Wednesday, September 25th, loveconductors presents ghoul|take III, curated by 2019 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow Benedict Nguyen. Directed by Shantelle Courvoisier, loveconductors is a human movement project featuring Renée Colbert, Justin Faircloth, Maestro Flux, Ube Halaya, Shiloh Hodges, Samantha Lysaght, Light McAuliffe, Madeline Warriner, and slowdanger (anna thompson and taylor knight). For this performance, loveconductors is joined by lighting designer John D. Alexander.
This is Nguyen’s third program in soft bodies in hard places, a platform of trans-disciplinary events circling planetary events over 2019. Departing from the platform’s first two programs, revolutionary new moon in aquarius and very peak summer solstice, in which they proposed conceits based on the astrology of these events, here Nguyen has invited loveconductors to adapt their ongoing performance practice for ISSUE, just two days after the autumnal equinox. Since the summer solstice, the days shorten, bringing that familiar sense of loss, and the quiet beauty of rainy, muddy, autumn. The equinox itself presents a moment of balance in the fall to Fall.
For ghoul|take II in June 2019, loveconductors brought folks into a world and invited attendees to experience the space, the stories, and the performances on their own journeys. Nguyen recalls, “As I walked through the evening, I was considering not only how I felt pulled and swung through the performers’ creations, but also how being in the multi-pocketed space was shaped by everyone else, breathing and being with one another.”
When Nguyen and Courvoisier met in late June 2019, Courvoisier’s reflections on performance and time and things unplanned called forth themes from vpss. As with the first two programs, ghoul|take III will also feature a commissioned writing by Courvoisier and Hodges, to be published in Culturebot.
soft bodies in hard places acknowledges its presence on the unceded land of Lenape and Canarsee People.
Shantelle Courvoisier (loveconductors artistic director) is an art maker whose performance practice is grounded in collaborative story-telling. Previous collaborations include Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Urban Bush Women, Paloma Mcgregor, Daria Fain and The Commons Choir, luciana achugar, Antonio Ramos & The Gang Bangers, Walter Dundervill, Mia Habib, Antonio A. Brown, slowdanger, and Alison Chase.
Renée Colbert is a multimedia artist with a movement-based background. She lives in New York serving as a digital marketing analyst at Capacity Interactive.
Justin Faircloth is a performer from North Carolina. He’s currently working with loveconductors, Maddie Schimmel, Then She Fell and Ashley Yergens.
Ube Halaya is a hybrid drag-performer-artist who wears things, writes things, and plays things.
Shiloh Hodges (artistic associate) is a performer (current: Then She Fell, previous: SBDNY, Renegade Performance Group, HYPERBOLIC!) and word person whose practice is based in feminist & queer worldmaking practices.
Samantha Lysaght (company manager) is a Brooklyn-based dance artist (informed by qi gong, house, and contemporary) whose practice is transitioning from running violently into walls and instead opening courageously to the vastness of physical and spiritual possibility.
Light is a barber and dance-maker queering heads and stages across NYC and beyond. Slide into the dms @lightcutsnyc although they have currently deleted the app.
Maestro Flux is based in Cleveland as the Dance program coordinator for Rainey Institute and is a Conductor for the El Sestima @Rainey orchestra. He blends the arts – music, dance, theater, and visual – into one large and inspiring manuscript of life‘s most beautiful qualities, stories and lessons.
Madeline Warriner (producer) is a movement artist and educator, currently performing with The Equus Projects. She teaches dance with Dancewave, Dance Theater of Harlem and Bates Dance Festival’s Youth Arts Program and is the director of Pentangle Arts Dance Program. She teaches Yoga and Pilates to kids and adults while running professional development training for educators looking to incorporate movement into their classrooms.
slowdanger is a Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary performance entity co-founded and co-directed by anna thompson and taylor knight.
anna thompson is a movement artist, facilitator, vocalist, and producer. She continues creative conversations with resonating artists including taylor knight, loveconductors, Sidra Bell, Jasmine Hearn, MICHIYAYA dance, and Anna Henson. She is currently a resident at Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Carnegie Museum of Art and will be premiering slowdanger’s ‘empathy machine’ this fall at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater PGH, The Segal Theatre NYC, and Dance Place DC. She witnesses her work manifesting as one body amassed of multiple bodies navigating mixed realities through sustained collaboration and world building.
taylor knight is a choreographer, performance artist, sound artist, curator and facilitator. He has worked with Jasmine Hearn, Ate9 Dance Company, Christopher Williams, Sidra Bell, Bill Shannon and more. taylor is interested in manifestation of process through questioning the frameworks of performance and the human condition. He is interested in ontological examination, physiological centering and performance as ritualistic practice, unveiling layers of their identity.
loveconductors (aka The Front of House) is a human movement project which composes fantastic mythologizing performance through shared practice across multiple media. Previous work has been shown at JACK, Movement Research, Chez Bushwick, BkSD, and in a garden apartment in Brooklyn.
Benedict Nguyen is a writer, dancer, and arts advocate based in the South Bronx, NY. Their e-newsletter “first quarter moon slush” is published on the first and third quarter moon.