Beach Dances: Shared Practice

Join us for a week of open rehearsal, workshops and performances from local choreographers Heyward Bracey & Nguyen Nguyen, Paola Escobar, Maya Gingery, Rebeca Hernandez, DaEun Jung, Shaina Lynn & Isabel Ivey, Carol McDowell, alexx shilling and Christine Suarez, plus an improvised Encounter (organized by Mariel Carranza). Beach Dances: Shared Practice is curated by Allison Wyper of Rhizomatic Arts. Beach Dances: Shared Practice situates the practice and creation of dance in the daily life of the beach. While the artists work, you are invited into an open-air glimpse of the rehearsal room – and a new perspective on the movements of beachgoers around you. Explore the program schedule below and RSVP here to let us know you'll stop by sometime during the week, or register separately for workshops and performances with specific start times (links below.) Rehearsals change and so might this schedule, so check back for updates. All Beach Dances events take place on an open-air platform; observers may wish to bring a reusable water bottle, and a blanket to sit on the sand and wear layers/sun protection. Daily Schedule: Tuesday, June 18 8:30-10:30am Rehearsal of Rendición by Christine Suarez 10:30am-12:30pm Rehearsal of sAND sKY wIND by Maya Gingery 12:30-1:30pm Rehearsal of Zurciendo Souls by Paola Escobar Wednesday, June 19 8:30-10:30am Rehearsal of Rendición by Christine Suarez 10:30-11:30am Parent/Child Yoga+Cumbia Workshop with Rebeca Hernandez RSVP 11:30am-1:30pm Earthian Folk Dance Workshop with DaEun Jung RSVP Thursday, June 20 8:30-9:30am Rehearsal of Zurciendo Souls by Paola Escobar 9:30-11:30am Rehearsal of CONFLUENCE by Heyward Bracey and Nguyễn Nguyên 11:30am-1:30pm Rehearsal of sAND sKY wIND by Maya Gingery Friday, June 21 8:30-10:30am Contemplative Dance Practice at the Beach with Carol McDowell RSVP 10:30am-12:30pm Freewalking / Ragewalking Workshop with alexx shilling RSVP 12:30-1:30pm Rehearsal of CONFLUENCE by Heyward Bracey and Nguyen Nguyen Saturday, June 22 8:30-10:30am Contemplative Dance Practice at the Beach with Carol McDowell RSVP 10:30-11:30am Surrendering to Improvisation Workshop with Christine Suarez RSVP 11:30am-1:30pm Rehearsal of sAND sKY wIND by Maya Gingery 4:00-6:00pm Rhizomatic Arts Beach Hangout RSVP 6:30-8:00pm Performance of new, site-responsive works developed on-site by Heyward Bracey & Nguyen Nguyen, Paola Escobar, DaEun Jung, Maya Gingery and Christine Suarez RSVP Sunday, June 23 8:30-10:30am Contemplative Dance Practice at the Beach with Carol McDowell RSVP 10:30am-12:00pm Borderline Flamenco, Flamenco for All Workshop with Paola Escobar RSVP 12:00-1:30pm La Diáspora de Twerk Workshop with Shaina Lynn and Isabel Ivey RSVP 5:00-7:00pm Encounter improvized performance organized by Mariel Carranza RSVP “From Butoh to Cumbia to Flamenco, choreographers use dance to practice their cultural identities and relationships to place and environment, to heal generational trauma, to practice inherited traditional ways of being in the world and to invent new ones. Dance is also frequently an occasion for coming together, breathing together, getting into rhythm, and finding moments of counterpoint. Dance practice is community practice; all are invited to view and engage.” -- Allison Wyper, Curator “The times that I have danced and created in public space have been very profound. I see and feel new things. I respond somatically on a deeper level when I feel the wind and sun on my skin and dirt or sand under my feet and hands. I am also moved by how my body is seen by the public and often reflected back to me by children - beach visitors - dancing. It is a rich exchange that puts me in the present moment, and opens me up in a way that I can't find when I’m in a studio.” -- Christine Suarez, Choreographer About the Artists and Projects Heyward Bracey - butoh dancer / movement activist – has worked and performed with Los Angeles Movement Arts, The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People, and master butoh artist Katsura Kan, locally and internationally. His solo Stealing Skin 6 was presented in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Mexico City. Heyward performed with Emily Mast in The Least Important Things and The Cage is a Stage. In 2018 he presented Thick Bones, a solo exploring the