iLAND

Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance

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A score for the solstice

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For a full reflection on 2019, read our latest newsletter here.

16 // Leading and Following
For two people, switching between leader and follower

As the leader, take the follower by the hand and walk towards a space and/or object that compels you.

Rest together, observe the space/object. Move on when you both are ready. Switch roles and start again.

Do this several times, taking time to rest. Notice how resting changes the way you absorb the space/object.

If you are in a space with other people, create an encounter with a stranger – either to talk about the space/object or to rest with you. You may do this as a pair or on your own.

OR

Describe your interests and observations directly to the space/object itself.

To complete the score, give something to the space/object that will nurture it for a while.

En Español

16 // Llevar y Seguir:
Para dos personas, cambiando del líder y seguidor. 

Como el líder, lleve al seguidor por la mano y caminé hacia un espacio u objeto que le fascine. 

Descansen juntos, observen el espacio/objeto. Que continúen cuando ambos estén listos. Que cambien de rol y empiecen de nuevo. 

Háganlo varias veces, tomen tiempos para descansar. Fíjense en cómo los descansos cambian la forma en que absorben el espacio/objeto. 

Sí están en un espacio con otra gente, que creen un encuentro con un ser extraño- que hablen sobre el espacio u objeto o que descansen juntos. Usted puede hacer esto acompañado o solo. 

O

Describa sus intereses y observaciones directamente al espacio/objeto en sí. 

Para cumplir la partitura, dé algo al espacio/objeto que lo nutrirá por un tiempo. 

 

Press from ‘ditch’

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Thanks to all who came and supported ditch!

See below for some of the press we got for this work – The dawn is truly miraculous !

River to River dance festival — the dawn worked its miraculous transformations – Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times

At water’s edge: Jennifer Monson / iLAND presents ‘ditch’ – Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Goings On About Town: River to River Festival – Brian Seibert, The New Yorker

6 Dance Performances to See in NYC this Weekend – Brain Schaefer, The New York Times

 

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.

Ridgewood Reservoir receives wetland delineation!

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Dear Friends,

In 2007, I started a year-long project at the Ridgewood Reservoir in collaboration with thread collective, a Brooklyn-based architecture team, and dance artists Mariangela Lopez, Maggie Bennett and Charlotte Gibbons and composer Kenta Negai.

Our research included visits to the site with Mike Feller, Chief Naturalist of the Natural Resource Group of the NYC Parks Department; Andrew Greller, Professor Emeritus, Biology at Queens College; John Waldman, Professor of Biology, Queens College and Uli Lorimer, Curator of Native Flora, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, as well as members of the Brooklyn Bird Club including, bird census coordinator Heidi Steiner, Steve Nanz, Rob Jett and Al Ott.

We became intimately knowledgeable of the unusual rare ecologies thriving in this 60-acre bit of urban wilderness as well as the ways that the communities engaged with and enjoyed the area.This influenced the choreographic research that resulted in fall, spring and summer performances. The attention this project brought to the reservoir instigated a community of neighbors and others committed to conserving this special area as the site became hotly contested for different kinds of development.

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that this month the Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed that the majority of the area has received wetland delineation.

This was the final part the battle to save Ridgewood Reservoir. We now have wetland protection as well as protection under the National Register of Historic Place. Parks has been persuaded to preserve Ridgewood as a wildlife sanctuary and has initiated the first step toward that plan.

If you are interested you can see the results of some of our research here as well as a video of the fall performance of iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir. http://www.ilandart.org/dance-project/imap-ridgewood-reservoir/

Here’s to art as a transformative cultural and political force!

yours in creative collaboration,

Jennifer Monson

Special thanks to the MAP Fund and NYSCA for believing in this project and funding it!

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

BIRD BRAIN Dance is Live!

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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!

BIRD BRAIN was a multi-year navigational dance touring project that followed the migratory pathways of birds and gray whales on their journeys across the north and south hemispheres. The project investigated the navigational habits of these animals and their biophysical and metaphorical relationship to us as fellow travelers in the world. BIRDBRAINDANCE.org now exists as an archive of these migrations filled with journals from dancers, photos, videos, and information on the animal migrations.

