Transpositions: Dance Poems for an Online World
Fall 2020
About the piece
Yale Dance Lab in partnership with the Schwarzman Center has invited fifteen different choreographers to create digital dance poems, performed by dancers from across the Yale dance community. With choreographers drawn from Yale faculty, New Haven, Philadelphia, New York, Burkina Faso, and South Africa, the final poems will be edited by Kyla Arsadjaja MFA ‘20 and shared both online and on display at the Schwarzman Center. Knitting together local, national, and international communities of dance, “Transpositions” explores the continuous and interrupted transmission of embodied dance practices in digital life.
Sponsored by Dance Studies and Theater and Performance Studies with support from the Wallace Fund for Dance and the Schwarzman Center.
About the Artists
Aimee Meredith Cox is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at Yale University. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of Anthropology, Black Studies, and Performance Studies. Cox’s first monograph, Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship (Duke 2015), won the 2017 book award from the Society for the Anthropology of North America, a 2016 Victor Turner Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing, and Honorable Mention from the 2016 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize. She performed and toured internationally with Ailey II and the Dance Theatre of Harlem and has choreographed performances as interventions in public and private space in Newark, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn.
Aki Sasamoto works in sculpture, performance, video, and more. In her installation/performance works, Aki moves and talks inside the careful arrangements of sculpturally altered objects. Her works appear in galleries, theaters, and odd sites. Shown at SculptureCenter, the Kitchen, Chocolate Factory Theater, Whitney Biennial 2010, MOMA-PS1, New York; National Museum of Art-Osaka, Yokohama Triennale 2008, Japan; Gwangju Biennial 2012, South Korea; Shanghai Biennale 2016, China; Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, India.
Brian Seibert is the author of What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing (FSG, 2015), which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Since 2011, he has been a dance critic and features writer for The New York Times, and he has contributed to The New Yorker since 2002. His reviews, features, and essays have appeared in The Village Voice, Slate, Dance Magazine, and The Threepenny Review, among other publications. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell and Yaddo. A graduate of Yale University and Columbia University, he has taught writing and dance history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, and Yale University.
Bronwen MacArthur has danced with New York and Copenhagen (DK) based companies, most recently the Bebe Miller Company, performing and teaching throughout Europe, the U.S. and South America. Her choreographic work has been performed in NYC, New England, Philadelphia, Russia, France and Scotland. For four years Bronwen has been on faculty in the Five College Dance Department (MA) and is Lecturer in the Yale School of Drama and in Yale Theater and Performance Studies.
Cécile Feza Bushidi is currently a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in dance and art history at Yale University. She is a graduate of the the School of Oriental and African Studies where she earned a Ph.D in History. Previously, she held fellowships at NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Her current research interests cover dance history, dance historiography, and performance theory. As a performance artist, Cécile is involved in independent dance and theatre projects.
Christopher Rasheem-McMillan is a performance artist and scholar. McMillan’s works have been presented at the Bates Dance, International Arts Festival, and The Dance Complex and Green Street Studios in Massachusetts, and Beyond Text, London. He has been published in The Journal of Dance, Movement & Spiritualities, Choreographic Practices and Contact Quarterly. McMillan has an MFA in Experimental Choreography from the Laban Conservatoire and Ph.D. in Theology & Religious Studies from King’s College, both in London. McMillan is a visiting assistant professor at The Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
Emily Coates is a dancer, choreographer, and writer who has performed internationally with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp, and Yvonne Rainer. Her choreographic work has been commissioned and presented by Danspace Project, Performa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, Ballet Memphis, Wadsworth Atheneum, University of Chicago, and Yale Art Gallery, among other venues. Recent work includes “A History of Light” with Josiah McElheny at Danspace Project. She is co-author, with particle physicist Sarah Demers, of Physics and Dance (Yale University Press 2018), and associate professor at Yale University, where she created the dance studies curriculum.
Gregory Maqoma is dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director from South Africa – Soweto. Maqoma has collaborated with artists like Akram Khan, Vincent Mantsoe, Faustin Linyekula, Shanell Winlock, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, William Kentridge and Kwame Kwei-Armah. He has won FNB Vita Choreographer of the Year, Tunkie Award for Leadership in Dance, a Bessie Award, and the Knight of the Arts & Literature Award, among others. In 2020 Maqoma was named the author of the International Dance Day Message.
