iLAND

Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance

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Event

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Event information is pasted on top of a photo of a playground, with the sun shining very brightly in the background

 

move thing
Research Performance VI
FREE. No RSVP required.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 11am – 2pm

Location: La Guardia Playground, between S 5th St and Havemeyer

Performers: Jennifer Monson, Rafael Cañal, Courtney Cooke, David Watson, Anh Vo, Iki Nakagawa, Leslie Cuyjet, Alex Viteri Arturo, Catalina Hernandez

Conceptual formations: Jennifer Monson and Valerie Oliveiro

move thing is a community-based dance project proposing that the multi-sensory, improvisatory, and choreographic structures of dance contribute to reparative projects in communities that have historically been impacted by toxic contamination due to resource extraction (Uranium and coal mining) and industrial effluents (chemicals, particulates, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals). Resisting all forms of purity, the work proposes that we are all constantly, inherently, and unevenly making up each other and all other animate and inanimate beings. If we imagine ourselves as soluble, always dissolving and reconstituting choreographically, could we move through toxicity and be with and/or absorb toxicity and find new / alternative / old / transformative relationships to its states / tendencies / behaviors / effects / violences / shifts? Could we find intelligences within our bodies and abilities to connect more deeply with the mechanisms for survival and support in sites and systems that we are a part of?

move thing is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council

Image description is available via alt-text.

http://www.ilandart.org/5350-2/

move thing: community dance project, New Mexico

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A flyer containing information for the event, whose title reads "Rooting & Nurturing through Movement and Music: move thing." In the background is faded graphics depicting birds flying and two people dancing.

move thing: community dance project, New Mexico
FREE. No RSVP required.

Date: April 13, 2024, 11am – 2pm

Location: Los Jardines Institute, 803 La Vega Dr SW, Albuquerque, NM 87105

Collaborators: Los Jardines Institute, Jah Truebadoors, youth from South Valley prep, Alex Viteri Arturo, Valerie Oliveiro, and Jennifer Monson.

Conceptual formations: Valerie Oliveiro and Jennifer Monson

move thing is a community-based dance project proposing that the multi-sensory, improvisatory, and choreographic structures of dance contribute to reparative projects in communities that have historically been impacted by toxic contamination due to resource extraction (Uranium and coal mining) and industrial effluents (chemicals, particulates, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals). Resisting all forms of purity, the work proposes that we are all constantly, inherently, and unevenly making up each other and all other animate and inanimate beings. If we imagine ourselves as soluble, always dissolving and reconstituting choreographically, could we move through toxicity and be with and/or absorb toxicity and find new / alternative / old / transformative relationships to its states / tendencies / behaviors / effects / violences / shifts? Could we find intelligences within our bodies and abilities to connect more deeply with the mechanisms for survival and support in sites and systems that we are a part of?

move thing is supported, in part, by the Challenge America grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Campus Research Board’s award from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the Puffin Foundation.

Image description is available via alt-text.

move thing research performance V

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Event information pasted on top of a drawing of a big rock floating on top of jagged lines

 

move thing
Research Performance V
FREE. No RSVP required.

Dates: Saturday, November 4, 11am – 2pm
Sunday, November 5, 2pm – 5pm

Location: La Guardia Playground, between the BQE and the Williamsburg Bus Depot

Performers: Martita Abril, Val Oliveiro, K.J. Holmes, Julia Santoli, Jennifer Monson, Madeline Mellinger Rafael Cañal, Elisabeth Ochoa, Courtney Cooke, Jennifer Miller, Jessica Ziegler, David Watson.

Conceptual formations: Valerie Oliveiro and Jennifer Monson

move thing is a community-based dance project proposing that the multi-sensory, improvisatory, and choreographic structures of dance contribute to reparative projects in communities that have historically been impacted by toxic contamination due to resource extraction (Uranium and coal mining) and industrial effluents (chemicals, particulates, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals). Resisting all forms of purity, the work proposes that we are all constantly, inherently, and unevenly making up each other and all other animate and inanimate beings. If we imagine ourselves as soluble, always dissolving and reconstituting choreographically, could we move through toxicity and be with and/or absorb toxicity and find new / alternative / old / transformative relationships to its states / tendencies / behaviors / effects / violences / shifts? Could we find intelligences within our bodies and abilities to connect more deeply with the mechanisms for survival and support in sites and systems that we are a part of?

move thing is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council

Entres Muchos Mundos: poetic translation for researching urban environments

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Flyer for iLAND in Dialogue: Entre Muchos Mundos with information about event schedule as well as facilitators

Entres Muchos Mundos: poetic translation for researching urban environments
FREE
No RSVP Required

Interlocutors: Martita Abril, Rafael Cañals, Alex Viteri Arturo, Catalina Hernandez, Jennifer Monson, Daniela Castillo, Alejandra Martorell, Magdalena Novoa

Workshops and Book Launch Location: Good Life Garden (50 Goodwin Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11221)

Meeting point for Environmental Justice Walk: La Guardia Playground (252 S 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211)

Occuring on June 15-16 in Good Life Garden and public spaces around South Williamsburg/Bushwick, Entre Muchos Mundos: poetic translation for researching urban environments is a two-day gathering of Latin American artists-scholars and local community leaders to share embodiment-based and grassroot-driven methods for engaging with environmental justice issues. With a particular focus on translation, mapping, and moving boundaries, Entre Muchos Mundos builds upon three years of Spanish iLANDing workshops, organized in collaboration with El Puente, a community human and environmental rights organization. Entre Muchos Mundos is part of iLAND in Dialogue, a series of informal gathering initiated in 2021 to discuss themes and concepts emerging from the iLANDing methodology.  

