Hello, everyone, and welcome back into another wonderful new Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper.We are so excited to be welcoming back on our guests to talk about a very exciting milestone.
Joining us once again, we have the co-executive director of Harkness Dance Center, Allison Manning, who's here to talk to us about the 92nd Street Live's presentation of the Harkness Dance Center's 90th anniversary season.
Tickets and more information are available at 92ny.org slash dance.I am so excited to have Alison back, and I'm so excited to be exploring this truly landmark season.So let us welcome on our guest, Alison.
Welcome back in to Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper.Thank you so much, Andrew.I'm so happy to be here.I'm so happy you're here.In 90 years, Holy cow.Yeah, officially a New York institution.
Now we've got a basket and an embroidered jacket coming to you.This is, this is very, very exciting.
And before we dive into the season itself, I'd love to have you, you know, remind our listeners a little bit about, you know, what is Harkness dance about, you know?
Yeah. I'm happy to, and thank you so much for having me.And 90 years is, is a wild milestone.I can't believe that I'm shepherding this organization through this milestone.
To be quite honest, it's quite humbling, but the Harkness Dance Center was founded in 1935.And it's a place where choreographers, teachers, students. Dance educators come together and work in multiple forms and styles of dance.
And so we have a performing arts performance branch, which is the Harkness Dance Center main stage series, which we're mostly here to talk about today.
And I curate that we have a school of dance, which supports a zero to 18 year old children's program. as well as an adult's dance program that runs up to 100 years old or older, if you make it past that.
And then we have Dance Education Laboratory, which is a continuing education platform that supports dance educators, both in the public schools and in private institutions around the city and around the country.So that's the Dance Center.
Incredible. The many hats going on there, that's fantastic.So now let's jump into what we're mainly here to talk about, your 90th anniversary season.Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes, I'm happy to.So 90 years, you know, one of the things that really stands out about the Harkness Dance Center is that it was founded by some of the best known dance artists in the history of modern dance, from Martha Graham to Doris Humphrey,
Anna Sokolow, and was really the launch point for many, many other great artists such as Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, the list goes on and on.
And so I have this incredible history behind me, and I have this incredible, these incredibly big shoes to fill.
As I think about curating a season that can really speak to the really lauded history that we have with those names and the many, many more that exist in the 90 years of history here, but also really can speak to what the Dance Center was founded on originally, which is about
being a place that's open for everyone, that's a place that supports all voices in dance, regardless of race, gender, politics, religion, and that we were a place that opened our doors to people that nobody else would from 1935 on and really
And so as I look towards programming both this season, which I'm really excited to talk about today, but also future seasons, what I'm tasked with is really trying to continue that vision and making sure that we're both supporting the greatest names in the field that exist still, but that we're providing a platform for the next generation of
Possibly great artists that nobody has discovered yet.
And that we really have the ability as a dance center to use this major stage in this major institution's name to kind of lift up those artists that haven't had opportunities yet and give them a chance to shine.
So that's what this season has been all about.And I'm happy to walk through it if you want me to and tease out a couple of couple of favorites.
Yeah.Yeah.Because actually my next question was going to be what can audiences expect from the season.So please do.Yes.
Yeah.So we, we, we already opened our season.So I'm coming to you a couple, a couple of weeks late, but we, we opened with the Bat-Shavah Ensemble, which many people will know is
the most famous dance company in Israel and arguably one of the most famous contemporary dance companies in the world.
We were extraordinarily lucky to bring 28 people over from Israel at the end of September and had three or six performances over three days in Bat and Wieser Hall to open our season.
They were all sold out and it was a really landmark and monumental moment for that company here in the city. and also their first visit to the 92nd Street Y, despite their very long history of working in the world.
And we just hosted an incredible young group called Dual Rivet, which is a women-led dance company founded by Chelsea Ainsworth and Jess Smith.
And they actually came out of a program that we're bringing back this year called the Future Dance Festival, which is a festival that supports the next generation of artists.
