Enactments: Rhythm Field - The Dance of Molissa Fenley
The Department of Performance Studies welcomes you to join Andre Lepecki and Molissa Fenley as they introduce the book, "Rhythm Field: The Dance of Molissa Fenley"
Enactments Series, edited by Richard Schechner, published by Seagull Press, 2015.
Contributors Molissa Fenley, Stephen Greco, Richard Move and Elizabeth Streb will read their essays.
Rhythm Field: The Dance of Molissa Fenley
Edited by Ann Murphy and Molissa Fenley.
Foreword by Philip Glass; essays by Rande Brown, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, David Moodey, Richard Move, Ann Murphy, Elizabeth Streb, Paz Tanjuaquio; interview with Peter Boal; conversation with Tere O'Connor; poetry by Bob Holman; epilogue by Stephen Greco.
Molissa Fenley (1954) founded her dance company in 1977 and has created over 80 dance works during her continuing career. Her work has been presented throughout the United States, South America, Europe, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Molissa is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation, a recipient of two Asian Cultural Council residencies in Japan and a Master Artist of the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She is Danforth Professor of Dance at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Richard Move is Artistic Director of MoveOpolis! a TED Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in Performance Studies at NYU. He is Assistant Professor of Dance at Queens College, CUNY. His commissions include productions for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Martha Graham Dance Company, PARADIGM, Opera Ballet of Florence, New York City Ballet’s Helene Alexopoulos, Guggenheim Museum, European Cultural Capitol and Parrish Art Museum. MoveOpolis! has been presented by Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, River-to-River Festival and internationally. His films include: Bardo, Jury Prize nominee at Dance on Camera Festival, BloodWork-The Ana Mendieta Story, National Board of Review Award, GhostLight,
Tribeca Film Festival premiere and GIMP-The Documentary, Dance on Camera Festival premiere. Martha@ …, Move’s performances as Martha Graham, received two New York Dance and Performance Awards and tours globally. Forthcoming publications include commissioned essays for The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, Mark Franko, Ed. and Ally: Janine Antoni, Ana Halprin and Stephen Petronio, Adrian Heathfield, Ed.
Elizabeth Streb was born in 1950 and has been testing the potential of the human body ever since. The preeminent Extreme Action Architect, Streb is "a rascal", "a genius" and
dance's answer to punk rock. She founded her company in 1985 and became a MacArthur Foundation fellow in 1997. In 2003 she founded the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She also wrote the book STREB: How to Become an Extreme Action Hero (2010, Feminist Press). The STREB company has performed in, around and on top of major
landmarks, theaters and stadiums worldwide. Streb is the subject of the 2014 documentary Born to Fly (Aubin
Pictures).
Stephen Greco is an author, cultural journalist, and screenwriter. Greco’s fourth novel, Now and Yesterday (Kensington), described by Edmund White as a “romance of the creative class,” was featured in Vanity Fair and praised by Kirkus as “a life-affirming yet melancholy, John O’Hara–like analysis of post-baby-boom-meets-millennial-queer Big Apple society.” Currently the Director of Content for Classical TV, which streams full-length performing arts videos online and across platforms, Greco is also co-author of Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, an app and album co-produced by the New York-based production company Giants are Small
and Deutsche Grammophon. Greco has also served as executive director of Dance Theater Workshop and a long-time member of the New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Awards Committee.
BILL T. JONES (Artistic Director/Co-Founder/Choreographer: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Artistic Director: New York Live Arts) is the recipient of the 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award; the 2013 National Medal of Arts; the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography of the critically acclaimed FELA!; a 2007 Tony Award, 2007 Obie Award, and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation CALLAWAY Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award; the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography forThe Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and the 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2010, Mr. Jones was recognized as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.”
Mr. Jones choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. He has created more than 140 works for his company. Mr. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, an organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. For more information visit www.newyorklivearts.org.