Dance on Fire: Spring Programs at the Library for the Performing Arts

The Dance Division is ON FIRE this spring with programs and exhibitions featuring dance from around the world, all at the Library for the Performing Arts! An exhibit on flamenco, 100 Years of Flamenco in New York, will open on March 12 in the Vincent Astor Gallery, and another on Cambodian ballet, Memory Preserved: Glass Plate Photographs of the Royal Cambodian Dancers, will open on March 28 in the Plaza Corridor Gallery. Be sure to visit to check those exhibits out, and save the dates below for our FREE public programs (all at the Bruno Walter Auditorium, unless otherwise specified):

February 27, 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Dance Historian Is In: Screening #7 - TWO SESSIONS. Dance historian David Vaughan will screen film excerpts of the choreography of Leonide Massine. Located in the Third Floor Screening Room. SEATING IS LIMITED; REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
Click here to register for Session One, at 1 p.m.
Click here to register for Session Two, at 4 p.m.

Painting of Robert Farris Thompson.  Courtesy of the artist Simmie KnoxPainting of Robert Farris Thompson. Courtesy of the artist Simmie Knox

March 14, 6 p.m. ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE - Staccato Incandescence: The Story of Mambo with Robert Farris Thompson. Robert Farris Thompson, Master T, the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, will focus his lecture on mambo, which fuses a variety of dance styles, from Lindy to ballet to bomba to Afro-Cuban dance. Robert Farris Thompson is America's most prominent scholar of African Art, and has presided over exhibitions of African art at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. He lived in the Yoruba region of southwest Nigeria for many years while he conducted his research of Yoruba art history, and is affiliated with the University of Ibadan and Yoruba village communities. Thompson has studied the African arts of the diaspora in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and several Caribbean islands. Robert Farris Thompson is also an authority in hip hop. Cornel West, who teaches African American studies at Princeton, calls this white man from Texas "my dear brother" and "one of the greatest pioneers in the study of Afro-American culture and African culture." The ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE series is presented by The Committee for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and is produced by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Click here for more information.

March 27, 2 p.m. The Dance Historian Is In: Screening #8. Dance historian David Vaughan will screen 498, 3rd Ave., a 1967 documentary on Merce Cunningham. Located in the Third Floor Screening Room. SEATING IS LIMITED; REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Registration opens February 28 at 9:00 a.m.
Click here to register.

March 28, 6 p.m. The Dance, the Music, the Song. Noted flamencologist Sir Brook Zern, who was knighted by King of Spain for his promotion of Spanish culture, will join K. Meira Goldberg and Nina Bennahum in conversation.
Click here for more information.

 

March 30, 2:30 p.m. Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana Ensemble. A diverse and colorful performance by this NYC-based company, showcasing flamenco's rich culture.
Click here for more information.

 

 

 

Ronald K. Brown in "GRACE", Photograph by Basil ChildersRonald K. Brown in "GRACE", Photograph by Basil Childers

April 4, 6 p.m. ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE - Ronald K. Brown/Evidence: Cultural Exchange through Ancestors, Inspiration and Grace. With his dancers Arcell Cabuag, Otis Donovan Herring, Clarice Young, and Annique Roberts, Ronald K. Brown will talk about their trips to Africa and show video clips. After celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2010 at a gala performance at New York's Plaza Hotel, Evidence embarked on a groundbreaking tour of Africa under the auspices of DanceMotion/USA. The company performed, taught and acted as cultural ambassadors in Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa. Ron Brown has traveled in Africa as dance teacher since 1995, when he taught contemporary dance to the theater company Koteba Ensemble in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Working in Africa expanded Brown's movement vocabulary and shaped his awareness of his artistic potential and his role in contemporary dance. The ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE series is presented by The Committee for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and is produced by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Click here for more information.

Djoniba MoufletDjoniba Mouflet

April 11, 6 p.m. ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE - Djoniba Mouflet: Concepts in African Dance, Choreography versus Authenticity. Djoniba Mouflet, world renowned dance and drum innovator and master teacher, will share his thirty years experience in a lecture/demonstration about African dance & drumming. Along with some of the master drummers and dancers from his dance school, The Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre, he will also screen video from his collection and the Dance Division's archive. Created in 1992, The Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre, now located at Peridance Capezio Center in New York City, has been the center for most of the influential African dance and drum teachers in the USA. Born in Martinique, Djoniba was also raised in Senegal in West Africa. He has studied dance and music from Senegal, Mali and Guinea with renowned dance and musical masters, including Boully Sankho, Doudou Ndiaye Rose, Kemoko Sano and Germaine Acogny. Djoniba has studied with tribes in small African villages, as well as in professionally staffed schools and companies, including Mudra Afrique, Ballet Foret Sacre, Ballet Meissa, Ballet Conakry and the Les Ballets Africains of Guinea. The ON FIRE WITH AFRICAN DANCE series is presented by The Committee for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and is produced by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Click here for more information.

April 15, 6 p.m. A Bow to the Americans as Producers, Artists, and Educators. Featuring curator Deirdre Towers presenting on flamenco.
Click here for more information.

April 30, 6:30 p.m. Her Royal Highness Princess Norodom Buppha Devi in conversation with Peter Sellars. Her Royal Highness Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, Cambodia's esteemed prima ballerina of the 1960s and a genuine pioneer in the revival and preservation of Cambodian classical court dance talks candidly about her art form, its mercilessly demanding training, and its war-torn history with path-breaking theater and opera director Peter Sellars. There will also be screenings of excerpts of the Library's archival videotapes of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia and preview excerpts from the Khmer Dance Project, a program created by Anne H. Bass in conjunction with the Center for Khmer Studies and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. This program is presented in conjunction with Season of Cambodia, an initiative of Cambodian Living Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Click here for more information.

May 29, 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Dance Historian Is In: Screening #9 - TWO SESSIONS. Dance historian David Vaughan will screen Frederick Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe. Located in the Third Floor Screening Room. SEATING IS LIMITED; REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Registration opens March 28 at 9:00 a.m.
Click here to register for Session One, at 1 p.m.
Click here to register for Session Two, at 4 p.m..

June 26, 2 p.m. The Dance Historian Is In: Screening #10. Dance historian David Vaughan will screen Dune Dance and other film excerpts by and with Carolyn Brown, as well as lead a discussion with Brown about her work. SEATING IS LIMITED; REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Registration opens May 30 at 9:00 a.m.
Click here to register.

In addition, in conjunction with the flamenco exhibit, the Library for the Performing Arts will be running a film series, Featuring Flamenco, on four Tuesdays in April at 2:30 p.m. in the Bruno Walter Auditorium. Click here for a list of those screenings. And for more on salsa/mambo, don't miss the Library's American Sabor events.