We have announced our 2017-18 artists for the EtM Choreographer + Composer Residencies. This is the third round of this program, which support interdisciplinary collaborations at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning.

Each selected artist receives a three-month residency at the Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning (JCAL) plus a $1,500 stipend. Four collaborative teams will create and develop new work and present one free public program in coordination with JCAL. Thanks to the generous support of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, each artist will also receive an additional $500 upon completion of their public program.

 

The recipients of this year’s residency are: 

 

Hadar Ahuvia + Avi Amon

Hadar Ahuvia is a dancer, choreographer, and educator living in Brooklyn. She has worked with Sara Rudner, Jill Sigman, Donna Uchizono, Molly Poerstel, Anna Sperber, Jon Kinzel, Stuart Shugg, Tatyana Tenenbaum, and Kathy Westwater and currently performs with Reggie Wilson/ Fist and Heel Performance Group. Her work has been presented at New York Live Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Dixon Place, BkSD, Center for Performance Research, and other venues throughout NYC and the northeast United States. Raised in Israel and the U.S., Ahuvia trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She was a 2012  DTW/NYLA Fresh Tracks Artist, a 2015 Movement Research Artist in Residence, a 2016 LABA Fellow at the 14th Street Y, and is the recipient of a 2017 CUNY Dance Initiative residency. She is a resident artist at Brooklyn Studios for Dance.

Avi Amon is a Brooklyn-based composer, pianist, and sound artist. His works include THE WHITE CITY with Julia Gytri (Yale Institute, O’Neill National Music Theater Conference, Richard Rogers Award Finalist), LULU IS HUNGRY with Claire Kiechel (Ars Nova), THE CHILDREN with Phillip Howze (Yale, BRIC), and a sound installation in a 100-year old grain silo in Buffalo, New York. Amon’s work has been developed or presented by the Actors Theatre of Louisville (2017 Humana Opera Commission), Spoleto Festival USA (with tap dancer, Ayodele Casel), Prospect Theater, BAM, Lincoln Center, La Mama, New York Foundation for the Arts, and HERE Arts, among others. Residencies and Awards include: Judson Memorial Church, Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant, Target Margin Theater, New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Weston Playhouse. Avi is the resident composer at the 52nd Street Project. He received his MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where he currently teaches. Upcoming: A new play with music (with playwright Gabrielle Reisman) at Barnard, and a multimedia presentation at Beyond The Machine at Juilliard.

 

Hilary Brown + Lamy Istrefi Jr.

Hilary Brown originally from Toronto, Canada, graduated from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (LADMMI) with a DEC in Danse-interprétation. Since then she has participated in projects with artists including Peggy Baker, Candice Breitz, Lindsey Dietz Marchant and David Hinton. Brown has also had the privilege of performing with Doug Elkins & Friends’ North American touring production of Fräulein Maria (2010-2012) and Kinesis Project dance theatre under the direction of Melissa Riker (2009-2014). In 2013 she co-founded the performance collective, Same As Sister (S.A.S.) with Briana Brown-Tipley. Their cross-disciplinary works have been presented at Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre (2017 Artist Program Residents), Movement Research and Bailout Theater at Judson Memorial Church, CRAWL at 22 Boerum Place, BRIC Arts | Media House (2015 BRIClab Residents), New York Live Arts (2014-2015 Fresh Tracks Residents), Triskelion Arts, Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Chen Dance Center.

Lamy Istrefi Jr. is a New York City based Jazz drummer/percussionist, composer and conductor, originally from the Republic of Kosovo. Istrefi Jr. attended the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz (KUG) in Austria, before relocating to the United States. He is currently a member of Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and composer, Joe Lovano’s Classic Quartet, for which he has toured internationally to perform at such prestigious festivals and venues as the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, the PDX Jazz Festival, Blue Note Milano, Bimhuis Amsterdam and the Bergamo Jazz Festival, among others. Istrefi Jr. also collaborates with a diverse and notable group of musicians for his own artistic projects which include the Lamy Istrefi Jr. Trio and Quartet featuring NEA Jazz Master, Dave Liebman, and the Musical Minds Orchestra, a large experimental ensemble that he founded in 2010.

 

Kensaku Shinohara + Dorian Wallace

Born in Sapporo, Japan, Kensaku Shinohara discovered dance while studying anthropology at International Christian University in Tokyo in 2004. Since his move to NYC in 2009, his works have been presented throughout NYC including at the Queens Museum, St. Mark’s Church, 92nd Street Y, and LaMaMa Experimental Theater; elsewhere in the USA (Tucson, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh); and internationally in Toronto, Kuala Lumpur, Tainan, and major cities in Japan. Shinohara is a recipient of a 92Y Harkness Dance Center AIR (2017-18), Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant (2016), Japan Foundation New York Grant for Arts & Culture (2016). His past residency awards include the Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn), MANA CONTEMPORARY (NJ), Dance Omi (Ghent, NY), Earthdance (MA), Marble House Project (VT) and more. Shinohara has taught dance at Gibney Dance Center, Emory University, Artifact Dance Project (Tucson), Canadian Contemporary Dance Theater, PKTB (Malaysia), Seed Dance (Taiwan), Architanz (Tokyo) and more.

 

Dorian Wallace is a composer, pianist, teacher, and activist. His work explores elements of the conscious and unconscious experience, political discourse, protest, activism, secularism, performance art, and genre crossing. He is cofounder/artistic director of new music collective, Tenth Intervention, and conductor of The Free Sound Ahn-somble, both based in New York City. His compositions have been performed worldwide at venues such as The Greene Space at WNYC & WQXR, Pompidou Centre, Palais Jacques Coeur, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, National Sawdust, Universidad de Costa Rica, and GK Arts Center. Wallace has composed and collaborated with artists including ​Alison Cook Beatty Dance, Robert Ashley, Seneca Black, The Cleveland Orchestra, Composers Concordance, Experiments In Opera, John King, Dave Liebman, Frank London, LottDance, Matt Marks, Brianna Matzke, Charlotte Mundy, New Vintage Baroque, Periapsis Music and Dance, Paul Pinto, Hajnal Pivnick, RIOULT Dance, John Sanborn, Son Lux, TRIODance, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Pamela Z.

 

Laurel Snyder + Adam Schatz

Laurel Snyder is a dance artist, educator and occasional musician based in NYC.  She received the majority of her physical training at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and various dance festivals throughout the USA and Europe. As a performer, Laurel is privileged to have collaborated with artists such as Faye Driscoll, Tere O’Connor, Tatyana Tenenbaum and Kendra Portier. Laurel’s choreography has been shared at spaces such as the Tank, Triskelion Arts, Center for Performance Research (CPR), Chez Bushwick, the FRESH Festival (San Francisco, CA), Deltebre Dansa (Spain) and Ponderosa (Germany). As an educator, Laurel is passionate about facilitating movement experiences that require no prior dance training and emphasizes movement potential, self acceptance and creativity. Various local and international organizations have invited Laurel as a teaching artist and she has recently acted as a vocal consultant for choreographers such as Nadia Tykulsker and Ivy Baldwin.

 

Adam Schatz writes and performs much of his music publicly with his band Landlady, as well as in solo formation as Mrs. Adam Schatz and leading his new improvising and song big band Civil Engineering. He uses keyboards, saxophone, his, and various knobs & pedals as avenues for honest, dynamic and entertaining performance. Through his noise, Adam hopes to help an audience feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves.