LUMINATA: IT IS OUR LIGHT

The third installment of the successful intervention series Under the Viaduct, will take place on Saturday, October 4, 2014 and coincide with the Paris-based Festival of Lights. Nuit Blanche (which literally means White Night in French) was originated in 1984 by Jean Blaise, founder of the Centre de recherche pour le développement culturel (Research Center for Cultural Development) in Nantes, France. Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, and performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.

The Curator Savona and the West Harlem Art Fund is developing their version of the festival with featured dances, graffiti, sounds and digital art.

FEATURED DANCE INTERVENTION – Luminata: It is our light

Choreographers: Ellen Maynard and Autumn Scoggan
Location: Under The Viaduct at 125th near West Harlem Piers; Large slanted concrete slab
Performers: Ellen Maynard, Autumn Scoggan, Madeline Irmen, Quentin Burley, Emily Jones, Melanie Gallo, Erin Kerr, Ava Untermeyer

Synopsis: This group dance will occur at sunset; and as the afternoon sun creates slanted light pathways, the dancers will move in their own pathways. Rich magenta and orange colored fabric will stretch across the expansive grey concrete. The dancers will weave in and out of each other and the fabric, creating both intricate and broad pathways. A community will form within the group of dancers as they move together to create something larger than each individual. The fabric will evoke a rich sense of empowerment. At some points the fabric will become a long dress train, at other points it will work as an ornate wrapping. The movements of this piece are inspired by the arches of the viaduct and the grandeur of the huge space. The dancers appear tiny under this large sturdy structure, and while their movement reflects that at times, at other times the movement empowers them to share the grandeur of the space and of the group.

Music: Musicians will be invited to play brass instruments, trumpet or saxophone.

Costumes: Graffiti jackets that will illuminate are being designed by street artist Lady K Fever.

Choreographers:

ELLEN MAYNARD is a Brooklyn-based dance artist and filmmaker. Ellen performed in original works by Bebe Miller, Lily Skove, Ann Sofie Clemmensen, Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Ohad Fishof, and Noa Zuk, during her time as a BFA student of dance at The Ohio State University. Ellen was director of photography for Stephan Koplowitz’s dance film installation work in progress during Bates Dance Festival 2014. She is currently dancing for Dante Brown | Warehouse Dance, and Quentin Burley. Luminata is the premiere choreographic work for Ellen in New York.

AUTUMN SCOGGAN combines social activism with performance art in order to tell stories and engage in open dialogue with audiences through a variety of at mediums, such as dance, film, and comedy.
Street Artist:

LADY K-FEVER (b. Canada) is a New York based inter-disciplinary artist and curator working with painting, installation, photography, performance and public art projects. She began her career in Vancouver the early 1990’s when she was invited to create an installation with Riot Grrlz for Artropolis 93. In 2003, she became the first Canadian woman to paint at the legendary Graffiti Hall of Fame in East Harlem, New York and to be put down with NYC graffiti crews KD & TDS.

Her work has been exhibited in Bronx Lab Style Wars Bronx Museum, Graffiti Research lab MOMA, Figure8 El Museo del Barrio, Born again: Eight Artist Respond Longwood Art gallery, B-girl Be Intermedia Arts, This side of Paradise No Longer Empty and Figment 2012 New York and published in the New York Times, New York Post, Daily News and in the magazines: Studio (Harlem), Mass Appeal (Brooklyn), Backspin (Germany), and Trace (international) among others, and in the books Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents, and Burning New York: Graffiti NYC, and We B Girlz (New York). In 2013, her graffiti/street art has been presented at The Graffiti Hall Of Fame 2013, New York, Rooftop Legends 2013, New York, and The New York Walls Wynwood, Miami. From 2004 to 2006, she was the lead curator at The Aurora Gallery in Chelsea creating exhibitions History in the Making I, II & III. She has curated Made from love for the Bronx Museum’s project space in 2007 and most recently Outside the Box at the Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPECIAL THANKS TO PANTONE FOR THEIR PRODUCT DONATION FOR LUMINATA: IT IS OUR LIGHT