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Crossroads series at Judson Church. Featuring Yoshiko Chuma, Daniel Diaz, Sheree V Campbell, Anabella Lenzu, Valerie Green, Ani Taj

  • Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Park South New York City United States (map)

Crossroads series at Judson Church. Curated by Pioneers Go East Collective.

Free event (& sliding scale tickets). All are welcome!

RSVP: Eventbrite

Featured artists: Yoshiko Chuma, Daniel Diaz, Sheree Campbell, Anabella Lenzu, Valerie Green, and Ani Taj.

Crossroads performance and video art series curated by Pioneers Go East Collective.

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.

“Head in the sand “, sitting on the piano with memories.

Performed by Yoshiko Chuma and Dane Terry on piano. 

Project description: When the ostrich is afraid, it buries its head in the sand and feels safe because it can’t see, although danger hasn’t gone anywhere.

Bio: Yoshiko Chuma (conceptual artist, choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand in the post-modern dance scene of New York City since the 1980s, has been consistently producing thought-provoking work that is neither dance nor theater nor film nor any other pre-determined category. She is an artist on her own journey, a path that has taken her to over 40 “out of the way” countries and collected over 2000 artists, thinkers, and collaborators of every genre since establishing her company in New York City in 1980.

Dane Terry is a multi-media storymaker, performer and composer. He has made stories and music for all sorts of rooms and situations. He has been up to this for quite some time and intends to stay up to it. Dane was the writer, composer and lead performer of the musical fiction podcast Dreamboy (Night Vale Presents 2018). Works for stage include Jupiter's Lifeless Moons (PSNY 2018) and Bird In The House (La MaMa 2015, Under The Radar Festival 2016). Dane was the 2016 recipient of the Ethyl Eichelberger Award.

“heart beats” (Black & White Film), 2021. Director & Choreographer: Anabella Lenzu; Videographer and Editor: Todd Carroll; Composer: Geoff Gersh; Dancers: Fiamma Lenzu-Carroll & Anabella Lenzu.

"heart beats" conjures memories of the mother-daughter relationship, speaks to the loss of innocence, discipline, freedom, youth, aging, and the passage of time.Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and teacher with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, London, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 390 performances, created 14 choreographic works and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.

Bio: Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and teacher with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, London, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 390 performances, created 14 choreographic works and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.

SUNDAY - DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER - ANI TAJ; MUSIC BY - DANIEL KLUGER; DP/EDITOR - MADDY TALIAS; COLORIST - MARIKA LITZ; STEADICAM OP - JESSE SANCHEZ-STRAUSS ; 1ST AC - GABBY AGUIRRE; MUA - KELLI BARTLETT; BTS PHOTOGRAPHER - JESS COLES; MUSIC MASTERED BY JESSICA THOMPSON.

SUNDAY is an ode to live performance and social gatherings.

Bio: ANI TAJ (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER). A native New Yorker, ANI TAJ is a choreographer, performer, and the founder and artistic director of The Dance Cartel. She choreographs contemporary musicals, plays, concerts, music videos, art parties, and she loves to make dances inspired by Brazilian Carnaval. Since launching in 2012, The Dance Cartel’s acclaimed signature experience ONTHEFLOOR has toured diverse spaces including Ace Hotel NY, PS1/MoMA, the High Line, Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Velocity Dance Center (Seattle), Bootleg Theater (LA), and OBERON (ART). Taj has choreographed music videos for Yoko Ono, Reggie Watts, Vic Mensa and The Sway Machinery, and her work with the Cartel has received support from NY Live Arts Studio Series, two LMCC Creative Engagement Awards, The Orchard Project and a BAX Summer Residency. While bridging gaps between dance and music scenes, Taj keeps one foot firmly in the world of live theater – most recently as a featured dancer inNatasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway. Theater choreography highlights include Runaways (NY City Center), Good Men Wanted(NYSAF), The Convent of Pleasure (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), The Nomad by Liz Swados (The Flea), Lazarus (Associate Choreographer, NYTW), Jesse Eisenberg’s Asuncion (Rattlestick). Ani is an Adjunct Professor of dance and movement at NYU (Experimental Theatre Wing, Playwrights Horizons). She offers workshops and classes in tandem with most Cartel projects and periodically holds open classes in NYC.

man/Mother choreography by Valerie Green in collaboration with the performers . Performed by Fumihiro Kikuchi, Jonathan Matthews, Richard Scandola. Original Music by Philip Butta. Set Design by Valerie Green.

man/Mother is an all-male trio, which composes three separately made solos to original music by Philip Butta. The solos translate emotions, specifically connected to each dancer’s experience of the global COVID-19 pandemic, into movement initiated from emotionally resonant bodily regions. The dancers maintain a separateness of focus with a simultaneously intense awareness of each other in space, as well as a deep reliance on one another for timing - quite literally together while apart. A thick branch, suspended down stage center, makes its way into each of the three physical trails. Both an obstacle and a comfort, it confronts us with hard truths that demand reflection and action. Why would mother nature create such an affliction? What have we done as humans to contribute to bringing it into being? How can we mend our fragmented relationship with that which made us?

Bio: Valerie Green has been an active dancer, choreographer and teacher in the New York City dance community since 1995. She created her own company, Dance Entropy in 1998, adding a permanent company home in 2005 called Green Space. To date Ms. Green has created 41 dances and 10 evening-length works. Her choreography has been seen throughout NYC and has also toured to various venues throughout the US. Internationally, Green has toured to Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Cuba both as VG/DE’s artistic director and an individual teaching and performing artist. As a teacher, Green integrated classical modern technique with her own somatic based movement practice to develop an individualized style called Dance Your Frame. She also leads movement workshops for non-dance populations rooted in the philosophy that all bodies can benefit from dance. Please visit www.DanceEntropy.org

Sheree V Campbell @DontForgetTheV is a multidisciplinary artist, actor, stage manager, director, mover, singer, composer and song-writer-of-many-things: Trojan Women (Cassandra-La MaMa ETC), Aristophanes' The Wasps (Relative Theatrics), Odyssey Project (Magis Theatre) and Still In Time (Estrogenius Festival 2020), where she also composed, performed and directed original music and movement. Sheree V is founder and creator of @FluxFlowGrow and member of Magis Theatre Company, Co-Op Theatre East, Great Jones Repertory Company of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. LIU Post- MA Theatre, BS Adolescence Education- English.

All guests will be required to be fully vaccinated (please bring proof of vaccination). All visitors will be required to wear a face-covering at all times while they are at Judson Church. In addition, all surfaces are being sanitized on a regular basis. Please note the performers will perform maskless, but they are fully vaccinated and observing New York State’s Department of Health protocols for in-person events. 

DIRECTIONS:

Judson Church

The entrance is located at 55 Washington Square South, New York, New York, 10012

Subway: A, C, E, B, D, F, M to West 4th Street or N, Q, R to NYU 8th Street.

Accessibility: Our accessible entrance is by way of 243 Thompson St. Use the lift to get to the Meeting Room on Level 3 or our accessible bathrooms on Level B (basement). Return to Level 1 for street access back to the corner of West 4th & Thompson St.