Entre Muchos Mundos begins at the LaGuardia Playground with an Environmental Justice Walk, led by young community leaders from El Puente, followed by two embodied research workshops at the Good Life Garden in Bushwick. The event culminates in the celebration of the Spanish translation of the “Field Guide to iLANDing,” a compilation of over 70 scores from a decade of collaborative research and symposia published by 53rd State Press and translated by Alejandra Martorell and Alex Viteri Arturo.

See below for the full schedule of the event. The workshops will be conducted in both Spanish and English. For more information, contact: info@ilandart.org.

Day One: Thursday, June 15

3-4pm: Environmental Justice walk, led by young community leaders from the El Puente Green Light District. Meeting at La Guardia Playground.
4-6pm: “Mapping with bodies and air” workshop at the Good Life Garden

Day Two: Friday, June 16

4-6pm: “Poetics of bodies in translation” workshop at the Good Life Garden
6-8pm: Book Launch Party for the Spanish translation of the Field Guide to iLANDing at the Good Life Garden

Entre Muchos Mundos is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. 

 

Virtual STUDIODANCE 2023

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Slightly washed out black text against gray background, reading Studio Dance 2023Livestream
Wednesday, Jan 25, 7:30pm CT/8:30pm ET
FREE
https://krannertcenter.com/events/virtual-studiodance-2023

As part of STUDIODANCE 2023, presented by Dance at Illinois, Jennifer Monson is presenting “Heap Loose.”

“Heap Loose” is part of Monson’s multi-year project “move thing,” which researches the movement of toxicity. It works to understand the adaptive possibilities in situations that are perceived as toxic and to find new futures in the disturbed pasts of sites such as uranium mines and polluted rivers. Monson searches out the reparative possibilities of dance within these spaces.

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Alt-text is available.

move thing (research performance III)

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move thing
Research Performance III
FREE. No RSVP required.

Dates: Saturday, November 5, 11am – 2pm
Sunday, November 6, 2pm – 5pm

Location: Interstitial Park between the BQE and the Williamsburg Bus Depot

Performers: Jennifer Monson, Sean Meehan, Carolyn Hall, K.J. Holmes, Elisabeth Ochoa, Courtney Cooke, Madeline Mellinger, Jessica Ziegler, Jennifer Miller, Iki Nakagawa, David Watson, Anh Vo, Valeria Oliveiro, Martita Abril, Rafael Cañal

Conceptual formations: Valerie Oliveiro and Jennifer Monson

move thing is a community-based dance project proposing that the multi-sensory, improvisatory, and choreographic structures of dance contribute to reparative projects in communities that have historically been impacted by toxic contamination due to resource extraction (Uranium and coal mining) and industrial effluents (chemicals, particulates, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals). Resisting all forms of purity, the work proposes that we are all constantly, inherently, and unevenly making up each other and all other animate and inanimate beings. If we imagine ourselves as soluble, always dissolving and reconstituting choreographically, could we move through toxicity and be with and/or absorb toxicity and find new / alternative / old / transformative relationships to its states / tendencies / behaviors / effects / violences / shifts? Could we find intelligences within our bodies and abilities to connect more deeply with the mechanisms for survival and support in sites and systems that we are a part of?

move thing is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council

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Alt-text description is available

iLAND in Dialogue

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Overlaid on top of folded paper creases is information about the iLAND in Dialogue Series

 

iLAND in Dialogue
FREE. RSVP here.

iLAND in Dialogue is a series of informal conversations discussing themes and concepts iLAND has been grappling with over the past several years. We are excited to announce two dialogues this Spring.

Dialogue 1: Working the edges: Is the future the fold?
Sunday, June 5, 5-6:30pm ET.
Interlocutors: Alex Viteri Arturo, Iki Nakagawa, Kay Takeda, and Sarah White-Ayón.

Dialogue 2: Not only one way to count the score.  
Tuesday, June 7, 7-8:30pm ET.
Interlocutors: Zena Bibler, Christina Catanese, sonia louise davis, and Catalina H Cabal.

Both events will be held in-person at Movement Research Courtyard Studio (150 1st Ave., New York, NY 10009) and live-streamed via Zoom.

Following the city’s guidelines, we will require all of our in-person attendees to show proof of vaccine and to wear masks. Zoom links will be sent out closer to the dates.

iLAND in Dialogue is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council

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Visual description is available via alt-text.

Spanish iLANDing Workshop Presentation and Sharing

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The text "Spanish iLANDing Dance Workshop Presentation and Sharing, Saturday May 21, 2022, 2-4pm" is overlaid on a exuberant red background and juxtaposed against lively pictures of people gathering and drumming

Spanish iLANDing Dance Workshop Presentation and Sharing
In collaboration with El Puente Green Light District
FREE. Appropriate for all ages. No RSVP required.

