BILL CHATS: KAMILAH FORBES & NIEGEL SMITH Program

BILL T. JONES

KAMILAH FORBES

Photo by Lelanie Foster

Photo by Maria Baranova

Bill Chats: Kamilah Forbes & Niegel Smith

Presented in partnership with The New School where Bill T. Jones is a 2022-23 Presidential Visiting Scholar.

JAN 30, 7PM

Bill T. Jones in conversation with Executive Producer of the Apollo Theater, Kamilah Forbes and Artistic Director of The Flea Theater, Niegel Smith.

With Introduction by Dwight A. McBride, PhD, President and University Professor, The New School

ASL interpretation provided by Kathleen Taylor & Candace Davider

The New School’s Presidential Visiting Scholars program brings major thinkers of the highest standing to the university to teach unique courses, collaborate on creative or research initiatives, deliver lectures, and participate in public programming and other special projects. As part of this prestigious appointment, Live Arts and The New School are collaborating on a series of events including public conversations, performances, classes, etc, that explore urgent and intersectional questions in these unsettling times, including identity, artist/citizen, community, climate justice.

FUNDING

Bill Chats is supported in part by Partners for New Performance

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We acknowledge that New York Live Arts and The New School are located in Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland. We offer our gratitude and care for its land and waters, and we acknowledge and pay respect to Lenape peoples, and to all Indigenous people, past, present and future, here and everywhere.

BIOGRAPHIES

Bill T. Jones (Artistic Director/ Co-Founder/Choreographer: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; Artistic Director: New York Live Arts) is recipient of the 2022 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for Black No More;

2014 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award; 2013 National Medal of Arts; 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; 2007 USA

Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship;

2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2010,

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 Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.” Bill has been nominated for the 2022 Tony Awards for his work on Paradise Square.

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. 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.

Kamilah Forbes is an esteemed award-winning director and producer for theater and television. She currently serves

as the Executive Producer at the World-Famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. In her diverse body of work, Kamilah is noted for having a strong commitment to the development of creative works by, for, and about the Hip-Hop generation.

This Howard University alum has won awards for both directing and producing, including the 2019 NBTF Larry Leon Hamlin Producer Award and an NAACP Image Award.

Kamilah’s directing credits include By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, written by Lynn Nottage Blood Quilt written by Katori Hall, and “Sunset Baby” written by Dominique Morrisseau. She has also worked closely with Kenny Leon on The Wiz Live, A Raisin in the Sun, Mountaintop, and Stick Fly on Broadway. She has produced several works for television, most notably the seventh season of the Tony Award and Peabody Awardwinning series “Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry” on HBO. Her most recent directorial work, Between the World and Me aired as a special event on HBO and HBO Max in November 2020 to critical acclaim.

This Root 100 award winner and Sundance Fellow’s most recent projects include directing the world premiere, tour and theatrical adaption of Ta-Nehisi’ Coates’ New York Times best-selling novel Between the World and Me. In addition to her work at the Apollo Theater, Kamilah is set to direct the Broadway premiere of Soul Train alongside Questlove, Dominique Morrisseau, and Camille A. Brown.

Niegel Smith is a Bessie Award winning theater director and performance artist. He is the Artistic Director of NYC’s Obie Award winning theater, The Flea guiding the organzation through its refounding as a hub for exmerimental art by Black, brown and queer artists. He is also a board member of A.R.T./New York and was a ringleader of Willing Participant, an artistic activist organization that whips up urgent poetic responses to crazy shit that happens.

Smith has received residencies, grants and fellowships from Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the MAP Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Stage and Film,

Sundance Theatre Lab, Theater

Communications Group, Tucker Foundation, Van Lier Fund and VoxFest.

His current directing projects include The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist, a multi-media opera and community ritual commissioned and produced by Hopkins Center for the Arts, SuzanLori Park’s Plays for The Plague Year produced by The Public Theater and Taylor Mac and Matt Rays The Bark of Millions produced by Pomegranate Arts and Nature’s Darlings. His theater work has been produced at The Alley Theater, The Barbican, Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Flea, The Goodman Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Hip Hop Theatre Festival, The Invisible Dog, Luna Stage, The Melbourne Festival, Magic Theatre, Mixed Blood, the National Black Theatre, New York Fringe Festival, New York Live Arts, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, Playwrights Horizons, Pomegranate Arts, The Public Theater, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Summer Play Festival, and Under the Radar, and his participatory walks and performances have been produced by Abrons Arts Center, American Realness, The Brooklyn Museum, Dartmouth College, Elastic City, The Flea, The Invisible

Dog, Jack, The New Museum, Prelude Festival, PS 122, the Van Alen Institute and Visual AIDS. He often collaborates with playwright/ performer Taylor Mac.

