Tag: Dance

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Culture Dining Featured NYC

Fall Festa with Eataly Downtown

Fall with Eataly Downtown

Fall is in the air and let’s get ready for all the festivities at Eataly Downtown, begin!

As the temperature begins to drop and the leaves change color, we’re welcoming the autumnal season with a Harvest Food & Wine Festa! Join Eataly on Friday, October 22nd from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Eataly Downtown as they celebrate the bountiful fall season all’Italiana.

Showcasing more than 20+ wines from various regions of Italy, their Festa will be centered in the heart of their stunning marketplace where you can eat, drink, dance, and learn directly from Eataly’s producers and experts. Enjoy live music while you sip along and indulge in a selection of authentic Italian bites. From fresh pasta and savory paninis to housemade cannoli, this Festa is the perfect way to celebrate the end of the season – get your tickets now!
Fall Festa with Eataly Downtown
Note: this is an in-person event, and tickets will be limited allowing more space for social distancing. Proof of vaccination is required to attend this event.

 

It’s simple – 

1. GET YOUR TICKETS

These events sell out quickly, so be sure to buy your tickets online in order to secure your spot. All-access bracelets are $75.

2. PICK UP YOUR ALL-ACCESS BRACELET

On the day of the event, you will receive an all-access bracelet at check-in, which will allow you to explore the various stations located throughout our marketplace. Early check-in will open on their second-floor landing at 5 p.m.

3. TASTE AWAY

There is no limit – taste as many dishes, wines, and cocktails as you’d like. If you like a particular dish or drink, go back for more!

4. LEARN WITH EATALY’S EXPERTS

Curious to know more about a dish or wine you’re tasting? Just ask their many experts during the event. We believe the key to learning about food is tasting it, and there is no better place than one of our favorite Italian locations, Eataly Downtown.

 

 

Fall Festa with Eataly Downtown

 

This event takes place at Eataly NYC Downtown, located just steps away from the Oculus at 4 World Trade Center, 101 Liberty Street, Floor 3, New York, NY 10007. Questions? Contact us at 212.897.2895 or dt-privatedining@eataly.com.

Categories
Culture Entertainment Events NYC

Celebrating Diversity of Cultural Traditions NYC

Celebrating Diversity of Cultural Traditions NYC
Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels
Celebrating Diversity of Cultural Traditions NYC
Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD)

Song. Dance. Culture. Celebrating the diversity of cultural traditions in New York City, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD) is launching ​an online series, Beat of the Boroughs: NYC Online on Monday, November 16.

The series highlights the artistry of 54 of the City’s leading immigrant performers from around the world – but from right here at home in our five boroughs.

The artists include several National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Award winners. They represent traditions hail from Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Gambia, Haiti, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, Ukraine, and West Africa, among other areas.

“New York City’s traditional and folk artists have been particularly impacted by both the pandemic and the anti-immigrant political climate in our country. Amid the pandemic, many of these artists have structural impediments, including the digital divide and language barriers to access federal relief funds or private sources of funding,” CTMD Executive Director Peter Rushefsky said.

“It is imperative that we come together as a city to support and celebrate our immigrant communities. Beat of the Boroughs: NYC Online showcases the immense talents of our artists and further the public’s understanding and appreciation of their work during these trying times.”

CTMD has worked closely with dozens of diverse communities

Since its founding in 1968, CTMD has worked closely with dozens of diverse communities to create a number of ongoing art programs, festivals, and community-based cultural organizations. Each year, CTMD serves thousands of New Yorkers through programs that provide unique opportunities to experience and participate in the City’s rich cultural traditions.

Organizers hope the series will build more support for the artists and for CTMD, particularly as the nonprofit continues to highlight the artistic diversity within New York City. CTMD encourages donations at https://ctmd.org/donate/.

From Borough to Borough

The schedule kicks off with:

  • The Crimean Tatar Ensemble, of Brooklyn, with folk music and dance from the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine (Monday, November 16).
  • The Mencius Society with Xiao Xiannian and Julie Tay of Manhattan, with yangqin (hammered dulcimer) and Chinese percussion (Wednesday, November 18).
  • Sidiki Conde of Manhattan, with West African drumming and his sacred ancestral masks (Friday, November 20).
  • Malang Jobarteh and Salieu Suso of the Bronx, presenting on West African jali/griot traditions (Friday, November 27).

CTMD will highlight three artists or ensembles each week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Audiences can tune in on those days at 5:00 PM to CTMD’s YouTube channel, ​​ or Facebook page.