They get to submit videos and a panel of esteemed judges sort of teases out the top 16 artists.And so they were a group. that came out of that festival a year and a half ago.
I've been following their work and happened to be very good friends with Chelsea and asked them to present a piece and it was incredibly successful.
And there's really, in thinking about the mission that I mentioned earlier, they represent that next generation of a new voice.And out of that presentation here at the Y, there were a number of presenters from around the city.
who are able to come see them and are really excited to kind of see what they're up to next.And so it's already doing that.And over the next couple of months, we have Omar Roman De Jesus, who is a queer Puerto Rican artist.
Who's an artist in residence here at the Y for the next year.He's going to be doing his first evening length show with us.And we're really excited.There's snow involved, which I'm sort of. terrified about, but I think it's going to be beautiful.
Urban Bush Women is up next in December.It's their 40th anniversary season, which is incredible to imagine.And if you don't know Urban Bush Women, you should definitely come see them.They're a force of actual, like, like freakishly talented women.
who can do everything from singing and acting and dancing to building their own sets and costumes.And I'm ecstatic to have them here to celebrate our anniversary and theirs.
We're doing a collaboration with the Living Earth Show and Post Ballet with Tish Music, which is another department here at the Y. And I'm sure you've talked to Nick Rusato too, who's a dear friend of mine here, and we love to collab together.
So we're co-presenting that evening, musicians, dancers from California,
And then later in December, we bring back Nutcracked, which is rapidly becoming our annual off the beaten track holiday show here at the Y. And there's going to be epic Dylan's candy bars and party favors galore after that performance in December.
And then I won't run you through the rest of the season but highlights include David Dorfman, Michelle Dorrance with Alison Miller, which is another collaboration with Tish, Dormeshia Sombry-Edwards, I mentioned the Future Dance Festival.
We closed with the Limon Dance Company with a world premiere by Azure Barton, which I'm really excited about.
And I would say that the other one that I really, just on the general season that I'm most excited about is that we launched this year for the first time a new festival called the Uptown Rhythm Dance Festival.
And I'm doing this in collaboration with the Guggenheim's works in process team, specifically Duke Dang, who's the executive director over there.
And we are co-presenting a number of artists between our two institutions who are all based in rhythmically grounded dance forms.So everything from tap, to clogging, to hip hop, to classical Indian khatak dance.
The list, Lindy Hop, the list continues.And so there's going to be 25 artists on that festival from all over the globe, and it's going to be pretty exciting.So that's the gist.
That is incredible.A jam-packed season involved.Amazing.So with all these wonderful shows and all these incredibly talented artists, I'd love to know, how did you select this year's pieces for this season?
That's a great question.It's a combination of things.So in some cases, there was a piece by an artist.So for instance, with Dual Rivet, I knew them as a company, but I had seen a first draft of a work that I was really intrigued by.
And so I specifically asked them to bring that piece called Subscript here.With regards to, for instance, Omar, I know him as an artist.He was part of our 150th anniversary celebration last year, which I think I spoke with you about.
And so I really just offered him an open evening and I said, I'd love you to curate something on your company for this.So that was really up to him.
So that's going to be a brand new set of offerings that I have not seen half of them yet, which I'm pretty excited about. And a similar story is true with something like Urban Bushwomen.
I worked really closely with Michelle Ko and Jonathan Secor and the two artistic directors of Urban Bushwomen to talk about sort of where that company was in this 40th anniversary and try to think about what could be something completely unique.
that the 92nd Street Y and Urban Bushwomen could do together, as opposed to just doing a presentation of Urban Bushwomen, because they're doing presentations of pieces that are in their rep all over the city this year as part of this anniversary.
There are touring pieces that are in their rep all over the country as part of this anniversary.But from my perspective, I was like, I really want, I want something that is us together, because we have a history as two institutions together.
