La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival 2024

The singular choreographers participating in La MaMa Moves! during its 19th anniversary season are all strong, powerful individuals, beholden to no one, answering to nobody but themselves, adhering to no one style or genre, holding on to not one physical practice, dance technique or philosophy.  Each individual artist is listening to her/his/their own voice; each does this with a fierce determination and a deep kind of listening to the movement directives and intentions of their physical body(ies).

Nicky Paraiso, curator of the festival, invites you once again, dear audience, to experience the work of these uniquely original choreographers: Arthur Avilés, Yoshiko Chuma with Dennis O’Connor & Dane Terry, Dancers Unlimited, Emerging Choreographers/Hunter College MFA Dance Program, Anabella Lenzu, NUU Knynez, Koma Otake, Ilaria Passeri & Evelyna Dann with composer Stefano Zazzera, Pioneers Go East Collective (Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Joey Kipp, ALEXA Grae, Daniel Diaz), John Scott Dance, Chris Yon & Taryn Griggs.

Schedule includes:
Listen to Your Mother (world premiere)
Anabella Lenzu
May 16-19
The Downstairs Theatre
Listen to Your Mother is a choreographic research project dedicated to the lives of women-identifying artists who are immigrant mothers living in New York City. Created over three years, Listen to Your Mother captures underrepresented women’s stories to inspire dialogue, appreciation and social support instead of the ongoing prejudice that is historically directed against mothers and women in the arts. Through Anabella Lenzu’s research and embodied practice exploring spoken word, movement and media, the work exposes the body histories of mothers who are grappling with the cultural differences of living in New York City. Listen to Your Mother is an unprecedented project on the NYC dance scene about motherhood and art-making.

You (2023)
Koma Otake
May 17-19
Ellen Stewart Theatre
Koma Otake makes his La MaMa debut with his acclaimed solo You. “In dancing this work, I engage and converse with various You but one at a time. Friends, parents, siblings, spirits, streets, fields and objects with personal memories all inspire and create memorable moments,” writes Otake. “The stage is all white. My painting hangs loosely. My movements are stormy and absurd. Dancing with You brings back memories, but a moment later, I dig my head into the ground, missing You.” 

Emerging Choreographers, Hunter College MFA Dance Program
May 16-19
The Club
The Hunter College MFA program in dance, launched in 2018 and directed by maura nguy n donohue, is for returning professionals seeking to investigate the role of dance as a vehicle for positive change in the world. The La MaMa Moves! program includes works by artists who have taught in a variety of genres at Hunter. Maiya Redding '22 presents excerpts of Bright Lies, Dark Truths, a trio that explores code switching, Black masculine identity and denial. Darvejon Jones '23 presents a n t a r e s, a work in progress built upon inquiries concerning liberation in Jones’s Black Dance praxis. Eve Jacobs '24 brings Four Statements on Attention, a work for four dancers that stretches toward deep focus through movement and music. Austin Marquez '24 shares original songs and dances from STAGES, his recent sold-out show at La MaMa Shares in The Downstairs, a celebration of resilience and self-discovery through shared experiences, and Cory Villegas/Soul Dance Co ‘24 delivers the AGUA in a Salsa celebration of the Afro-Latin diaspora in NYC.

Shared Program
Electric Blue (2023-2024)
Pioneers Go East Collective
Naked Vanguard: Works (2021-2024)
Arthur Avilés
May 23-25
Ellen Stewart Theatre
Electric Blue is a performance installation inspired by queer thought-provoking literary icon Allen Ginsberg. A meditation on creative agency and pacifism, Electric Blue celebrates past and present LGBTQ+ resilience in pursuit of artistic and personal freedom. Taking Ginsberg’s writing—some of which was censored when first published—Pioneers examines the author's controversial poetry reflecting same-sex love, male bonding and the antiwar activism movement. The work deploys personal reflections to underscore how individual artists and community experiences are inevitably bound together, hinting at the potential for collective action. Arthur Avilés reimagines several of his classic nude solo dance works in his groundbreaking Naked Vanguard Series. In addition to revealing the body, the works deconstruct conventions of Latinx and Black cultures. Avilés showcases his signature Swift/Flow dance technique across works performed by Nikolai McKenzie, Hunter Sturgis and himself.

