Joyce SoHo Artist Residency Program

Dance and Theater Partnership Residencies

There are two types of dance and theater partnership residencies being supported in 2010-2011:

• Development Phase Residencies
• Planning Phase Residencies

There is no application for these dance and theater partnership residencies, and artists are selected by a team of Joyce staff members. If you are interested in receiving more information about the program, please contact Joyce SoHo Program Manager Cathy Eilers for more information.

Development Phase Residencies

The following choreographers and theater artists are paired for development phase residencies:

• Monica Bill Barnes and Pam MacKinnon
• Doug Elkins and Anne Kauffman
• Gesel Mason and Morgan Jenness

These are large works in the development process. Residency artists are granted the following as part of their award:

• 240 hours of space for research and creative development
• The pairing of a choreographer and theater artist to create a new dance work
• A cash grant of $10,000-$25,000

Monica Bill Barnes (choreographer) with Pam MacKinnon (director)

Biographies
MONICA BILL BARNES is a New York based choreographer and performer. Born and raised in the Berkeley, California, Barnes received her BA in philosophy from the University of California at San Diego then moved to New York City in 1995 to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She created her company, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, a contemporary American dance company with the mission to celebrate individuality, humor and the innate theatricality of everyday life and in 2002 Danspace Project presented the company’s first New York season, an evening length work titled, When we were pretty. MBB & CO. has performed in over twenty venues in New York City ranging from the DancemOpolitan Series at Joe’s Pub to Fall for Dance at New York City Center and has been presented in 30 cities throughout the United States and abroad. The company has received support from The National Endowment for The Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Manhattan Community Arts Fund and The Fund for Creative Communities. During summer 2010, the company performed at Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Upcoming work includes a commission for the Parsons Dance Company to be premiered at The Joyce Theater in January 2011 and the creation of a new work for the company’s return engagement at The Joyce Theater in June 2011.

PAM MACKINNON is an Obie Award winning New York-based director. Recent productions include premieres of Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park (Playwrights Horizons); Rachel Axler's Smudge (Women's Project); and Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning (Primary Stages); as well as Shakespeare's Othello (Santa Cruz); and Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw (South Coast Rep). She is a long time interpreter of the plays of Edward Albee, having directed A Delicate Balance (Arena); The Goat or, Who's Sylvia? (Alley and Vienna); and The Play About the Baby (Philadelphia and Goodman); as well as premieres of At Home at the Zoo (formerly called Peter and Jerry, at Hartford and Second Stage); Occupant (Signature); and this season: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Steppenwolf and Arena). Additional recent work includes premieres of Roberto Aguire Sacasa's Good Boys and True (Steppenwolf); Itamar Moses' The Four of Us (Manhattan Theatre Club and Old Globe); Richard Greenberg's Our Mother's Brief Affair (South Coast Rep); Jason Grote's Maria/Stuart (Woolly Mammoth); and Itamar Moses' Bach at Leipzig (NYTW and Milwaukee Rep). She is a Drama League and Lincoln Center Directors' Lab alumna and a board member of the New York downtown company Clubbed Thumb.

Project Description
The new work, Everything is getting better all the time (working title) will be a quartet for my company and will be premiered in New York at The Joyce Theater in June 2011. This new work is the second part to a dance titled mostly fanfare, which the company premiered at Jacob's Pillow in July 2010. Inspired by vaudeville, silent film and the genuine need to perform, mostly fanfare is an examination of the struggles and obligations of showmanship. After witnessing the same four performers struggle to keep their chins up in mostly fanfare,the second half of this evening offers a Hollywood style comeback with a Motown sound score. Everything is getting better all the time celebrates the underdog, and cheers when the underdog, despite hardships, manages to come out on top. This work capitalizes on the American notion of setting out to accomplish more than you think you can and somehow succeeding. This outrageous and whimsical world will be created along with long-time design collaborators Jane Cox (lighting) and Kelly Hanson (costume/set). Working with Pam MacKinnon (director) will have a profound impact on the creative process by providing a unique opportunity to have an extended conversation around the theatrical structure of the work. This supported interaction will influence both the re-shaping of the current "text" being mostly fanfare as well as the discovery and creation of the new work. Using humanity, virtuosity and pervasive wit, Barnes will create this two part dance experience borrowing from the glamour of rock concerts, the good will of a little league game, and the enthusiasm of a high school marching band.