And so they've put together
in collaboration with me this incredible evening of solos on these like insanely talented individual artists in this company that are sort of a few that have come out of the history books of old rep of theirs and then new ones that they're putting together including with some pretty fabulous guest artists who they're going to be inviting in as part of that program and so that's a program if you're going to see Urban Bushwomen somewhere else in the city this year
you won't be able to see anything that's on the program that we're doing.So it's worth coming to see that one too, is sort of part of the motivation.And then like with Nutcracked, we know what that is.It's hilarious.It's fabulous.
It like, you can't get enough of it.And so the point is like, I, we want that because we're, we're cultivating that as a little tradition here at the Y. And then, you know, there's many other pieces of the puzzle.
I would say like my collaboration with Dormesha is one that I really cherish and I'm really excited to continue this year.Her Ladies in the Shoe company that she works with is really a sort of melting pot of some of the best
female choreographers and tap dancers in the industry that she works with and so you never really know what it's going to be but it's Dormesha so it's always like absolutely fabulous because it's the best tap with the best music and she's curating it and inviting in her friends and I'm really excited.
There's going to be a plot twist this year which I can't quite announce yet because we haven't put it up on the web but
circle back at some point, if you're listening to this and check out her webpage, because it's going to be a really fun, fun set of programs, I think.Yeah.
And then, and then like closing with Lamone, that company, we, the Y has a long history with as well.They, Jose was here in the early years.
This organization gave him a platform when very few other institutions were even willing to let him through the door as a Mexican immigrant.And.
That program is pulling from a repertory history of Jose's, a piece by Doris Humphrey connecting the dots between her relationship here at the Y, and then also this brand new co-commission that is a world premiere that we're presenting on that program by Azure Barton that we commissioned with the Lamone Company as part of the 150th and the 90th anniversaries here at Harkness.
So lots of different curatorial choices, and they're all unique to the different companies.So that's how I would describe picking all these things.
That is incredible.Amazing.And like you said, you keep naming some wonderful artists that we've had the pleasure of sharing at some fantastic shows.Love me some Nutcrack.Always get a letter on the holidays for stuff like that.
And I wanna now ask you, you know, with this great season you've got in store, is there a particular message or thought you hope that audiences take away from the season as a whole?
Yeah, I think it, I mean, I think I've sort of touched on it a little bit earlier, but to like stick the needle in, you know, further.You know, basically my goal in being the person with this really humbling job of continuing to curate these seasons
After 90 years is to prioritize the fact that we can be a launchpad for the next voices in the industry, and I think that I really wanted people to take away from this season that Harkness Dance Center is back.
It is bright and it is really trying to utilize its ability to pull focus with these major names and dance that we are able to present onto these other names that people don't yet know, but are like, wow, if they're presented in the same season on the same stage as the Lamone Company or as Azure Barton,
then we definitely should be paying attention to who this is.And we definitely should be offering them opportunities as well.And so I think, yeah, it's about celebration, but it's really about that.
It's about pointing to what's next and providing a platform for those artists.
Yes, that is splendid, yes.I wish I'd get excited about things like this, because absolutely.Thanks.Continuing to fuel the next generation of performers, and that's beautiful.
That all leads to my final question for this first part, which is who are you hoping to have access to the Harkness Dance Center's 90th anniversary seats?
Honestly, everyone.Anybody who is a dance lover will find something for them here because we're presenting literally every form of dance that we can, right?
We're presenting classical Indian dance, we're presenting tap, contemporary ballet, modern, hip hop, you know, I mean, the list goes on.And I think,
But then I would also say the beauty of that mix means that if you're not a dance lover per se, that there's definitely accessible programs here for you.If you want to dip your toe in the water, right?
Like Nutcracked is a perfect option for people who may not totally understand contemporary modern dance because it's comedy.It's fun.It's 60 minutes.You can bring your kids. So it's like, it kind of like fills a bunch of buckets.
