Works & Process, Performing Arts Series at the Guggenheim, Announces 2020-2021 Season

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, is proud to announce new initiatives and partnerships that collectively support performing artists and their creative process. Works & Process will produce seven bubble residencies taking place in summer and fall 2020 in the Hudson Valley that will serve as the generative force for artists to safely gather, create, and perform together again. Select Works & Process bubble residencies will culminate in live, in-process outdoor performances as part of the sold-out Kaatsbaan Summer Festival, in Tivoli, NY, on August 22, 23, 29, and 30, and September 20 and 26. Select Works & Process creative bubble residency projects will go directly to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to be performed and filmed outdoors for digital presentation, prior to artists exiting the bubbles. A four-part docudrama capturing this journey will premiere on ALL ARTS in January 2021, ahead of planned live performances at the Guggenheim. Rough cuts of the four episodes will also be presented in virtual viewings as part of the fall 2020 Works & Process season. Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions continues with premieres every Sunday and Monday through 2020.

“This pandemic derailed our commissioning and presenting timeline so we decided NOT to cancel but, instead, to support our family of Works & Process artists by forging a path to safely resume their creative work. Through these creative bubble residencies, Works & Process is championing diverse voices and dance cultures which is essential-especially now when artists are so vulnerable.” – Caroline Cronson, Producer

“While we can’t all gather, we are excited for audiences to continue to explore the creative process with Works & Process through our docudrama series featuring bubble residencies in the Hudson Valley, an area that has always been an incubative artistic force. We are proud to offer residencies in partnership with Kaatsban Cultural Park, Mount Tremper Arts, and Petronio Residency Center, presentation opportunities at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, and TV broadcast and streaming through WNET’s ALL ARTS to nourish and share the art produced by this ecosystem of creativity.” – Duke Dang, General Manager

Works & Process Creative Bubble Residencies – Summer/Fall 2020
Under a medical protocol developed with medical counsel Dr. Wendy Ziecheck, artists isolated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will gather in quarantine to work together in Hudson Valley. Presented in partnership with Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Mount Tremper Arts, and Petronio Residency Center through jointly subsidized residencies, seven creative bubbles are being created to incubate Works & Process commissions featuring diverse dance cultures, including Afrik, ballet, ballroom, break, flex, Krump, modern, tap, and vogue dance styles, and beatbox. Audiences are invited to witness some of the collaborative work and receive real-time updates on Works & Process social media at Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (@worksandprocess).

Lead support provided by Anh-Tuyet Nguyen and Robert Pollock.

Isolation to Creation Docudrama Premiere on ALL ARTS January 2021, with Rough-cut Virtual Viewing as part of  Works & Process Fall 2020 Season
Works & Process will produce a four-part docudrama following the journey of creative bubble residency artists as they begin to work together again after an unprecedented period of isolation. The four-part series by filmmaker Nic Petry of Dancing Camera, realized with support from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, will premiere and be distributed and broadcast in January 2021 on ALL ARTS, an arts-focused multimedia platform. Viewers will have the rare opportunity to peek behind the scenes-and to experience the exhilarating physical struggle and emotional challenges of returning to the studio after months away. 

Special rough-cut virtual viewings of the four episodes will take place on October 31, November 7, 14, and 21 as part of the fall Works & Process season. Complimentary access will be provided for first responders, essential workers, and $500+ Friends of Works & Process, with $25 tickets for the general public, and $20 for Guggenheim members and Friends of Works & Process. To purchase tickets visit worksandprocess.org. Email info@worksandprocess.org for complimentary access tickets for first responders and essential workers.

Once conditions are deemed safe for audiences and artists to gather, the live premieres and performances of projects featured in Isolation to Creation will be presented at the Guggenheim Museum as part of the Works & Process 2021 season.

Lead funding for Works & Process is provided by the Ford Foundation, the Christian Humann Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Evelyn Sharp Foundation, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NationalEndowment for the Arts.