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

Paths to Pier 42 Spring Waterfront Celebration

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pathstopier42

You are invited to help kick off the 3rd and final season of Paths to Pier 42 programming at the Spring Waterfront Celebration.  Enjoy Spring on the East River Waterfront, pack a picnic, and participate in activities with the 2015 artist and designers. Free! All are welcome!

We’re thrilled that the Urban Backstage iLAB residency group will be sharing their research by leading two public engagement activities as part of this event. The day’s activities will include:

1pm & 3pm: The Urban Backstage
Which spaces in the city allow us to remove our masks, to make mistakes, to expose [or hide] things, thoughts and actions that may not be allowed elsewhere? What else lies behind the scenes? Join a walking and talking exploration of the waterfront where we will look at connections between the personal and the communal, and the informal and formal through space and language.
Time: Walks depart from the Pier 42 welcome tent at 1pm and 3pm and last up to one hour.
Route: Pier 42, Corlear’s Hook, East River Amphitheater and back to Pier 42
Artists: Julie Kline, Elliott Maltby, Clarinda Mac Low, Jeremy Pickard, Shawn Shaffner, Rachel Stevens. The Urban Backstage activities are part of iLAB East River.

2pm: Welcoming remarks — what to expect on the Pier this summer and in the future
2:30pm: Performance by Faye Driscoll: Thank you for coming: Attendance
All day activities: Drawing activity with Fish Stories Community Cookbook project, a touch tank to explore river ecology by Lower East Side Ecology Center, family-friendly science experiments with Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, BioBus mobile science lab, a mobile wifi-tower demonstration by Wifi-NY, and composting lessons just upriver by LESEC and OpenBin NYC.

2015 iLANDing Laboratory Program

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Cover Photo

2015 iLANDing Laboratory Program

Following the successful inaugural year of the iLANDing Laboratory Initiative, we had the pleasure of programing a second year. The 2015 iLANDing Laboratory Program occuipied the Spring and Summer seasons with a series of experimental workshops/laboratories designed by members of the iLAND community and those who are aligned with the values of iLANDing. [Read more…] about 2015 iLANDing Laboratory Program

Coyote Walks

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coyote1med

Coyote Walks

Led by Dillon deGive

Sunday February 22 1pm & Thursday April 9 at 7pm

Central Park

On Sunday February 22 participants will explore terrain that “Hal” the 2006 New York City coyote occupied during his stay in Manhattan. Working with the input of an expert, we will mimic the path that a resident coyote of Central Park (if there was one) might walk while considering the intersections of the urban and natural. Meet us at Central Park at 103rd Street and Central Park West, accessible via the B and C subway.

From April 4-6 Dillon de Give will hike for three days with a small group to trace Hal’s possible route. This journey will connect Central Park with the wilderness via green space corridors. A team will be assembled in the months prior to the walk. If you are interested or want to learn more see more please visit: https://coyotewalks.wordpress.com/

On Thursday April 9 participants in the longer Coyote Walk invite you to join several short walking and movement exercises and to discuss the findings of their journey. As the workshop progresses, we will make our way north through Central Park. This session is formatted to accommodate mixed leadership and dialogue amongst the group. Please come with one story of an animal encounter (grand or banal).  Meet us outside Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park. We’ll be at the bottom of the stairs just inside the park, north of Central park South and 6th Ave.

 

Dillon de Give is an artist and educator acting in a spirit of humane experimentalism, staging subtle alterations to everyday performances such as walking or telling jokes. His work is based in research and social exchange. He has presented with The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, The Portland Art Museum, The Center for Urban Pedagogy, Proteus Gowanus, Flux Factory, Catch! Performance Series, Guapamacátaro (Michoacán, Mexico), and The Center for Contemporary Art Santa Fe, NM among others. Dillon is a co-founder of the Walk Exchange, a cooperative group that develops creative and educational group walks. His long-term Coyote Walk project investigates footpaths between the city and the wild. His recent publication Do I Know What I’m Doing? is a study of the intersection of liability insurance and socially engaged art. Dillon was a writer and Thinker in Residence for the Art in Odd Places Festival in 2014. He holds a BS in Film from Northwestern University and an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University. He lives, works and helps to raise a child in Brooklyn, NY.