And I would say that like specifically with regards to, for instance, Dormesha, Michelle Dorrance and Alison Miller and the Uptown Rhythm Festival, I find that rhythm-based dance forms tend to be really nice entry points for people who may not think that dance is their thing.
It tends to be a place where people can feel more connected because it's so musical.It's a place where people, I often find, get really excited because these forms tend to have a lot of energy in them.
And so I think, you know, I'm hoping that that mix of genres and offerings provides an entry point for audiences that may not be choosing to go to dance all the time and might be interested in exploring a little outside their comfort zone.
For the second part of our interviews, as you know, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better.
And we have had you on our show before, so I would love to change up this first question and ask, how is it that you came into the performing arts?
That's a great question.Well, I, you know, with deep thought and a lot of, like, really strong decision-making skills at three years old, decided That I wanted to try to.So that's how I came into the performing arts.
No, but in all seriousness, that is how it all started and I. The joke in our family is that I, my mother was trying to decide between ice skating and dance and dance was like 15 minutes closer.So that's what I ended up in.
And, but it was obviously the right decision because I never looked back and I danced all the way.I'm from Northern Vermont in the middle of nowhere.My parents still live up there and you would think that there's no access to
excellent dance training.I happened to have three teachers, one who had studied at American Ballet Theater, one who was a Broadway, ex-Broadway dancer, and one who studied at Tisch NYU in modern dance.
And they all happened to live within like an hour of each other up there and they were running these like tiny little dance programs.And so as I got older, I realized that A, I had some talent and B, I wanted to focus on this.
I ended up really like spending a lot of time with all three of those teachers.
And, and then inevitably I moved to New York and auditioned for dance conservatories all over the city and ended up at Marymount Manhattan College in the BFA dance program there and majored in modern dance and minored in art history, because that's a really useful business decision when you graduate.
If you're, you know, an art history minor and a dance major, it really offers you a lot of. solid career choices.Yeah.And then it, and then it just went from there.
I ended up interning at the yard out on Martha's Vineyard right after I graduated from college and dancing part-time with a number of pickup dance companies around the city and in Boston and touring internationally a little bit with a few of them.
But I always had this, this.I don't, I think it comes from my father.He was an entrepreneur and an educator and a director of a nonprofit. But I always had this need to do both the performance and choreography and the leadership stuff.
And I never really felt, even as a young person right out of college, like I wanted to have to choose between those two things.And so I just kind of like bullheadedly stuck myself in both sides of the industry.
And like kept myself there all the way up through and kept just making sure that I was able to carve out time for my performance career and somehow juggling the the management executive stuff simultaneously.
So I'm a big believer in supporting artists who who also have that vision for themselves, but also the field.
I really think that there's this tendency and I'm sure it's probably in theater too, but I'm not a theater person, so I don't know it, but there's this tendency in dance to think that if you don't go the performance track.
Like completely separately and just be a performer professionally that you've somehow failed.And. I really completely disagree with that because I think that dancers and choreographers are some of the smartest people in our field.
And I think that when we silo sort of people's ability to both be where the hat of the manager and the thinker versus the performer and the choreographer, we lose a lot of great entrepreneurs and thinkers and leaders in the field because they feel like they have to choose one or the other.
And so I, I tend to support a lot of artists who feel that way and who are doing that in practice in their life.Um, because I just, I think we need more of those people.
And I think more young people coming out of high schools and colleges need to see more people in dance being like, Oh, no, no, no.You can definitely have it all.You can do all of it.
Yes.Yes.That is wonderful. And now we have come to my favorite question, of course, to ask this guest, which is, of course, what is your favorite performing arts memory?
And since we've had you on before, would you mind sharing another of your favorites?
Sure.To be honest, I don't remember what I shared last time.So we'll see how that goes.And you can go back and tell me if I hit the nail on the head.Gosh, my favorite performing arts memory.I think, to be really honest,
If we, if we're going to focus on like where, you know, I feel like this conversation we've dovetailed really nicely back into like my personal history and why I'm doing this, which is the stuff I just love.And I think.