Date: Saturday, May 21, 2022, 2pm – 4pm
Rain Date: Saturday, May 28, 2pm-4pm

Locations: Grove Street Garden (2pm – 2:40pm), Good Life Garden (2:50pm – 4pm)

Facilitators/Mentors: Martita Abril, Rafael Cañals

The Spanish iLANDing Workshop is an intergenerational dance and environment workshop based on iLANDing, an interdisciplinary movement practice designed to enhance our understanding of our urban environment through movement. Please join us in this culminating presentation and sharing across two different community gardens in Bushwick, accompanied by live drumming!

Spanish iLANDing workshop is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council

iLANDing Workshop June 26/29 2020: En movimiento con la ciudad / Moving with the City

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RSVP REQUERIDO/REQUIRED.
TO REGISTER/INSCRIBIRSE, email INFO@ILANDART.ORG

26 y 29 de junio, a las 3 pm EST

En movimiento con la ciudad

Investigando la ecología urbana con partituras de movimiento

26 y 29 de junio, a las 3 pm.

 

iLAND (Laboratorio interdisciplinario de Arte, Naturaleza y Danza) ofrece un taller de movimiento gratuito, en español.

En movimiento con la ciuda
En movimiento con la ciudad

 

¡Gratis!

En este taller activaremos partituras de movimiento diseñadas para explorar áreas de nuestra ecología urbana y reducir el tiempo de pantalla. Les participantes tendrán la oportunidad de bailar, dibujar y hacer mapas basados en sus observaciones del espacio inmediato o el vecindario. El taller estará enmarcado por dos sesiones de reunión/conversación. En los dos días entre medio, les participantes pueden activar las partituras cuando y donde quieran, en pequeños grupos o por su cuenta. El taller comenzará el viernes 26 de junio a las 3 pm EST. Un grupo de siete artistas presentará las partituras y planteará cómo pueden ser aplicables a nuestro momento actual. El lunes 29 de junio a las 3 pm, nos reuniremos para compartir nuestras experiencias y cualquier documentación que hayamos creado. Esperamos que les participantes se sientan inspirades a seguir trabajando con otras partituras durante el verano.

 

Para registrarte excribenos a: info@ilandart.org. Te enviaremos un link para unirte a la sessión en Zoom

Si no tienes acceso a una conexión estable de Internet, email info@ilandart.org. Te enviaremos un pdf con las instrucciones del taller y haremos un seguimiento..

 

Las partituras de iLANDing activan una consciencia del cuerpo en sintonía con los espacios que habitamos. Después de permanecer aislades durante meses, y ahora, con muchos de nosotres protestando en público contra la violencia policial sistemática dirigida a las comunidades negras y de color, ofrecemos estas partituras como una actividad reconfortante y de construcción de conciencia. Deseamos que el taller sea una oportunidad para volver a visitar lugares favoritos con un sentido de empoderamiento comunitario, mientras continuamos ideando formas para construir una sociedad justa, que prevenga la pobreza, y provea salud y empleo para todes. Necesitamos crear espacios que potencien el cuido y la sensibilidad hacia todas las cosas. Necesitamos construir relaciones significativas con ecologías urbanas que reconozcan y combatan las narrativas de opresión racial. Hemos elegido varias partituras que se enfocan en el conocimiento del entorno desde el cuerpo, y que activan una actitud receptiva y percepciones divergentes. Esperamos que esta experiencia active caminos para reconfigurar y potenciar el cuerpo a través del movimiento y el cuidado.

Les invitamos a habitar el cuerpo colectivamente, a compartir experiencias, sensaciones y percepciones mientras re-sintonizamos con ecologías urbanas y con espacios donde existe justicia.

Un pdf gratuito de 20 partituras será compartido con todes les participantes.

Líderes del taller:

  • Alejandra Martorell, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Alex Viteri Arturo, Colombia/Berlín, Alemania
  • Catalina Hernández-Cabal, Colombia/Illinois, EE.UU.
  • Gabriel Cerocién, TicTac Art Centre, Mexico/ Bélgica
  • Jennifer Monson, NYC/Illinois, EE.UU.
  • Elliot Maltby, Brooklyn, NY, EE.UU.
  • Carolyn Hall, Brooklyn, NY, EE.UU

 

En lugar de pagar la tarifa del taller, te invitamos a hacer una donación a una organización que respalde la liberación negra. iLAND completará su donación hasta alcanzar $400.

 

Sugerimos Okra Project,  Black Trans Protestors Emergency Fund,  Audre Lorde Project, First Nations’ COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund, Assata’s Daughters,  Sylvia Rivera Law Project,  Marsha P. Johnson Institute,  Zero Hour. Esta es una lista no exhaustiva, esperamos conocer otras muchas organizaciones gracias a sus donaciones. Muchas gracias!

 

 

Moving with the City
Investigating urban ecology with movement scores June 26 and June 29 at 3 pm EST

iLAND- interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature Dance offers a free movement workshop in Spanish

Moving with the City promo image
Moving with the City promo image

Cost: Free

Details: In this workshop we will practice movement-based scores designed to explore particular areas of our local urban ecologies and reduce screen time. On Friday June 26, a group of 7 artists will introduce the scores and offer how they can be applicable to our present moment. We will move into breakout sessions with 5-7 people. Participants will have a chance to dance, draw, and map based on their observations of their immediate space and neighborhoods. The workshop will be bracketed by two convening/discussion sessions. In the following two days, participants will do the scores when and where they choose, in small groups or on their own. On Monday June 29, we will regroup to discuss and share our experiences and documentation.