 

Use Values: Re/Imagining Urban Waste

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Zena2

Use Values: Re/Imagining Urban Waste

Led by Zena Bibler, Katarina Jerinic, and Juliette Spertus

Saturday May 2 1-4pm & Sunday May 10 1-5:30pm

Island between exit 30 off the eastbound BQE and Classon + Flushing Avenues in Brooklyn

This two-part workshop takes place on a leftover piece of land at Exit 30 off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a site maintained by volunteers through the Adopt-A-Highway program which, according to the program’s mission, is devoted to “beautification or other aesthetic-related activities.” During the workshop, we will use this location as a laboratory for exploring the role of waste, refuse, and acts of discarding in the formation of the urban landscape. We will play along the spectrum of owning, consuming, and throwing away, and follow the paths of objects beyond the moment at which they are initially discarded. In addition to studying the combination of systems that act on the landscape, we will take time to reorganize and reimagine the site through functional and aesthetic lenses. Finally, we will host an open house to share food and discussion with other workshop participants and visitors.

May 2 1-4pm: Collect & Analyze In this first session, we will examine the ways the site is shaped by the movements of animate and inanimate material in and around the island triangle. What are the discernible forces acting on the site? How does this site participate in broader urban ecosystems? We will document our findings in the form of movement scores and maps that will be shared with future visitors in a letterbox onsite.

May 10 1-4pm(Open House 4-5:30PM): Sort & Select In the second session, we will clean the site—collecting, re-organizing, and displaying discarded material. In addition to working with our observations of the site as we encounter it, we will also develop other possible uses for the site and its materials. We will conclude the session with an open house for visitors to experience the re-organized space and share food and discussion.

Please meet us directly at the site. Participants can take public transit to the site using either the G train to Classon Ave and walking to the site, or by taking the bus (B48, B69, or B44). Please wear clothing that covers your arms and legs and that you don’t mind getting a little dirty. We will be working with trash! Gloves will be provided. Bring any desired forms of documentation (camera, sketchpad, etc). We will provide all materials that are necessary, but participants are invited to contribute to documentation in their desired format.

Check out the Use Values Blog: http://usevalues.tumblr.com/ to see updates about the project.

Zena Bibler creates dance structures that use the moving body as a means of experiencing diverse environments, phenomena, and modes of being. Much of her recent activity is centered on collaborations with the Movement Party (co-founded in 2010 with Katie Schetlick). Her work has been presented at Movement Research, NADA Hudson, Gibney Dance Center, Dixon Place, Lublin International Dance Theatre Festival (Poland), Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (Egypt), Museum Perron Oost (Netherlands), and Sesc Vila Mariana (Brazil). Her dance films have been featured in Dance Magazine, Dance Films Association, and Moviehouse Brooklyn, and have screened nationally and internationally. As a teaching artist, she has developed workshops in the areas of sensory attunement, improvisation, choreographic viewing, and integrated techniques for Fleet Moves Dance Festival, New York University, Yale University, University of Virginia, the Floating Library, and Studio 303 (Canada), among others. She has had the pleasure of dancing in the work of Katie Schetlick, Brandin Steffensen, Athena Kokoronis, Anne Zuerner, Steve Paxton, Mariangela Lopez, and the Movement Party.

Juliette Spertus is an architect and co-founder of ClosedLoops, an infrastructure strategic planning and development firm. Her experience as a designer in Boston and New York inspired her to explore the integration of invisible support infrastructures, including the networks that bring goods and remove wastes, into urban design. In 2010, she created the exhibit Fast Trash: Roosevelt Island’s Pneumatic Tubes and the Future of Cities and the online resource fasttrash.org. Fast Trash led to two NY state-funded studies on the costs and benefits of pneumatic waste collection in New York City, which she led with researchers from CUNY’s University Transportation Research Center. She has presented her research on waste and urban design in conferences, design studios, papers, and articles in the US and Europe. She received a BA in Art History from Williams College and an architecture degree from l’Ecole d’Architecture des Villes et des Territoires in Marne-la-Vallée, France.

