UPDATE! We’re rescheduled Dancing In Public for the evening of Wednesday September 14! We hope to see you then!

On September 7th, Dance Films Association will host an evening of  live and cinematic works focused on “Dancing in Public”. As a part of the Solar One Green Energy Arts Festival, the evening will begin at 7:00 with a reception featuring live performance created by Rebecca Brooks, with dancers Ursula Eagly and Emily Wexler. The evening will feature a dynamic screening of several dance film shorts curated by Jennifer Edwards, Content Creator and Founder of JenEd Productions, and Christy Park, Executive Director of Dance Films Association. In creating this event, the curators focused on finding pieces that speak to various interpretations of dance and public space. Moving ‘bodies’ range from construction equipment to school children, and their dancing is carried out in spaces ranging from deserts to grocery stores to Grand Central Station. This is an event – with works by OK GO, JenEd Productions, David Hinton, and Anthony Atanasio – holds something for everyone yet promises to carry viewers on a journey through shifting landscapes and genres effortlessly. A Q&A with the choreographer and filmmakers will follow the screening.

Sun to Stars returns to Solar One for its 6th season on September 10, 2011 from 2-10 pm [Rain Date September 11]

This year’s performers include: Neel Murgai │ Shobana Ram│Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury│Gaurav Shah│ Parul Shah Dance Company│Malini Srinivasan│ Rujuta Vaidya │Jay Gandhi │Nitin Mitta

Please click on the links above to learn more about the artists!

This year’s Festival will have a special emphasis on children, with special activities for them in the early part of the Festival (2pm-4pm). These activities will include traditional kite and lamp making, coloring South Asian deity puppets, learning to wrap a sari and a special storytelling performance.

Curated by Parul Shah with Reena Shah

Artistic Direction by Tamar Rogoff

Food from Five Star Banquet and Catering

East India Pale Ale from Brroklyn Brewery

For more information about Sun To Stars, click HERE.

Saturday September 10 from 2pm-10pm with special activities for kids from 2pm-4pm

Schedule (subject to change):

2pm Kids Program: Student Performers, Arts & Crafts, Storytelling, Kite Making

4pm Dance Performances: Malini Shrinivasan, Shobana Ram, Parul Shah Dance company, Rujuta Vaidya

6:30pm Music Performances: Neel Murgai, Jay Gandhi & Nitin Mitta, Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury, Gaurav Shah

Sun To Stars Video by Andrew Baker

Hello, world! Beautiful day today, isn’t it? You’re probably out enjoying it, after being cooped up all weekend. This evening,  join the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association for the next event in the Margaret D, Lawrence and Helen W.Collins Memorial Music and Dance Series at Solar One. On  Monday, local singer-songwriter Paul Sachs returns with his band, and on Tuesday, we’ll have informal dance lessons and open dancing with local legend Evelyn Diamond. Both events are free and open to the public!

Paul Sachs & Band
Monday August 29 at 6pm

Folk Dancing with Evelyn Diamond
Tuesday August 30 at 7pm

Join us tomorrow for a repeat performance of choreographer Gabriel Forestieri and projectLIMB’s Handleless, a site-specific dance work created especially for the Park.

Melissa Guerrero, photo by Luka Kito

ProjectLIMB creates, evolves, and performs work where real time relationships, rather than content, are primary. 

For more information, visit the Dance page.

Benjamin Asriel, photo by Luka Kito

Friday August 26 and Saturday August 27 at 5pm (rain date Sunday August 28)
At Stuyvesant Cove Park
18th Street and Avenue C entrance (Map)

An evening of free dance classes and open dancing with local legend Evelyn Diamond. You’ve never experienced folk dancing like this before! Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association.

Live Salsa music from some of NYC’s premier musicians.  Presented by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association. Rain date Monday August 15th

If you missed H U G on Friday June 24 and Saturday June 25 at 6pm, you can still come to a special encore performance today, Sunday June 26 at 2pm!