Niegel recently directed the wildly popular and critically-acclaimed jazz opera The Hang. For this work, he was nominated for a Drama League Award in best direction. Smith is co-director of the critically acclaimed ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music’, winner of the Kennedy Prize in Drama, Bessie Award, the Edwin Booth Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He associate directed the Tony Award winning musical FELA! – restaging that production in London, Lagos and its world tour, and he assistant directed the original Broadway and off-Broadway productions of Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change. He has worked on the artistic staffs of The Public Theater, Trinity Repertory Company and Providence Black Rep.

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Smith attended high school in Detroit, and he grew up in the North Carolina piedmont, fishing with his dad, shopping with his mom and inventing tall-tale fantasies with his two younger brothers.

niegelsmith.com

LIVE ARTS CONTRIBUTORS

New York Live Arts is deeply grateful to all the individuals listed below for their vital gifts to New York Live Arts over the last year:

$1MM and higher

Slobodan Randjelović & Jon Stryker

$500,000-$999,999

Anonymous

$100,000-$499,999

Anonymous

Eleanor Friedman

Ruth & Stephen Hendel

Alex Katz Foundation

Ellen M. Poss

Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel | Semel Charitable Foundation

$50,000 - $99,999

Jody & John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation

Lorraine Gallard & Richard Levy

Helen & Peter Haje

Suzanne Karpas

Barbara & Alan D. Marks

Matthew Putman

$25,000 - $49,999

Ylva Cavalli-Björkman & Willard Ahdritz

David Dechman & Michel Mercure

Zoe Eskin

Adam Flatto

Agnes Gund

Michael P.N.A. Hormel in memory of Linda Grass Shapiro

Charla Jones

Colleen Keegan

Darnell L. Moore

Amy Newman & Bud Shulman

Alanna Rutherford

Jennifer & Jonathan Soros

Starry Night Fund at The Chicago Community Foundation

Diana Wege | Wege Foundation

$10,000 - $24,999

Caroline & Paul Cronson

Claire Danes & Hugh Dancy

Alexes Hazen

Julie Orlando

Andrea Rosen

Nina & Gabriel Stricker

Pat Stryker

$5,000 - $9,999

Patricia Blanchet | Ed Bradley Family Foundation

Paula Cooper & Jack Macrae

Joan Davidson

Anne Delaney

Laura & Richard Hunt

Glenn Ligon

Jeffrey B. & Wendy Liszt

Robert Longo

Margaret Morton

Jeffrey Schneider

Melissa Schiff Soros

Cindy Sherman

Catharine R. Stimpson

Kristalina & Jack Taylor

Billie Tsien & Tod Williams

Steve Wilson

$1,000 - $4,999

Derrick Adams

Rosio Alvarez & Jennifer Brody

Anonymous

Alberta Arthurs

The Brant Foundation, Inc.

