Photo: Underground Uptown Dance Festival
Works & Process presents the Underground Uptown Dance Festival, a festival of commissioned street and social dances taking place in the Guggenheim’s subterranean Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater from January 12-17, 2023.
Rare in the field of dance, let alone in the creators’ traditions, beyond presenting fee, all projects will have received longitudinal support. With some spanning four years and across multiple residencies, Works & Process will have provided living wage fees of $1,050 per week, 24/7 devoted studio access, adjacent housing, access to health care insurance enrollment, performance fees, and iterative performance opportunities. Inspired by the circular architecture of the Guggenheim, the cyphers prevalent in street dance, and social environments where these performing art traditions were germinated, the works being presented endeavor to weave audiences and artists together. These commissions amplify the innate qualities of dance to physically connect and facilitate the embodiment of joy and community.
Purchase tickets at www.worksandprocess.org.
During the summer of 2023, Works & Process at SummerStage will bring select artists from the Underground Uptown Dance Festival to neighborhood parks in all five NYC boroughs as curator of dance for Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage.
“We are so proud to grow institutional support for street and social dance,” said Duke Dang, General Manager, Works & Process. “It is essential that we recognize and celebrate the virtuosity of these creators and the community building they do in our city. To fortify these tradition bearers and the distinctly New York genres they represent, we are honored to collaborate with SummerStage to amplify the placemaking these artists do throughout our city’s parks and public spaces.”
Works & Process Underground Uptown Dance Festival
JANUARY 12-17, 2023
Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Tickets $45, $35, Choose What You Pay
Featuring Afrobeat, Ballroom, Beatbox, Body Percussion, Breaking, Choreopoem, Flexn, Hip-Hop, House, Improv, Krump, NYC Underground Club Culture, Percussive Dance, Samba, Street Jazz, Tap, Vogue, Waacking, and more!
January 12 Highlights from Music From The Sole’s I Didn’t Come To Stay
Highlights from Ephrat Asherie Dance’s UNDERSCORED
Presented in collaboration with 92NY
January 13 The Missing Element bringing together Beatbox, Breaking, Flexn, and Krumping
January 14 Ladies of Hip Hop – The Black Dancing Bodies – Choreopoem SpeakMyMind
January 15 Waacking with Princess Lockeroo, Highlights from Les Ballet Afrik’s New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles
January 17 Mai Lê Hô’s LayeRhythm (On The Move) with Masterz at Work Dance Family led by Black Trans Femme choreographer Courtney Washington, Mother Balenciaga
Presented in collaboration with 92NY
The Underground Uptown Dance Festival is presented on the occasion of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference with the intention of galvanizing touring support for featured works and providing all audiences with greater insight and access into the creative process.
TAP, PERCUSSIVE DANCE, SAMBA, HOUSE, AND NYC CLUB CULTURE
Ephrat Asherie Dance and NYC Club Legends: Highlights from UNDERSCORED
Music From The Sole: Highlights from I Didn’t Come to Stay
Presented in collaboration with 92NY
Thursday, January 12, 7:30 pm
See excerpts from two APAP ArtsForward and National Dance Project Grantees.
A living archive of five generations of New York City club dancers, UNDERSCORED is a multi-faceted project rooted in the intergenerational stories and memories of NYC underground club heads. Commissioned by Works & Process and created by the dancers of Ephrat Asherie Dance and NYC club legends ranging in age from 27 to 79, UNDERSCORED is a collaboration that celebrates and explores the ever-changing physical and musical landscape of New York’s underground dance community. Building on the intergenerational transference of knowledge and culturally reflective movement that happens night after night on dance floors across the city, UNDERSCORED shares lived experiences, stories, and vibes from seminal parties, including David Mancuso’s the Loft, Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and Timmy Regisford’s Shelter and the experiences of legends Archie Burnett, Michele Saunders, and Brahms “Bravo” LaFortune.
