Not Dead Yet, Fiona Templeton’s The Medead. Dance: Ping Chong, DD Dorvillier, Daria Fain, Susan Marshall, Jody Oberfelder, Curt Haworth, Charles Moulton, Jane Comfort and Company (2004-present).  Sciscioli is currently working on his own choreography and with Daria Fain, as well as The M6: Meredith Monk Music Third Generation, for which he is a founding member. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Trinity/La MaMa Program.

Stochastic Ensemble Bio
We are: Charlie Mosey, Elise Knudson, Fabrice Covelli, Kayoko Nakajima, Loren Dempster, Margaret Paek, Melissa Guerrero, and Rafael Cohen. We are a diverse group, informed by many cultural environments and ethnic backgrounds.  Our ages span more than twenty years.  Some of us have been dancing together for over a decade, while others only met at our first rehearsal in September 2008. Our training is varied, and variously shared. It includes many improvisational techniques, post-modern and modern dance, performance art, site-specific installation, Susan Kline/Barbara Mahler technique, Alexander Technique, Ensemble Thinking, BMC, Laban Movement Analysis, cello and electronic music composition & improvisation, classical and Jazz music, yoga, pilates, gymnastics, hip-hop, sculpture, painting, drawing, Aikido, Capoeira, Kung Fu, massage, and physical therapy.  Between us, we have degrees and/or careers in dance, music, education, philosophy, psychology, art therapy, sculpture and painting, accounting, and design. Our teachers include Simone Forti, Kirstie Simson, Deborah Hay, Nina Martin, Daniel Lepkoff, Christina Svane, KJ Holmes, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Steve Paxton.  As educators, we have independently taught for or with Movement Research, Lower Left, Manhattanville College, Garden City Waldorf School, and Nancy Stark Smith among others. Individually, some of us work with Koosil-Ja, Risa Jaroslow, Amanda Drozier, Lower Left, Milka Djordjevich, project LIMB, Airelise, Jody Oberfelder, Merce Cunningham Co., and as solo artists.

Mary Sullivan (Dance Theater Workshop Van Lier Fellow) creates conceptual work that links her performance-rooted, technical training with her academic enlightenment. She strives to keep contemporary dance as a rigorous study of theory and practice, among analytical, critical, and speculative investigations of performance as it relates to cultural practices and social politics. She recently received a BA from Eugene Lange College - The New School for Liberal Arts with a concentration in dance. Mary has artistically worked and studied with Wally Cardona, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Rebecca Stenn, Miguel Gutierrez, Eric Jackson Bradley, and Todd Williams with Danielle Goldman as her intellectual advisor. She has been dancing with Leanne Schmidt & Company since August 2008 and looks forward to upcoming projects this fall. Her own work has been performed in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Buffalo, NY, and Durham, NC.

Tara Aisha Willis (Dance Theater Workshop Van Lier Fellow) earned her B.A. in Dance and English with a Writing concentration from Barnard College in 2009. Receiving multiple Barnard Poetry Prizes over the years, she graduated summa cum laude with departmental honors in Dance. Tara has studied with Colleen Thomas, Gerald Casel, Jodi Melnick, and Mill Young, among others at Barnard, as well as Ana Garat and Luis Garay at the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas in Buenos Aires. She did an independent study for four months at the Ailey School and participated in the Tisch Summer Dance Residency Festival in 2006 where she studied with David Dorfman Dance, Complexions, and Gina Gibney Dance, and took part in Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s Moving, Thinking, Making: Chapel/Chapter choreographic intensive in 2009. She has performed at Dance Theater Workshop and Miller Theatre in the works of Nara Chipaumire, Susan Rethorst, Stephen Petronio, Gerald Casel, Sean Curran, Ivy Baldwin, Yanira Castro, David Parker, and Zoe Scofield.

About all the Outer/Space Studios

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange is a multi-arts non-profit organization in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Since it was founded in 1991 BAX has provided a nurturing, year-round performance, rehearsal and educational venue in Brooklyn that encourages artistic risk-taking and stimulates dialogue among diverse constituencies. A neighborhood home for the arts and recognized citywide and nationally for its work “developing” artists, BAX is an advocate of cultural diversity and inventiveness.

BRAZIL was founded in 2005 by choreographer Anna Sperber. Located in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn, BRAZIL provides affordable space for choreographers, companies, and classes. Among other offerings, it is one of the homes of the new CLASS CLASS CLASS series.

CAVE is an artists’ collective, gallery-performance space and arts organization. Founded in 1996 and organized as a non-profit organization in 2004, CAVE is now one of the longest running experimental art spaces in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY.  CAVE strives to provide an explorative arena and support system for the artistic development of its resident artists by hosting studio workspace, educational workshops, exhibition and performance opportunities and assistance in the realization of projects that support risk taking in the in visual, media and performing arts.

Chez Bushwick is committed to providing outstanding resources to performing artists, fostering the development, research, and presentation of new work. Since its inception in 2002, the arts center stands as a model of economic and financial sustainability, while also demonstrating a concern for the health of its surrounding civic neighborhoods. Chez Bushwick is located in the geographical and cultural heart of Bushwick, and features a beautiful light-filled 1400 square foot studio.