Jill Brienza

Catherine & Paul Buttenwieser

Reggie Browne

Carmine Boccuzzi

Rose C. Cali in Memory of John J. Cali

Jeannie Colbert

Joan Davidson

Lil & Jim DeMarse

Beth Rudin DeWoody

Dobkin Family Foundation

Margaret Doyle

Terence Dougherty & Pierre Duleyrie

Gina Duncan

Nancy & Stephen Gabriel

Mimi Garrard

Michael & Deborah Goldberg

Thomas & Barbara Gottschalk

Deborah Hellman & Derek Brown

Tom Hennes

Jenny Holzer

Scott Hudziak

Joanie Johnson

Judy Johnson

The Joyce Theater Foundation

Emil Kang

Amir Karby

Hedy Klineman

Oscar Mack

Nancy Meyer & Marc Weiss

Susan Micari

Linda Murray

Wangechi Mutu

Samira Nasr

Richard Plepler

Randy Polumbo | Plant Construction

Margaret Selby

Jeffrey Seller

Céline Semaan & Colin Vernon

Caroline Shapiro & Peter Frey

Shinique Smith

Temple St. Clair & Paul Engler

The Susan Stein Shiva Foundation

Mickalene Thomas

Robyn Trani

JP Versace

James J. Williams, III

Jacqueline Woodson

Timothy Wu & Eric Murphy

$500 - $999

Stewart Adelson

Mary Ann Ashley

Arthur Aviles

Carol Bryce-Buchanan

John Fitzgibbon

William Floyd

Jeremy Henderson

Karen B. Hopkins

Brinton T. & Francis C. Parson, Jr

Robert Ross

John Sansone

Ellynne Skove

Deborah Swiderski

Wade Turnbull

Gilbert Williams

Gifts and commitments between 7/1/2021-6/30/2022

Support for New York Live Arts is provided by the Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ed Bradley Family Foundation, The Brant Foundation, Inc., Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Dance/ NYC, Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Alex Katz Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Alice Lawrence Foundation, Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund in the New York Community Trust, One World Fund, The Poss Family Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, San Francisco Foundation The Semel Charitable Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Tides Foundation

Corporate support for New York Live Arts includes Con Edison, Google, Tito’s Handmade Vodka.

Public support for New York Live Arts is from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Correction, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts.

STAFF & BOARD

Artistic Leadership

Bill T. Jones

Artistic Director

Janet Wong

Associate Artistic Director

Programming, Producing & Engagement

Kyle Maude

Producing Director

Hannah Emerson Producer

Jessica Prince

Producing Associate

Production

Chanel Pinnock

Production Manager

Megan Dechaine

Production Stage Manager

Leo Janks

Lighting Manager

Alexander Roberts

Interim Technical Director

Tricia Navigato

Interim Assistant Production Manager

Creative Director

Bjorn G. Amelan

Community Engagement & Education

Bianca Bailey

Community Engagement & Education Manager

Communications

Tyler Ashley Director of Communications

Augustus Cook

Digital Marketing Manager

Hannah Seiden

Communications Manager

Taylor Adams

Front of House Assistant

Liliana Dirks-Goodman

Graphic Designer

Pentagram

Pro-Bono Branding

Randjelović/Stryker Resident

Commissioned Artist

Faye Driscoll

Executive Leadership

Kim Cullen Executive Director & CEO

Ali Burke

Chief of Staff

Development

Dave Archuletta Chief Development Officer

John Jahnke Institutional Giving Manager

Rodney West Development Manager

Zykeya McLeod Development Assistant

Finance

Nupur Dey Director of Finance

Manathus Dey Finance Associate

Operations

Gregory English Operations Manager

Marcus Retegues Facilities Coordinator

Adalid Nunez-Mendoza Custodial Assistant

Human Resources

ADP TotalSource

Legal Services

Lowenstein Sandler, PC Pro-Bono Counsel

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company

Barrington Hinds, Jada Jenai, Shane Larson, s. Lumbert, Danielle Marshall, Nayaa Opong, Marie Paspe, Jacoby Pruitt, Huiwang Zhang

Front of House Staff

Julia Antinozzi, Paulina Meneses, Johnny Mathews, Hannah Nii, Cristina Moya-Palacios, Salma Kiuhan, Alondra Balbuena, Rafaela Oliviera, Makenna Finch, Anna Ticknor, Jingjing Han, Jessy Crist, Marlon Santana, Mieke Matteson, Demetris Charalambous

Board of Directors

Stephen Hendel

Co-Chair

Richard H. Levy

Co-Chair

Helen Haje Vice Chair

Slobodan RandjeloviĆ Vice Chair

Alan Marks Treasurer

Bill T. Jones

Artistic Director Ex-Officio

Kim Cullen

Chief Executive Officer Ex-Officio

Bjorn Amelan

Willard Ahdritz

Sarah Arison

Aimee Meredith Cox

LaToya Ruby Frazier

Charla Jones

Colleen Keegan

Darnell L. Moore

Amy Newman

Randy Polumbo

Ellen M. Poss

Matthew Putman

Jane Bovingdon Semel

Ruby Shang

Catharine R. Stimpson

Board Emeritus

Derek Brown

Terence Dougherty

Eleanor Friedman Advisory Council

Margaret Doyle, Chair

Alberta Arthurs

Beverly D’Anne

Lisa Frigand

Jenette Kahn

Susan Micari

Alton Murray

Lorraine Gallard

Lois Greenfield

Martha Sherman