To be honest, like a lot of my favorite memories are early on when, and this is where so much of this vision comes from, when my mentors gave me a platform, right?
And it was, I was little and I was at a, you know, like one that I specifically remember is this solo.
that my tap teacher gave me in a recital and I had to wear a gold flat circle sideways hat that looked like a tambourine and a little gold dress and my little beige tights and my beige tap shoes and
hadn't given any other kids a solo and for some reason I was like in front of the curtain doing this solo and I was like seven years old or something but I have a such a strong memory of feeling of this feeling of pride and this feeling of oh I love getting to lead I love getting to have someone
reward me for hard work and recognize that it's okay to shine as well as be part of the group and I think that when I look sort of farther forward into like further performing arts memories that were so special for me later in life.
A lot of them are tied to that feeling of like having met either the choreographer or the artistic director and feeling really inspired by them as much as I was by the show itself.
And so I think there's definitely a through line that ran from like that early memory of, you know, a teacher sort of saying like, like, you get to have a moment and you should.
to really connecting the dots to what it meant to be somebody who really had multiple buckets to fill and to offer to other people.
And that in terms of choreographers and directors and people I've met in this work is really what has inspired me along the way quite a bit.
I love that.Thank you so much for sharing that. You're welcome.I don't think it was either, hopefully.
Well, as we wrap things up, I would love to know, do you or your company have any other projects or productions coming down the pipeline that we might be able to plug for you?
Yeah, I would say please join us for any of our events coming up in the next two months.I know November and December are always busy for everyone, but next up is Omar, Ramond Jesus, then Urban Bushwomen, and then Nutcracked.
And literally when I tell you you can't go wrong with either three of these productions, you can't go wrong. They're all radically different.And as I talked about with Urban Bushwomen and Nutcracked, they're phenomenal.
They're going to be phenomenal evenings.And Omar is just somebody who, in my opinion, is probably going to blow the roof off of the field of dance in the next like decade or so.
And so if you want to see him now before that happens, this would be a great show to come to.And his show is on November 14th and 15th. to keep these things in my head, but there's too much.Yeah, 14th and 15th at 7pm.So that's what's next for us.
Outstanding.Very excited about that.And all of this leads to my final question, which is if our listeners would like more information about Harkness Dance Center and the 90th anniversary season, or about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you.
Yeah, so they can reach out to me at my email.I'm at amanning, M-A-N-N-I-N-G at 92ny.org. I'm literally always on my email.So if they emailed me, they'll definitely get me.
We've got, if anybody wants to stop by the Y we have these snazzy 90th anniversary brochures that are in our lobby that you can come pick up.And.I would just say, check back on our website.
There's so many things to come where we haven't actually even officially announced our 90th anniversary week of celebrations in March, but we have a save the date on the calendar for March 3rd through 9th.
And that announcement is going to be coming probably in the next month or so.And we'll be really an exciting week of immersive dance, theater, music, et cetera.So we might have, we maybe we'll talk again then.And I can tell you all about that.
Yes, that would be wonderful.So exciting. Well, Alison, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by again and sharing this incredible, incredible season.
Congrats to you and everyone at Harkness Dance Theater on 90 incredible years, and here's to 90 more, and then some incredible years of wonderful art.So thank you so much for your time today.Thank you.
It was great to see you again, Andrew.
My guest today has been the amazing co-executive director, Alison Manning, who is with Harkness Dance Center.And she joined us to talk about the 92nd Streetwise presentation of Harkness Dance Center's 90th anniversary season.
You can get tickets and more information about this incredible lineup by visiting 92ny.org slash dance.And we also have some contact information for our guests, which we'll be posting in our episode description, as well as on our social media posts.
But make sure you come out, celebrate with this amazing New York institution.It's the Harkness Dance Center's 90th anniversary season.
So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrap your candies, and keep talking about the theater.In a stage whisper.Thank you.
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