Tap, percussive dance, samba, house, and live music come together in I Didn’t Come to Stay, commissioned by Works & Process and described by the New York Times as “An unforced crowd-pleaser, original and true to itself.” Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and bassist and composer Gregory Richardson lead eight dancers and a five-piece band in a performance that explores tap’s lineage and connections to other Afrodiasporic forms. Together the pair embrace shared roots across the diaspora and reflect on racial and cultural identity, while also celebrating the joy, strength, depth, and virtuosity of Black dance and music.
UNDERSCORED was commissioned by Works & Process and was developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), Bridge Street Theatre (2021), Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020), and the Guggenheim Museum. Additional residency support provided by CUNY Dance Initiative, LUMBERYARD, and The Yard. Past performances have taken place at Harlem Stage, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Guggenheim Museum, The Jay and Linda Grunin Center for the Arts, and The Yard.
I Didn’t Come to Stay was commissioned by Works & Process and was developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022) and Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020), additional residency support provided by American Tap Dance Foundation, Chelsea Factory, Pillow Lab residency, and The Yard. Past performances have taken place at Jacob’s Pillow, the Guggenheim Museum, Guild Hall, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and New York City Center.
BREAKING, FLEXN, KRUMP, AND BEATBOX
The Missing Element
Friday, January 13, 7:30 pm
Fusing together awe-inspiring street dancers from Krump, FlexN, and Breaking communities with the virtuosic music-making by the world champion beatboxers of the Beatbox House, The Missing Element is a culmination of what happens when performing art forms that traditionally compete collaborate.
The Missing Element was commissioned by Works & Process and has been developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2020 and 2021). Past performances have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, Guild Hall, Jacob’s Pillow Gala, Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Island, NY PopsUp with Amy Schumer, and very recently at the Guggenheim Bilbao’s 25th Anniversary.
IN-PROCESS CHOREOPOEM
Ladies of Hip-Hop
The Black Dancing Bodies – SpeakMyMind
Saturday, January 14, 7:30 pm
“Each woman’s voice stands powerfully on its own.” —Dance Enthusiast
Part of an ongoing performance and documentary effort to represent Black women in street and club dance culture, this session highlights the form of the choreopoem, first coined in 1975 by writer Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf). New writing, and music and dance of street, club and African culture come together in this in-process showing, led by Michele Byrd-McPhee, in which each member of the company responds to the question, “If I could speak my mind, what would I say?”
SpeakMyMind is commissioned by Works & Process and has been developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2021, 2022 and 2023), Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), and Millay Arts (2023). Iterative performances have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
AFROBEAT, HOUSE, VOGUE, AND WAACKING
Les Ballet Afrik: Highlights from New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles
Waacking with Princess Lockeroo
Sunday, January 15, 7:30 pm
Underground, radical, Black and queer art rarely gets the recognition it deserves . . . until it’s appropriated and then popularized by mainstream culture. Vogue from the East Coast and waacking from the West Coast is no different. See today’s leading tradition bearers share the stage and honor their history.
“Long overdue but well worth the wait.” — New York Times
Ballroom community legend and House of Oricci founding father Omari Wiles brings ball culture to the Guggenheim with New York Is Burning, featuring Wiles’s AfrikFusion, fusing traditional African dances and Afrobeat with house dance and vogue. The 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning received critical acclaim for its depiction of the New York drag ball scene and of voguing as a powerful expression of personal pride in the face of racism, homophobia, and the stigma of the AIDS crisis. Just as Paris Is Burning did for New York in the 1980s, New York Is Burning reflects the aspirations, desires, and yearnings of a diverse group of dancers in a city beset by health, racial, and financial crises. Commissioned by Works & Process prior to the pandemic as an homage to Paris Is Burning on the documentary’s 30th anniversary, Wiles’s work centers on the artists for whom his dance company serves as a surrogate family.