“Through workshops, lectures, demonstrations, and streamed live performances, a stellar cast of musicians and dancers presents their personal stories, remarkable traditions, and pandemic experiences,” Project Director and Staff Ethnomusicologist Andrew Colwell said. “Their voices serve as a powerful platform for continued advocacy for traditional arts in our city of immigrants.”

Beat of the Boroughs: NYC Online is made possible through the generosity of​ ​the New York Community Trust’s NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund and the Scherman Foundation.

Categories
Art Events Featured NYC Theater

The Color Iz – Dance, Creative Expression and Performance

The Color Iz at The Stone Wall
Photo credits: Christopher Jones Cindy Sibilsky
Dance is a form of expression, brings people of color, gender, age, and ethnicity together. One thing, I’ve always loved about dance is that there are no boundaries, no discrimination of any kind, it’s a forum like no other. Freeing oneself to feel the beat, hear the depth of the music and move to it. 

The New York Hustle Dance community saved me many years ago when I first came to New York City. They opened their arms, and hearts to me accepting me unconditionally. So when they come to me for a favor, I jump with pleasure!

by Abdiel Jacobsen
Kristine Bendul, Broadway veteran, and Abdiel Jacobsen, former Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, met through an incredible course of events in the world of Hustle dance. Although they both have extensive experience in their respective individual careers as performers – over 38 years combined – their partnership began on the social dance floor. 

It was love-at-first-dance and as dedicated members of the Hustle dance community, they decided to forge a new partnership committed to the cultural preservation and artistic evolution of Hustle.

Last year they co-founded  Trān-sēnd’Dæns, a Multi-Media Production and Talent Management Group, which produced their first production: The Color Iz conceived, directed and choreographed by Kristine and Abdiel. Premiered on August 14th, 2019 The Color Iz is a commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that gave birth to the Gay Rights Movement while celebrating diverse and inclusive artistic communities of NYC highlighting particularly The Stonewall Inn and Hustle dance.
Save Stone Wall Inn & The Color Iz
The Color Iz
Now the Stonewall Inn is under threat to close permanently due to financial constraints from COVID-19. Unknown to the mainstream, The Stonewall Inn has a second-floor space that is also a place for artists of the LGBTQ+ community of all experiences to come together in creative expression and performance. Kristine and Abdiel wish to use their artistic voices to advocate the importance of this welcoming creative space and its preservation as a national historic landmark.
Save Stone Wall Inn & The Color Iz
Photo credits, Christopher Jones, Cindy Sibilsky
Inspired to help, they decided to offer an online virtual reimagining of The Color Iz for its year anniversary to be streamed on Friday, August 14th at 9 pm EST as a fundraising event to support The Stonewall Inn.
Save Stone Wall Inn & The Color Iz
Photo credits, Christopher Jones, Cindy Sibilsky
Our team at Downtown and all of the Dance Community ask for your help. Please support, every penny counts. Grace A. Capobianco
100% of the donations will go to the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI).
Donate to view HERE:gf.me/u/yg6m2j

 

Once you have donated you will receive a link to view the online event on Friday, August 14th at 9 pm EST.

In addition, you will be sent a separate Zoom link to join the closing online dance party right after the performance hosted by the one and only DJ Jamal Rigault.

Save Stone Wall Inn & The Color Iz
Photo credits, Christopher Jones, Cindy Sibilsky
 
Cast:
Kristine Bendul
Elizabeth Darchi
Coral Dolphin
Abdiel Jacobsen
Tomás Matos
Mihoko Ninomiya
Greg Osei
Joseph Prestamo
Waldemar Quionnes-Villanueva
Sal Rentas
Smitty Smith
Joana Matos
 
Social media:
Kristine and Abdiel: kristine_abdiel
Kristine Bendul: IG @kbendulny | FB Kristine Bendul
Abdiel Jacobsen: IG @abdielcedric | FB Abdiel Cedric Jacobsen
Trān-sēnd’Dæns: IG @transenddaens | Trān-sēnd’Dæns
Company Website: https://www.transenddaens.com/
 
Categories
Culture Featured Theater

What Bloody Man Is That?