Shared Program
Black Butoh
NUU Knynez
Y (US premiere)
Ilaria Passeri and Eveleena Dann
May 23-26
with
Freaks
Stefano Zazzera
May 26 @ 9:30 PM
The Downstairs Theatre
The always captivating dance trio NUU Knynez, current artists in residence at La MaMa, bring their distinctive style of performance to the festival. About the work, the artists write: “Three black brothers expressing their journeys embodying the art of krump infused with butoh, as they perform movements of joy, pain, peace, trauma, liberation and triumph within a stage series.” Ilaria Passeri (director) and Eveleena Dann (performer) will present the US premiere of Y, an installation/performance comprising music, sound, theater, art and video that explores the connection between human restlessness and the anthropomorphized territory of contemporary society. Where the vastness of the city grows, diminishing the natural territory hand in hand, and where man feels the need to regenerate rather than recover the understanding between man and nature. There will be a live music solo performance with visuals by composer, producer and sound designer Stefano Zazzera following the Saturday evening performance.

Shared Program
Yoggs Family Newsletter (NY Edition)
Chris Yon & Taryn Griggs
Extreme Classics in the School of Hard Knocks (2024)
Yoshiko Chuma
May 23-26
The Club
Returning to La MaMa for the first time since 2013, choreographer/dancers and School of Hard Knocks alums Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs, present Yoggs Family Newsletter (NY Edition), a dance and sound collage narrated by their daughter Bea Yon. The Yoggs Family Newsletter is about the ephemerality of parenthood and childhood. How they as a family create memories and how they perform memories inscribed on their bodies. Their newsletter is a growing collection of dances that addresses how they capture experiences and attach significance to when and where they dance together, and who they meet along the way as part of their family story. Four remarkable artists join forces in Extreme Classics in the School of Hard Knocks: choreographers/dancers Yoshiko Chuma and Dennis O’Connor, accompanied by Dane Terry on piano. This is extreme avant-garde for extreme classics by Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks.

La MaMa Moves! in partnership with CRS
Cinema Has Power, vol. 9
Stop Calling Them Dangerous by The School of Hard Knocks
May 25
CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing) [41 East 11th Street, 11th Floor, NYC]
This rare screening is a celebration of the artistic legacy and profound influence of the intermedia artist and composer Phil Niblock, who bid farewell to the world at the age of 90 on January 8, 2024. A selection of his films will be presented. Curated by Sarah Möller, co-director of the international dance film festival POOL in Berlin. Discussion with Sarah Möller, Christopher McIntyre and David Geary, moderated by Yoshiko Chuma.  

MOHÁBBAT by Afshin Varjavandi
InNprogressCollective
May 29-30 and June 2
The Club
Italian urban dance group InNprogressCollective bring its latest work MOHÁBBAT to La MaMa Moves! Choreographed by Afshin Varjavandi, MOHÁBBAT (a Persian word meaning "affection, care") explores the symbol of a family, one of many, who fled their country of origin in search of new hopes and a free, infinite horizon. The dancers build an eclectic fusion of contemporary gesture and urban technique, and an imaginary sacred space, a fortress or a refuge where there is no type of prevarication or cruelty, and in which they invite the public to enter. A gesture that invites a simple reflection: if every human being made taking care of others one of their priorities, no one would be left without that care that we all, humans with virtues and weaknesses, are in need of.

Dancers Unlimited
10th Anniversary Celebration
May 31-June 2: Performances
June 1: Film Screening
Ellen Stewart Theatre
Workshops: May 27-30
Workshops will be held La MaMa’s rehearsal space at 47 Great Jones Street
Dancers Unlimited, currently in residence at La MaMa, is a bi-coastal company in New York City and Hawai i. The company creates authentic movement narratives through community engagement, creative collaboration and social justice work. This summer marks its 10th year creating work with and for the NYC community. Festival events include hula workshops and performances, film screenings, company repertoire showings and an open style battle.

Heroes (US premiere)
John Scott
May 31-June 2
The Club
Heroes is a journey of music and movement using the universe of German operatic heroes: Beethoven’s Fidelio, Wagner’s Die Walkure, and Siegfried, and Weber’s Der Freischutz. John Scott, through his virtuosic heroic tenor voice, creates a dance physicalization of music to show two selves, human and mythological. The music portrays heroes battling impossible dark forces and conquering darkness paralleled with the idea of escape and love.

La MaMa Moves! in partnership with CRS
Love Story Palestine, vol. 10
Stop Calling Them Dangerous by The School of Hard Knocks
June 1
CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing) [41 East 11th Street, 11th Floor, NYC]
Love Story Palestine is about war and borders, centered around Palestine and from the viewpoint of Ryuji Yamaguchi, a dance artist and educator based in Jordan for the past 16 years. The performance features stories and images of numerous Palestinians, including those from Gaza, with whom Yamaguchi has lived alongside.