“Princess Lockerooo is a whirling force with a singular focus: spreading the gospel of waacking.” — New York Times
Don’t miss a first look at this in-process Works & Process commission by Princess Lockeroo. In 1970s a dance form called waacking was born in the Black, gay underground clubs of Los Angeles. Tyrone Proctor, and friend, Billy Goodson risked their lives to perform such an effeminate, expressive dance, at a time when being openly gay subjected them to violence and prison. The dance was popularized on Soul Train and picked up by celebrities, then nearly became extinct with the AIDS crisis. Today, waacking has been re-born as a booming social media sensation and queer rights movement. In this new work, the “Queen of Waacking” honors her mentor, pioneering queer Black waacker and Soul Train legend, Tyrone Proctor who died in 2020, and carries on his legacy through the dance he championed his entire life.
Wiles developed the Works & Process commission, New York Is Burning for his company, Les Ballet Afrik, in a summer 2020 Works & Process bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, a spring 2021 Works & Process bubble residency at Catskill Mountain Foundation, and a January 2022 Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency at The Church, Sag Harbor in partnership with Guild Hall. Throughout this time, in some of New York State’s first permitted performances during the pandemic, Works & Process coproduced Les Ballet Afrik’s outdoor, filmed, and preview performances at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum rotunda and the world premiere in the Peter B. Lewis Theater. The company also performed previews at Jacob’s Pillow, New Victory Theater, and SummerStage.
Princess Lockerooo’s Works & Process commission is being developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bridge Street Theatre (2022), Watermill Center (2023), and The Pocantico Center (2023).
BALLROOM, IMPROV, HIP HOP, STREET DANCE AND MUSIC JAM
LayeRhythm (On The Move) with Masterz at Work Dance Family
Presented in collaboration with 92NY
Tuesday, January 17, 7:30 pm
“Imagine an improv comedy show where dancing, not laughs, is the currency. Then imagine a musicians’ jam session where the band is compelled to keep the dancers’ pace instead of the other way around. …what’s distinct about LayeRhythm is the way it bridges the two groups with crowd participation.” — New York Times
Embodying the continuum of concert and social dance, LayeRhythm led by Mai Lê Hô weaves a singular mix of freestyle dance, live music, and audience interaction, celebrating the vibrancy of street and club dance cultures. Spotlighting Black Trans Femme choreographer Courtney Washington, Mother Balenciaga, founder of the Kiki House of Juicy Couture, a leader of the House of Balenciaga, and founder of Masterz at Work Dance Family, the evening will feature choreographed work from the Masterz, including ALL INCLUSIVE, alongside improvisations by musicians, dancers and emcees, captivating young and old, theater- and clubgoers.
ALL INCLUSIVE was commissioned by Works & Process and was developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022) and Kaatsbaan Cultural Center (2021). Past performances have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, OTA Weekly, and with NY PopsUp in The Oculus and Coney Island.
LayeRhythm will receive Works & Process LaunchPAD residency support at The Church, Sag Harbor (2023).
WORKS & PROCESS AT THE GUGGENHEIM
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
ABOUT WORKS & PROCESS
Championing the creative process from studio-to-stage, Works & Process, is an independent performing arts organization that supports artists from both the world’s largest organizations and from underrecognized performing arts cultures by providing rare, sequenced and fully-funded creative residency, commissioning, and iterative presenting support.
Blending artist discussions and performance highlights, each program provides unprecedented behind the scenes access to support our goal of broadening representation and fostering greater understanding and appreciation of the performing arts.
Works & Process celebrates New York artists and street and social dance with programs at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” partnerships with 12 residency centers across New York State amplify our support for artistic process.
In the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater at the Guggenheim, see Works & Process street and social dance commissions supported with multi-year longitudinal residencies and iterative presentations.
ABOUT SUMMERSTAGE
Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage is one of New York’s most beloved, broadly accessible, free outdoor performing arts festivals. SummerStage annually presents nearly 90 free and benefit performances in Central Park and neighborhood parks throughout the five boroughs to 217,000 fans. With performances in genres that represent the cultural fabric of New York City ranging from jazz, hip hop, Latin, global, indie and contemporary dance, SummerStage fills a vital niche in New York City’s summer arts festival landscape. Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, more than six million people from New York City and around the world have enjoyed SummerStage.