 

To register, please email info@ilandart.org. Zoom link to follow.

If you don’t have access to a stable internet connection, let us know and we will email you a pdf of workshops instructions.

 

iLANDing scores activate an embodied awareness of the spaces we live in. After sheltering in place for months, and now, with many people protesting in public against systemic police violence targeting Black and Brown communities, we offer these scores as a restorative, awareness-building activity. We hope that participating in this workshop will give people a time to reinhabit favorite spots/locations with agency and community power as we continue to find ways of rebuilding a society that is just, prevents poverty, and provides health care and jobs for everyone. We need to make spaces that resonate with care and sensitivities to all things. We need to build meaningful relationships with our urban ecologies that acknowledge and move against histories of racial oppression. By prioritizing scores that focus on our embodied knowledge of space and activate openness and differing perceptions, we hope that this experience activates ways of reconfiguring and empowering bodies through movement and care.

We invite you to come be in our bodies together – to share experience, sensation, and perception as we re-tune to our urban ecologies and to spaces where justice is alive.

A free pdf of 20 scores will be shared with all participants.

 

Workshop leaders :

 

  • Alejandra Martorell, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Alex Viteri Arturo, Colombia/ Berlin
  • Catalina Hernandez-Cabal, Colombia/Illinois
  • Gabriel Cerocién, TicTac Art Centre, Mexico/Belgium
  • Jennifer Monson, NYC/Illinois
  • Elliot Maltby, Brooklyn, NY
  • Carolyn Hall, Brooklyn, NY

 

In lieu of a workshop fee, we invite you to make a donation to an organization supporting Black liberation of your choice. iLAND will match donations up to $400.

 

We suggest the Okra Project, the Black Trans Protestors Emergency Fund, the Audre Lorde Project, First Nations’ COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund, Assata’s Daughters, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, and Zero Hour. This is a very partial list, and we hope to find out about more organizations based on your donations. THANK YOU!

 

This workshop is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Additional support provided by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants COVID19 Funds.

 

Friday Score – June 19 2020

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A FRIDAY SCORE

This week’s score invites reflection on what shares a place with you and can be done indoors or outdoors, alone or with another.
Slightly altered text below or swipe for original.
Much love, @jeniwavelength & @gatablanco
.
Source/Reflection

I. Walk silently outside and down to the water, or from where you are to a chosen destination. Pay attention to sources and reflections. For example, a source could be a light source (like the sun) or a sound source (like helicopters) or a source of pressure (like water or wind). .

Choose a source, observe it, then shift your attention to its effects on the materials and surfaces its energy touches. Ask yourself how this energy is absorbed or reflected.

Wander wherever your observations draw you, spending ten minutes walking, and seven minutes observing.

II. Choose one of the surfaces, objects, or materials which you considered in section I.

Think about the components of the material down to the particle level. Think about where the components of the material came from, how they were brought together, and how this material arrived here. Think about when this material arrived, what it has experienced since it has arrived, and how long it will continue to be here. Do this for five minutes.

Describe the lifecycle of the material you chose through drawing or writing for eight minutes.

Discuss your sources and observations with another for ten minutes, if you choose.

#weeklyscore
📷: @gatablanco

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBnd73OFsHS/

 

Follow along each Friday on Instagram and Facebook !

Jun 29 – Jul 3: Jennifer returns to TicTac Art Centre

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We’re so excited to return to TicTac for another workshop and performance!

Registration: https://tictacartcentre.com/2019/11/11/systems-scores-practice-by-jennifer-monson/

SYSTEMS/SCORES PRACTICE/PROCESS
by Jennifer Monson

We will investigate how we make scores out of the systems that we live in, observe and are attracted to. In this work, a score is an open structure that creates improvisational choices for a particular context. We will create systems for movement that can be layered into performance scores. This will be our practice. How does the practice influence our approach to performance? How do we observe and shape this process? How can our practice of making scores help us to observe the possibilities in movement and choreographic systems? We will work on presence, states of moving and scales of sensation and time. We will perform our scores daily.

Dates:
Mondays till Fridays
June 29th – July 3rd

Times of this workshop:
10:00 – 13:00 and 14:30 – 17:30

Performance on Thursday July 2nd
by Jennifer Monson
Time 20:00
Duration: 20 to 60 minutes
Entrance fee is a 5€ minimum contribution.

Price of workshop:
300 Euro
Registration fee of 80 euro required (as part of the 300)

June 23-28: ‘ditch’ premieres at LMCC River to River Festival

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LMCC presents the 18th annual River To River Festival, Downtown New York City’s completely free summer arts festival, from June 18-29, 2019.

Performances and events celebrate artistic and creative diversity in all its forms throughout spaces in Lower Manhattan. This year’s festival encourages the discovery of what arises when we all slow down.

