Milka Djordjevich CORPS, a procession JUNE 18, 2021 Choreographed by Milka Djordjevich Performed by Martita Abril, Josie Bettman, Dorothy Dubrule, Ayano Elson, Tara Sheena and Annabella Vidrio Music by Chris Peck
FUNDING CORPS, a procession, an outdoor ambulatory in-process rendering of choreographer Milka Djordjevich’s soon-to-premiere project, CORPS, premiering in November 2021 at REDCAT and is commissioned by New York Live Arts. The development of CORPS is made possible, in part, by the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, CalArts Dance, Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Live Arts‘s Live Feed residency program and the Pillow Lab at Jacob’s Pillow.
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BIOGRAPHIES Milka Djordjevich is a choreographer, performer and educator who questions preconceived notions of what dance should or should not be. Her work has been shown at many venues across the country, including the American Realness Festival, BAMPFA, the Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, the Hammer Museum, the Kitchen, LAX Festival, Machine Project, MAK Center, PICA’s TBA Festival, The Philadelphia Thing, REDCAT, Santa Ana Sites and the Whitney Museum, and internationally in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, and the UK. Djordjevich was a 2020 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award recipient, a 20172018 Princeton University Hodder Fellow, a 2006-2007 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a 2008/2010 danceWEB Europe Scholar. She has had residencies at Abrons Arts Center, ARC Pasadena, Baryshnikov Arts Center, CAP UCLA via Los Angeles Performance Practice, Fabrik Potsdam, Jacob’s Pillow Lab, LMCC Swingspace, PACTZollverein and Workspace Brussels, among others. Other projects include serving as guest
editor for Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence and initiating the Monday Morning/ Night Class series at Pieter. She has taught at CalArts, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA), Pomona College, Pasadena City College, and University of California at Irvine, Riverside and Los Angeles, Wesleyan University, among others. In 2016, Djordjevich established STANA, an organization cultivating local, national and international dance connections. Martita Abril is a performer, choreographer, organizer, and teaching artist from the border city of Tijuana, México. She’s worked with dance artists and companies throughout México, South America, and the US, including Lux Boreal, Cristina Baquerizo, Kim Brandt, Yanira Castro, Rebecca Davis, Daria Fain and Robert Kocik The Commons Choir, Allyson Green, Kat Galasso, Mina Nishimura, Cori Olinghouse, Okwui Okpokwasili, Will Rawls, and was a performer in Simone Forti’s Dance Constructions at the Museum of Modern Art. Abril is currently working with Yoshiko Chuma and continues to create
her own work. She’s been a PECDA Scholar as a “Young Creator” and received a national fellowship from FONCA for her work in New York City. Abril was selected for the Fresh Tracks Residency at New York Live Arts and has served as a mentor for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program from 2015-2020. Her work has been seen at New York Live Arts, Sunday Service at The Knockdown Center curated by Yanira Castro, Movement Research at the Judson Church, CPR Performance Studio Open House, NYFA, HERE Art Center, David & Dorothea Garfield Theater, Potiker Theater at UCSD, Instituto de Cultura de Baja California, and site-specifics throughout NYC and Tijuana. She is currently the Programs and Events Manager at Movement Research (MR) and coordinates MR at Judson Church on Monday nights Martita-abril.org Josie Bettman (unceded Lenape land, Queens, NY) is an artist engaging text, video, and live performance in order to question the dancing body as a mechanism for producing visibility. Her work proposes a dysphoric aesthetic via repetition, layering time in folds and loops, seeking the edge along which linguistic structures
and physical forms begin to decay towards rupture. Technologies, broadly defined to include spaces, material substances, cameras, and screens, all play roles in her collaborative practice. She has recently shared work via her website; her friend’s roof; Movement Research at Judson Church; Bronx Academy of Art and Dance; and the CFDA’s virtual fashion week platform. Dorothy Dubrule is a choreographer and performer based in Los Angeles. Her choreography is often made in collaboration with people who do not identify as dancers and has been performed in theaters as well as bars, clubs, galleries, sound stages and sports arenas. She has performed in the work of artists, choreographers and directors such as alexx shilling, Alison D’Amato, Emily Mast, Lea Anderson, Melinda Ring, Milka Djordjevich, Narcissister, Tino Sehgal and Zoe Aja Moore. Dubrule received an MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and has been the director of Pieter Performance Space since 2017. Prior to moving to LA, she danced with DIY performance collective Club Lyfestile and comedy fly-girl crew Body Dreamz in Philadelphia.
