The depth of winter is a fertile time for creative endeavors, a quiet time when artists can explore the interior depth of their work and how best to bring it out to the world.
But to have that freedom, artists need funding and space to create, which is why Works & Process at the Guggenheim is partnering this winter with three South Fork venues that will provide creative residencies and public performances at the inaugural “Dance Out East” festival Jan. 9 through 11.
Pictured Above: Music from the Sole | Elyse Mertz photo
Works & Process, a New York-based performing arts organization without a bricks & mortar location, partners with 15 venues and residency spaces in four states in the Northeast.
The organization is committed to giving artists the funding they need to focus on their creative work, offering $1,050-per-week stipends for the length of the residency, says Duke Dang, Executive Director of Works & Process.
“We want to make sure artists are more comprehensively supported,” he said in a late December interview with The Beacon. “We’re invested in amplifying the process.”
After the residencies on the East End, the dancers and choreographers will take their pieces to Works & Process’s Underground Uptown Dance Festival at the Guggenheim Museum Jan. 12, timed to coincide with the annual Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference held in New York in January.
Dance Out East will comprise three performances by three groups of dancers and choreographers on the weekend of Jan. 9 through Jan. 11, at The Church in Sag Harbor, Guild Hall in East Hampton and the Watermill Center in Water Mill.
Emily Coates’ “The Scatterings” | Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art photo
The weekend kicks off with “The Scatterings,” Emily Coates’ exploration of famed choreographer George Balanchine’s influence beyond New York City, on Thursday evening, Jan. 9 at 6 p.m. at The Church.
While Balanchine is not known to have spent much time in Sag Harbor, he is buried there, in Oakland Cemetery. His New York Times obituary stated he’d had lunch there once and said it reminded him of the South of France.
The Church, a former Methodist Church re-envisioned as a place to nurture artists, devotes a panel of its stained glass windows, depicting “The Saints of Sag Harbor,” to Mr. Balanchine.
“The Scatterings” began with research Ms. Coates did at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn., which had sponsored Balanchine’s immigration from Russia in 1933 and is home to an archive of much of his early work in America before he founded the New York City Ballet.
“My project takes up the afterlife of Balanchine through recomposing bits and traces of overlooked archival materials discovered in boxes and in dancers’ bodies,” said Ms. Coates. “I want to highlight voices that fall outside the center held by the ballets themselves and New York City Ballet — which was my first home as a dancer. The choreographer’s legacy is strewn globally. Traveling all over the world for research isn’t feasible, so instead, I decided the material for the performance would come from different reservoirs in New England and in New York. Each buried detail sends me off in a new direction. This itinerant movement of the research and making is part of the choreography, and the poetics of the piece.”
The festival moves on Friday, Jan. 10 at 7 p.m. to the newly renovated theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, where Music From the Sole, a tap dance company that incorporates live music and body percussion into its work, will present a new piece commissioned by Works & Process, with the working title “House is Open, Going Dark.”
This is the second piece Works & Process has commissioned from Music From the Soul, which had formerly taken part in a residency at Guild Hall in 2020, during the theater renovations, and had performed in off-site venues including the Children’s Museum of the East End.
Mr. Dang said Guild Hall Directer of Learning + New Works Anthony Madonna loves Music From the Soul and has been instrumental in offering them the space to create works that are now touring.
The group’s co-founders — composer and bassist Gregory Richardson and Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval — draw from Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house, rock, and Afro-Cuban styles.
Marie Basse Wiles |. John Dodge photo
The weekend culminates on Saturday, Jan. 11 at 2 p.m. with “Djapo,” a piece by the mother and son team of Marie Basse Wiles and Omari Wiles.
Omari Wiles has had great success this past year with his work on “CATS: The Jellicle Ball.”
“Omari was born into a family of dancers and drummers —his mother is drumming royalty,” said Mr. Dang, adding that Marie Basse Wiles has been working for 36 years with the under-resourced African Dance School in Brooklyn.
She “has trained generations of renown artists whose impact continues to resonate the world over, including tours to Senegal, Mali, Gambia, and Guinea,” according to Works & Process.
“Djapo” is a multi-generational project that explores the interplay of traditional African music and instruments and contemporary club music — Omari Wiles has created his own genre, AfrikFusion, informed by Afro Club Culture, Vogue, and West African dance. DJ Chaos will incorporate his work into the expansive performance at the Watermill Center.
“It’s what we do together that makes a difference,” said Mr. Dang. “This is so much about community and collaboration.”
“You have to be open to experimenting,” said Ms. Coates of her work. “We know it when a particular layering is a “something” — changing the energy in the room. The audience is invited into our process of sleuthing and discovery. I hope they take away an interest in archives, and the sublime! I hope it makes people curious about transmission, collaboration, and the mysteries of the creative process.”
Find out more about the festival at danceouteast.org.
—BHY