All events are free and all are welcome.

ditch explores the interactions among the forces of gentrification; the history of community activism, especially in response to Hurricane Sandy; the current pressure of development that exacerbates income inequality; as well as the ecological interactions between the life at the edge of the island in the Lower East Side. The choreography is developed from the rhythms, tones and spatial inflections of movement generated by flows of people, the traffic, weather and water along the river’s edge. ditchaccesses and creatively explores the embodied knowledge that signals both danger and safety. How do we sense impending disasters? How do we seek safe havens?

Exploring the possibilities of signaling through murky territory and dense movement, the choreography asks questions such as: What appears as a beacon? What is an orienting feature in an unstable system? The piece investigates squeezing and tightening as both a generator of movement and as choreographic strategy. The work aims to emanate an urgency and disquiet that drives the performer and viewer towards unexpected openings.

For more info and to rsvp, click here:

Performances at Melville Gallery, South Street Seaport Museum:

  • World Premiere: June 23 at sunrise, 5:30am
  • June 26, 7pm
  • June 28, 7pm

Plus! an iLANDing Workshop, Pier 35 East River Esplanade:

  • June 23, 11am, Pier 35
    (Closest entrance at Rutgers Slip)

Composer and sound artist: Jeff Kolar
Performers/dancers: Courtney Cooke, Madeline Mellinger, Kaitlin Fox
Costume designer: Susan Becker
Lighting designer:  Ben Demarest

July 29-Aug 2: Jennifer Monson at TicTac Art Centre in Brussels!

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SYSTEMS/SCORES PRACTICE/PROCESS
by Jennifer Monson

for full registration info visit:
https://tictacartcentre.com/2018/12/31/jeniffer-monson/

We will investigate how we make scores out of the systems that we live in, observe and are attracted to. In this work, a score is an open structure that creates improvisational choices for a particular context. We will create systems for movement that can be layered into performance scores. This will be our practice. How does the practice influence our approach to performance? How do we observe and shape this process? How can our practice of making scores help us to observe the possibilities in movement and choreographic systems? We will work on presence, states of moving and scales of sensation and time. We will perform our scores daily.

Times:
11.00 – 17.00

Price:
250 Euro

Registration fee of 80 euro required (as part of the 250)
Performance: TBA
Time: 20.00

Performance: Date in negotiation
Solo Improvisation by Jennifer Monson
Time: 20.00
Duration: 20 to 60 minutes

This workshop is also part of the Special Summer Package of 4 weeks of Improvisation coached by 5 different dance artists of 5 different continents. If you want to book this package, it costs only 800 Euro (or 960 Euro with daily lunch included).
www.tictacartcentre.com/2019/03/31/summer-package/

IN KINSHIP: Archives & Performance Fellowship – due Apr 10

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hi ILAND!

See below a fellowship opportunity from our friends at Open Waters!

For more info: http://openwaters.org/fellowship

ABOUT THE ARCHIVES & PERFORMANCE FELLOWSHIP

What possibilities emerge when we look at social repair and environmental care as public, creative acts? The Archives & Performance Fellowship is a year-long opportunity with stipends for four Fellows that follows the tradition of Wabanaki Guiding, connecting Native and non-Native people to place through experience, language, and story. Fellows will experiment with research and performance approaches to understand stories and histories of the Penobscot River and watershed. They will collaborate to create new work, inspired by their learning, that addresses ecological recovery and social justice. Fellowship activities will be led by Penobscot Nation partners and will center indigenous knowledge and experience.

The Fellowship year will include a regular check-in schedule, workshops and skill-shares, two intensives that immerse Fellows in research and performance methods, and a public performance and/or presentation of work created. This work may take many forms including but not limited to narrative play scripts, research papers, multi-media and video-based performance, spoken word, movement-based work, music and songwriting, cross-genre journals and/or any combination of forms and formats. Fellows will receive a $1500 stipend, dramaturgical/research support, connections with the broader In Kinship community, photo and video process documentation, and space to present their work.

The broad goal of this project is to activate potential for richly layered research, cross-discipline dialogue, and creative process to shift public understanding of our shared environments and histories. It is driven by a desire to understand how the (hi)story of the Penobscot River is preserved and told and, at the same time, to work against linear, progress-based narratives of the river that represent the past as something static that is disconnected from the present and future.

Jan 19-25: Jennifer Monson teaches workshop with MELT @Movement Research and MoMA

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iLANDing – researching context and aesthetics through embodied score techniques

Dates:

  • 1/19 1-4pm, 122 Community Center
  • 1/20 1-4pm, MoMA
  • 1/22 6-9pm, MoMA
  • 1/23 6-9pm, MoMA
  • 1/24 3-5pm, MoMA
  • 1/25 3-5pm, MoMA

Registration: click here
Cost: $150

Description: This workshop will use the framework of the iLANDing scores to research some of the art works in MOMA’s collection. What happens when we propose that the artwork itself is an ecological system that we inhabit? What kinds of movement emerge from this investigation? What new conceptual possibilities between performance and visual art are activated through this embodied process of the score? The art work becomes performance, the performance becomes the artifact, everything is experienced through movement. We will start by working with the iLANDIng scores outdoors then bring that experience into the museum to research particular artworks. From that we will create performance events as artifacts of this exchange of the resonance between movement, form, scales of sensation, time and experience -locating new aesthetic value in artistic frames for inhabiting our world.

The materials explored in this workshop will culminate with a public manifestation at The Museum of Modern Art, in conjunction with Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done. Participation in the workshop does not require you to participate in the manifestation at MoMA.

