Crossroads Series curated by Pioneers Go East Collective.
A virtual Crossroads video art series curated by Pioneers Go East Collective
RSVP at pioneersgoeast@gmail.com OR Eventbrite: pioneersgoeast.eventbrite.com
Free events & all are welcome!
Beth Graczyk and Fana Fraser: Artists in Dialogue
Artists in Dialogue - Award-winning choreographers and directors Fana Fraser and Beth Graczyk share insights into their creative practices through readings of their writing in dialogue with each other. A few writing prompts from their practices will be offered to participants to instigate new creative pathways for observing oneself and interactions of self with the world.
CROSSROADS (CROSSWINDS, CROSSCURRENTS, CROSSFIRES) Performance + art + poetry + music + dance + food + community. A curated series presented by Pioneers Go East Collective. Crossroads Series features artists who explore new genres and known performance and art-making modes to share their creative practices with other artists and their audiences. Each evening we witness different generations of artists dealing with actual, day-to-day, contemporary challenges to further discussion between artists and to activate a network of exchange and inclusion with social and artistic intervention.
Fana Fraser is an artist, performer, and director. She was born and raised in Kairi, now known as Trinidad and Tobago, and is currently living in Brooklyn on Lenape land. Her work is rooted in a contemporary Caribbean aesthetic and framed by narratives of eroticism, power, and compassion. Most recently, Fana was shortlisted for the 2020 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize. Her performances have been presented at region(es), Issue Project Room, Wassaic Project, Brooklyn Museum, The Knockdown Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, BAAD!, La MaMa Moves!, the CURRENT SESSIONS, Gibney, Trinidad Theatre Workshop, and Emerging Artists Theatre. Fana was a Movement Research Van Lier Fellow (2017), a resident artist at the inaugural MANCC Forward Dialogues Choreographic Lab (2017), a resident at the Dance & Performance Institute in Trinidad & Tobago (2016) and for Dancing Futures - a project partnership between BAAD! and Pepatián. She has served as Rehearsal Director for Ailey II. A full spectrum doula in training, Fana also works as a co-director for Pepatián and as a member of the Artist Council for The Field. As a dancer, she has worked with Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Ailey II, Sidra Bell Dance NY, The Francesca Harper Project, The Metropolitan Opera, Andrea Miller for Hermès, and with Ryan McNamara at Performa 13, Art Basel Miami, Guggenheim Works & Process, Frieze New York, and The ICA Boston. fanafraser.com
Beth Graczyk is a Brooklyn-based dance artist and scientist who aims to spark creative dialogue through performance, teaching, and contemporary dance-based projects with a focus on LGBTQIA+ and disability inclusion. Graczyk has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, France, China, and India for the past 18 years. In NYC, her solo works have been presented by Gibney, La MaMa, Judson Church, Jack, Triskelion, CPR, Movement Research, Oye Group, Kraine Theater, Chez Bushwick and through Pioneers Goes East Collective. She is commissioned to make a new dance work with Interact Theater in Minneapolis with their LGBTQIA+ artists and will tour through the MN Touring Arts Grant to 4 cities starting at the Mayo Clinic in 2021. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), in which they co-teach improvisation and create performance works together. In addition, Beth partners with BAIRA in Detroit as a teaching and creative collaborator, is a resident artist for NYC-based Pioneers Go East Collective and Faculty at Peridance Contemporary Dance Center. Graczyk travels annually to India to work as an educator and choreographer with Kerala-based artists Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. Concurrently, she is an author on 10 science publications in the field of cancer research and a Research Specialist at Rockefeller University. In October 2020 Beth received a Pilot Award from Rockefeller University with collaborator Guadalupe Astorga for research on visual perception in Autism. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle from 2008-2016. @bethgraczyk, bethgraczyk.com