Dear Friends,

We are winding up an extraordinarily busy summer and most of us will take a break in the last two weeks of August. I want to take a moment and acknowledge the BAX staff, the summer staff including School Breaks Director Andrew Jannetti and all the summer space grantees who have been creating work here over the past 2 1/2 months. I also want to acknowledge the search committee on our Board of Directors who has been working above and beyond to identify a new Executive Artistic Director.

Whew we made it!!! See ya in September.

http://bessies.org/2018-nominees/

BAX ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE RECEIVE AWARDS, NOMINATIONS, AND MENTIONS

The New York Dance & Performance Awards (aka The Bessie’s) selected Mariana Valencia (BAX AIR 2016-18) to receive the 2018 OUTSTANDING “BREAKOUT” CHOREOGRAPHER.  "For seamlessly blending ethnography, memoir, and observation of cross-cultural identities in choreography that engages from start to finish. For a unique vision that uses humor and sadness, reality and imagination, to push dance and performance into new territory.”

Marjani Forté-Saunders (BAX AIR 2012-14) and sponsored artist/project) received a nomination for OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION for “Memoirs of a … Unicorn”.

Nami Yamamoto (BAX AIR and first Parent Artist Grantee) received a nomination for OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION for “Headless Wolf”.

Courtney Cook was nominated for OUTSTANDING PERFORMER for her sustained achievement with Urban Bush Women, Maria Bauman (current BAX AIR), and Marguerite Hemmings.

Kaneza Schaal was nominated for OUTSTANDING PERFORMER in "Petra" choreographed by Dean Moss (BAX AIR 1995-98).

We often talk about BAX as a home. This summer I sat down with intern Nasrene Haj and that’s the word she kept using for what she has at BAX and what she has sought and compared her experiences to since she graduated in 2007. So what is this home and why is it important?

An artistic home can mean a center whose aesthetic values are shared by the people who make new dances or plays or the audiences who come to see them. In a series of snapshots, I want to describe to you a home based on a different kind of value. It is a home for small and large successes but also wrong directions, mistakes, starting over. Home to try something new or do it in a different way.

SNAPSHOTS

Board of Directors meeting September 2011, AIR Dan Fishback performs a short excerpt from his new play THIRTYNOTHING. A parent of a BAX sudent, who calls BAX home, gets a glimpse of the home that has supported and nurtured this new work.

Third floor accidental meeting between a space grant artist, a graduate, and a BAX parent who is also a choreographer. What are you working on? Excitement about the new floor in studio C. “It’s my favorite studio” shared by three different family members.

My walk home down Sixth Avenue last week. I stop to say hello to a BAX student who is a member of BAXco. How was the start of school I ask – “fine… but I can’t wait until MY COMPANY (BAXco) starts rehearsals again. I feel so ready.” HOME.

My meeting with two lesbian lawyers to plan BAX’s free workshop in October to discuss the impact of New York’s SAME SEX MARRIAGE legislation. After an hour of discussion about framing the conversation to include the impact to both couples who have been deeply committed for many decades without the legislation, younger couples and a wide range of economic, political and practical implications, we just arrive at the point of our conversation — we are talking about LOVE.

All of these snapshots and many more are part of a home called BAX.

Too many performances (not really). I haven’t figured out how to be at BAX, Dixon Place, Chocolate Factory and Incubator Arts all at the same time. But there are some great opportunities to see work coming up at BAX.

Join us on November 30 and December 1 to see four of our Space Grant artists show new work (for details go to our website). One of them, Nadia Tykulsker, is a graduate of BAX, took classes here from the time she was very young, was a member of our BAXco teenage dance company, and has served as a Youthworks coach. She is now one of two of our first Alumni Space Grantees (the other is Emma Grace Skove-Epes). Another alumni, Jesse Phillips-Fein, is a Board member, and alumni Rachel Lane is a guest faculty member. BAX is so proud to have them be part of our growing alumni family.

Or…join us December 14 and 15 for the Upstart Festival featuring choreographers new to NYC (three years or less) including staff and faculty: Amanda Hinchey, Erin Cairns Cella and Christiana Axelsen.

Start checking our website regularly, the performance season is heating up and you are invited to join us!

This is the resident artist season. Several panels have or will meet this spring to select the first Teaching Artist in Residence (TAIR) at BAX our new Space grantees and finally new Artists in Residence (AIR). The panels are an opportunity to reflect on the value of these programs, learn about new artists and try to make the best decisions on our choices. It leaves so many artists, however, without being selected and it is those I am thinking about this morning.

Selections are so difficult. There is no one, or at least with very few exceptions who wouldn’t benefit from the kind of time, space, access and financial support these residencies provide. In reading, watching work samples and then meeting and making choices we try to keep many things in mind. The first is trying to understand who the applicant is, what their current passion or project is and how they practice thinking about and creating wok. By doing this we try to decide who is at a point to make best use of the resources provided and who will become more of who they are already by making BAX their artistic home. This is hard to unearth and hard to decide. We disappoint lot of people. There are artists who apply multiple years and sometimes we ask ourselves the question “if not now, when?” But ultimately there are too few opportunities for too many talented people and I wish it was different.

This is also the season of showing the work created. Please come and see the work of our current AIR’s, our advanced students, and when you’re here stop by and say hello.