A board member of Grex, the West Coast Affiliate of the AK Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems, Dubrule organizes workshops and writes about issues of social identity and power as they arise in art contexts. Following the publication of her essay, “What I’m Doing When I’m Selling Out,” on SF MoMA’s Open Space, she is currently working on a collection of personal narratives written by performers who have been contracted by visual arts institutions to work in live exhibitions. Ayano Elson is an Okinawan– American artist based in New York. Her choreography has been presented by Art Cake, The Chocolate Factory, Gibney Dance, Knockdown Center, Movement Research, and Roulette, among others. She has performed in works by Kim Brandt, Jessica Cook, Simone Forti, Kyli Kleven, Abigail Levine, and Haegue Yang at Danspace, ISSUE Project Room, MCA Chicago, MoMA, MoMA PS1, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Pioneer Works, Roulette, and the Shed. She has developed her work through artist residencies at ArtCake, Gibney Dance, AUNTS at Mount Tremper Arts, and Movement Research’s Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color
Fellowship. Elson is currently an artist-in-residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Abrons Arts Center. Tara Sheena is a dancer, independent manager, and arts writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She has spent the last decade performing in projects with some of her favorite artists and people, including Nadia Tykulsker, Catherine Galasso, Ivy Baldwin. Gillian Walsh, Leyya Mona Tawil, Ursula Eagly, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Faye Driscoll, storm budwig, Laurel Snyder, kirsten schnittker, and Marion Spencer. She was featured in the May 2020 issue of Dance Magazine and is the recent recipient of two alumni awards from her alma mater, the University of Michigan: the Emerging Artist Award and the Paul F. Boylan Award. This Fall, she will pursue her MBA at the University of Texas at Austin. Annabella Vidrio is originally from Norwalk, CA and a rising junior at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her studies include Dance, Women & Gender Studies, and Spanish. Through the University Musical Society, Vidrio is serving as rehearsal assistant intern and guest performer for CORPS.
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: $500,000 and higher Anonymous Slobodan Randjelović & Jon Stryker $100,000-$499,999 Eleanor Friedman Ruth & Stephen Hendel Alex Katz Foundation Ellen M. Poss Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel / Semel Charitable Foundation $50,000 - $99,999 Zoe Eskin Suzanne Karpas Barbara & Alan Marks $25,000 - $49,999 Anonymous Patricia Blanchet / Ed Bradley Family Foundation David Dechman & Michel Mercure Adam Flatto Lorraine Gallard & Richard H. Levy Helen & Peter Haje James C. Hormel & Michael P. Nguyen in memory of Linda Grass Shapiro Charla Jones Amy Newman & Bud Shulman Randy Polumbo / Plant Construction Matthew Putman Alanna Rutherford Diana Wege $10,000 - $24,999 Bloomberg Philanthropies Alexes Hazen Colleen Keegan Julie Orlando Andrea Rosen Ruby Shang $5,000 - $9,999 Derek Brown & Deborah Hellman Paula Cooper & Jack Macrae Agnes Gund Bill T. Jones & Bjorn Amelan Jeffrey B. & Wendy Liszt Deborah Ronnen Melissa Schiff Soros Cindy Sherman Williams Family Foundation
$1,000 - $4,999 Anonymous Gerald Appelstein Charlotte & Charles Buchanan Jonathan J. Cohen Charitable Fund Jeannie Colbert Kim Cullen Joan Davidson Lil and Jim DeMarse Dobkin Family Foundation Margaret Doyle Philip Gallo Mimi Garrard Judith & Steven Gluckstern Michael & Deborah Goldberg Otho Kerr Glenn Ligon Anna Maltby & Akshay Patil Tommy McCall & Victor Zonana Nancy Meyer & Marc Weiss Susan Micari Meridee Moore & Kevin King Thomas Nichols & Daniel Chadburn Deborah Pines Rita Salzman The Susan Stein Shiva Foundation Catharine R. Stimpson Kristalina & Jack Taylor Kate Whitney & Franklin Thomas James & Azin Wilcox Bruce & Megumi Williams Timothy Wu & Eric Murphy $500 - $999 Arthur Aviles Timothy Benning The Marshall Frankel Foundation Sharon Gerstel Olivia Katz Kenneth Machlin John Sansone Deborah Swiderski Gifts and commitments between 4/1/2020-3/31/2021
Support is provided by the Alice Lawrence Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Con Edison, Dance/NYC, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Ford Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Humanities New York, Hyde & Watson Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Joseph & Joan Cullman Foundation, MAP Fund, Marta Heflin Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, New Music USA, O’Donnell Green Music & Dance Foundation, Samuel Levy Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Studio Institute, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, William Penn Foundation. New York Live Arts is supported by public funds from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council with special thanks to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
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