Aviva Geismar, Green Space Artist Advisory Board Member and this month’s TAKE ROOT artist shares her relationship with Green Space through the years!
Aviva Geismar. Photo by Steven Schreiber
In 2004, I was rehearsing for a performance on Soaking Wet at the West End Theater when Valerie Green told me she was going to be opening a new dance space in Long Island City. Valerie had been managing a studio in Manhattan on Broome Street called Broome Corner Studio, which, like many Manhattan spaces, was being priced out of existence. Valerie was looking for a handful of choreographers who wanted to rent at her new space and was offering a reduced rental rate if we booked a certain number of hours a month. It was time for me to transition out of a small space I had been renting at regularly in the financial district, so I took her up on the opportunity. Other regular renters at the new Green Space were The Treehouse Shakers and Laurie Hockman, and remarkably, over 14 years later, we are all still making dances in this quiet oasis in the Silks Building!
In the earliest days, I remember rehearsing in a cavernous, unfinished space across the hall from what later became Green Space because the landlord had promised Valerie that her studio would be ready by a certain date, and it wasn’t. It was the biggest space I ever rehearsed in and we felt like real pioneers. The first tenants in the building were mostly artists. You would often see people washing their paintbrushes at the giant sink outside the restroom. By now, most of the artists have been replaced by tech companies, designers and rug sellers, but remarkably, Green Space has endured.
As the programs and activities at Green Space have evolved over the years, I’ve been impressed with Valerie’s fortitude and inventiveness. It is extremely challenging to keep an arts organization going and growing in NY at this time, and I can imagine how hard it is to meet the financial burden of maintaining the studio and her company, Dance Entropy, but Valerie has found ways to do it. The Dance Entropy summer intensive is one such program. I’ve been delighted to send dance majors from Queensborough Community College where I teach to train in the intensive. Valerie creates scholarship opportunities for QCC students, so that several can attend each summer. They always grow so much from the experience.
Drastic Action. Photo by Leo Correa
I’ve been impressed with the performance work Dance Entropy continues to present. Valerie’s choreographic vision keeps developing in moving and engaging ways, and she has cultivated a wonderful group of loyal dancers. Through the studio and the company, Valerie continues to enrich the local community and provide important opportunities for artists. It’s been exciting to see the evolution of Dance Entropy’s community engagement initiatives and the Fertile Ground performance series for works-in-progress as well as the fully produced Take Root performance series. I’ve been honored to serve on the Green Space artist advisory board for the past two years and to invite a number of wonderful choreographers to perform on Take Root.
I am delighted to be performing myself on the series for the second time on Jan 24 and 25. My Company, Drastic Action, is sharing a program with the eloquent choreographer and my colleague at QCC, Nicole McClam.
There is so much happening in the world right now that is distressing and distracting, but I still believe in the power of art to create meaning and activate change. The four new and recent dances Drastic Action will be performing
explore multiple survival strategies for this moment of overwhelming national and global tension. In “Pressure/Vapor,” performers boil with extreme anxiety. “Up End” is the first solo I have created for myself since 2001 and is about coping with the unexpected. Desire and repression drive the characters in an excerpt of “Urge,” while the dancers in “The Bind” strain for an elusive sense of true connection. I am so honored to be working with a wonderful group of performer/collaborators, Randy Burd, Jenni Hong, Mengying Lin and Kendra J. Ross. Original music is by my long-time collaborator, Annabelle Chvostek, and additional music is by Jonah Parzen-Johnson and Laura Sheeran. Costumes design is by Daye Hwang and Mandarin Wu.
Nicole Y. McClam will be dancing her half hour solo, It's All Good Hair, which she began creating when she lived in the homogeneous and predominately white towns of Lubbock, Texas and Potsdam, New York. The dance is a conversation between a black woman and her hair, examining how black women are socialized to value Eurocentric beauty standards. Featuring music by Mariah Carey and Just for Me Hair Care Relaxer and interviews with Imani James, Luisanna Marte Olivo, Andrea Kpelapauee, It’s All Good Hair confronts internalized racism and questions what wisdom the straightening processes erase. The discovery and (re)definition of "good hair" mirrors a black woman's self-discovery.
I am looking forward to sharing this program with audiences at Green Space, and I am so happy to have been involved in the studio in so many ways over the years.