What Bloody Man Is This?
Photograph courtesy of The McKittrick Hotel

The McKittrick Hotel’s flagship production, Sleep No More, has spent the last few years gaining fame and notoriety for its witchy mystique. It takes Shakespeare’s Macbeth and passes it through dreamlike noir to create a thrilling modern dance experience unlike any other. Masked guests follow actors through a six-story building like silent spirits as Shakespeare’s tragedy unfolds simultaneously across the building. It is a feat of performance, but also of engineering, costuming, choreography, and design. As Sleep No More announces an expansion through September 13th, Downtown got a chance to speak with Maxine Doyle from Punchdrunk UK, the Co-Director and Choreographer for Sleep No More, about the origins of the ghostly play. 

Sleep No More
Performer Robin Roemer. Photo courtesy of The McKittrick Hotel.

Origins

Sleep No More came from humble origins: a small production in 2003 inside an old victorian boys school. The cast was only 10 people for the 10-night performance, splitting 40 people between less than a dozen rooms. 

The original idea, Doyle says, came from Artistic Director Felix Barrett’s love of Bernard Herbert’s soundtracks to Alfred Hitchcock films, and the way that Hitchcock marries the aesthetic of noir with the kind of psychology that you can see in Macbeth. “I think it was a text we both really loved in terms of its characters and we looked more at the sort of domestic human absences of the play–the themes of ambition and guilt and particularly the sort of dramatic, codependent relationship between Macbeth and lady Macbeth. And then, of course, the really interesting sort of layer of the supernatural.”

After the close of the initial run of SNM, Punchdrunk crossed the pond for another, longer showing in Boston, Massachusetts, at the American Repertory Theater. The show ran there for four months, from October, 2009 until February 2010. By that time, Punchdrunk UK had turned its eyes to NYC. 

Punchdrunk did not build the McKittrick Hotel. According to Doyle, the site had been empty for several years following its occupation by various nightclubs of “dubious” repute. But the building’s shady reputation and open space finally allowed Sleep No More to stretch its legs. 

Sleep No More
Photo courtesy of The McKittrick Hotel

The Labor We Delight In

The current iteration of Sleep No More, which began in 2011, features approximately 25 actors and dancers. The shows run for three hours apiece, with every scene except for the beginning and the end being performed three times during each run. Each of these performances is done without breaks for any of the performers. “It’s the relationship of the audience with the performer that is very specific within this sort of form,” says Doyle, “the audience can follow a performer all the way through, they could stick with one performer if they wanted to for three hours.” In fact, doing so increases your chance of being pulled in for a one-on-one, where a performer takes a single audience member away from the rest for a scene performed for them alone. “The idea is that you need to feel like these characters live in this building–that there isn’t any beginning and there isn’t any end. And, and there’s a sort of hypnotic drive of this loop, almost a sort of purgatorial structure that the characters find themselves within.”

Casting for Sleep No More is rigorous. Most of the cast turns over every six months, and auditions can mean 1000 auditions for five roles during a two-week period. Once selected, a performer goes through eight weeks of training, learning two different roles in the cast. They will go through classes in body conditioning, contemporary dance, and yoga, but also through a kind of intellectual training. They read through the original play, of course, but also theories surrounding the play, and works by Hitchcock and David Lynch whose works are heavy influences.  

If you have seen the show, you know that parts of the performance can be brutal on the body (a scene with a man performing with his head on a table and his feet on the ceiling comes to mind), and so all performers must be prepared to perform perfectly under that strain. Sometimes twice. “I would say 85% of the company are dancers. I would sort of call them dance actors, but their training, instinct, physicality skill, comes from a sort of contemporary dance background.”

If you haven’t seen Sleep No More, now is your chance. Check here for dates and times for shows, and experience one of the most unique shows you can see in NYC. 

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Categories
Culture Featured Theater

Review: Days Go By, an innovative dance performance at Brookfield Place

Days Go By

by Fernanda Mueller

Days Go By
Photo credit Fernanda Mueller

Our life is speeding up. We are always in a rush. Focused on the destination, without paying attention on the way. Sometimes, we just need to stop for a minute to look at what is around us. Be present. This is the concept of the dance performance, created by Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri, Days Go By – to bring the beauty of dance and music to our everyday life.

Monica Bill Barnes & Company is known for its innovative performances, like Happy Hour, a dance show turned into an after-work office party and The Museum Workout, a choreographed exercise tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This time, the contemporary dance company blurs reality with the theatrical in its new performance that takes place at Brookfield Place‘s Winter Garden.

The audience is accommodated on the steps of the public atrium and wears headphones for listening to the narration and the music. During this 1 hour show, the narrator, with a sense of humor, invites the audience to pay attention to people that walk through the public space. Dancers and common people are mixed up. Sometimes it is hard to know if the narrator is talking about a member of the show or just someone who happens to be passing by – it’s even funny to see their reaction, trying to understand what’s going on.

