New York Live Arts’ dynamic showcase of new and recent works by Live Arts commissioned artists, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and curated guests is presented during the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ annual conference and will feature full theater productions, recently premiered works, and new studio presentations.

Monday, January 7th in the Studio will feature:

12:00 PM (noon) LAKAÏ DANCE THEATRE: The Block: An Afro-Musical (Excerpt)
Founded by McKersin Previlus , Lakaï Dance Theatre showcases The Block: An Afro-Musical with influences of Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Afro-Diasporic styles. As the street becomes a stage for self-reflection, spoken word and musical stories share the realities of an inner city life, including toxic masculinity, racial profiling, and violence.

2:00 PM, ABBY Z AND THE NEW UTILITY: Radioactive Practice (Work-in-Progress)
The ensemble work of Abby Zbikowski’s company, Abby Z and the New Utility, share their newest creation developed from their rigorous physical practice and boundless mental capacities. Drawing on distinct histories in hip-hop, modern dance, West African, Tap, synchronized swimming, ice skating, and House, the corps explores the conflicts and possibilities created from aesthetic and cultural collisions in order to address questions of cultural bias and misunderstanding through form. Abby Z and the New Utility are made up artists from the United States to Senegal to Taiwan, and the unique physical history and knowledge of the artists are brought to the forefront in Radioactive Practice, which will have it’s full premiere at Live Arts in 2020.

7:00 PM, NETTA YERUSHALMY: Paramodernities (3 Installments) for APAP Only
Nerushalmy’s acclaimed Paramodernities series returns to Live Artery with a showing of installments (85 minutes, Open to presenters only). In this unique project, iconic modern choreographies are deconstructed and performed alongside contributions by scholars and writers who explore foundational tenets of modern discourse, such as sovereignty, race, feminism, and disability. One installment uses Alvin Ailey’s “Revelation” to examine coercion as concept and embodiment, another positions Vaslav Nijinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” as a political turning point, the third reflects on Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity” through the lens of taste intertwined with sex and spectacle.