Photo by Yi-Chun Wu

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Doug Elkins (choreographer) with Anne Kauffman (director)

Biographies
DOUG ELKINS is a two-time New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award-winning choreographer, most recently for the critically-acclaimed Fraulein Maria, a deconstruction of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Elkins began his career as a B-Boy, touring the world with break dance groups New York Dance Express and Magnificent Force, among others. In 1988, he founded the Doug Elkins Dance Company with Lisa Nicks and Jane Weiner, which performed nationally and internationally for fifteen years before disbanding in 2003. Doug is a recipient of significant choreographic commissions and awards from the NEA, National Performance Network, Jerome Foundation, Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation, Dance Magazine Foundation, Metropolitan Life/American Dance Festival, Hartford Foundation, Arts International, The Greenwall Foundation, and The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. In 1994, Doug received a Brandeis University Creative Arts Medal, sharing the stage with author Philip Roth and photographer Nan Goldin. In 2006, he was honored in New York City with the Martha Hill Award for Career Achievement. Doug has taught and choreographed extensively in the US and Europe and has created original work for Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, Flying Karamazov Brothers, MaggioDanza, Pennsylvania Ballet, Union Dance and CanDoCo of London, as well as a number of university dance companies and the renowned Mini & Maxi of Holland. His theater work includes collaborations with Joanne Akalaitis, Philip Glass, Robert Woodruff, Pavel Dubrusky, Annie Hamburger, Molly Smith, Craig Lucas, David Henry Hwang, Michael Preston and Barbara Karger, Arin Arbus, Les Waters, and Anne Kaufman.

ANNE KAUFFMAN’s work largely encompasses new plays. Recent new work: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Adam Bock and Todd Almond (Yale Rep); Dot by Kate E. Ryan (Clubbed Thumb); This Wide Night by Chloe Moss (Naked Angels); You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents' Divorce (The Civilians); Stunning by David Adjmi (LCT3 and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); Sixty Miles to Silverlake by Dan LeFranc (P73 and Soho Rep); God's Ear by Jenny Schwartz (The Vineyard and New Georges); Communist Dracula Pageant by Anne Washburn (American Repertory Theater); Have You Seen Steve Steven by Ann Marie Healy (13P); Act a Lady by Jordan Harrison (Humana Festival of New Plays); Sides: The Fear is Real (Ma Yi and The Culture Project); Typographer's Dream by Adam Bock (Encore Theater and Shotgun Players); The Loyal Opposition by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas (New York Theater Workshop); Hang Ten by Karen Hartman (Women’s Project & Productions); The Ladies by Anne Washburn (The Civilians at Dixon Place and Cherry Lane Theater). She has received an Alan Schneider Director Award; LILLY Award for Direction; OBIE Award for The Thugs by Adam Bock (Soho Rep); Barrymore Award for Directing and Overall Production for Becky Shaw (The Wilma Theater); Big Easy award for Children's Hour in New Orleans; Drama League, Founding Associate Artist of The Civilians, NYTW Usual Suspect, New Georges Kitchen Cabinet, Artistic Council Soho Rep Theater, and Associate Artist Clubbed Thumb. Anne received her MFA in Directing from University of California, San Diego.

Project Description
Elkins and Kauffman are teaming up for an open investigation of life on the periphery. Beginning with the question of what gets left on the cutting room floor, the team will consider editing and excess and messages from the universe in all forms - from highway billboards to Chinese fortune cookies to self-help literature. Building upon a previous collaboration at A.R.T. Boston (The Communist Dracula Pageant), Elkins and Kaufman promise to blend creative disciplines and some actual found objects into a cohesive whole as they seek an answer to what's going to happen next?

Photo by Yi-Chun Wu

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Gesel Mason (choreographer) with Morgan Jenness (dramaturg)

Biographies
GESEL MASON is Artistic Director for Gesel Mason Performance Projects and Co-founder of MRP Inc. She has performed with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, and under the direction of Jacek Luminski and Chuck Davis. She spent four seasons with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and continues to work with the company as a guest artist. She was also a part of Ralph Lemon’s Come home Charley Patton and most recently, How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? Ms. Mason is an adjunct professor at University of Maryland at College Park and has been an artist in residence at University of Utah, Texas Women’s University, Columbia College, and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is sought out for her ability to work with diverse populations and has traveled to Poland and Serbia, where she led workshops and performances for mixed-abilities dance groups. Ms. Mason was selected Emerging Choreographer by the Bates Dance Festival in 2000 and received a 2007 Millennium Stage Local Dance Commissioning Project from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2009, she was awarded University of Utah’s first Distinguished Alumna Award in Fine Arts and Washington Performing Arts Society’s Pola Nirenska Award for Contemporary Achievement in Dance. Gesel Mason Performance Projects' (GMPP) distinctive blend of dance, theater, storytelling and humor brings visibility to voices unheard, situations neglected, or perspectives considered taboo. Her creative approach results in work that "moves her audiences to tears and laughter" (Washington Post). Ms. Mason’s solo project, No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, includes work by Robert Battle, Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller, David Rousséve, Reggie Wilson, Andrea Woods and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.

