Crossroads Series curated by Pioneers Go East Collective at Center for Performance Research
Join us for 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!
Featuring Yasmeen Enahora & Ori Flomin; Same As Sister (Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi; Beth Graczyk
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.
why are we here ? created and performed by Yasmeen Enahora & Ori Flomin
why are we here ? Two artists who connected in grad school engage in an ongoing conversation during the Covid-19 pandemic. They exchange thoughts, chat and laugh, through texts and FaceTime calls. They realize that while distant they get to know each other more closely to realize how much they have in common despite their different backgrounds and upbringing. One day in late fall, they finally meet. The project captures a physical dialogue that expresses care, support, humor, and the essence of friendship which brings a sense of balance during this uncertain time.
Ori Flomin has been dancing, living, surviving and thriving in NYC since 1989. He holds an MFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. His choreography has been presented in NYC and internationally. He has taught dance, Yoga and Shiatsu massage with prestigious festivals and schools across Europe, Asia and Australia in addition to colleges around NYC: PARTS, Impulstanz, London Contemporary School, Sasha Waltz, Circuit Est, SUNY Purchase, NYU, Movement Research, Gibney, among others. He’s performed in the works of acclaimed choreographers Stephen Petronio, Maria Hassabi, Neil Greenberg, and Molissa Fenley to name a few. www.Oriflomin.com
Yasmeen Enahora is a visual, moving artist based in New York, NY. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, as a Master of Fine Arts student + graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Howard University. During her tenure at Tisch, Enahora concentrated on dance + technology, while taking film classes. Her most recent project includes creating a short dance film about gender-based oppression in the Middle East. Enahora’s work is a culmination of colors, the exploration of global life, and defying barriers through movement.
Kallax (work-in-progress) Choreography: Same As Sister/Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi; Performance: Leigh Atwell, Jamie Robinson, and Kristina Hay; Dramaturgy: Susan Mar Landau; Video Animation: Gabi Berkers; Sound Design: Kit Tipley and Same As Sister; Video Projection: Canadian Girl/YouTube; Costumes and Props: Same As Sister; Lighting Design: Philip Treviño; Videography: Jon Burklund/Zanni Productions.
A toxic snow globe for your viewing pleasure, Same As Sister’s Kallax (work-in-progress), shakes up perceptions of (pop-)cultural appreciation, appropriation, and assimilation through a uniquely Nordic lens.
Same As Sister (S.A.S.) is an experimental performance collective founded in 2013 by Canadian-American choreographers, Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi, to challenge, deconstruct, and reimagine representations of identity towards understanding. S.A.S.’s interdisciplinary commissions have been presented at venues in the US, Canada, France, Greece, and Italy including Danspace Project; BRIC Arts | Media House; New York Live Arts; Dancemakers Centre for Creation; Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre; Kinitiras; Libreria d’Arte Contemporanea; MOMus - State Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Archaeological Museum of Messenia. They are the recipients of a Queens Council on the Arts’ 2020 Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant (Multi-Discipline); New York Foundation for the Arts’ 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (Choreography); Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ 2017 Emergency Grant (Dance); and were an Alternate and Finalist for the Jerome Foundation’s 2021-22 and 2019-20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Dance). For full artist bios and project info visit: sameassister.com
Meshes of a Figure (part of Thresholds): Director/Choreographer – Beth Graczyk; Composer/Sound Design – Aaron Gabriel; Neuroscience Consultant and Creative Collaborator – Guadalupe Astorga; Video – Guadalupe Astorga & Beth Graczyk
Meshes of a Figure: How we as humans process sensory information is a personal and intimate experience. We can never fully know what another sees, feels, and hears even as we attempt at times to articulate to each other through language and diverse expressions. This is an experimental performance work that explores through movement, sound, and visual effects the current neuroscience in perception with a focus on the diversity of sensory processing in autism. Collaborators include composer Aaron Gabriel, neuroscientist Guadalupe Astorga, led by director/choreographer Beth Graczyk.
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
Aaron Gabriel (composer/collaborator) is a Minneapolis-based composer and generative theater artist who has written music and lyrics for more than 30 original productions over the past twenty years - primarily combining performers with and without disabilities. He regularly collaborates with artists in New York, New Orleans, Algeria, Congo, India, Thailand, England and France and has been awarded grants from the Jerome Foundation, Theater Communications Group, Minnesota State Arts Board and McKnight Foundation. Aaron specializes in generating work with artists with disabilities and in 2010 received an Ivey Award for Original Score for Interact Theater’s radically-inclusive production Madame Majesta’s Medicine Show. Recent collaborations include, Hot Funky Butt Jazz with Interact Theater at the Guthrie Theater, Owl Moon at Stages Theater, In My Heart: The Adoption Play Project with Wanderlust Productions. Aaron has worked at theaters throughout the Twin Cities including Theater Latte Da, Guthrie Theater, Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Illusion Theater, Children’s Theatre Company, Minnesota Opera, Nautilus Music Theater and Chicago Avenue Project.
Dr. Guadalupe Astorga (Scientist/Collaborator) has a PhD in Neuroscience and has studied different aspects of brain function, from neuronal communication to circuits and behavior. Her work has been published in prestigious journals and has led to international collaborations with renown researchers. During her postdoctoral training in University Paris Descartes she found that neurons engaged in motor behaviors produce waves of activation that are highly correlated in time and space, contributing to clarify an ongoing dilemma regarding the functional properties of this set of neurons. Her research has been funded by grants from different institutions including the Leon Levy foundation. Astorga is studying a new model of visual processing where top-down cortical signaling has profound effects on our perception. Together with her colleagues, she finds that our perception is influenced not only by our environment, also by our expectations. This finding changes the way scientists think about brain circuits and neurons, because it suggests that we can directly influence our perception. Astorga lives in NYC and has previously collaborated with visual artist Sidney Edwards to produce an immersive art exhibition that involved senses like touch and smell. She is now interested in using the outcome of her research to educate people about the variety of sensations that our brains can produce. Being aware of this variety will generate inclusion and acceptance of people with mental conditions that affect their perception.