What is BIO/DANCE & Social Justice?
In 2002, Missy Pfohl Smith, who is also the Director of the Program of Dance and Movement at University of Rochester, founded the contemporary modern dance company BIODANCE in NYC, and in 2004, relocated the company to Rochester, NY, where it is currently based and thriving. BIODANCE is a non-profit that collaborates with multi-disciplinary artists and performs repertory by a roster of recognized choreographers including Missy Pfohl Smith, Heidi Latsky, Bill Evans, D. Chase Angier, Randy James, Ivy Baldwin, Jeanne Schickler Compisi, Courtney World, Kelly Johnson, Donna Davenport and more. Through the creation of dance works and community based classes, workshops and discussions, BIODANCE often explores human interaction with social, political and environmental issues through collaboration with multi-disciplinary artists and dancers. At the beginning of 2015, BIODANCE started a BIO/DANCE & Social Justice Project that continues to evolve today.
Photo by Ralph A. Thompson
In 2015, BIODANCE created a new work and curated a series of community showings with discussion called BIO/DANCE and Social Justice, providing a forum for dance/collaborative artists to share socially conscious artwork. The series took place at various venues including Community Place of Greater Rochester, where BIODANCE also provided 18 workshops as well as a public performance opportunity for participants from the Senior Center. Selected work from the series also manifested in a show for the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival.
Interdisciplinary artists with cross sections in dance were invited to submit their own work or to propose a work to be created for the performers of BIODANCE via Open Call. Curated by BIODANCE members, the series then provided a forum for 36 artists and performers including Missy Pfohl Smith, Artistic Director of BIODANCE, to create, develop and share their work. The choreographers, a composer, a poet, and a sculptor who participated in the series included Allen C. Topolski, Joe Mangano, Missy Pfohl Smith, Donna Davenport, Kelly Johnson, Marcia Vanderlee, Jessica Moore, Kathleen Dalton, Karah Charette, Kelly Ferris Lester, Khalid Saleem, and Lev Earle. Performers included Missy Pfohl Smith, Stuart Tsubota, Jeanne Schickler Compisi, Alaina Olivieri, Sarah Johnson, Lev Earle, Julie Schlafer Rossette, Laura Regna, Maureen Gorman, Sarah Canny, Becky Geisinger, Rachel Vinciguerra, Sonja Petermann, Kathleen Dalton, Marcia Vanderlee, Jenny Graham, Marissa Abbott, Lauren Sava, Olga Nikolayeva, Karah Charette, Phil Vanderlee, Ashley Owen, Tina Green, Isaiah Harris, Khalid Saleem, Kara Mann, Wayne Cleveland, Ashley De Los Santos, Donna Davenport, Elizabeth Strano, Kelly Johnson, Kaitley Wozer.
“Rickety-Rickshaw-See-Saw” by Allen C. Topolski
BIODANCE provided 6 free community performances and four ticketed shows with the theme of Dance & Social Justice, where dance and collaborative artists made their socially conscious artwork accessible to a diverse audience. Feedback and open discussion were welcome as part of the ongoing creative process. The discussions focused on the work itself and on the issues being investigated in the work such as LGBTQ homelessness, racial tension, police brutality, inequities of space, celebration of difference and caveats about indifference. In the particularly violent and tense times we live in today, bringing dance and discussion to communities who may not normally have free access was a significant goal that was achieved in this project.
1) Community Place of Greater Rochester gymnasium, 145 Parsells Ave., Rochester, NY, June 14, 2015, 12noon – Audience 38
2) Monroe Community Hospital Auditorium, 435 E. Henrietta Rd. Rochester, NY, May 29, 2015, 10:30am – Audience 168, plus the show was shown live on the televisions of all 800 rooms in the hospital.