relationship between butoh and the African Diaspora, at the Kyoto International Butoh Festival. In 2018, he collaborated with Taisha Paggett and WXPT Dance Collective on a series of social justice dance actions for Made in L.A. Heyward's work explores the effects of colonialism upon diverse populations – as well as the intersections of butoh, indigenous cosmologies, the African Diaspora, the Pacific Basin Renaissance and street dance. and Nguyễn Nguyên is a choreographer, dance filmmaker, and educator based in Los Angeles, born in Vietnam. His work has been presented throughout L.A., the Guangdong and Beijing International Dance Festival in China, and the International Performance Arts Festival in Thailand. Nguyên is a founding member of Los Angeles Movement Arts, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Nguyên has worked with artists including David Roussève, Cheng-Chieh Yu, Katsura Kan, Simone Forti, Taisha Paggett, Holly Johnston, Michael Sakamoto and Maria Gillespie. Nguyên is currently on faculty at RenArts Academy in Los Angeles and is a member of The Rock Collection. and special guest artist Rosemary Candelario (Associate Professor of Dance, Texas Woman’s University) writes about and makes dances engaged with butoh, ecology, and site-specific performance. Recent premieres include aqueous (2019, Kyoto Butoh Festival, Kyoto, Japan) and 100 Ways to Kiss the Trees (2018, Denton, Texas). She is the recipient of the Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research for her book Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma's Asian/American Choreographies (Wesleyan University Press 2016). Rosemary is also the co-editor with Bruce Baird of the Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2018) and the author of numerous journal articles. rosemarycandelario.net OPEN REHEARSALS: CONFLUENCE by Heyward Bracey and Nguyễn Nguyên, featuring special guest performer/collaborator Rosemary Candelario. Thursday June 20, 9:30-11:30am; Friday June 21, 12:30-1:30pm CONFLUENCE is a site responsive dance performance that explores the relationship between memory and the present, identity, and the natural world. Its construction and choreography draw from contemporary dance practices, Butoh and contemporary African America’s relationship with the Orixá. In these ways the work seeks to reimagine the intersections of diverse cultural and social bodies as they negotiate the landscapes of our collective present. The Pacific shoreline of Los Angeles offers a vast resource which encourages us to gather, and in this case offer dance as art to a diverse array of participants. The performers lead the audience from the stage to the waters edge – encouraging the entirety of the gathered bodies to witness themselves, their origins and aspirations as much as enjoy the beauty of the shared performance. Mariel Carranza was born and raised in Perú and came to Los Angeles in 1980 where she studied at Los Angeles City College with Raoul De La Sota before transferring to UCLA where she received a B.A. in Studio Art and M.F.A in Sculpture. As part of Los Angeles’ performance art ecosystem she has developed a practice contingent on seeing a cross-cultural art discourse that engages with public art more so than exhibiting in conventional art spaces. Carranza’s work has been presented locally and internationally at venues including the Hammer Museum, Highways, 18th Street Art Center, LACE, Track 16, Woodbury University, MorYork Gallery, Human Resources, Perform Chinatown, Situation Room, Latitud 32 N / 55 S. Festival (Berlin/Cologne), National Review of Live Art (Glasgow), CONTEXTS Festival (Sokolowsko, Poland), Belfast International Performance Art Festival, First International Festival (Chihuahua, Mexico), Performancear or Morir (Sierra Tarahuamara, Norogachi, Mexico), Erarta Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Crossing Zones = Language = Land (Stanglinec, Croatia), and The Festival Hall (South Bank Centre, London, UK). [hidden] Encounter, Sunday June 23, 5:00-7:00pm Since 2012, leading performance artists from Los Angeles, plus international guests, have met regularly to engage in a practice called Encounter, organized by Peruvian American artist Mariel Carranza. Encounters are durational, improvised, action/time/space based performances inhabiting