Groups embracing in a city park surprise New Yorkers walking by.
Negative memories of personal loss and conflict are healed through a simple act of compassion.

H U G is a public performance installation that effects social change by spreading a healing message of compassion and human connection. H U G is the distillation of one powerful human gesture that is understood universally and without bias. Surprising park-goers in the midst of their day, H U G travels through Stuyvesant Cove Park. Appearing without warning, pairs embrace in stillness surrounded by dramatic urban nature. They create a seamlessly choreographed grand gesture that sparks a jarring moment of vulnerability easily discernible to those who happen upon it.

H U G relies on two common avenues of communication: personal interaction and electronic messaging. Prior to the performance, personal stories of loss and conflict are collected from the public in order to be honored and commemorated. At the performance, the audience is invited to add themselves into the installation and contribute their own memories. The project is an artistic act of public compassion which presents the body as the location where difficult memories dwell. Healing takes place through the physical interaction of individuals immersed in the transformative natural environment of the riverfront park setting.

H U G promotes community and individual healing and creates an opportunity to replace painful memories with new memories of hope. It supports small acts of kindness as the cornerstone of global social change. H U G creates opportunities for the people of a community to practice compassion for others, to collectively mourn its lost members and to memorialize tragic events.

Participate in H U G – an open call to the community:
1) Contribute your own memory of personal loss or conflict that you would like us to heal for you by emailing us at hugperformance[at]gmail[dot]com. Your name will be kept anonymous. A list of submissions as you describe them will be made available to the audience. Some ideas for memories to contribute include: a loved one who has passed on, something you regret, something that begs your forgiveness, a conflict, a violent act, or a negative or painful experience. Let us heal your negative memories by creating a new memory of compassion.
2) Come out and support this movement of compassion by either witnessing the event or hugging someone at the installation.
Receive updates on all H U G projects at:
www.myspace.com/hugperformance
& on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hugperformance
Follow the project on Twitter @julietroost

Friday June 24 and Saturday June 25 at  6pm
Rain Date Sunday June 26 at 2pm
At Solar One (map/directions)
Free & open to the public, suitable for all ages.
For more info, visit solar1.org/events/dance.

No Lights No Lycra started in Melbourne, Australia and has since spread throughout the world, with weekly events held in San Francisco, Berlin, and Glasgow, not to mention our very own in Brooklyn. No Lights No Lycra in Greenpoint has been providing revelers with their weekly pure dance hit every Tuesday for over a year, and has been featured in the New York Times.

No Lights No Lycra gives people a place to rediscover the joy of dancing, away from the booze, poses and pressures of a club.

Greenpoint’s No Lights No Lycra is crossing the East River and coming to Solar One for a solar powered dance session to celebrate the summer solstice! Join us on Tuesday 21st June from 8:30pm for an outdoor boogie. NLNL‘s music programmers promise to put together an irresistible set of dancefloor bangers to get your body moving.

Cost: $5 in the box

Join DJ Trent as he welcomes MALUCA and ARAABMUZIK to Solar 1 and the WFMU airwaves. Maluca – Bronx-born, Dominican-raised, now part of Diplo’s Mad Decent crew- is full of hyperfast rap-sing bounce. She’ll bring it with a dance crew in tow. Rhode Islander araabMUZIK – you’ve probably heard his work on the Dipset track “Salute” – is a prodigy on the MPC drum machine, banging out otherworldly beats you won’t believe are being performed live with just two hands. DJ Trent will also bring a stack of videos to screen live, honoring the women of hip-hop who have made the world a lot more interesting in recent decades. Join the fun live at [Solar 1 on the East River at 23rd Street – and enjoy really cheap, really good beer – or tune into live audio and video streams at WFMU.org and 91.1 / 90.1fm.

Sun To Stars, our annual South Asian festival of food, music and dance, is turning 5, and we’d like you to come to the party!

