Beyond Accessibility: Elevator Opening

On Wednesday, September 25, Gibney will unveil a new elevator at its main entrance at 53A Chambers Street.

Join us to celebrate this milestone in the movement towards a more equitable dance community in New York City for an evening of live performance, film screenings, gallery exhibition, and post-show dance party. Beyond Accessibility is a gathering of and by disabled artists and their allies. Featured artists include Alice Sheppard, Anna Gichan, Carina Ho, Ezra Benus, Kevin Gotkin, Pelenakeke Brown, Yo-Yo Lin, and more.

EVENT TIMELINE

6:00 pm – Welcome at the Elevator
6:30 pm – Program in The Theater & Film Screenings by Alice Sheppard and Carina Ho
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Durational Performance Installation in The Lab (Studio A), Down in the river by Pelenakeke Brown and Yo-Yo Lin
7:30 pm – 9:00 pm – Dance Party in the Gallery DJed by Kevin Gotkin

More information about the evening’s screenings, performances, and installations is available below.

CARINA  HO
WE SLEEP NO MORE

we sleep no more is a dance film featuring a cast entirely of power wheelchair users, directed and set to original music by Carina Ho, who performs under the musical moniker ONIKHO. Created loosely on the idea of a “power chair ballet”, we sleep no more is a cinematic and haunting celebration of the aging and disabled body that challenges the norms of who is allowed to take the stage.

REVEL IN YOUR BODY

Revel in Your Body, A short film experience of the joy of flight directed by Katherine Helen Fisher and featuring Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson of the disability art ensemble Kinetic Light. The film features gorgeous vocal music composed by Missy Mazzoli and recorded by Roomful of Teeth. This screening will be an open audio description experience of the film where all attending can hear the visuals described by audio describer and disabled filmmaker Cheryl Green.

Image description: Laurel Lawson and Alice Sheppard fly through a cloudless blue sky with arms stretched and their wheelchair wheels spinning. Audio Description access icon. Text reads: Official Selection Dance on Camera Festival 2019. Photo by Jimmy Boyle.

Pelenakeke Brown and Yo-Yo Lin
DOWN IN THE RIVER

Meet us in the in-between, at the river to witness a collaborative movement installation featuring Yo-Yo Lin and Pelenakeke Brown as they share, witness and weave their shared visual languages.

Image Description: A diptych of performers Yo-Yo (on the left) and Pelenakeke (on the right), they dance in a dimly lit room, their bodies illuminated in the patterns of their animated projections.

MY BODY IS THE HOUSE THAT WE LIVE IN
visual art exhibition CURATED BY EZRA BENUS

Featured artists: Robert Andy Coombs, Elektra KB, Alex Dolores Salerno, Jaklin Romine, Joselia Hughes, Ezra Benus, and Noah Benus.

This exhibition offers ways of considering embodied experiences of disability and illness in artists’ terms beyond just accessibility

Image description: The whole image is in variants of grey scale, reminiscent of x-ray or other scans. bisecting the frame there are two images of the same back of the hand posed with most of the fingers curled inwards, with the pointer finger fully raised. Overlaid on the image is text that reads An Army Of The Sick Can’t Be Defeated.

ELEVATOR INSTALLATION

Visual Design by Shannon Finnegan and Sound Design by Anna Gichan and David Britton.

This installation imagines Gibney’s elevator as an Anti-Stairs Club Lounge. Anti-Stairs Club Lounge is an ongoing project by artist Shannon Finnegan that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs. Visitors are welcomed to the elevator and encouraged to consider their time in the elevator an opportunity to lounge.

Sound Design: Touch to Listen
Anna Gichan and David Britton: “What does your hearing sound like?” is a common question asked to me by my peers. Touch to Listen is an effort to answer this question, I dug out an audiogram showing the exact frequencies and dB’s I can and can not hear and handed this chart to David Britton, a sound designer, to play with. As you ride this elevator you will hear the sounds of an R-train subway ride, Union Square traffic, Starbucks, and a Ballet Class adjusted to flux between my hearing and common hearing.

Image Description: An orange wall with big text in a stair-inspired font that says, “Anti-Stairs Club Lounge.”

ACCESSIBILITY

CART, ASL, and audio description will be available. To make an access request, seek travel information, or to reserve an audio listening system, please email Disability Artistry and Projects Associate, Morgaine De Leonardis at morgaine@gibneydance.org. Please be aware that this is a scent free event.