Katarina Jerinic’s photography, mixed-media projects, and public space-based installations respond to and intervene in built environments in order to draw attention to our interactions with surrounding spaces. Jerinic has been a resident at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH (2008); the Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2010); Tokamak at Helsinki International Artist Program, Helsinki, Finland (2013); and the Experimental Television Center, Owego, NY (2003); and participated in the Bronx Museum of the Arts Artist in the Marketplace program (2005). Her work has been included in exhibitions and programs at Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY (2014); Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY (2006); Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY (2009, 2010); Proteus Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY (2013); NurtureArt, Brooklyn, NY (2009); BRIC, Brooklyn, NY (2008, 2011, 2013, 2015); the Peekskill Project, Peekskill, NY (2012); the Conflux Festival, New York, NY (2010); Temple Gallery at Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2011), as well as other spaces and places near and far. Jerinic’s collaborative, participatory project with Naomi Miller The Work Office (TWO), a re-interpretation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for New York City artists, has been awarded grants from the Black Rock Arts Foundation (2009), the Brooklyn Arts Council (2010), Chashama (2009), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space (2010), and the Times Square Alliance (2011). She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts and BA from American University in history. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

 

2014 iLAND Program Highlights

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2014 was a fruitful year for iLAND filled with new growth, sharing among the community, and fallow time. As we enter 2015 we reflect on highlights from our past year.

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We relish in the fallow time that was created during theMovement Research Spring Festival/iLAND Symposium. There was talking, walking, poetry reading, dancing and listening to wild sounds of the night out at Floyd Bennet Field during two days of unstructured time. We were joined by the Thabiso Heccius Pule and Thami Manekehla from South Africa, who gave a stunning performance walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. There were various free workshops and open processes, a discussion/meal with Justine Lynch and Tom MaCauley ofMountain, a rambunctious night of performing at Issue Project Room, and more. Check out the Hadley Smith’s blog about the festival.

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This year iLAND initiated the iLANDing Laboratories as a vehicle to support continuations of the community’s interdisciplinary collaboration. From March through July, Laboratories such as kayaking to White Island in Jamaica Bay, stargazing in Inwood Park and a poetic walk across the Willis Ave bridge were offered. These workshops expanded the iLAND community and provided an opportunity for artists and scientists to develop ideas from past residencies in New York City’s urban ecology.

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This year Live Dancing Archive was remounted at New York Live Arts and The House is Open Exhibit at Bard College. Niall Jones, Tatyana Tenenbaum and Val Oliveiro joined the original cast and their generous creative contribution allowed for Live Dancing Archive to continue to evolve. Thanks to all of you joined the celebration and toast on opening night! If you missed it, check out the New York Times review and the Brooklyn Rail review.

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LAND partners with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to support three iLAB Residencies this year. Last Summer we hosted three workshops that initiated this new program, which will engage interdisciplinary artists, activists, and local community members. The project focuses on the East River Waterfront/Pier 42 and is generously supported by the Doris Duke Foundation’s Building Demand for Audiences grant.

What an exciting year it has been!
Please consider donating TODAY to support the future of iLAND!

 

NPR and WNYC Present Water±

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Water±

Monday November 10 at 8pm

Tribeca Performing Arts Center 

Water± brings together Tony-Award winning directorKenny Leon, award-winning NPR Science CorrespondentChristopher Joyce, and award-winning theater writersArthur Yorinks and Carl Hancock Rux with an original sound score by acclaimed violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). The unique storytelling experience pairs actual coverage from NPR and WNYC news reports with live music and poetry.

 

Hosts:
Amy Eddings (WNYC)

Arun Rath (NPR)

Cast:
Jason Dirden (A Raisin in the Sun)

Lucas Caleb Rooney (Boardwalk Empire)

Michele Shay (August Wilson’s Seven Guitars)

Tamela Alridge (One Life to Live)

Roberta Colindrez (Unforgettable, Girls)

Carl Hancock Rux (poet)

Daniel Bernard Roumain (composer and violinist)

Live Dancing Archive Opening Night Benefit Party

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Live Dancing Archive Opening Night Benefit Party

Wednesday October 15 at 9pm

New York Live Arts

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We hope you’ll be able to join us to celebrate the evolution of iLAND by toasting Jennifer Monson after the opening night of Live Dancing Archive at New York Live Arts. On Wednesday, October 15, we’ll gather as a community for wine and light fare in the lobby of New York Live Arts immediately following the performance.