3) Kinections dance therapy studio, 718 University Ave. Rochester, NY, Sept. 11, 2015, 7pm -Audience 26
4) University of Rochester’s Rush Rhees Library, Oct. 16, 2015, 12noon, Audience 128
5) Nu Movement Gallery, University Ave, Rochester, NY, May 2, 2015, Audience 68
6) Gallery Seventy Four, 215 Tremont, Rochester, NY, Nov. 6, 2015, 7pm, Audience 43
7) BIODANCE also provided 4 public, ticketed shows during the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival at Geva Theatre’s Fielding Stage in September 2015. Audience 432
8) UR Diversity Conference, Memorial Art Gallery, Nov. 13, 2015 Audience 54
BIODANCE also vastly expanded its community connection to the Senior Center at Community Place by not only hosting one of the shows in the series at their facility at 145 Parsells Ave. for approximately 40 audience members, but also by providing a series of 18 free dance/movement workshops and a performance opportunity for the urban elders in a site-specific performance in December. Approximately 30 seniors participated in the dance/movement workshops taught by Missy Pfohl Smith, and 4 participated in rehearsals and two public performances in a work in which they shared personal stories and the wisdom of their years. This performance took place as part of a show called Compartmented on Dec. 4 and 5, 2015 in the Sunday School Space at Rochester Lyric Theatre. Documentation can be found at www.thesundayschool.space. Compartmented was co-curated by Missy Pfohl Smith and Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge as a multi-disciplinary arts happening, and was extremely successful as well. It was an exciting opportunity for those who chose to participate as it was framed as a work that pointed out how ignored our elders sometimes are in our culture. BIODANCE’s two works in Compartmented, and the Community Place seniors’ participation definitely was a development of the Social Justice project.
“Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.” (Job 12:12)
With gratitude to the performers Lisa Bradley, Danielle Fraenkel, Gligsobel Rivera & Mercedes Valladares. BIODANCE performers include Jeanne Schickler Compisi, Lev Earle, Maureen Gorman, Laura Regna, Julie Schlafer Rossette, Missy Pfohl Smith, Stuart Tsubota & Kaitley Wozer. Photo by Missy Pfohl Smith.
The free dance/movement workshop series for underserved community members at The Senior Center was geared for men and women over 55 years of age with varying degrees of mobility. These workshops were offered free of charge to Community Place’s diverse urban constituents, most of whom are underserved senior citizens who have a low socio-economic status, making it totally accessible and convenient for all participants.
Our objective in 2015 for this truly community-based series was to reach a minimum of 420 audience members. This was far surpassed in 2015, reaching 903 people directly, and hundreds of others indirectly through Compartmented and through the live TV stream at Monroe Community Hospital.
Feedback and discussion with community members from the free performance series served to provide an important outside perspective to the creative process, contributing to the clarity of intention of the artists’ work. But it also led to education and insight for many of us as artists and for many of the audience members, who shared stories generously of family members as slaves, or who asked questions to try to understand the complex gender identity issues that many face more openly today than ever before. The discussions were rich and varied, and felt meaningful in terms of fostering understanding of both the artistic process and also of one another and our differences, and similarities.
Photo of “In/Difference” choreographed by Missy Pfohl Smith and BIODANCE by Ralph A. Thompson
BIO/DANCE & Social Justice was a series that was born out of Smith’s own mix of horror, frustration, indifference and concern for the staggering injustices that seem rampant in our community, our country and our world at large. Though this collection of heart-born work from a group of generous individuals that Smith admires and who share concerns about the state of the relationships, misunderstandings and injustices that we all own, we shared some darkness and some light in hopes for a better tomorrow with more understanding. Inspiration and hope for the world came out of this work, from working together with the people of BIO/DANCE & Social Justice in the city of Rochester through our free community performance and class series with elders at Community Place of Greater Rochester, with residents of Monroe Community Hospital, with the people who joined us at Kinections, and in all the other community venues where we share this work. It has been humbling and meaningful to witness the voices of so many artists who care deeply about humanity, about equality and about liberty for all beings, some of whom BIODANCE met through our open artist call for this series.
Photo of Lev Earle’s “[drowning]” by Ralph A. Thompson
BIODANCE wishes to thank the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with support from Governor Andrew Cuomo, administered by Livingston Arts, a member supported organization, and to its many individual donors for making this work possible in both 2015 and 2016 – this dance and movement for justice and peace. We look forward to developing this work and fostering discussion in various communities, adding a new community partner in summer 2016, the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolent Communication.