Within tragedy lies the serpent of creation and Private Inventory or No Health Insurance

April 8, 2019, Staten Island, NY— Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden is excited to present two exciting new dance performances as part of the spring 2019 PASS (Performing Arts Salon Saturdays) series.  Within tragedy lies the serpent of creation will be performed by Anjoli Chadha on Saturday, April 13, and Private Inventory or No Health Insurancewill be performed by Londs Reuter and collaborators on Saturday, May 18. Both performances were developed during artist residencies at Snug Harbor’s historic grounds.

“This season of PASS gets at the heart of the collaborative spirit,” says Melissa West, Snug Harbor’s VP of Curation. “Anjoli Chadha’s Within tragedy lies the serpent of creation explores identity through an interdisciplinary approach – dance, visual art, and performance. Londs Reuter’s work is grounded in movement while intersecting with disability studies. Both artists challenge cultural norms around the body and ability while conjuring new possibilities. Each are partaking in a collaborative process within their communities to explore these ideas.”

“Sadness is a wicked serpent coiled up in the dark. It can kill itself with its own venom and also, crawl, stretch, climb, sway, dance, shed skin, and transform. Is suffering a harborer of our creative powers? Do we live in it on purpose?”  Anjoli Chadha’s performance asks these questions of herself and the audience, inspired by the personal stories and everyday suffering of her community and neighbors.  Her performances evokes contemplation of not just why we suffer, but how some of us choose to stay in suffering.

“During this process of dance making, what’s come alive in my consciousness are the topics of identity, freedom, authentic nature, and allowing intuitive listening to be the primary tool for making decisions,” says Chadha of her piece. “By diving into a consciously creative process with others, we are able to see all shades of the Self: beautiful and unpleasant. Dance makes us better people. Having residency and studio space in this historic place reminds me that I am creating for this community. We all need a creative expression whether we see art as valuable or not.”

Chadha’s multidisciplinary piece features herself as performer, choreographer, and co-set designer, with Charlotte Hendrickson as the second performer.  Si Golraine is co-set designer and created site-specific paintings as an accent to the performance.  Makeup design is by Erica Chadha.

Anjoli Chadha created Sentient Dance Project in 2016 in which she facilitates emotional healing work for individuals through movement, dance and verbal expression. She has a Master’s degree from Pratt institute’s Dance/Movement Therapy program. Her thesis explored the technique of Authentic Movement and how it informs the choreographer’s process. She continues to offer this work in Staten Island.

Chadha was born in Brooklyn and raised in India. She started performing in India with cabaret band Emperor Minge, as the dancing member of the band. Since then she’s trained in martial arts like kalaripayattu and capoeira, ballet and more recently Samba.  Her research in capoeira and samba had recently taken her to Brazil. She is interested in the topic of archetypes (warrior and seductress) and how summoning the energies of different archetypes into the body empowers the individual spiritually and psychologically.  She continues to collaborate with local artists in all boroughs in the works of Z Griss, (Embody More Love), Seanna Sharpe (Urban Circus NYC), and Andre M Zachery (Renegade Performance Group), among others.

Created and performed by Londs Reuter and friends, Private Inventory or No Health Insurance is a thinking, moving, and writing-it-down practice that looks more at what choreographs us than what we choreograph. Private Inventory attempts to translate non-verbal, embodied self-knowledge acquired through dancing into written record. From movement practices, we generate writings, surveys, anecdotes, and charts to map out the particularities and generalities of a dancing body. Private Inventory or No Health Insurance assumes that there is no normative body and that we’re all carving out unique ways of moving through the world at all times. 

Says Reuter of her piece, “After enjoying the delights of Snug Harbor while in residence with other choreographers, I am thrilled to now bring my own work to this space. My current dance practice Private Inventory or No Health Insurance makes the somatic claim that there is no “right” or “standard” or “natural” body. I am curious and excited to place this practice among a natural environment and see what shifts or frictions or possibilities may occur.”

“I make choreography to suggest a proximal future. A future where family is a fluid term, eye contact does not imply attention, and unison can be felt instead of seen. A future where disability is neither a strength nor weakness—it is choreographic material and we all have it. Much of my choreography is motivated by a life lived within and adjacent to disability.  I make dances to look at myself. I create choreography to situate my body within the systems I’ve inherited (family, nationality, race, disability). Dancing gives me tools to reconceive of the world I embody. Moreover, dance allows me to unlearn dominant culture and instead create platforms to showcase the mundane, virtuosic, and sublimely weird every-day.”

Lindsay Londs Reuter (born 1988) is a dancer and dance-maker based in Brooklyn, New York. Her choreographic work places privacy in public performance, to examine the everyday. Reuter recomposes, restages, and reimagines lived moments, often addressing questions of bravery, authorship, and family.

Reuter has received support from New York Live Arts (Fresh Tracks 2014-2015), Danspace Project (Food for Thought), and Movement Research at the Judson Church. She has been in residence at Ponderosa (Queeries Residency) and the Space on Ryder Farm.

As a dancer, Reuter has worked with Katy Pyle/the Ballez, Marissa Perel, and Will Rawls. Currently, she dances for Sarah Rosner with the A.O. Movement Collective and Jillian Sweeney. Reuter’s community choreography seeks to create conditions for individuals to be present with creative thought. She runs the Access Programs at the Brooklyn Museum, helped build and program the Brooklyn Studios for Dance, co-organizes CLASSCLASSCLASS, and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Disability Studies from the City University of New York.

Both PASS performances were developed in part through a residency at Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden.  Wheelchair users and attendees with mobility difficulties should enter at Shinbone Alley and take the elevator to the 2nd floor. PASS is supported in part by public funding through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

ABOUT SNUG HARBOR CULTURAL CENTER & BOTANICAL GARDEN

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden’s historic 83-acre campus is one of the largest ongoing adaptive reuse projects in America, with 28 structures, 14 unique botanical gardens, 10 acres of wetlands, and a two-acre urban farm. Our mission is to provide a vibrant, regional cultural destination that offers dynamic programming in the arts, education, horticulture, agriculture, and recreation for diverse cultures and all ages while ensuring a well-managed campus for all residents of Staten Island and surrounding communities. Snug Harbor is a proud Smithsonian Affiliate. Learn more about Snug Harbor at snug-harbor.org.

Download: Press Release (PDF) | Within tragedy… image | Private Inventory… image  
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