We’ll be hosting an auction with fantastic works of art and adventures donated by the iLAND Board. Some of the items up for bidding include:
               Surfcasting Fishing Trip to Breezy Point with Elliott Maltby
               Photographs by Meredith Ramirez Talusan
               Embodied Rat Mapping Walk with Jason Munshi-South
               Screen Prints by Sable Elyse Smith
               Selected Bottles of Wine from John Monson

Tickets for the Opening Night Benefit Party are available for $25 HERE.
All tax-deductible proceeds will support the development of iLAND’s programs.

Tickets for Live Dancing Archive at New York Live Arts are available HERE.
Please note that performance tickets must be purchased separate from Benefit tickets.

Donate to iLAND HERE.

All tax-deductible proceeds will support the development of iLAND’s programs.

We’re so grateful for your generous support of these endeavors and hope to see you on October 15 to celebrate together.

Warmly,

The iLAND Board

Barbara Bryan – Kate Cahill – Carolyn Hall – Elliott Maltby – Jennifer Monson – John Monson – Sable Elyse Smith – Jason Munshi-South – Meredith Ramirez Talusan – Or Zubalsky

Off the Grid

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Off the Grid

Saturday September 27 3:30-6:30pm

The Studio Museum in Harlem

In anticipation of Charles Gaines’s first live performance of Manifestos 2 (2013) at the Museum of Modern Art, join us for a workshop and field trip beginning with a brief tour of Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1989, followed by an interactive movement exercise enacted as participants travel to MoMA in time for the performance and discussion.

Led by Elliott Maltby—a designer and founding partner of thread collective, a collaborative design studio that explores the seams between building, art and landscape—the movement workshop will encourage participants to adapt and apply the arbitrary, rule-based systems that underpin Gaines’s works. Participants will animate the unique grid of Manhattan, calling on and channeling the themes of conceptualism that will be explored more in depth in MoMA’s theater by panelists Sean Griffin, Stuart Comer, Naima J. Keith and Charles Gaines himself.

The tour and movement workshop are free with Studio Museum admission and will begin in the Museum lobby. Participants will, however, need to pay for their own subway fare. For more information click here. 

Please RSVP to programs@studiomuseum.org to reserve a space!

For tickets to Charles Gaines: Manifestos II at MoMA, please visit http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/tickets/events/21846.

 

Charles Gaines
Numbers and Trees III, Shucks #11, 1987
Acrylic sheet, acrylic paint, and
pencil on paper
50 ½ × 42 × 6 in.
Collection of Jay and Diana Moss 

Request for Proposals – 2015 iLANDing Laboratories Initiative

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Request for Proposals – 2015 iLANDing Laboratories Initiative

Dear iLAND Community Members,

Following the successful inaugural year of the iLANDing Laboratory Initiative, we are pleased to announce that the program will continue for a second year. The 2015 iLANDing Laboratories will continue in an experimental format as a series of workshops/laboratories designed by members of the iLAND community as well as those with a strong interest in proposing a Laboratory that aligns with iLAND’s mission and the values of iLANDing (for more information please see appendix below). The Laboratories will serve as focused forums and platforms for a reflective, advanced discourse around urban ecology, kinesthetic experience, and new approaches to interdisciplinary creative processes and draw on the history of iLAND programming which has been cultivated over the past eight years through the iLAB Residency program, iLAND Symposia, and the development of the iLANDing Method.

This Request for Proposals is open to all past iLANDing Laboratory participants, iLAB Residents, iLAB applicants, Symposium participants and others with a strong interest in proposing a workshop that aligns with the values of iLAND. New combinations of collaborators are welcomed and encouraged. Past iLANDing Laboratory residents are welcome to reapply for continued support in order to deepen into the process of a previously presented workshop. Laboratories should take on the structure (forum, workshop, walk, charette, tour, discussion, performance, potluck, experiment) and duration (two hours, two days, a month of Sundays), which will best support the proposed investigation. Laboratories will take place between March-July 2015.

