Year: 2023-2024
DanceForce Member: Jim Self
Partnering Member: Ivan Sygoda
Artist: Tatiana Desardouin, Jim Self
Community Partner: Cherry Arts Space
Audience: 370
County: Tompkins
‘DANCE-WISE, GROOVE, and GROVE’ has three components, each approaching community engagement and dance creation from distinct and unique angles.
The first component is a seven-day creative residency with ‘PASSION FRUIT DANCE Company,’ directed by Tatiana Desardouin. The company of seven multi-media collaborators and four dancers will further develop their work-in-progress, “DIMENSIONS,” which explores ideas of multiple layers/dimensions through different angles, visual media and street/club dance styles. Their work utilizes a special movement technique within one’s ‘groove’ that “preserves a rhythmic flow of the body (isolations, waves, musicality etc.).” From June 3-9, 2024, Passion Fruit’s Ithaca residency will include two weekend performances, community workshops, discussions and a gallery exhibition/opening related to “DIMENSIONS.”
‘SPEAKING DANCE WISE’ is an ongoing series of roundtable discussions providing opportunities for seasoned Tompkins County movement artists (elders) to share their knowledge and experience through conversations and presentations rooted in 20th and 21st century practices, expressions, and aesthetic shifts over multiple decades. This project responds to and engages with the many accomplished dance artists who have settled in the Ithaca area after multi-faceted national and international careers. It will take place in the fall of 2023 (exact times TBD).
‘Visceral II’ is a video project that records personal dance space, created for witness observers in a natural setting (“witness grove”). Video documentation allows this intimate form to be more easily shared with broader audiences while maintaining the visceral impact of close-up movement viewing. Visceral II project is an evolved iteration of the 2020 project developed by Mee Ae during the pandemic lockdown. Each video featured a single dancer and 2-3 witnesses being filmed in a rural setting and later screened for a larger audience. Visceral II will include one or more dancers in each video. Participating artists will include some of the original participants including but not limited to: Kathy Lucas, Megan Nicole, Indira White, Mee Ae, and others. The time frame will be in Summer/Fall 2023, and Spring 2024, (exact times to TBD).
In total, the estimated audience/participants are: 200 for Passion Fruit, 90 for filming/screenings of Visceral II, and 80 for Speaking Dance Wise.
Each of these provocative and engaging projects contribute to ongoing efforts to bring together intergenerational movement artists, supporters, and other curious members of the Tompkins County/ Finger Lakes region of New York State.