Location (venue, city, state, country): 122 Community Center and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA

[Photo: Performers Jennifer Monson and Mauriah Donegan Kraker in bend the even at Chocolate Factory Theater, Photo by Ian Douglas]

Dec 1-2: Jennifer Monson teaches a workshop at Movement Research – “Immediate minutes/ Minuets”

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December 1 – 2, 2018
Location TBA
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Cost: $75

Jennifer Monson teaches a workshop at Movement Research!

Description:
We will start with performing instantaneous 2 minute dances for each other. Responding with various approaches to language – descriptive, poetic, non–verbal, structural, etc., we will hone our intentions as they evolve in the act of performance. Over the two days we will expand the time frame and generate material that can be used towards future research, performance and pleasure. What is performed both for witness and dancer? Is it an act, a task, a relation, a perception? How to we communicate, obfuscate, shape, clarify, and stir up mystery? We will animate different spaces of performance and dance through our research together.

For more info and to register: https://movementresearch.org/event/9046

Oct 29-30: Jennifer Monson in Montpellier, France

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Full Flyer here: INVITATION COLLOQUE ADD

Jennifer Monson heads to France next for ENSAM’s Architecture Dance Design Conference!
See a rough translation from their website:

MONDAY OCTOBER 29: BODY IN MOTION, SHARING WORKS AND A  CONTEXTUALIZED ARCHITECTURE: WHAT SENSIBLE APPROACH?
RESTITUTION OF EXPERIENCE AS RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGY

TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER:
AT THE CROSSING OF THE DISCIPLINES, INTERROGATE THE SPACE GENERATED AND SHARED. PERFORMANCE SPACE AND EPHEMERAL COMMUNITY OF GESTURES:
WHAT ARE THE RECIPROCAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN DANCE, ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN?

SYMPOSIUM
ENSAM, in partnership with ICI-CCN, La Sapienza and the French Institute of Rome, organizes the Architecture Danse Design conference.
This symposium puts in conversation several disciplines around theory and practice, research and creation, pedagogy and transmission, and retraces the experiences of the organizing institutions in connection with the resident artist.
Guest sessions led by: Emmanuelle Huynh, Jennifer Monson, Mathias Fish – choreographers, Francesco Careri, founder of Stalker, collective of architects, Alix de Morant, lecturer in theatrical and choreographic studies at the Paul-Valéry University Montpellier 3.
Free RSVP at: ADDreservation@montpellier.archi.fr

Oct 20-22 : FEVERISH WORLD at University of Vermont

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FEVERISH WORLD (2018-2068): Arts and Sciences of Collective Survival will be a three-day symposium and convergence intended to catalyze the building of bridges between the arts and the sciences, and between academe and the broader community, to help prepare UVM and the Burlington region for the next 50 years of anticipated “feverishness.” (Fill in your own blanks about the likely sources of that feverishness–climate and ecological changes, resource wars, movements of refugee populations, clashing political paradigms, and so on.)

FEVERISH WORLD will include panels and roundtables, keynote talks and conversations, as well as public art and music performances, a “tent city” encampment of TentWorks installations, a parade, and more. Among the featured speakers and artists will be
– anthropologist and philosopher of science Bruno Latour, whose Burack Lecture on “The Politics of Gaia” will take place on Monday October 22 at 4 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel;
– Brazilian sculptor Nele Azevedo, whose Minimal Monument ice sculpture will be installed on the back steps of City Hall Park on Sunday October 23;
– painter, sculptor, and installation artist Torkwase Dyson, whose art works will be exhibited at Williams Hall (and potentially the new Cohen Building) and whose Molly Ruprecht Talk will take place on Monday October 22 at 7 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel;
– environmental philosopher and jazz musician (known for his recordings with animals) David Rothenberg, whose keynote talk will take place on Sunday October 21, with a musical performance on Saturday evening;
– Burlington City Arts artist-in-residence Pauline Jennings, who will lead a performative urban wilderness walk/game on Saturday October 20;
– eco-artist and engineer Natalie Jeremijenko, director of the xDesign Environmental Health Clinic at New York University, who will be in residence at the Green House Residential Community for the week leading up to and including Feverish World;
– UVM composer David Neiweem, whose church bell compositions will be heard at various sites and times over the three “feverish” days;
– Abenaki historian and archaeologist Frederick Wiseman, who will speak on the history of this land on Sunday October 21;
– Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson, co-hosts of the award-winning public radio program “To the Best of Our Knowledge”;
– Vermont poet laureate Chard deNiord, artist and eco-arts theorist Linda Weintraub, ecology and religion scholar Bron Taylor, musicians including cellist Anne Bourne, Rural Noise Ensemble, Metamorph, Pantet, and others.

The event is being organized by a group of UVM faculty and Burlington and area activists working under the auspices of the EcoCulture Lab, with generous support from the Gund Institute for Environment, the UVM Humanities Center, the Rubenstein School and the Steven Rubenstein Professorship, the Dan and Carole Burack Lecture Fund, the Molly Ruprecht Fund for Visual Arts, and from UVM departments and programs including Environmental Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Global and Regional Studies, Art and Art History, as well as the Fleming Museum, Champlain College, Burlington City Arts, the McCarthy Art Gallery at St. Michael’s College, and the Shelburne Institute.