An honorarium of $250 will be awarded to accepted proposals to assist in covering workshop expenses. iLAND will assist with online and print promotion for the Laboratories and provide planning support and mentorship in designing the laboratories

Proposals must be submitted to info@ilandart.org by October 20, 2014. Please limit your proposal to a two pages and send as a PDF attachment. If you have questions, please contact Jennifer Monson at 917-860-8239 or jennifer@ilandart.org. Final decisions will be announced on November 20, 2014.

We hope these workshops will provide an opportunity to share your current work and interests as well as to revisit and expand upon ideas that might have been initially explored during previous iLANDing Laboratories, iLAB Residencies, and/or iLAND Symposia.

Yours,

 

iLAND Board & Staff

 

APPENDIX: iLANDING CORE VALUES

iLANDing  is a collaborative methodology that is constantly evolving as it is practiced.

iLANDing Core Values: The exchange of knowledge through collaborative process; engagement with landscape/system or site as an active collaborator; the re-orientation of knowledge production through embodied, kinetic experience; fostering innovative connections across disciplines in order to gain new perspectives and understandings of complex systems; integration with public discourse as a means to craft and activate ethical, indeterminate practices that value the reciprocal nature of human actions and natural systems.

iLANDing is a platform to:

  1. explore, revise, and re-imagine and expand individuals’ understanding of their own disciplinary methods, practices and processes
  2. develop new interdisciplinary / hybrid methods and practices from the experiences of sharing process, language, and on-site experience
  3. engage the site/ecosystem as collaborator and in the long term shape an informed and in depth understanding of the relationship between the site and human action
  4. create meaningful public engagements that activate kinetic, as well as scientific approaches to understanding urban ecologies

In over ten years of iLANDing we have found that there are six components to every process that all interdisciplinary teams had to address in the process of working together.

Focus: Using a well-defined research topic to facilitate and inspire collaborative research

Research Methods: Exploring, using and re-crafting research methods from different disciplines as well as developing hybrid research practices in the process of working together

Common Language: Facilitating communication within the group when words have different meanings for people of different backgrounds

Component of Site: Working on (and with) a particular site and treating the site itself as a collaborator in the process; negotiating the relationship between working on site versus working remotely (such as studio)

Individual versus Collective: Finding a balance between individual space and working collectively

Documentation: How you document the process and capture moments of insight or inspiration when something new begins to emerge

 

For more information about the 2014 iLANDing Laboratory Program visit the program page HERE

New Hope for Ridgewood Reservoir

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We are so happy to hear that the Ridgewood Reservoir may be saved thanks to the continued efforts of environmental activists. The Ridgewood Reservoir in Queens is an important water supply source that is one of the few remaining areas of wilderness in the NYC metropolitan area. Earlier this year the NYC Parks Department proposed to build breaches in the reservoir, building roads, and cut down numerous trees in the area. After protests and petition from local activists, as well as increasing support from government officials, NYC Park officials have decided to change their plans and protect the reservoir. You can learn more about the Ridgewood Reservoir at their activist blog here.

iLAND supported iMAP (interdisciplinary Mobile Architecture Performance)/Ridgewood Reservoir with choreographer Jennifer Monson, architect Gita Nandan and landscape architect Elliott Maltby of thread collective, and composer Kenta Nagai. We’re thrilled that this incredible site will be saved!

Arts East River Waterfront

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Arts East River Waterfront

Jennifer Monson and iLAND Work with LMCC


Beginning this summer Jennifer Monson will be partnering with LMCC’s Arts East River Waterfront to inspire the local public in the LES East River Waterfront neighborhood around Piers 42 and 35 by connecting them to artists, new ideas and perspectives, and other art-lovers to demonstrate the role that artists play in creating vibrant, sustainable communities.
 
Building upon years of community advocacy and interest in the development of these new waterfront sites as an amenity for local residents, LMCC seeks to model arts and cultural activities that respond to the unique features of these sites, and reflect the needs, interests and history of the neighborhood –taking into account community priorities for the waterfront that range from leisure uses to resiliency planning in the wake of Super Storm Sandy. 