MORGAN JENNESS spent over a decade at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, with both Joseph Papp and George C. Wolfe, in capacities ranging from literary manager to Associate Producer. She was also Associate Artistic Director at the New York Theater Workshop and an Associate Director at the Los Angeles Theater Center in charge of new projects. She has worked as a dramaturg, workshop director, and/or artistic consultant at theaters and new play programs across the country and has been on numerous funding panels including NYSCA and the NEA. She has participated as a visiting artist and adjunct in playwriting programs at the University of Iowa, Brown University, Breadloaf, Columbia, and NYU. She is currently on the adjunct faculty at Fordham University and holds a position in the Literary Department at Abrams Artists Agency and is on the board of TCG. In 2003, Ms. Jenness was presented with an Obie Award Special Citation for Longtime Support of Playwrights.

Project Description
Women, Sex, and Desire: Sometimes You Feel Like a Ho, Sometimes You Don’t is a multi-media investigation on how women navigate sex, desire, choice, and perception. Dance, personal stories and video imagery combine to tackle powerful personal and political issues under discussion nationwide. Women, Sex, and Desire challenges our cultural programming, examines our belief systems, and reflects the struggle, humor, and pleasure we encounter as sexual beings, in an effort to empower ourselves and inform our sexual choices, whatever they may be.

Photo by Enoch Chan

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Planning Phase Residencies

The following choreographers and theater artists are paired for planning phase residencies:

• Alexandra Beller and Katherine Profeta
• Nora Chipaumire and Doris Mirescu
• Mark Lonergan and Kirsten Bowen

Residency artists are granted the following as part of their award:

• 20 hours of studio time
• Use of conference room space
• A grant of $1,000 to assist the early planning phase of development

Alexandra Beller (choreographer) and Katherine Profeta (dramaturg)

Biographies
ALEXANDRA BELLER (MFA: University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 2006; BFA in Dance: University of Michigan, 1994) is Artistic Director of Alexandra Beller/Dances. She was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (1995-2001) and subsequently worked with Martha Clarke and Charles Mee. She was a two-year Artist in Residence at HERE Art Space, an AIR at Dance New Amsterdam, and received the Company Residency at The Yard. Alexandra has been a visiting artist at APA, CCDC, and DanceArt in Hong Kong, D-Dance Festival in Korea, Den Nordsk Balletthoskole in Oslo, Open Look Festival in St. Petersburg, Bytom Festival in Poland, and Cyprus Summer Festival in Nicosia. She teaches regularly at Henny Jurriens Stichting in Amsterdam. She was a guest choreographer at University of Michigan, Rhode Island College, The University of South Florida, MIT, Texas Woman's University, Connecticut College, Texas Christian University, and Bates College, among others, and received an NCCI commission from Montclair State University in 2003/2004. Alexandra’s choreography has been presented at and commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop, 92nd St. Y, Aaron Davis Hall, Danspace Project, Joyce SoHo, P.S. 122, WAX, HERE, The Connelly Theater, SUNY Purchase College, Dance New Amsterdam, Symphony Space, and Jacob’s Pillow and has been commissioned by companies in Arizona, Michigan, Texas, Korea, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Maine, New York City, Florida, Boston, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

KATHERINE PROFETA has worked as dramaturg to Ralph Lemon since 1996, lending her hand to Geography (1997), Tree (2000), Come home Charley Patton (2004), and now this year’s How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere. Past dramaturgy credits in both dance and theater include work with Julie Taymor, Karin Coonrod, Frederick Wiseman, Annie Dorsen, Emma Griffin, David Thomson, and Theater for a New Audience. Katherine is also a founding member and resident choreographer of the theater company Elevator Repair Service, collaborating on almost all of their pieces since 1991, most recently The Sun Also Rises (The Select), to appear at New York Theatre Workshop in 2011-12. Back in 2004, she directed and choreographed 131, a performance work for three actors and a dancer, at PS122. She has taught in the theater departments of Barnard and Yale, and at the Yale School of Drama. Katherine is currently on faculty at the department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Queens College, CUNY.