Ms. Hanan Hameen, Doctoral Candidate is an Arts, Education and Curriculum Specialist, Founder/Director of the Artsucation™ Academy Network, Ms. Hanan’s Dance and Beyond, Artistic Director of the BAM DanceAfrica Candle Bearers, Adjunct Professor, dancer, percussionist, author, dance mentor, award-winning choreographer, studio owner, curriculum developer, company director, and Lupus warrior. Ms. Hameen holds multiple degrees in Dance Administration, Dance Education, Educational Leadership with an Advanced Certificate in School Building Leadership, and is pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.
Iréne Hultman is a native of Sweden and a New York based choreographer, performer and educator. She has toured extensively with her own company and as a former member and rehearsal Director of Trisha Brown Dance Company. Ms. Hultman has also choreographed for opera and participated in artistic collaborations with institutions such as Dia Beacon, Storm King Art Center, and Wanås Sculpture Park in Sweden. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award. Her current research focuses on how media, affect, and speculative theories influence movement and art production. Ms. Hultman is a member of The Bessie Committee and Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project and serves as faculty in Theater and Performance Studies at Yale University.
Jenna Riegel, originally from Fairfield, Iowa, is a dance artist, maker and educator. Between 2008-2019, she toured and performed nationally and internationally as a company member of David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/ Dances, Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas & Company and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Jenna has been on the dance faculty at Barnard College, The Juilliard School and Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College. Jenna Reigel will be co-choreographing with artist Shayla-Vie Jenkins.
Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker based in Philadelphia, PA. Jenkins spent a decade performing with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and serves as a teaching artist and répétiteur. She has worked with many incredible artists most recently including Ni’Ja Whitson, Night of 100 solos Merce Cunningham Centennial Celebration, Yvonne Rainer, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at The University of the Arts. Shayla will be co-choreographing with artist Jenna Riegel.
Jennifer Harrison Newman is a New York based choreographer/performer who works extensively with artists across disciplines pushing the boundaries of dance and theater. She has worked with, Michael Jackson, Julie Taymor, Franco Dragone, Donald Byrd, David Rousseve, Ronald K. Brown, Charlotte Brathwaite, Michael Joseph McQuilken, Amanda Palmer, The Radio City Rockettes, and has performed on Broadway in Saturday Night Fever and Disney’s The Lion King. Jennifer currently serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Yale Schwarzman Center.
Kellie Ann Lynch is Co-Artistic Director of Elm City Dance Collective and has been teaching, choreographing and dreaming for ECDC since she co-founded the organization in 2008. In addition to her heart and soul work with ECDC, Kellie joyfully dances with David Dorfman Dance and has been traveling around the nation and beyond with her DDD family since 2017. Kellie’s choreography is currently supported through an artist fellowship from the CT Office of the Arts. Kellie will be choreographing in collaboration with Lindsey Bauer.
Lindsey Bauer is a dance artist, teacher, choreographer. She is a co-Artistic Director of Elm City Dance Collective. In recent years, Lindsey has worked with artists Kellie Lynch, Luis Antonio, Efraim Silva, Adejoke Tugbiyele, Cai Ying, Phoebe Hui, Lee Sher & Saar Harari, Olushola Cole and Rachel Bernsen. Lindsey is a full-time dance faculty member at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School. She loves experiencing dance in new ways and witnessing that experience with others.
Lacina Coulibaly was born in Burkina Faso. His professional dance career, deeply rooted in African traditional dances, later merged with European contemporary influences to create a uniquely African choreographic expression. In 1995, Lacina created the award-winning Cie Kongo Bâ Teria with Souleymane Badolo and Ousseni Sako, which toured extensively in Africa,Europe and the US. He has also danced and choreographed with international dance companies (Salia ni Seydou, Faso Danse Theatre, TchéTché, Urban Bush Women), and collaborated with such artists as Emily Coates, Amy Sullivan, Kota Yamakazi and Seydou Coulibaly. Lacina has taught at Brown University, New School, Sarah Lawrence College, Barnard College, EDIT and CDC, la Temitière. He is currently guest lecturer at Yale University and artistic director of Cie Hakili Sigi.
Renee Robinson is a lecturer at Yale, guest faculty at Juilliard and faculty at The Ailey School. Ms. Robinson spent 30 years as a member and principal dancer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ms. Robinson has performed at the White House for the State Dinner, has been honored with the Dance Magazine Award; was a presenter for the New York Dance and Bessie Awards; and was honored as an Artistic Powerhouse by Good Housekeeping L’ORÉAL Paris.