City of Water Day July 12

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City of Water Day

July 12, 2014 10am – 4pm

Maxwell Park in Hoboken, NJ and Governors Island, NY

FREE

A FREE day of entertainment, education & adventure celebrating the potential of our waterfront!

On Saturday, July 12th, thousands from throughout the metropolitan region will make their way to the waterfront for the annual City of Water Day, presented by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.  A FREE day of entertainment, education, and adventure celebrating the world-class potential of our waterfront, City of Water Day will be held in Maxwell Park, Hoboken, NJ, and Governors Island, NY.  Event highlights include FREE: narrated boat tours, ferry transit between Maxwell Park and Governors Island, kayaking, paddle-boarding, Cardboard Kayak Race, fishing, the Waterfront Activity Fair, special children’s activities, live music, and more!  Food vendors will sell their delicious specialties.  Please visit www.cityofwaterday.org for all of the exciting details, sign up to be an exhibitor and volunteer.

Jennifer Monson Teaches Systems/Scores: practice/process MELT Workshop

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Systems/Scores: practice/process

Movement Research MELT Summer Intensive Workshop

August 4-8, 3:30-6pm $140

In this workshop we will investigate how we make scores out of the systems that we live in, observe and are attracted to. 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.

Register online at Movement Research HERE. We hope to see you there!

Movement Research Spring Festival in Collaboration with iLAND

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Movement Research Spring Festival in Collaboration with iLAND

FALLOW TIME

Tuesday May 27 – Monday June 2

Curated by Elliott Maltby, Jennifer Monson, Alicia Ohs, Tatyana Tenenbaum

For more information check out the Fallow Time Brochure or the Movement Research website

 

A fallow field is one that is plowed – it is prepared but then left open. fallow time is a festival that invites emptiness or the unanticipated. The festival is prepared space and time for open action, or inaction, to take place. It creates a platform for participation, intergenerational meetings and intersectionality to support all bodies in their creative potential. We are providing time for concrete and insubstantial ideas to be tested, to take hold and grow…or fail. fallow time is a time of rest, where unexpected actions and materials make contact and allow for new forms and systems to flourish: a chance for us to be together that is not dictated by any need to produce. The festival examines both urban ecologies and artistic production in our society. Inviting the multiple meanings of sustainability to rub against a range of creative practices, we will enact scenarios for thriving in our increasingly unpredictable environment. fallow time allows us to ground ourselves and to recuperate the values that are so central to dance: the values of the body to listen, feed, touch, see, taste, deliver, heal, digest, produce, die.

 

iLAND SYMPOSIUM

Tuesday May 27 – 11-6pm – Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the Queens Museum – Free

Through Earth, Through Body, Through Speech Join Fantastic Futures and Jason Munshi-South for the workshop and per formance listed below, a continuation of their summer 2013 iLAB residency in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and Willets Point. The collaboration uses a cross-pollination of ar tistic practice and scientific method to engage the local community in a conversation around personal and family histories of the park and their visions of the park’s future.

Workshop – 11am-3pm

Meet at the north end of the Unisphere. Rain or Shine.

A movement and mapping exercise based on Munshi-South’s study of white-footed mice, “Urban landscape genetics: canopy cover predicts gene flow between white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations in New York City.”

A light informal lunch will be provided. Activities are appropriate for all ages.

Performance – 4-6pm

In the Queens Museum of Art A multi-channel sound installation and per formance that represents the scientific concept of an urban to rural gradient. Field recordings of the park are layered with interviews in which visitors are asked to express their memories and hopes for the park, and with a spoken narrative from a mouse’s perspective based on urban landscape genetics. participants in both workshop and performance: Fantastic Futures (Julio Hernandez, Huong Ngo, Phuong Nguyen, Solgil Oh, Sable Elyse, Or Zubalsky) and Jason Munshi-South.

For additional information for Tuesday’s events, email info@ilandart.org or call 917-860-8239.