Works & Process Creative Bubble Residency Featured Projects

Works & Process Commission
Beatbox and Street Dance
The Missing Element
August Creative Bubble Residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park
Kaatsbaan Summer Festival Performances on August 22, 23, 29, and 30, 5 pm
Outdoor Filming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for Digital Presentation
Lead creators including world champion beatboxer Chris Celiz, who performed last at Works & Process in December 2019, and b-boy Anthony Vito Rodriguez “Invertebrate” assemble a formidable cast of dancers including Krumper Brian “Hallow Dreamz” Henry, flexer Joseph Carella “Klassic”, breaker Graham Reese, and members of the Beatbox House including Amit Bhowmick, Celiz, Neil Meadows “NaPoM”, Gene Shinozaki, and Kenny Urban to create The Missing Element. Fusing the music making of beatbox with street dance, this project presents an engaging and immersive experience, inspired by the elements of nature.

The Beatbox House is a collective of world champion beatboxers.Beatboxing is growing into a global phenomenon branching out from its hip-hop roots. Through education, performance, and collaboration, the collective is rebranding the art as a new form of music, pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the human voice.

Works & Process Commission
Body Percussion, Music, and Tap
Music from the Sole – New Afro-Brazilian Tap Work
August Creative Bubble Residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park
Kaatsbaan Summer Festival Performances on August 22, 23, 29, and 30, 5 pm
Outdoor Filming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for Digital Presentation
After performing in both presentations of Works & Process Rotunda Project: Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young, the founders of Music from the Sole, choreographer and tap dancer Leonardo Sandoval and bassist-composer Gregory Richardson, return to Works & Process to explore tap’s fluidity, body percussion, and music in their new Afro-diasporic work. Blurring the line between dance and music, the commission will highlight tap’s lineage and connections to forms as diverse as Afro-Brazilian dance, samba, passinho (Brazilian funk), house, and hip-hop. Working with saxophonist José Cruzata, pianist Noé Kains, and tap dancer Gisele Silva, Sandoval and Richardson will provide insights into the common roots of these different styles and develop narratives that touch on race, cultural identity, and the intersectionality of the Black experience. 

Works & Process Commission
Modern Dance
Jamar Roberts and David Watson New Commission
August Creative Bubble Residency at Petronio Residency Center
“Commonly, when a choreographer tries to express a state of emergency though dance, the results are obvious, didactic or maudlin. An ability to avoid those traps seems to be part of Mr. Roberts’s gift.”- The New York Times

In March, just as the pandemic hit, Works & Process invited Jamar Roberts, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s first resident choreographer, to develop a piece for Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions. Roberts created Cooped, with music by David Watson, which was described by The New York Times as “one of the most powerful artistic responses yet to the COVID-19 crisis.” At this two-week residency, Roberts will choreograph a new work with dancers Patrick Coker, Ghrai 
DeVore-Stokes, Jacquelin Harris, and Brandon Michael Woolridge, with new music by Watson. The performance will premiere in 2021 in an intimate program alongside Cooped as well as select solos choreographed by Roberts for Choreography of Light by Brandon Stirling Baker, also commissioned by Works & Process.

Works & Process Commission
Elements of Afrik: Ballroom Aesthetic, Street Dance, and Vogue
Les Ballet Afrik
New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles, performed by Les Ballet Afrik
September Creative Bubble Residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park
Kaatsbaan Summer Festival Performances on September 20 and 26, 5 pm
In 1990, the documentary Paris Is Burning was released to critical acclaim. The film chronicled New York City drag balls, ball culture, and voguing in the 1980s, capturing the elaborately structured ball competitions and showcasing rival houses. Beyond the ballroom, the houses served as surrogate families for young ball-walkers who faced rejection from their biological families for their gender expression and sexual orientation. The voguing that took place at these balls has entered mainstream culture in the years since, serving as a touch point for a multi-leveled exploration of a queer African American and 
Latino subculture. 

In homage to the 30th anniversary of Paris Is Burning, Works & Process commissioned Omari Wiles, founding father of the House of Oricci and a legend within the ballroom community, to produce New York Is Burning for performance by his company Les Ballet Afrik including dancers Kya Azeen, Algin Ford-Sterling “UFOH”, Alora Martinez, Eva Moore, Shireen Rahimi, Milerka Rodriguez, Kameron N. Saunders, Yuki Sukezane, Karma Stylz, Craig Washington, and Yuhee Yang. Through this creative bubble residency, Wiles will continue the development of this commission, which was scheduled to premiere in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater at the Guggenheim Museum in March 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic. In 2021, the piece will bring the ballroom to the Guggenheim in a work featuring Wiles’s AfrikFusion, a style that combines traditional African dances and Afrobeat styles with house dance and vogue.
 