private studios, art venues, and public spaces across the city, including the Los Angeles River, Griffith Park, the Venice Pier, Salton Sea, the Bowtie Parcel, WUHO Gallery, Human Resources, Los Angeles State Historic Park, and Highways Performance Space. In 2018, Encounter was included in REDCAT's Pacific Standard Time Festival: Live Art LA/LA with support from Human Resources and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Paola Escobar (2019 Annenberg Community Beach House Choreographer-in-Residence) is a Colombian artist who creates transcultural work that combines her Latin-American background with her interest in the flamenco tradition, African culture, and contemporary art. Escobar's work reflects on memory and cultural identity, and deals with current issues of immigration, hierarchies of power, and cultural perception. Escobar has toured and performed in festivals in France, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, United States, and Colombia. In 2005, Escobar received the Colombian National Award for her piece Flamenco 24 Horas. Escobar holds an MFA in Choreography from CalArts, and a BFA in Performance from the University of Florida. borderlinemovement.com OPEN REHEARSALS: Zurciendo Souls, Tuesday June 18, 12:30-1:30pm; Thursday June 20, 8:30-9:30am The solo Zurciendo Souls is part of a series of works by Paola Escobar concerning the “hybrid body.” A collaged soundtrack, a long trailing skirt, and an excessive amount of flowers offer a problematized twist on traditional flamenco aesthetics. For Beach Dances, Escobar explores how the beach as a site informs her signature hybrid choreography. WORKSHOP: Borderline Flamenco, Flamenco for All, Sunday, June 23, 10:30am-12:00pm Borderline Flamenco, Flamenco for All is an introductory Flamenco workshop that offers a liberating way to enter this complex tradition. The workshop focuses on the flamenco structures, uses improvisation as a fundamental tool to approach movement, and incorporates the students’ own movement background into the experience. The class is designed for participants with or without training in flamenco or any other dance form. As part of the activity I will bring hand fans (that are part of the flamenco tradition) of different colors, and we will explore movement possibilities around the fan. Maya Gingery is a multi-disciplinary artist who for the majority of her life on this planet has worked in the fields of performance, music and dance. Since the turn of the century, she has gradually become more interested in slowing down, and in the human relationship to the natural world, while coming to reject the western obsession with technology and growth. A trained musician and dancer, she is highly influenced by her work in Japanese Noh theatre and butoh, as well as other traditional western and non-western forms. She has performed in Japan, the US and Canada as a solo artist, as a member of Theatre Nohgaku, and most recently with fourlarks company at the Getty Villa. OPEN REHEARSALS: sAND sKY wIND by Maya Gingery, featuring Nick Duran, Maya Gingery, Maya Gurantz, and Felicia St. Cyr, Tuesday June 18, 10:30am-12:30pm; Thursday June 20, 11:30am-1:30pm; Saturday June 22, 11:30am-1:30pm sAND sKY wIND addresses our (lost) connection to nature and environment. It's a dance to our human identity and a ritual to purge collective shame. It's an investigation into representation initiated in the concepts of fluidity, metamorphosis, and transmogrification. In the spirit of butoh, the dancers will take on the identity of sea creatures, sea plants, sand, sky and wind. They will dance on the sand, only entering the stage occasionally to sacrifice themselves. Rebeca Hernandez holds an MFA in Experimental Choreography from UCR. She is a dancer and choreographer born and raised in Mexicali, Mexico. Hernandez danced and toured in Mexico with Taller de Danza Contemporánea de la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and with Compañía Jorge Domínguez. She was involved in two pieces presented for Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, and re-performed Anna Maria Maiolino's Solitário ou Paciência at MOCA in Los Angeles. She has also performed with Encounter for REDCAT's International Festival of Live Art and Performance. Hernandez is a 2012-2013 recipient of the National