 

REST-WALK-DRAW-FISHTALK- MOVE-REST

Wednesday May 28-May29 – All day and night, arrive and leave as you wish – Floyd Bennet Field – Free

Two nights of camping for up to 30 people. Open time to engage with the littoral edge of New York City. Dawn walks, star gazing and gentle research activities. This is restorative time. Tent, sleeping bag and food required for those staying the night.

Public Transportation: Take the 2 or 5 train to Flatbush Ave / Brooklyn College. Transfer to the Q35 bus south to Floyd Bennett Field. The bus ride takes about 15 minutes. Floyd Bennett Field is also easily accessible by bike and car.

RSVP required for those staying the night.

For details, please contact info@ilandart.org.

 

SENSING TO KNOW / /ANALYZING TO IMAGINE

Saturday May 31 – 2-4pm – Issue Project Room – $5 suggested donation

A talk and walk exploring the dual perspective of the artist-scientist. Visual, aural, and kinesthetic modes in science and art will be explored by par ticipants who have experience as both scientists and artists. The first hour will be dedicated to discussing the participants’ understanding of the intersection of these seemingly discrete disciplines and the impact of this dual perspective on their current practices. Following the talk, each participant will lead a section of a walk to the Brooklyn waterfront, reading the landscape through their par ticular lens. Moderator Jennifer Monson will draw upon her own work, and the insight of 10 years of iLAB residencies, which have developed novel ways of examining New York City’s urban environment.

Participants:

Amy Berkov: Visual artist, tropical biologist and professor of Biology

Kathleen McCarthy: Sculptor and restoration ecologist

Jason Munshi-South: Professor of Biology

Hara Woltz: Visual artist, landscape architect and conservation biologist

Moderated by Jennifer Monson, artistic director and founder of iLAND

Jennifer Monson Wins Doris Duke Impact Award

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Congratulations Jennifer!

Jennifer Monson is among 20 artists who received the Doris Duke Impact Award. In its inaugural year, these dance, theatre, and jazz artists are the first to receive this award. Each recipient of a Doris Duke Impact Award receives $80,000–including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $60,000, plus as much as $10,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $10,000 more personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Doris Duke Impact Award recipients have the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling, and regional gatherings through Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards.

Jennifer is thrilled to be a Doris Duke Impact Awardee and is grateful for this support that will allow her to continue making work that generates knowledge and meaning through movement.

World Water Day Celebration This Weekend

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Join our friends at the Waterwheel for the 4th annual World Water Day Symposium this weekend!

The theme revolves around water, how water embodies extremes and contrasts: oceanic depth or shallow rivulet, transparent or opaque, flowing or still. Water cycles through the living systems of the planet: water bodies, life forms, atmosphere. This symposium has been exploring questions about how we are living, and will continue to live, with water and its contrasts.

The symposium has locations around the world and is streamed free online. Check it out HERE. The event has 15 live nodes, in Brisbane, San Francisco, New York, LA, Buenos Aires, Tunis, Berlin, Coburg, Poznan, Torun, Paris, Syracuse, Athens, Hydra and Cairns, all streamed online. 300 scientists, artists, academics, engineers, activists, and others have presented papers, panels, performances, and presentations.

Tomorrow there will be musical performances and presentations from Australia, India, Chile, France from 12-3pm and performances and presentations from Montreal, Australia, China, India, and closing statements from 3-8pm. We hope you’ll join us in exploring questions about how we are living, and will continue to live with water.

Surviving Sandy Panel Discussion at Bronx River Art Center

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Surviving Sandy Panel Discussion

Friday February 28 6-8pm

Bronx River Art Center

Come to the panel discussion + presentation Surviving Sandy on Friday February 28th at 6-8pm sponsored by the Bronx River Art Center. Artists, activists, and community members will meet to discuss how individual and communities interpret, cope with, and survive extreme events. The panel will be held at 305 E. 140th Street.

A unique group of artists, activists, planners and community members take part in an eye-opening panel discussion and presentation on the topic “Surviving Sandy”.  The panel event comes at the end of the Bronx River Art Center’s current exhibit “BRURAL: Shattering Phenomena,” a group show in which Russian and New York artists explore the impact on local communities and individuals of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite and Superstorm Sandy.  This is a FREE event. We hope to see you there!