Photo by Steven Schreiber

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Nora Chipaumire (choreographer) and Doris Mirescu (director)

Biographies
NORA CHIPAUMIRE is a 45 year old Zimbabwean native, who has lived in the USA for 20 years. She has been making dances for a decade. Her work began as short solos that she self-produced in the San Francisco Bay Area, but since moving to New York City in 2003, the scope of her work has grown from short dances to full evening dances, from self-produced to national and international touring. She has been fortunate to have been honored with a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for her choreographic work chimurenga (2008) and for performance (2007) with Urban Bush Women. She has also received an emerging choreographer award from Wesleyan University (2007) and since 2005, a number of residencies and funding from numerous institutions and organisations including NDP, ASU, Bennington, and The Yard.

DORIS MIRESCU is a Romanian-born freelance director and writer. She is also the founder of New York based theater company Dangerous Ground. Her most recent productions include From Dawn Till Night, a multimedia adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1978 film In a Year with 13 Moons (2010, undergroundzero festival at PS 122), John Cassavetes' Husbands (Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater), and 3!, a multimedia experiment based on Fassbinder's 1979 film The Third Generation (PS 122 as part of the 2009 undergroundzero festival- Prize for Best Production.) Ms. Mirescu is a four-time recipient of awards from Etant Donnés, the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts. She holds a Summa Cum Laude Master of Arts in French Literature from Paris-IV Sorbonne, as well as an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University.

Photo by Antoine Tempe

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Mark Lonergan (choreographer/director) and Kirsten Bowen (dramaturg)

Biographies
MARK LONERGAN is the Artistic Director of Parallel Exit, a 2008 Drama Desk Award nominee for Unique Theatrical Experience. At Joyce SoHo, Mark has directed and co-created Parallel Exit’s dance-theater works Powerhouse and Time Step. This past year, Time Step went on to be presented at The New Victory Theater. With Parallel Exit, he has created eight original works of dance-theater and received several grants and awards. Mark began his career in Canada, where he worked as a performer with some of the country’s most prominent avant-garde companies, including DNA Theatre and Mammalian Diving Reflex. In New York, he has directed at The New Victory, Joyce SoHo, 59E59 Theaters, the Atlantic Theater, the Duke on 42nd Street, Symphony Space, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. His work has also toured to festivals and theaters around the world, including the Festival of Dreams in Austria, the COS Festival in Spain, the We Love Dance Festival in Japan, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland (Spirit of the Fringe Award), and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the US. Mark also freelances as a director in the United States and Canada.

KIRSTEN BOWEN is the Literary Associate for Signature Theatre Company, where she has served as production dramaturg on the seasons of August Wilson, Charles Mee, the Negro Ensemble Company, Horton Foote’s The Orphans’ Home Cycle, and Tony Kushner. She has also served as a production dramaturg at Williamstown Theatre Festival and Columbia University’s Directing MFA program. She received her MFA in Dramaturgy from A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and a BA in English and Theatre from Smith College.

Photo by Steven Schreiber

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Gideon Lester (Residency Guest Curator) directs the new Arts Collaboration Lab at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches interdisciplinary courses on adaptation and project development. As a curator, dramaturg, and artistic director he has collaborated with leading American and international artists including Neil Bartlett, Chen Shi-Zheng, Martha Clarke, Rinde Eckert, Krystian Lupa, Peter Sellars, Anna Deavere Smith, Robert Woodruff, Anne Washburn, and The Dresden Dolls. He worked at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1997 to 2009, as Resident Dramaturg, Associate Artistic Director, and for three seasons as Acting Artistic Director. His work has been presented at theatres and festivals throughout the world including Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Edinburgh International Festival, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Festival d’Automne, and the Taipei Arts Festival, and he is a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. Gideon’s numerous translations include plays by Marivaux, Büchner, and Brecht, and his stage adaptations include Kafka’s Amerika and Wenders’ Wings of Desire. He directed the MFA program in Dramaturgy at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, and taught playwriting, dramaturgy, and dramatic arts at Harvard University. He studied English Literature at Oxford University and Dramaturgy at Harvard, where he was a Fulbright and Frank Knox Scholar.

Photo by Steven Schreiber

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