A partial list of speakers and guests can be found here (others are still being confirmed):
https://ecoculturelab.net/speakers/

A tentative schedule of events (to be updated with more detail in the coming weeks) can be found here:
https://ecoculturelab.net/program/

Feverish World will be free and open to the public, though select events, as well as roundtable paper access, will require pre-registration

If you are interested in volunteering or in coordinating classes with any of the visiting artists or programs, please contact us at ecoculture@uvm.edu.

Jennifer Monson – special guest @ TicTac Art Centre in Brussels in August 2018!

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JENNIFER MONSON/SCORES AND SYSTEMS FOR PERFORMING IMPROVISATION
09:15-11:15am, Mon-Wed, Aug 13-15

FROM THE 12TH-19TH OF August 2018 David Zambrano and Mat Voorter will finally open TICTAC Art Centre in Brussels, Belgium.

From Sunday 12 until Sunday 19 August 2018, we will be celebrating the opening of TicTac Art Centre with a non stop of daily art activities:

  1. Master Classes by Marlon Barrios Solano, Jennifer Monson, Yoshiko Chuma, Terence Lewis, Archie Burnett, David Zambrano, Horacio Macuacua, Enano, and TimSon.
  2. Performances:  Every evening will be improvisational performances by a selection of a long list of invited artists. The performances will be announce on the same day each day on the website and Facebook page of TICTAC ART CENTRE.
  3. Exhibitions by local and international visual artists will be presented throughout the TicTac Art Centre spaces. 

More info: http://tictacartcentre.com

URGENT: Please attend a meeting July 9, 10 or 11 on NY storm surge barriers

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From John Lipscomb and our friends at Riverkeeper:

(Full post here)

Fast-tracked Army Corps proposals threaten the future life of the Hudson.

Outer harbor GatewayThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering six different plans for massive offshore barriers and/or land-based floodwalls intended to “manage the risk of coastal storm damage” to New York Harbor and the Hudson Valley. Several of these alternatives could threaten the very existence of the Hudson as a living river.

Click here to read our new blog post with more information.

If you live anywhere near the shorelines of New York City, New York Harbor or the Hudson up to Troy, your community will be forever affected by this decision.

Anyone who cares about the life in the Hudson River needs to become informed and involved, now.

Please attend one of these meetings, just announced:

• Monday, July 9, 3-5 p.m., NYC: Borough of Manhattan Community Center in Tribeca, enter at 199 Chambers St, New York, NY 10007, between Greenwich St. and the West Side Highway. The session is in the Conference Room-Richard Harris Terrace, on the main floor.

• Monday, July 9, 6-8 p.m., NYC: (duplicate session) at the Borough of Manhattan Community Center in Tribeca, enter at 199 Chambers St., Manhattan, between Greenwich St. and the West Side Highway. The session is in the Conference Room-Richard Harris Terrace, on the main floor.

• Tuesday, July 10, 3-5 p.m., Newark: Rutgers University-Newark Campus, Paul Robeson Campus Center, 2nd floor, Essex Room. Entrance is at 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Newark, N.J.

• Tuesday, July 10, 6-8 p.m., Newark: (duplicate session) at Rutgers University-Newark Campus, Paul Robeson Campus Center, 2nd floor, Essex Room. Entrance is at 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Newark, N.J.

• Wednesday, July 11, 6-8 p.m., Poughkeepsie: Hudson Valley Community Center (Auditorium room), 110 South Grand Avenue, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

This process is being fast-tracked, and it’s an outrage. The Army Corps gave only 12 days’ notice for meetings on an issue that will take many years to resolve and could change the river forever.

The six alternatives are under consideration as part of the New York – New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries (NYNJHAT) Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study, affecting more than 2,150 square miles. We all know that sea level rise and more frequent, intense storms require action and planning. But there is a difference between creating more protective, resilient shorelines over time, and installing massive, in-water barriers that threaten to change the ecosystem forever. Offshore barriers will choke off tidal flow and fish migration – the very life of our river.

Riverkeeper is working on an information piece to tell you what you need to know. Please mark your calendars and stay tuned.

See Riverkeeper’s letter to the Army Corps of Engineers requesting scoping comment period extension.

May 21: Circus Amok’s Benefit – Monday of 1000 Stars!

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Monday of 1000 Stars!!
Benefit Flyer
A Benefit for Circus Amok’s 2018 Parks Tour !
Monday May 21
7:00pm Doors
7:30pm Performancesat Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, NYCPerformances by:

Rev Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir!
Cathy Weis!
Monstah Black
Becca Blackwell
Ashley Brockington
Machine Dazzle
Patricia Hoffbauer
Jennifer Miller
Jennifer Monson
Nicky Paraiso
STREB
David Thomson
….and special surprise guests!

CLICK FOR TICKETS:
$50 general admission
or Join the Center Ring Host Committee for extra perks!

All proceeds go to support the 2018 Parks Tour September 1-16 !

