Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you safe and healthy during this crazy time we are in.

Composer Ryan Seaton and I were privileged to have an Explore the Metropolis Choreographer + Composer residency in fall 2019.

In lieu of a public showing, we thought we would share a little bit about how we used the residency time and offer a video of a work-in-progress showing at Judson Church through Movement Research on January 20th, 2020.

Photo left to right: Ryan Seaton, Joanna Kotze, Molly Heller, Wendell Gray II, Anna Thérèse Witenberg, and Symara Johnson.

During our residency at Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning (JCAL), we worked alone,  together and with a group of four other dancers, depending on the day.

I found the studio at JCAL to be a quiet oasis in this chaotic city. It was wonderful to have a dance home for a period of time, a place to keep coming back to.

We were near the beginning stages of a piece so experimentation was the main focus, bringing movement and sound into the space together with equal weight. Through an ongoing practice, creating circumstances to allow information to emerge over time, we have gathered bits and pieces of movement and sound.

Our research is exploring surveillance, breaking points, physical and sonic limits, spectrums of humor and violence, and what it means to keep going in this unprecedented time we find ourselves in right now.

‘lectric Eye – excerpt experiment from Joanna Kotze on Vimeo.

 

In this video link, you will see the fruits of much of our research at JCAL – an excerpt experiment as we called it – Performed by Wendell Gray II, Symara Johnson, Joanna Kotze, Ryan Seaton, and Anna Thérèse Witenberg; Music by Ryan Seaton; Video recording by The Fleet NYC LLC.

If you would like to follow or support this project, please visit my website at www.joannakotze.com or follow me on Instagram @jrkotze.

JOANNA KOTZE is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer and teacher. She was awarded the 2013 “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and has received support from the Jerome, Mertz Gilmore, and Harkness Foundations, NYFA BUILD, New Music USA, Brooklyn Arts Council, Yellowhouse, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

*Photo of Joanna Kotze by Maria Baranova