Performance Network/PAP award in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs’ CEI program and is also a recipient of UCLA’s 2013 Hothouse Dance Residency Program. She collaborated with artist Carolina Caycedo and presented a piece at 18th Street Arts Complex, Pieter Performance Art Space and UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Hall. Internationally, Hernandez performed for the Hemispheric Institute’s Encuentro in Santiago de Chile. rebecahernandezdance.com WORKSHOP: Parents and Me Yoga+Cumbia Class, Wednesday June 19,10:30-11:30am This workshop is led by choreographer Rebeca Hernandez in collaboration with Ana Sofia, her two year-old daughter, and invites parents/guardians to explore movement and play with their child on the Beach Dances stage. We'll open with a warm up of simple paired yoga movement and stretching exercises and explore the different possibilities of interaction mimicking and identifying with fabric (material provided). Using our fabric, we'll float on the breeze, drag on the floor, and practice flying, swimming, slow motion, catching, pulling, resisting, and pushing movements. The workshop will end with everyone dancing a few cumbias! DaEun Jung is a bicultural dancer-choreographer whose work reveals her past and present body memories. Her works have been presented at Electric Lodge, Highways, The Mortuary, Pieter, REDCAT, and MR at Judson and supported through artist-in-residence programs of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs @Camera Obscura, LAPP D+R @Automata, and Show Box/LA @We Live in Space. She redefines the principle, form, and context of Korean folk dance in inter/multi-cultural settings as a continuation of her graduate study at UCLA where she received her MFA and Westfield Emerging Artist Award. She has worked with Oguri & Roxanne Steinberg, Yuval Sharon, Victoria Marks, Milka Djordjevich, Ros Warby, Wilfried Souly, Jeanine Durning, Shahar Biniamini, and Melinda Ring. daeunjung.com WORKSHOP: Earthian Folk Dance, Wednesday June 19, 11:30am-1:30pm Earthian Folk Dance (EFD) is a communal dance activity created and performed by Earthians (that's us!) In this workshop, Earthian dancers will demonstrate and teach some sections of Earthian Folk Dance. All are welcome to participate after learning the simple steps, and then are invited to perform with EFD dancers at the Beach Dances Performance on Saturday June 22 (optional.) Earthian Folk Dance celebrates team spirit and bodily exhilaration and challenges both the hyper-individuality of postmodern choreographies and the hyper-cultural-representation of traditional folk dance. With movement tasks that require spontaneous decision making and communal effort to fulfill, EFD is accessible to participants of diverse movement backgrounds. Shaina Lynn is a New Orleans-born, LA-based multimedia artist. Fusing her training in healing modalities such as yoga and meditation with the rich ritual influences of NOLA, Shaina inspires the radical healing of Black women’s past, present, and forevermore. Internationally, Lynn has produced work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ludwig Foundation, and Fabrica de Arte. Nationally, her highlights include presenting at REDCAT, DC and New Orleans Fringe Festival, Emerging Artist Theatre, the Hammer Museum and at the Historic Playmakers Theatre as the 2017 Curatorial Fellow at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. theshainalynn.com. Isabel Ivey is a California-born, LA-based artist honoring her Puerto Rican and African roots as a multimedia artist, performer, and dancer. She also focuses on recycled large scale sculpture throughout her artistic practice. As an active member in the arts community, Isabel has shown work at Fabrica de Arte, Centro Cultural Espanol, Plaza de la Raza, and Imagine Entertainment. Isabel seeks to create community engagement within her work and has dedicated her practice to helping others and making both politically and culturally relevant art. isabelivey.com WORKSHOP: La Diáspora de Twerk, Sunday, June 23, 12-1:30pm Led by Shaina Lynn and Isabel Ivey, La Diáspora de Twerk explores the relationship between traditional New Orleans Bounce and Afro Latin dance. Utilizing social somatic approaches in NOLA Bounce, twerk, Afro Latin dance, and sacred feminine dances to resist the stigmas of mass media twerking, this practice reclaims the dance as a ritual of healing while reuniting the diaspora with the elements of nature. This inquiry is part of The Twerk Series, a sequence of reclamations by Shaina Lynn. Carol McDowell is a BESSIE and Lester Horton Award winning interdisciplinary dance artist and lighting designer. Her work has been presented at Highways, Pieter, Skirball, Anatomy Riot, Platinum Oasis, Naropa, BMoCA, The Kitchen, DTW, PS 122, and abroad. She has performed in works by Alexx Shilling, Kevin Williamson, Jmy James Kidd, Body Weather Laboratory, Maria Garcia, Liz Hoefner Adamis, Laurel Jenkins, Nickels Sunshine, Victoria Marks, Cid Pearlman, Barbara Dilley, Karen Finley, Pooh Kaye, Tim Miller, John Bernd, Poppo, Kei Takei, Jack Moore, and is a member of Encounter with Mariel Carranza. McDowell co-directed Crazy Space at 18th Street, and co-founded max10 performance lab at the Electric Lodge and the Mariposa Collective with Barbara Dilley, Diane Butler and Polly Motley in Boulder. McDowell teaches dance studies and yoga at Rio Hondo College and West Los Angeles College. WORKSHOP: Contemplative Dance Practice at the Beach, Friday June 21, Saturday June 22, and Sunday June 23, 8:30-10:30am Drawing upon a practice created by her mentor Barbara Dilley, a member of Grand Union and the Cunningham Dance Company, Carol McDowell leads three morning sessions of Contemplative Dance Practice at the Beach. CDP joins the personal awareness practice of meditation with dance improvisation. This workshop is open to all bodies interested in movement, meditation and improvisation who would like to begin the day at the Beach with a collective contemplative dance practice. alexx shilling is a Los Angeles-based dance artist who creates site-adaptable, live and filmic dancescapes that invigorate memory and investigate transformation. shilling's original choreography and experimental films have been presented nationally and internationally and with support from institutions including Dance Film Association and California Arts Council. She has collaborated as a performer with Victoria Marks since 2010 and most recently with Oguri, DaEun Jung and Kevin Williamson. shilling teaches at Loyola Marymount University and Cal State Long Beach, co-founded the performance and teaching platforms Hi, Solo, Gold Series and practice makes practice. alexxmakesdances.com WORKSHOP: Freewalking / Ragewalking, Friday June 21, 10:30am-12:30pm In this workshop open to all levels, choreographer alexx shilling will share the practice of freewalking combining information from Open Source Forms and scores from her performance piece Rage Walk Rise. Warming up with Open Source Forms (the evolution of Skinner Releasing Technique, disseminated through Stephanie Skura), participants will work with gliding, freewalking, and the slippage between walking and dancing. We will play with solo and group forms, culminating in a longer practice with an awareness of our natural environment. Christine Suarez is a Santa Monica-based choreographer, performer, educator, activist and founder of SuarezDanceTheater. Her work has been seen in theaters, public parks, classrooms and houses and toured nationally and internationally to over twenty cities. SuarezDanceTheater has been awarded grants from the California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Flourish Foundation, Santa Monica Cultural Affairs and Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Suarez co-created Dance for Veterans - a program that builds creative expression and social cohesion at Los Angeles VA Hospitals. Through her company, she is continually looking for ways outside of a theater or studio to build community, connect and collaborate. suarezdance.org OPEN REHEARSAL, Tuesday June 18 & Wednesday June 19, 8:30-10:30amWith Rendición, I am inspired by three stories of surrender: one a woman who lived during the 16th century in what is now Mexico; another about a woman whose story is told in the Hebrew Bible; and the last is my own. Surrender for women often has a special significance – surrendering to the patriarchy, surrendering to the constructs allocated for our gender. With this project I aim to discover the physical metaphor of the tension within these ideas and join it with the landscape. I