 

March 5th: Public Meeting for Ridgewood Reservoir

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Ridgewood Reservoir Public Meeting

Monday, March 5th, 2018 @ 7 PM
Redeemer Lutheran Church – 6907 Cooper Ave, Glendale, NY

Join us to make your voice heard to protect the Ridgewood Reservoir’s unique ecology. The NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will be holding a public meeting to discuss the proposed Ridgewood Reservoir wetlands delineation. NYC H2O encourages all Ridgewood Reservoir neighbors and enthusiasts to attend this meeting and speak in favor of the wetlands designation.

DEC has found that “The majority of the western basin (Basin 1), as well as the majority of the southern half of the western basin (Basin 3) contain forested wetlands that are seasonally flooded. The majority of central basin (Basin 2) contains open water, surrounded by emergent wetlands…” The comment period on the wetland designation starts today and will close on March 22nd. A copy of DEC’s The Ridgewood Reservoir Wetlands Report is available for download here.

Comments should be emailed to kenneth.scarlatelli@dec.ny.gov or mailed to:

Regional Administration, Region 2
47-40 21st Street
Long Island City, NY 11101-5401
Attn: Ken Scarlatelli

Source: NY State Department of Environmental Conservation
Map of the Ridgewood Reservoir

 

bend the even premieres in February 2018!

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bend the even

Chocolate Factory
(tickets now available at the link above!)
February 20-24, 2018
8 pm

Mauriah Kraker and Jennifer Monson in a recent showing for bend the even, January 2018. Photo by Ryutaro Ishikane.

We just finished a two- week residency at the Chocolate Factory – such a generous and generative space to work and big thanks to the amazing team of Brian Rogers, Sheila Lewandowski and Madeline Best. We are preparing to open bend the even in one month, February 20 – 24 at 8 pm at the Chocolate Factory. Get your tickets early!

The work continues to shift, and expand. I am learning something about time, about stillness and a sense of quiet that is full of movement, sound and light. We are narrowing in on the ways in which the mediums press into each other and create a friction that emanates an uncanny animacy in the space. It was a pleasure to share a work in progress on January 13th alongside a beautiful solo of luciana achugar’s. The two of us have been in conversation with each other about the how we make work, our overlapping concerns, themes and differences. That conversation will be public through the Chocolate Factory website in February.

bend the even is a collaboration with myself, Susan Becker (costumes), Elliott Cennetoglu (lighting), Regina Garcia (scenic design), Jeff Kolar (composer), Mauriah Kraker (performer), and Zeena Parkins (composer),   It culminates a year long process researching varying scales of light, sound and movement generated before and during dawn. The work accesses new frameworks for emanating presence and animacy through the three mediums of sound, light and movement leaving the audience at the edge of perceptual comprehension. Undoing hierarchies of value between viewer and performer, bend the even explores containment and relinquishing through ever-narrowing parameters. This work allows for the possibility that movement disappears and leaves only sensation, an emanation that is experienced through the skin and ears, not so much through the eyes. In bend the even this asks the viewer to release what might be tangible about the experience in preparation for what is newly emerging.

If you are in NYC, I would love to see you there. Be sure to get your tickets soon and stay tuned for more on the work– including spotlights on our collaborators– in the next month!

Yours always in creative collaboration,

Jennifer and the iLAND Team

Announcing A Field Guide to iLANDing

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I am tremendously excited and proud to announce the publication of A Field Guide to iLANDing by 53rd State Press. It is such a pleasure to hold this pocket-sized book of scores in hand after the years of hard work that went into creating it.

I can’t wait to share it with you all. This book is the result of deeply stimulating collaboration and holds the creativity and brilliance of our entire iLAND community. I hope it will guide you into your own adventurous creative research with urban ecologies and beyond.

Books are available for $15. If you’re able to donate a bit on top for added support to iLAND’s upcoming projects, we’d be so grateful.

The book is accompanied by a redesign of our archives that include information about past dance projects, residencies, symposiums, and iLANDing laboratories. These archives hold additional information about all of the projects represented in the book. Once you activate the scores in the field guide, you can view detailed documentation on our website about each of the collaborative projects as a companion piece to your own research. Thank you to Julia Handschuh for this beautiful reorganization of the iLAND archive!

We have also recently reconstructed the www.birdbraindance.org website. This project happened from 2000-2006 and was the foundation of iLAND. It remains an important archive of environmental research and performance. Thank you to Jason Woofenden for his hard work and generosity in making this website available to the public again!

All of these projects were made possible with financial support from the Doris Duke Impact Artist Audience Development Fund and we are deeply grateful for their support.

And as always, we offer our heartfelt gratitude to all of the folks that created and participated with such risk and enthusiasm to generate this delicate and innovative approach to collaboration, especially the iLAND Board and the iLAB Residents.

Next week, we will be announcing re-runs of IN TOW TV and sharing a thoughtful and provocative essay about in tow written by Colin Gee.

So please – buy a copy of A Field Guide to iLANDing, crack it open and start collaborating! We look forward to following your discoveries and insights into dancing with our urban ecologies.

With Love and In Collaboration,
Jennifer

Process Workshops with Pier 35 Festival Commissioned Artists

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Photo from June 1 Workshop with Tatyana Tenenbaum and Andy Luo

The Pier 35 Festival is happening in June 2018 in partnership with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council. This project is supported by a Building Demand for the Arts Implementation grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. These workshops are supported in part by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
[Read more…] about Process Workshops with Pier 35 Festival Commissioned Artists