Harlem Stage's flagship dance series, E-Moves, has for over 20 years brought together phenomenal choreographers, artists, musicians and dance artists of color to showcase their movement-based creations. On the occasion of Harlem Stage’s 40th Anniversary, Harlem Stage invites back to the Gatehouse artists who have been critical to the legacy of the institution’s dance programming and who serve as inspiration for the future of dance.
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE
Friday, October 13 & Saturday, October 14, 2023 @ 7:30 PM
Founded in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE seamlessly melds traditional African and Afro-Cuban dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word. First presented at Harlem Stage's previous home Aaron Davis Hall in 1998, the company returns for a not-to-be-missed performance featuring dances that are “pure Brown: otherworldly, charged, urgent in their undulating sweep and unaffectedly fervent” (The New York Times).
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
Friday, April 19 & Saturday, April 20, 2024 @ 7:30 PM
Choreographer Bill T. Jones has participated in various presentations at Harlem Stage since the 1980s; in 2006, he created the Harlem Stage commission Chapel/Chapter, inaugurating the Harlem Stage Gatehouse with what The New York Times would deem the “most affecting, the most disturbing, the most powerful, and the most compassionate” dance from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Born in 1982 out of an 11-year collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948-1988), the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the dance-theater world.
nora chipaumire—ShebeenDUB
Friday, May 17 & Saturday, May 18, 2024 @ 2 PM, 6 PM, 7:30 PM & 9 PM
Contemporary artist, choreographer, and performer nora chipaumire—a “rock star of dance” (The New Yorker)—has enlivened Harlem Stage with her revolutionary dance performances on numerous occasions. chipaumire returns to E-Moves with the New York premiere of ShebeenDUB, which transforms the historic Harlem Stage Gatehouse into a sonic and visual statement of radical black indictment of Empire. Featuring the monumental afternow sound installation, including the soundshitsystem, designed by Ari Marcopoulos and Kara Walker and constructed by Matt Jackson Studio, the afternoon and evening unfold in three parts. Audiences are first invited to experience Nehanda, a radio opera by chimpaumire which relays the story of Nehanda, a Shona spirit who inhabits women, and in 1866 caused Charwe Nyakasikana to incite resistance against British colonialists in Central Africa. The opera, developing over four hours and played through the sound installation, delves into the Shona people’s experience of the anti-colonial war in Zimbabwe. Following the opera, three dancers and dub DJ perform ShebeenDUB within the afternow installation, celebrating dub—a musical style that emerged in the late 60s and early 70s which interrogates empire, its aesthetics and ideas of human rights. To close the night, audiences are invited to participate in a dance party featuring music by a dub DJ.
Camille A. Brown & Guests: Black Joy
Friday, June 14 & Saturday, June 15, 2024 @ 7:30 pm
First presented in E-Moves in 2004, celebrated director and choreographer Camille A. Brown returns to Harlem Stage’s flagship dance series to curate works on the theme of BLACK JOY by associate choreographers in her theater and commercial work who are pursuing their own careers in the field—Chloe Davis, Juel D. Lane, Mayte Natalio, Rickey Tripp and Maleek Washington. Brown will also present an excerpt of a new work featuring her “tour de force” (The New York Times) company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers.