Works & Process Commission
New York City Underground Dance: Styles, History, and Culture
UnderScored, created by Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD) in Collaboration with Legendary Guest Artists from New York City’s Underground Dance Community
September Creative Bubble Residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park
Kaatsbaan Summer Festival Performances on September 20 and 26, 5 pm
Beginning with the seminal parties at The Loft and the Paradise Garage, UnderScored is inspired by the intergenerational club-life memories of a cast ranging in age from 25 to 77. This work explores the ever-changing physical and musical landscape of New York City’s underground house dance and music scene. Legendary elders from NYC’s underground dance community, including Archie Burnett, Brahms “Bravo” LaFortune, and Michele Saunders, collaborate and perform with company members Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, Manon Bal, Ron “Stealth-1” Chunn Jr., Teena Marie Custer, Val “Ms. Vee” Ho, and Matthew “Megawatt” West. In conjunction with this project, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will provide a fellowship for Asherie to collect and archive oral histories from elders who are part of the generation of dancers who helped create and usher in NYC’s underground dance and music scene in the 1970s and ’80s.

Cabaret and Dance
The Seven Deadly Sins
Joshua Bergasse, Justin Vivian Bond, Jeffrey Guimond, Marc Happel, and Sara Mearns
October Creative Bubble at Petronio Residency Center
The Seven Deadly Sins is a production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s classic 1933 ballet chanté (sung ballet) conceived by Marc Happel and under development by Happel and Jeffrey Guimond. The performance will pair cabaret icon and artist Justin Vivian Bond with New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns, who will perform the duo roles of Anna 1 and Anna 11, the ballet’s split-personality guides who lead the audience through the depredations of modern society. Emmy Award-winning 
choreographer Joshua Bergasse will set the piece. Partnering with Alex Jenkins and Audrey Rachelle of AnA Collaborations, Happel and Guimond will create an immersive environment for the ballet.

Highlights from the performance were to be presented as part of the 2020 Works & Process Gala this past June; the production is now expected to premiere in the fall of 2021 following a Works & Process 
showing.

Works & Process Commission
Dance, Film, and Visual Art
New Work by Adrian Danchig-Waring, Joseph Gordon, Kristin Sztyk, and Virginia Wagner
October Creative Bubble at Mount Tremper Arts
Details to be announced soon.

Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions Premiere Every Sunday and Monday at 7:30 pm
Since April, in direct response to the pandemic, and to financially support artists and nurture their creative processes during these challenging times, Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has presented Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions. Through the generosity of our board and donors, over $150,000 in commissioning funds is being granted through 2020 to over 100 artists to produce new video works while social distancing. Each under five minutes long, these virtual performances spotlight leading creators who have participated in past Works & 
Process programs. New commissions will be posted on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (@worksandprocess) every Sunday and Monday at 7:30 pm EDT through 2020.

Explore the full playlist of WPA Virtual Commissions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ08rQmWB63RFC3avQF-nDsneUXLrUd4X

August 23     Silas Farley
August 24     Andrea Miller
August 30     Courtney Cochran
August 31     Carson Murphy and Nicholas Van Young

Fall schedule and additional commissions to be announced.

(Commissioned artists as of August 19)