The festival was inspired by the all-night concerts held along India’s Ganges River where not only are the talents of a wide variety of artists presented, but also a vibrant mix of families, children, couples, friends and random passersby as everyone settles in to relax and enjoy. The Solar One blacktop in front of the stage will be transformed with carpets and pillows into a South Asian seating area, with carpets and pillows for attendees to lounge on. Long Island City’s Five Star Banquet and Restaurant will be serving North Indian fare for $8 a plate; they’re known for their chicken makhani (butter chicken).

This year’s performers include:

A.R. Balaskandan │ Bill Buchen │ Narendra Budhakar │ Jay Gandhi │ Sonali Mishra │ Rohan Mishra │ Nitin Mitta │ Nemanja Rebic │ Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury and more!

Check the Sun To Stars page in the coming weeks to find out what’s new as the Festival approaches!

Join DJ Trent as he freaks out to his two favorite movies:

1) David Byrne’s TRUE STORIES, starring John Goodman and Byrne, with music by Talking Heads, exploring the changing world of central Texas in 1986
and
2) Daft Punk’s INTERSTELLA 5555: THE 5TORY OF THE 5ECRET 5TAR 5YSTEM, an insane anime adventure into the year 5555 set to Daft Punk’s “Discovery,” possibly the best album ever made.

Since both movies are set to music (but avoid the awful cliches associated with, you know, musicals) it will also be a dance party with $2 Brooklyn Beer all night long. If you can’t make it in person, join the fun from home with live audio/video broadcasts at 91.1fm and wfmu.org.

Join us for the 6th Annual Solar-Powered Dance Series! 12 emerging choreographers will perform short works on our recycled eco-stage, with audio powered by the sun! Free and suitable for all ages, children are highly encouraged to attend.

Program B July 29-31 at 6pm, rain date August 1

Yesid Lopez
Joseph Celej
Mariana Valencia
Makiko Tamura
Daniela Hoff
Mana Kawamura

Photo of Makiko Tamura/small apple co. by Akimasa Mitsuishi

Join us for the 6th Annual Solar-Powered Dance Series! 12 emerging choreographers will perform short works on our recycled eco-stage, with audio powered by the sun! Free and suitable for all ages, children are highly encouraged to attend.

Program A July 22-24 at 6pm, rain date July 25

Meghan McCoy
Tzu Ying Lee
Tracie Stanfield
Mercedes Searer
Theodora Boguszewski
Mary Ann Wall

Photo of Tracie Stanfield/Synthesis Dance Project by Yi-Chun Wu

photos: Jonathan Hökklo

Solar One is proud to present the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, with special guests Berean Community Drumline and the Frank Malloy Djembe Ensemble, in a Contemporary African dance and percussive extravaganza.

This hour-long traveling performance will be a presentation of original choreography by Jamal Jackson with the unique musical accompaniment of Southern-style marching band drum line. Starting at the south end of Stuyvesant Cove Park, the Berean Community Drumline will guide the audience to different performance settings in the park, and finally to the main stage for a show-stopping finale.

About Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC)

Jamal Jackson, Artistic Director, was born in Brooklyn, New York and began his formal studies of movement with the Harlem based Batoto Yetu Dance Company. His pursuit of dance led him to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he received the Weston Award for his contribution to the Fusion Dance Company and NewWorks/World Traditions African Dance Company from 1996-2000. Jamal studied with Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Seydou Coulibaly, and Fred Benjamin and worked under Mba and Bisar in Mali, West Africa. Jamal choreographed for the New York Arts Festival and Inaya Day in 2002, marking the beginning of his African-based, modern style of movement. Jamal performed with Ballet International Africans for two seasons as a principal dancer and in 2004 he founded the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, which debuted Images of the Union at University Settlement in New York and at Westport Hall in Connecticut. The company went on to perform United We Stand at the Hudson Guild Theater, Dance New Amsterdam, Mo Pitkins, and for Jennifer Muller/The Works series. Jamal has created work for the Diversity in Dance Project at The Yard featuring Urban Bush Women and the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and has returned to Batoto Yetu Dance Company as the Assistant Artistic Director. In 2008 and 2009, the company performed This Place Called Home, which was presented at Big Range Austin in Austin, TX, the Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, and Performance Spaces of the 21 Century in Chatham, New York to name a few. For 2010, JJDC has premiered a work in progress, Next Time, which will be developed into an evening length piece.