want explore the landscape of surrender past the point of duality to find out if there is a liminal space between submission and struggle. WORKSHOP: Surrendering to Improvisation, Saturday June 22, 10:30-11:30amDesigned to be accessible for all abilities, this workshop explores the theme of surrender. Using image-based improvisation we will warm up the body, connecting inward to access outward expressivity. Partnering exercises and games bring the group to connect with each other. We culminate drawing from writing and drawing exercises to build personal improvisation scores that outline our own experiences of surrender. Allison Wyper (Beach Dances Curator) is an interdisciplinary performance artist and founder of Rhizomatic Arts, which provides professional services, training, and community for independent artists and creatives. Rhizomatic Studio, the creative wing of Rhizomatic Arts, produces collaboratively-oriented performances and workshops in public and private spaces. In 2014-15, Wyper curated multiple site-responsive public performances for Play the L.A. River, a year-long civic art project organized by Project 51. Her own performance works produce charged, often participatory encounters between performer and viewer that encourage intimate exchange and critical solidarity. She has performed, taught, produced, and facilitated workshops for artists on experimental performance, professional development, and collaborative interdisciplinary practices locally and internationally. She has a BA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College and an MFA in Dance from UCLA. rhizomaticarts.com @RhizomaticArts #RhizomaticStudio Rhizomatic Arts Beach Hangout, Saturday June 22, 4:00-6:00pm What do you need? What do you have to share? Cultivate your artist network for a thriving career. At our seasonal Rhizomatic Arts Hangouts, artists, creatives, and cultural producers meet to get to know one another, talk about our work, needs, and interests, and brainstorm ideas over tasty eats and drinks. Bring a friend and something to share (no alcohol or glass, please.) Come to the Hangout to meet and mingle with fellow artists and artist-allies, then stick around for free performances on the sand starting at 6:30pm. Beach=Culture is a program of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs #ArtSaMo This week of public rehearsal and presentation is open to all to come and go as you please. RSVP here to stay in touch and get any updates. By registering for this program via this Eventbrite page, you consent to receiving the occasional email about Beach House events from [hidden] or [hidden]. You can unsubscribe, or change your preferences at any time using the “unsubscribe” or “manage preferences” links on these emails. Stop by early to save your seat and check out the historic site. Picnickers welcome (no pets, alcohol or glass permitted onsite.) Tickets are free but space is limited and reservations are required. Arrive by 15 min before start time to retain your reservation. Late seating, even for reservation-holders, is not guaranteed. To adjust or cancel your reservation for this event, email [hidden]. We appreciate your keeping in touch! Getting Here: The Beach House is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 on the west side of Pacific Coast Highway. Enter off PCH at the Beach House Way traffic light. Accessibility: The Annenberg Community Beach House is wheelchair accessible and ADA compliant. If you require any special disability-related accommodations, please contact us at [hidden], call us at [hidden] or TDD: [hidden] at least 5 days prior to the event. Parking: The parking rate is Apr-Oct: $12/day or $3/hour; Nov - Mar: $8/day or $3/hour, payable at the park and pay machines in three areas of the ACBH parking lot. Credit cards or exact change only. Handicapped placards and Senior Beach Permits are accepted. For other parking info and lot hours, please check the website for details. Other events: To view & make reservations for future free Beach=Culture events, check [hidden] and [hidden] General Info: For hours, events and more, visit annenbergbeachhouse.com, or call [hidden]. Back on the Beach Café hours are subject to change but are generally through 8 pm in the summer and 3 pm in the offseason, call [hidden] to confirm. More Info below.