Solo for Solo

Marion Spencer, Zui Gomez, & Wendell Gray II with DARRIN WRIGHT, Paloma McGregor, & Paul Hamilton

Solo for Solo, created and curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, is a series of commissioned solos made by developing choreographers expressly for veteran performers. The performers also mentor the choreographers through a one-on-one collaborative process that serves to broaden and deepen the art. Join us for a showing of three works-in-progress, followed by a reception.

Artist Pairings:

Choreographer: Marion Spencer
Performer: Darrin Wright

Choreographer: Zui Gomez
Performer: Paloma McGregor

Choreographer: Wendell Gray II
Performer: Paul Hamilton

New Voices: Solo for Solo is generously supported by The SHS Foundation/Richard Feldman. Additional support is provided by Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Marion is a dancer, choreographer and educator currently based in New York City. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project (DraftWork), Gibney (Work Up), Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Green Space, Triskelion Arts, Center for Performance Research (Fall Movement), Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance Now NYC and the Domestic Performance Agency. She is a 2019-2020 season artist at The Chocolate Factory Theater (creative residency Dec 2019). Marion’s work is an energetic and tonal collaging- sourcing imagination, desire, and our very real world, her dances call for transformation through an undoing of ourselves, inviting us to feel, ask questions, and consider what else both imaginatively and constructively. She currently dances for BAND|portier and Laura Peterson Choreography. Since moving to New York, Marion has had the pleasure of working with Yackez/Larissa Velez-Jackson, Michelle Boulé, Athena Kokoronis, Shandoah Goldman, Melissa Riker, Annie Kloppenberg, Shaun Irons & Lauren Petty, among others. She teaches at Gibney, Dancewave and Greenwich Country Day Middle and High School. Marion has toured her choreographic work and teaching practice nationally to New Orleans LA, Seattle WA and Amherst MA. She graduated with honors from Vassar College in 2009. www.marion-spencer.com

Zui Gomez received her BFA in Dance from the Boston Conservatory where she performed classics by Martha Graham and Jose Limón. She has danced with Ballet Hispanico, Ballet Hispanico Dos, Collage Dance Collective, DanceNOW! Ensemble, ArmitageGone! Dance, as well as Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Zest Collective and works by Chris Rudd (a choreographer from Miami). Gomez has appeared in Cabaret and Chicago with the Entr’Acte Theatrix Production Company in Ft. Lauderdale. She has also worked alongside Jamar Roberts (current Alvin Ailey company member) in his premiere ‘Veil’ in Miami. She’s taught at various schools and has workshopped a few pieces she’s choreographed, but always looking for ways to broaden her horizon and continue to feed the community in every way. She currently dances with Gibney Dance Company and her first time participating in this Solo for Solo program.

Wendell Gray II is a dance artist and choreographer currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He has collaborated with artists such as Pavel Zustiak, Jonah Bokaer, Helen Simoneau, I-Ling Liu, Christal Brown, Esther Baker-Tarpaga, and J Bouey. He has shown his own work at Movement Research at Judson Church, Center for Performance Research, and BAAD! He has been commissioned to make works for University of the Arts, Pennsylvania Ballet II + Philadanco II, and Periapsis Music and Dance. Wendell is a BFA graduate of the University of the Arts (15’) under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield and was raised in Atlanta, GA.

Darrin Wright, a Brooklyn based artist, is a native of Los Angeles, California where he started tap dancing at the age of six. His early trainings were taking tap classes, which led to jazz with Ian Gary; learning about choreography and performance in high school with Janet Roston; taking post-modern dance with Rudy Perez. In 1997, Darrin joined The Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as part of their farewell tour. He received his BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2002. Since graduation, Darrin has had the pleasure of working with The METopera, Susan Marshall, Terry Creach, Jane Comfort, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas, Yanira Castro, Keely Garfield, Jack Ferver, Tami Stronach, Antonio Ramos, Leslie Cuyjet, Doug Varone, Laura Peterson, Amber Sloan, Katie Workum, Nancy Bannon, Linsey Bostwick, Nina Winthrop, Linsday and Jason Dietz Marchant. Darrin teaches master classes in technique, composition and improvisation throughout the country. In 2009, he received a Bessie Award for his work with A Canary Torsi’ Dark Hohrse/Black Forest.

Paloma McGregor, is a Caribbean-born, New York-based choreographer and organizer who centers Black voices through collaborative, “community-specific” performance projects. McGregor brings a choreographer’s craft, a journalist’s urgency, and a community organizer’s framework in the service of big visions. Her performances amplify and remix the quotidien choreographies of Black folks, reactivating them in often-embattled public spaces. Since 2008, she has been Artistic Director of Angela’s Pulse, which she co-founded with her sister, director Patricia McGregor. Working at the forefront of her field, McGregor has been an inaugural recipient of Dance/USA’s Fellowship to Artists (2019); Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Institute Fellowship (2018); and Surdna Foundation’s Artists Engaging in Social Change (2015, 2017). In 2017, she won a coveted “Bessie” Award for performance as a member of skeleton architecture, an acclaimed collective of Black women(+) improvisers. McGregor began her dance training in St. Croix with Caribbean Dance Company; she toured internationally for six years as a member of Urban Bush Women.

Paul Hamilton started his dance training in Jamaica and then continued at SUNY Purchase, where he studied with Kevin Wynn and Neil Greenberg. He also studied at the Alvin Ailey school . He has performed with Elizabeth Streb, the Martha Graham Dance Ensemble, The Barnspace Dance, Mauri Cramer Dancers, Ballet Arts Theatre, Ralph Lemon(Bessie nominee Scaffold Room), Deborah Hay, David Thomson, Headlong Dance Theater, and The Museum of Modern Art recreating Bruce Nauman’s Wall/Floor Positions. He is a member of Reggie Wilson Fist and Performance Group, Keely Garfield Dance, and Jane Comfort and Company.

Choreographer Photos: Marion Spencer by Joanne Jones, Zui Gomez by Levue Photography, Wendell Gray II by Karla Conrad. Performer Photos: Darrin Wright by Scott Shaw, Paloma McGregor by Whitney Browne, Paul Hamilton by Andrea Mohin.

ACCESSIBILITY

Gibney 280 Broadway is accessible via elevator from the main entrance at 53A Chambers Street.

We welcome the opportunity to make this event more accessible. Please refrain from wearing scented products, so that people with chemical sensitivities can join us. Please request ASL interpreting, audio description, or open captioning 30 days before the event or submit other requests by completing our Access Requests and Inquiries Form or calling 646.837.6809 (Voice only).