The mission of Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) is to translate the creative vision of Artistic Director Jamal Jackson into choreography and educational tools for use in performances, workshops and community outreach that will teach people about the connection between African and American cultures.

JJDC’s aesthetic is a Contemporary African technique that fuses African movement with Modern, Hip Hop, storytelling and Jamal’s signature movement style which is characterized by looseness in the arms, hips and spine, fast footwork, and a constant bounce.

JJDC Outreach: Berean Community Drumline

The purpose of the Berean Community Drumline, a program of the Berean Community and Family Life Center in Brooklyn, NY, is to provide culturally sensitive physical activity intervention that engages adolescents at a physical level to combat obesity, prevent disease, and encourage an overall healthy lifestyle. The number of overweight adolescents in the United States has tripled in the past 20 years, and obesity has become a serious national epidemic. The African American population has suffered the most from the problem of childhood obesity, also showing prevalence for obesity as adults – 77%, which is 20% higher than their Euro-American counterparts. Weight issues in children and adolescents are primarily caused by lack of physical activity and/or healthy behaviors that will improve their quality of life. The mission of the Drumline program is to equip and empower adolescents to participate in physical activity on a regular basis. This mission ties into the overall mission of the BCFLC which is “to provide an accessible, community-based program that responds to the holistic needs of persons to promote community empowerment, comprehensive wellness and enhance the quality of life.” As the participants are taught the skills and techniques behind drumming, dancing and stepping, they also gain creativity, coordination, discipline, self-control and teamwork.

At the beginning of this year, JJDC initiated an outreach program with the Berean Community Drumline with the goal of:

1. Providing the youth with opportunities to perform on a professional stage

2. Teaching professionalism and improving dance technique

3. Using dance to teach youth about the culture and history of the African Diaspora

4. Providing professional development to choreographers
Program highlights include:

1. Collaboration to create new JJDC choreography with Drumline accompaniment

2. Weekly dance classes for the dancers

3. Monthly open JJDC rehearsals and technique workshops for choreographers

4. Drumline Dance Festival

Don’t miss this extraordinary performance experience!

NYU Earth Matters is throwing a party for Earth Day’s 40th birthday, and you’re invited! Check out a fabulous exhibit of eco-art from the NYU community and beyond, eat delicious food from the Dosa Man and check out some exciting live entertainment from MC Andrew WK, Cold Cave, Oberhofer and North Highlands, plus a Special Secret Guest so exciting we won’t be able to reveal their name until Saturday morning!

This event is free and open to the public, rain or shine! We hope to see you there!

Now, in today’s New York Times, Tamar’s latest piece – “Diagnosis of a Faun” – is featured on the front page of the Arts section.  The article discusses the genesis of the piece and the transformations it has created in the life of Gregg Mozgala, an actor with cerebral palsy who has connected with his body in new and unexpected ways as a result of his work with Tamar in preparing the piece.  It’s an interesting look at the creative process for what should be an engaging and entertaining performance.

“Diagnosis of a Faun” plays at La Mama Theater in the East Village on Thursdays-Sundays from December 3 – 20.  More information and tickets available here.  Congratulations to Tamar for her achievement and recognition!

Please check in with us tomorrow to make sure the performance will be running as scheduled; we’ll make a decision by 4:45pm. Hopefully, we’ll see you tomorrow!