Dancewave brings together a diverse community of young people through dance education and performance. Since its inception in 1995 by Diane Jacobowtiz, Artistic/Executive Director, Dancewave has created programs that are challenging and artistically substantial, and which address young people’s needs for individual achievement and

group identity. Available for both classes and studio rental, Dancewave offers 680 square feet of unobstructed space and state of the art audio and visual equipment.

Green Space was founded by Valerie Green and Dance Entropy, Inc. in November 2005 in response to the need for professional rehearsal space in the New York metropolitan area. Located in Long Island City, Green Space serves the public by offering discounted services to individual artists and dance companies in a spacious 1200 sq. foot studio. Green Space’s mission is to serve the Queens and general dance community by providing an affordable and welcoming environment for rehearsals, classes, and performances. Green Space embraces the diversity of Long Island City as strength, encouraging exchange on an artistic, educational, and interactive level.

Spoke the Hub serves as a multi-dimensional “home” for working artists of all disciplines and is located in Located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Based in the Gowanus Arts Building this space offers a 1,500 square foot studio for rehearsals and performances, and is host to a variety of classes, workshops, and festivals. Spoke the Hub’s mission is to nurture both individual and community health and happiness by providing the general public with affordable creative arts study, as well as contemplation and practice opportunities of the highest caliber.

TOPAZ ARTS is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 by artists Todd Richmond and Paz Tanjuaquio. TOPAZ ARTS fosters the creative process by providing public programs for contemporary performing and visual arts. TOPAZ ARTS produces the collaborative works of its founders and maintains a 2,500 sq. ft. multidisciplinary arts center in Woodside, NY which houses a dance rehearsal space, audio room, and gallery. Offering a creative space, technical support, residency and presentation opportunities, TOPAZ ARTS enables artists to realize their projects and the process shared with audience.

Triskelion Arts strives to protect and encourage artists’ creative process by providing them with an affordable home in which to realize their work. Since opening their doors in 2000, Triskelion has consistently offered quality, low-cost rehearsal space to the NYC dance community. Located in the heart of North Williamsburg, the studio features a sprung oak wood floor, full-length mirrors along one wall, and large westward facing windows with a striking Manhattan view.

Union Street Dance is the home of Eva Dean Dance. Since its opening in September 2000 in Park Slope, Broooklyn, the dance community has recognized Union Street Dance as a viable space to rent for rehearsals. The studio provides subsidized rehearsal space rental to over 120 dance companies annually and serves as the company’s home. Union Street Dance offers professional-level open classes on a weekly basis.  Union Street Dance is a clean and warm, artist-friendly studio.

About Outer/Space

Dance Theater Workshop’s Outer/Space program was established in 2000 in response to a shortage of affordable rehearsal and performance spaces in Manhattan, and the subsequent opening of many artist-run studios in the outer boroughs.  The program is funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Council.  Now in its ninth year, the rehearsal subsidy component provides viable and affordable rehearsal space to the greater dance community.

The Outer/Space Program supports creative development in three ways:

1) Rehearsal Subsidy for Studios - Awards ranging from $3000-3500 are distributed annually in a continued effort to assist artists who manage public studios in the outer boroughs of New York City. Grant recipients are required to offer a minimum of 1,000 hours of rehearsal time to the greater dance community at the subsidized rate of $10/hour or less.

2) Creative Residency Subsidy for Studios - Studios that receive a creative residency grant provide free studio space to artists selected by Dance Theater Workshop to participate in the Outer/Space Creative Residency program. A $2000 grant subsidizes 200 hours of studio time, which is distributed equally amongst the resident artists at each space.

3) Creative Residency for Artists - This program is focused on creative development with an emphasis on process. Artists selected to participate in a creative residency receive 100 hours of free rehearsal space and are invited to attend a series of professional development workshops and dialogue sessions.

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Dance Theater Workshop is the preeminent U.S. based center for dance and performance that maintains an uncompromising mission to identify, present, and support independent contemporary artists and companies to advance dance and live performance in New York and worldwide. Dance Theater Workshop supports innovative artists through all facets of their creative process and offers audiences the opportunity to experience and engage with artistic expression in bold and evocative ways.

Dance Theater Workshop’s 2009-2010 Season Supporters   (as of July 1, 2009)

Private support provided by: American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Ford Foundation; French United States Exchange in Dance of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Mertz Gilmore Foundation; The Greenwall Foundation; The William Randolph Hearst Foundations; The Jerome Foundation; The Lambent Foundation; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Performance Network; The New York Community Trust; New York State DanceForce; The Jerome Robbins Foundation; Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; The Scherman Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; The Trust for Mutual Understanding; and The Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund.

Corporate support provided by: Bloomberg L.P. and Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

Public support provided by the following government agencies and elected representatives: National Endowment for the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Kate D. Levin, Commissioner; Speaker Christine C. Quinn, New York City Council; New York State Council on the Arts; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; Senator Thomas K. Duane, New York State Senate.

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