July 2019

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.86 –

Jonathan Hollander

Release Date: 7.31.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

• • iTunes: Subscribe, Listen, Rate Us HERE

  • Stitcher: Subscribe and Listen HERE

  • Any Smartphone Podcast app: Subscribe and Listen

ABOUT JONATHAN

Jonathan Hollander is a trailblazer in the field of dance beginning with his founding of Battery Dance in Lower Manhattan in 1976 at a time when the area was devoid of culture. Six years later he founded the Battery Dance Festival which is now New York City’s longest-running public dance festival. Widely recognized as one of the outstanding choreographers of his generation, his works have been presented in major theaters and festivals across five continents. In June, 2018, he was awarded the Federal Order of Merit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in honor of his“great commitment and leadership in bringing young people together across borders through cultural exchange”.   He was the Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecturer at the Fulbright Conference in Puebla, Mexico and served as a panelist for the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at George Washington University in November, 2018.  He established arts education residencies at the primary, middle and high school levels in New York City public schools.  He served as Fulbright lecturer on dance in India in 1992, and Fulbright Specialist in Malaysia in 2011. Hollander’s work has been supported by the U.S. Department of State on multiple occasions and by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation and many others. Hollander received the Silver Mask of the Silesian Dance Theatre (Poland), the USable Award (Germany) and the Arts & Business Council’s Encore Award. Under Hollander’s leadership, Battery Dance Company actively supports the commissioning of new musical scores and the inclusion of live musical performance in its productions. Hollander regularly lectures at the university level in the U.S. and overseas on Arts Management and Arts Education.  He collaborated in the creation and launching of the Cape Town International Dance Festival in South Africa and has facilitated U.S. tours by many of India’s leading dance companies over the past 25 years.  He co-founded the Indo-American Arts Council in 2000 in New York City and served on its Board until 2018. Jonathan was named Associate Professor by the Indian Institute of Finance and represented the U.S. performing arts field at the Inaugural Conference on Soft Power in New Delhi in December, 2018.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.85 –

photo: Jessie Young

Stephanie Acosta

Release Date: 7.17.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

• • iTunes: Subscribe, Listen, Rate Us HERE

  • Stitcher: Subscribe and Listen HERE

  • Any Smartphone Podcast app: Subscribe and Listen

ABOUT STEPHANIE

Stephanie Acosta is a interdisciplinary artist who places the materiality of the ephemeral at the center of her practice, questioning meaning-making and manufactured limitations.

Acosta blends performance with practice-based research, making work in response to, while also creating, site and space. Engaging ensembles in facilitated processes, she creates fleeting performance works that challenge site, space, and perception to bring about shared experiences.

Acosta has produced and presented works with and for Museum of Art and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, Knockdown Center, the Current Sessions, Miami Performance International Festival, Anatomy Collective, IN>Time Symposium, the Chicago Park District, the Performance Philosophy conference, High Concept Labs, Read/Write Library, No Media, and Radius. In her continued commitment to the experimental voices of New York and Chicago’s performance art communities, Acosta has also collaborated with artists such as Miguel Gutierrez, Daviel Shy, Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey of ATOM-r, as well as performance artist Robin Deacon, sonic artist Jeff Kolar, and lead discourse at American Realness 2018. 

A Cuban American born and raised in Miami, Florida, and currently residing in Brooklyn, Acosta works extensively with unseen histories, performance, experimental radio, and film. Acosta continues an ongoing collaborations with Intrinsic Grey Productions including on experimental feature film The Ladies Almanack, which recently had its world premiere at Outfest LA and is currently screening at national and international film festivals. Currently, Acosta heads up the monthly performance series Sunday Service with co-creator Alexis Wilkinson. She can also be found working on a new publication with longtime collaborator Rory Murphy under the name NO ONE IS ANYWHERE, as well as on the upcoming premiere of her multi-platform performance Good Day God Damn at the Chocolate Factory Spring 2020 with artists Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Jessie Young, Angie Pittman, and touring nationally and internationally  with This Bridge Called My Ass created alongside collaborator Miguel Gutierrez and featuring an all Latinx cast of performance misfits. 

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.84 –

Photo: Heidi Gutman

Zvi Gotheiner

Release Date: 7.3.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

• • iTunes: Subscribe, Listen, Rate Us HERE

  • Stitcher: Subscribe and Listen HERE

  • Any Smartphone Podcast app: Subscribe and Listen

ABOUT ZVI

“One does not just watch a dance by Zvi Gotheiner. One enters a world with its own internal logic, a sensual, organic world of movement, language, and images where one is pulled along by currents unseen and inevitable.” (Dance Magazine)

Internationally acclaimed choreographer Zvi Gotheiner is the Artistic Director of ZviDance. Praised for a signature innovative style and fascinating melding of artistic mediums, his work is recognized as radical, contemporary dance theater, ground-breaking, thoughtful yet passionate, with lush movement. Zvi is also a renowned ballet teacher with a devoted following throughout the world, hailed by the New York Timesas The Zen Dance Master of New York.

His work frequently touches upon relevant issues and themes around relationships and community. He has been described “as much sociologist as dance-maker” (Alastair Macaulay,New York Times), His Dabke was recognized by the NY Times as a Top Ten Dance Favorite of 2013.

A prolific choreographer with over 35 works in the last 30 years, Zvi integrates exciting original musical scores, evocative lighting designs, with edgy multi-media and video projections. The ZviDance renowned creative team includes composers Scott Killian and Jukka Rintamak; visual designers Josh Higgason and Herzog Nadler; and lighting designer Mark London. His collaborative approach extends to the dancers and is infused with a deep regard for the individual and their creative, aesthetic role within the ensemble. His company is admired for its elasticity, athleticism and emotional expressivity.

Zvi has created numerous commissioned works for prestigious companies, institutions and universities around the world, including Repertory Dance Theatre Utah, GroundWorks Dance Theatre, Juilliard Dance New Dances, Princeton, NYU, Ohio State University, University of Washington, Bard College, Vassar College.

ZviDance performs frequently at home in New York City at venues such as Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, Dance Now Festival, Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. The company has been featured in festivals such as the American Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow. The company tours internationally in Germany, Poland, Russia, Israel, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Japan.

Born in Israel, the musically gifted young Zvi encountered a performance of the Batsheva Dance Company that forever changed his life, inviting him “into a world of fantasy and self-definition”.  As a young dancer/choreographer, he was discovered by the legendary Gertrud Kraus, who took him under her wing. Following a dance scholarship with the America-Israeli Cultural Foundation, he began dancing throughout the world with Batsheva Dance Company, Joyce Trisler, Eliot Feld, among others.

He founded the Tamar Ramle Dance Company, a herald of the Israel dance fringe movement, and later directed the Tamar Jerusalem Dance Company. Increasingly drawn to New York City, he moved in 1988, and in 1989 founded ZviDance.