Stella Abrera * Evita Arce * Ephrat Asherie * BalletX * Brandon Stirling Baker * LaTasha Barnes * Reid Bartelme * Lisa Bielawa * Stefanie Batten Bland * Joshua Bergasse * Hope Boykin * Brian Brooks * Camille A. Brown * Nora Brown * Tony Buck * Nathan Bugh * Rena Butler * Donald Byrd * Chris Celiz * Alejandro Cerrudo * Courtney Cochran * Gaby Cook * Anthony Roth Costanzo * Dylan Crossman * Dance Theatre of Harlem * Adrian Danchig-Waring * Machine Dazzle * Viva DeConcini * Simone Dinnerstein * Michelle Dorrance * Robbie Fairchild * Silas Farley * Jack Ferver * Tom Gold * Joseph Gordon * Michael Gordon * Amy Hall Garner * Anthony Hawley * Maxfield Haynes * John Heginbotham * HIPS * Adam Charlap Hyman * Dick Hyman * Michael R. Jackson * Jeremy Jacob * Colin Jacobsen * Michael Jagger * John Jarboe * Harriet Jung * Larry Keigwin * Lloyd Knight * Gabrielle Lamb * David Lang * Ashley Laracey * Pontus Lidberg * Ana Lopez * Malcolm Jason Low * Dave Malloy * Missy Mazzoli * Ryan McNamara * Sara Mearns * Jodi Melnick * Andrea Miller * Isaac Mizrahi * Nico Muhly * Carson Murphy * Gillian Murphy * Michael Novak * Annie-B Parson * Josh Prince * Caili Quan * Sascha Radetsky * Jamar Roberts * Anthony Rodriguez * Leonardo Sandoval * Kamala Sankaram * Zoe Sarnak * Penny Saunders * Claudia Schreier * Troy Schumacher * Margo Seibert * Dan Siegler * Victoria Sin * Dawn Sinkowski * Gus Solomons Jr. * Ethan Stiefel * Karma Stylz * Macy Sullivan * Pam Tanowitz * Conrad Tao * Caleb Teicher * Adam Tendler * Richard Thomas * Cassandra Trenary * Charles Turner * Nicholas Van Young * Preeti Vasudevan * Eyal Vilner * David Watson * Omari Wiles * Zack Winokur * Nicole Wolcott

Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions has been supported by Jody and John Arnhold, Stuart Coleman and Meryl Rosofsky, Antonio Convit and Tim McGraw, Lucy Dobrin, Adam Flatto, Bart Friedman, Bond Koga, Jayne Lipman, Jonna Mackin, Joan T. Mischo, Eve Mykytyn, Michele and Steven Pesner, Cynthia Hazen Polsky, Stephen Kroll Reidy, Denise Saul, Margaret Sparks, Annalyn Swan, Allyson Tang, Shelby White, and many others. Virtual video design supported by Anupam and Rajika Puri. New music for dance supported by The Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
Described by The New York Times as “an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,” since 1984, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Most performances take place in the Guggenheim’s intimate, 273-seat Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Peter B. Lewis Theater. In 2017, Works & Process established a new residency and commissioning program, inviting artists to create new works, made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. In 2020, Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions and creative bubble residencies were created to financially support artists and nurture their creative process during the pandemic. worksandprocess.org. 

guggenheim.org/social
#WorksandProcess

For more information or images, or to arrange interviews, please contact:

Duke Dang, General Manager
Works & Process at the Guggenheim
212 758 0024
ddang@worksandprocess.org

Michelle Tabnick, Publicist
Works & Process at the Guggenheim
646 765 4773
michelle@michelletabnickpr.com

Guggenheim Press Office 
212 423 3840
pressoffice@guggenheim.org
 
Photo Caption: From left: Adrian Danchig-Waring, Joseph Gordon, Teresa Reichlen, Jared Angle, and Zachary Catazaro inThe Four Temperaments, November 2017, with choreography by George Balanchine. © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo: Jacklyn Meduga; 
New York Is Burning by Omari Wiles, January 2020, performed by Les Ballet Afrik. Commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Photo: Robert Altman; 
UnderScored by Ephrat Asherie, January 2020, performed by Ephrat Asherie Dance. Commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Photo: Robert Altman; 
Works & Process Rotunda Project: Michelle Dorrance with Nicholas Van Young. November 2018. Photo: Em Watson; Works & Process Rotunda Party, December 2019, featuring LaTasha Barnes and Chris Celiz. Photo: Robert Altman; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Jacqueline Green and Jamar Roberts in Wayne McGregor’s Kairos, November 2018. Photo: Erica Hochstedler; Sara Mearns at the Merce Cunningham Centennial Celebration, November 2019, with choreography by Merce Cunningham. © Merce Cunningham Trust. Photo: Robert Altman