curatorial projects
Beach Dances: Shared Practice
Curated for the City of Santa Monica
June 18-23, 2019
Annenberg Community Beach House, Santa Monica
Beach Dances: Shared Practice was a week of open rehearsals, workshops and performances from local choreographers Heyward Bracey & Nguyen Nguyen, Paola Escobar, Maya Gingery, Rebeca Hernandez, DaEun Jung, Shaina Lynn & Isabel Ivey, Carol McDowell, alexx shilling and Christine Suarez, plus Encounter (organized by Mariel Carranza). Beach Dances: Shared Practice situates the practice and creation of dance in the daily life of the beach. While the artists work, the public is invited into an open-air glimpse of the rehearsal room – and a new perspective on the movements of beachgoers around you.
Photos by Jason Abraham & Allison Wyper.
Confluence
Choreographed and performed by Heyward Bracey and Nguyen Nguyen for Play the LA River.
August 23, 2015
Long Beach, California
CONFLUENCE was a site-responsive dance work that took place place beneath the lighthouse at Shoreline Aquatic Park, a grass-covered jetty with views of downtown Long Beach, the Queen Mary, and the industrial seaport, where the Los Angeles River meets the Pacific Ocean. A choreographic expression of the intersection of dreams, CONFLUENCE explores the relationship between memory and the present. The L.A. River has been a whispering witness to our city’s history - its glitter, its shadows, its ethnic enclaves, its beauty, its violence. The confluence of river, land and sea portends a fertile opportunity for healing as well as a more expansive understanding of who we are as participants in the unfolding history of cultures colliding, intermarrying and seeking a way forward. CONFLUENCE draws inspiration from the Orixá and the Japanese tradition of Obon.
Photos by Erika Katrina Barbosa.
Pieter Plays the River
Co-curated with Jmy James Kidd for Play the LA River.
October 26, 2014
Ed Reyes River Greenway, Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles
Pieter Performance Space is located near the confluence of the LA River and Arroyo Seco, where industrial and residential spaces meet a vibrant urban aquatic landscape. We commissioned site-responsive choreographed works, improvisations, interactive happenings, and a free community yoga class, to be presented as part of an afternoon of riverside art. Pieter Plays the River featured works by Margaret Laurena Kemp, Harriet Bailey, Maya Gingery, Sarah Leddy, Terrence Luke Johnson, Rebeca Hernandez, Alexx Shilling, and yoga led by Carson Efird.
Photos by Allison Wyper.
LA River Walk With Me
By Paige Tighe for Play the LA River
March 19-23, 2015
@ various locations along the Los Angeles River
As part of her multi-year, one-on-one participatory art project Walk With Me, Paige sought Los Angeles locals, including riverside residents, plant experts, water policy buffs, and old friends, for a private, 30-minute, one-on-one walk with the artist at a riverside location of their choice. Paige invited her guest to hold hands for the duration of the walk, and write or draw a reflection after it concluded. Participants later received a handmade art book as a memento of their journey. Read more about Paige's experiences on her blog.
Photos by Paige Tighe and Allison Wyper.
Play the LA River Launch
Produced by Project 51
September 13, 2014
Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park (formerly Marsh Park), Los Angeles
This all-day performance event featured site-responsive dance by Rebeca Hernández Dance Company; a durational performance by Mariel Carranza; Typewriters Anonymous (personalized odes composed on the spot) and readings by the Poetry Society of Los Angeles; People’s Dance community class led by Marina Magalhães; and a tricked-out shopping cart @PinDropParty by Grant Davis. DTLA's The Wulf organized experimental sound installations by composers Corey Fogel, Stephanie Cheng Smith, Andrew Young, Liam Mooney, and Michael Winter.
Photos by Allison Wyper.
Anatomy Riot #39
Guest curator with Alissa Cardone for Show Box LA
March 14, 2011
Alexandria Hotel, Los Angeles
We do not make work in a vacuum, but in a continuum, consciously or unconsciously quoting, referencing, channeling, translating. How can we challenge ourselves to make our work permeable, resist foreclosing possibility, to invite the viewer in? Anatomy Riot #39 presented low-tech performances, improvisations, rituals, and a dance film that challenged the autonomy of the maker, inviting participation, chance, transparency, vulnerability, sociability, relational aesthetics, dialogue, or a peek at process.
Featured artists: Kate Bergstrom w/ Gregory Barnett and Michael Quiett, Sheetal Gandhi, Michelle Shiu-lin Lai, Phillip T. Nails & Elisabeth Sierra Millican, Jasmine Orpilla/NinjaMamaLickum's Authentic Gender Power Play®, Alexandra Shilling/alexx makes dances, Hana Van Der Kolk & Tomislav Feller
Photo of Philip T. Nails and Elisabeth Millican by Steven Gray; Alexandra Shilling in a still from The Burial Line; Hana Van Der Kolk & Tomislav Feller's participatory piece photographed by Carol Cheh.