The mixture of dance and narration makes the show even more interesting. You don’t have to be a dance expert to enjoy the performance. It’s compelling, funny and innovative! A completely different way to enjoy dancing and getting out of the bubble we live in.

Days Go By, presented by Arts Brookfield, takes place at Brookfield Place’s Winter Garden at 7:00 pm from October 3rd to October 6th. Admission is free.

Categories
Culture Featured Theater

Downtown Q&A: Mickela Mallozzi

MICKELA MALLOZZI Emmy award-winning host and executive producer of Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi, a travel series highlighting the diversity of dance.

1.Name three women that inspire you, and tell us why.

My older sister, Adriana Mallozzi. Though she was born with cerebral palsy and cannot hold a pencil in her hand herself, she was the first to teach me how to read and write when I was three years old. She is a living example of overcoming innumerable obstacles, proving so many people wrong, and succeeding in everything she does. She’s a brilliant power house in the tech world, and we complement each other. She inspires me to give 100% in everything I do because she does exactly that.

Michelle Obama. She is such a guiding light, full of grace, and of course, I LOVE that she LOVES to dance!

My mother, Antoinette Mallozzi. She and my father have really guided my sister and I to follow our true paths, and I’m grateful for that.  I’m also grateful for her planting the love of travel in me; she was a travel agent when I was a kid, and I used to flip through all of the travel brochures under her desk. I would always daydream of flying on those big planes!

2. What has been the secret to your success?

I have stayed true to my own voice. When I started Bare Feet nine years ago, I wanted to tell stories through dance and music from around the world.  I never wavered from that message, even when people in the TV industry would tell me that I had to change my focus. I knew and trusted my voice. Understanding that through dance and music, I could truly connect with people, and I stuck with it.  I’m glad I did because I can attribute most of my success to that stubbornness of having laser-like focus on my brand.

3. If you were going to pass on one piece of advice to a young woman, what would it be?

Do not compare your successes with others around you. Different levels of success are so varied and so personal. Yes, of course, monetary value is one way to measure success, but just remember that it takes anywhere from 5-10 years for a small business to make a profit. Be patient with yourself and your work, be generous with giving yourself praise for the small and minute successes that you make along the way—they absolutely count and in the end, they add up to so much! I still have to remind myself of this.

4. In the fight for equality, what area do you think needs the most attention?

I’m not a mother, but there has to be change in perception and policy for working mothers and all mothers. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean Inagenda is proving to be unattainable and completely blind of the very real obstacles that working women face today from all socio and economic backgrounds. We can’t do it all, and that’s OK, but there has to be a change in the perception and policy around motherhood and working moms. It takes a village, and that includes paid maternity leave, affordable healthcare, affordable childcare, and equal pay. This has to be made available to ALL women.

5. What are you most proud of in your career?

I recently won my fourth Emmy® award. It was the second time I won for Best On-Camera Talent, but for some reason, it was the very first time that I felt that I had actually deserved the win.  Imposter Syndrome is very real, and by win #4, I felt that I had finally earned the statuette for my years of hard work; I honestly believed the last three wins were an oversight on the Academy’s part. I also reminded myself of all of the male executive producers and TV industry heads who told me I would never be the host of my own TV show.  So, in my acceptance speech, I dedicated my last Emmy to them for giving me the drive and determination to prove them all wrong.

6. Where do you get your confidence?

I don’t believe in the “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality, but I do believe in being as vulnerable as possible so you learn to become an expert in your field.  When I started this journey nine years ago, I didn’t know anything about TV, TV production, hosting, producing a series, NOTHING!  But I didn’t pretend I did. I would continuously surround myself with people who DID know about these things, and I was a sponge around them. I never wanted to be the smartest person in the room, and I still don’t. Now, I have the confidence because I actually understand my value. I know the ins and outs of my industry, and I’m still learning something every day from people who I admire and trust.

7. What makes a woman beautiful?

Her truth.  I hate when anyone is trying to “BS” me; I cannot stand fake or ingenuine people.  When someone is real, speaking their truth, and not trying to give you the answer they think you want to hear, that’s when they are the most beautiful—woman or man.

8. What gives you joy?

That’s an easy one—dancing!  Dancing gives me the most joy, and the act of dancing with strangers inspired me to change my entire career and start this incredible journey of experiencing the world one dance at a time through Bare Feet!