Gathering: New York City is part staged work, part improvisational score, utilizing technology, storytelling, sound design and play to examine what brings people together in celebration, conflict, protest and sport.
WHEN: April 29 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
WHERE: Snug Harbor Dance Center, Studio G201 (Building G)
ADMISSION: FREE
Suggested donation to support the arts at Snug Harbor: $10
Produced and performed by Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre and directed/choreographed by Samar Haddad King, the work is inspired by King’s experience as a Palestinian of the diaspora – an identity simultaneously defined by cultural and political acts of convening, and the fragmentation of a scattered refugee community. In this new site-based work, King asks why and how we gather, and when we choose to act alone or as a group.
Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT), founded in NYC in 2005 by Artistic Director Samar Haddad King and based between NYC and Palestine since 2011, operates under the belief that art should be liberating, transformative, and accessible to all. Their repertoire of 30+ original works – performed in 12 countries on 4 continents – unites diverse artists and audiences in a creative process that draws upon original choreography, text, sound, and video for theaters, non-traditional spaces, installation works, and site specific events. In NYC, YSDT has performed at the Downtown Dance Festival, Joyce SoHo, Harlem Stage, Gibney, Queens Museum, Teatro LATEA, among others, and has held residencies at Baryshnikov Arts Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Tribeca Performing Arts Center and the Queens Museum. Samar Haddad King, Artistic/Founding Director of YSDT, graduated from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in NYC under the tutelage of Kazuko Hirabayashi. King’s work has been commissioned throughout the US and abroad by Hubbard Street 2 (Chicago); Palest’In and Out Festival (Paris); Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival (Ramallah); Good Chance Theatre (France) and others. She was a 2019/20 Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and a 2021 Toulmin Creator (CBA/National Sawdust) and frequently lectures on her transnational, cross-disciplinary work.
This project is supported in part by the Brooklyn Arts Council, CUNY Dance Initiative through the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Howard Gilman Foundation, MAP Fund, National Endowment for the Arts and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
This event is presented in partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative through our PASS: Performing Arts Salon residency program. PASS is made possible in part through the generous support of the Howard Gilman Foundation, with additional support is provided by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) receives major support from the Howard Gilman Foundation and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. CDI is part of Dance/NYC’s New York City Dance Rehearsal Space Subsidy Program, made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
