Art + Action Talk: Dramaturgy in Dance

Art + Action Talk: Dramaturgy in Dance

with Stephanie Acosta, Pele Bauch, and Katherine Profeta, moderated by Melanie George.

Dramaturgy in Dance brings to together a group of artist-dramaturgs working in dance and dance theatre to discuss the methods and materials of dramaturgy in our field. The group represents a range of aesthetics and practices happening in the field today.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Melanie George – Artist Moderator
Melanie George is a dance educator, choreographer, scholar, and dramaturg. She is the founder and director of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-In-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by David Neumann & Marcella Murray (on the Obie Award winning Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed), Raja Feather Kelly, Ephrat Asherie, Susan Marshall & Company, Machine Dazzle, and Urban Bush Women among others. A highly sought after teacher and choreographer of the neo-jazz aesthetic, Melanie is a featured in the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance. Melanie has presented her research on jazz improvisation and pedagogy throughout the U.S., in Canada and Scotland, and founded the global advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com. She is the former Dance Program Director at American University, and has guest lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School, among others.

Stephanie Acosta

Pele Bauch is a choreographer and dance dramaturg. As a dance dramaturg she has worked with Brian Brooks, Yanira Castro, Rachel Cohen, Barbie Diewald, Jody Oberfelder, Jody Sperling, among others. Pele was on The Field’s staff for 10 years, facilitating workshops and leading creative residencies. She has provided creative feedback to over 150 artists. She has taught dance dramaturgy at Mount Holyoke College and choreography at Movement Research. As a choreographer, she received residencies from The Joyce Theater Foundation, Dance Theater Workshop, the Chocolate Factory, and 92Y Harkness Dance Center. Her work has been selected for presentation at NYC venues including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Chocolate Factory, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research at the Judson Church, HERE’s TALR and the Best of TALR, and more. Pele has received funding from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and Brooklyn Arts Council. www.pelebauch.org

Katherine Profeta is a NYC dramaturg who has worked with choreographer/visual artist Ralph Lemon since 1997. Other collaborators over the years, both recent and long-past, include Alexandra Beller, Nora Chipaumire, Karin Coonrod, Annie Dorsen, Julie Taymor, David Thomson, Ni’Ja Whitson, and Theater for a New Audience. She is also a founding member and choreographer with the New York City theater company Elevator Repair Service, having lent her hand to the majority of its productions 1991-2015. She was proud to be a dramaturg with the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative in 2017-18. Profeta holds an MFA and DFA in dramaturgy from the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. Previously she taught in the theater departments of Barnard College and Queens College, CUNY. Her first book, Dramaturgy in Motion, came out in 2015 from University of Wisconsin Press.

Art + Action Talk, curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, is Gibney’s online talk show for discerning fans of dance, the creative process and all the ways art plays a vital role in society.

All Winter & Spring 2021 Season events will be held online via Zoom. Gibney’s Box Office can be reached via email. For ticketing inquiries or requests, please email Marketing & Audience Services Manager, Kimiko Tanabe, at boxoffice@gibneydance.org.

Gibney encourages people with disabilities to attend online offerings, and we welcome the opportunity to make this event more accessible. Live captioning through Otter Transcription is available for all events by request. If you have any questions or access needs, please email us at sarah@gibneydance.org or call us at 212-677-8560 (voice only) at least 24 hours in advance of the event you plan to attend. If you are hoping to attend an event and would like us to engage the services of an ASL interpreter or audio descriptor, please let us know with as much notice as possible, and we’ll do our best to make it happen.