(re)Source

(re)Source, an In-Progress Investigation by MBDance

Post-performance discussion and Q&A.

 

Monday, January 15, 2018

6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

William Gillespie Studios – DS 1100

Maria Bauman is a dance artist who mines her identities as an artist, a community organizer, and as a Black, queer, not-quite-southern-belle-now-living-in-New-York to create bold and honest dances. In this session, she is sharing her newest work-in-progress and hosting a discussion afterward with students and faculty members. People interested in community organizing, art, cultural organizing, race, gender, and discourse are encouraged to attend! Within the U.S. climate of upheaval, fear, and bullying at home and abroad, Bauman is focusing on what it takes to get by, get over, survive, and thrive. Improvisation, lineage, resilience: (re)Source is a danced solo exploration of how and when we call on these assets and when we reject them entirely. As research for the piece, Bauman has been studying cartography, marronage, and rituals for sustainability. Conceived of and embodied by Maria Bauman (www.mbdance.net), with sound composition by Shea Rose (www.shearose.com), the dance also includes a unique visual landscape co-created by Maria Bauman and by each set of audience members, with advising by Nontsikelelo Mutiti (www.nontsikelelomutiti.com). About the Artist:  Muscles. Beads of sweat. Exertion. Inversion. Carving out selfhood. These images and ideas are linked for Maria Bauman. As a woman dancer, a person of color, a southern not-quite- belle who grew up poor, and a queer person, clear ideas of physical labor, beauty, and body presentation are each held in her every movement. Every time Bauman dances onstage and every time she choreographs a gesture, a caress, or a stomp she is keenly aware of these ongoing body narratives playing out internally and being broadcast to and co-created by audience members. Maria Bauman is a dance artist and community organizer. Her choreography for her company MBDance (www.mbdance.net) is based on her sense of physical and emotional power, desire for equity, and fascination with intimacy. Bauman brings the same tenets to organizing to undo racism in the arts and beyond with ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), the grassroots organizing body she co-founded with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice. In particular, Bauman's dance work centers the non-linear and linear stories and bodies of queer people of color onstage. Currently, she is Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Community Action in Residence at Gibney Dance Center. Bauman is now creating a new improvisatory work called, (re)Source. In New York, Bauman's work has been showcased at BRICstudios, Harlem Stage, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, Dixon Place, the Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, SummerStage NYC, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, St. Mark's Danspace Project, WOW Café Theater, Summerstage NYC, and more. Bauman and MBDance have also shared dance across the U.S. and in Singapore. Previously, she was Associate Artistic Director of Urban Bush Women and danced with that company for many years. Bauman has also danced with Paloma McGregor, Nia Love, Kathy Westwater, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and jill sigman/thinkdance, and apprenticed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. She is co-founder of Acre Pisab (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), a grassroots community organizing group dedicated to ensuring racial equity within the performing arts. As a cultural organizer, Bauman has partnered with various kinds of groups to lift up important social issues and calls for justice via art. She has facilitated community engagement workshops for Chorus America, Ramapo College, Rider University, and has helped create cultural campaigns with various locals of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She is a Core Trainer with The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, co-facilitating Understanding and Undoing Racism workshops, and is a WOW Café Theatre collective member (theater space by and for women and transgender artists). Bauman is a founding member of the Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts Working Group (NOCD-NY). MORE INFORMATION: www.mbdance.net Event Sponsors: Illuminations, Chancellor's Arts and Culture Initiative
African American Student Experience Work Group, Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion
Office of Inclusive Excellence 
Humanities Commons, School of Humanities
Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity 
Department of Dance, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Center for Black Cultures, Resources & Research
Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies, School of Humanities
Office of the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs
Dates: 
Monday Jan 15, 2018, 6:00 pm