Pandemic Update

Yes, we're still here, although it is over a year and counting since we, like all other NYC dance companies, were forced to shut down our in-person activities, due to Covid-19. But we're still involved in educational activities online (see our Schedule page for up-to-date information). We'll be back onstage as soon as we are able.

Happy 45th Anniversary FLDT!

Tonight, June 27th, is the 45th Anniversary of our very first performance at the American Theater Laboratory (now NYLiveArts). And while we celebrate that significant milestone, attention must also be paid to the vitally important and troubling issues confronting our country. FLDT is deeply saddened by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many others, and by the fact that injustice for the Black community remains to this day. We stand with people of color in the fight for racial equality, and continue to aspire towards making a country where there will be freedom and justice for all.

As we keep moving ahead with our new work TRAP IST, I should mention that it includes aspects of the shameful history of slavery in the United States. (Artificial Intelligence enslaves humans on a far-away planet, using these slaves to colonize it. But ultimately there is a rebellion, that references both the development of tap dance on slave ships en route to the Americas, and the 1739 Stono Slave Insurrection.)

As you already know, since theaters will remain closed in New York for the foreseeable future due to Covid-19, we won't be able to premiere TRAP IST this year, as planned. Thanks to the generosity and understanding of the staff at LMCC, our Creative Engagement Program Grant will be extended until a time when our dancers can rehearse and perform -- and our audience can attend -- live theatrical works safely again. And for this, we are truly grateful.

So what do we do in the meantime? Instead of a live performance, we will begin our 45th anniversary year with short video screenings from our repertoire over the next few months. We will open tonight with a "flash performance" on our anniversary, starting at 8 pm (5 pm Pacific) with three very short excerpts from our 2017 work, LIGHTNING (music by Slovenian composer, Borut Krzisnik). LIGHTNING confronts racism, gender, immigration, and other issues central to our country's current dialogue. Tonight's flash performance will open with the duet, "Black Lives Matter" -- danced by Katherine Files and Acée Francis Laird, followed by an excerpt from "Memory Prism" danced by Dona Wiley & Chihwan Kim (seen here at its preview performance at the 2016 Booking Dance NY Festival), and will close with an excerpt from "Funeral March" (filmed at the "Post-It" note wall in the Union Square subway station shortly after the 2016 Presidential election). The total running time of this entire flash performance is 4 minutes, and it will remain available for viewing in our permanent video collection.

We'll follow this showing with other sections of LIGHTNING and many of our older works throughout the summer. To access these "instant" performances as we post them, please keep visiting our website, on Saturday nights at 8, where you will find links to the works -- on our page marked VIDEOS. (The links will remain active for four hours until midnight.)

As we wait out the Covid-19 crisis, we will also be planning our free, online, 45th Anniversary Party (to be held as soon after Labor Day as possible). Stay well and safe, and we hope to see you at our virtual party! 

TRAP IST (COVID-19 Update)

The following is from our April FLDT newsletter. (Should you wish to be added to our company's email list, please send us an email with your contact information via our CONTACT page.)

This certainly isn't the newsletter I thought I'd be writing this month. I had planned on showing you some video of my collaboration with Jonathan Burkhardt, and wanted to introduce you to some short samples from the music we'll be using. But can you believe it? Just when it finally looked like "full speed ahead" for TRAP IST, we were hit with Covid-19!

Even for those of us in the dance field who are constantly barraged by meteor showers of unexpected obstacles, this was one that went way beyond anything we've ever dealt with -- or anticipated.

While as recently as a month ago we were charging ahead (having just been awarded our first grant from LMCC), we now find ourselves in this very unexpected and unwanted state of limbo. The logistics have become daunting! Will grants and residencies for this year be cancelled, and the grantees made to reapply? Or will funders extend the time we have to complete the projects? Will the theater in which we wish to perform -- forced to cancel its current season -- have such a huge backlog of shows once it reopens, that our own premiere will be pushed back months, or even years? (Not to mention the looming question of whether or not audiences will even want to attend live dance/theater anymore, having become accustomed to accessing it online.)

I was planning on beginning work on the choreography this month, but obviously that didn't happen, as all the dance studios are closed, and the dancers (and I) are trying to keep in some sort of shape by doing our barres (on 3 foot square pieces of dance flooring placed on top of the hard floors of our small apartments), as we practice social distancing. We long for the time (how many months in the future we don't know), when we can meet again safely in dance studios, and work in very close physical proximity to each other, without the fear of becoming seriously ill -- or worse.

So in addition to the basic challenges of just staying alive and staying put in very small spaces, there are many issues we'll have to face. While we're champing at the bit to get going, everything has been put on hold for the forseeable future, along with the rest of our lives. That is not to say this is all coming to a halt. NOT AT ALL! The one big advantage of having a very small non-profit organization is that we can be incredibly nimble. We will never shut down as long as I can sit at a computer -- or for that matter -- just think. Artists are used to long periods of isolation and working alone, so actually the creative work routine now isn't that much different from what it usually is. And thanks to technology, collaborations can be carried out online. Jonathan and I have been meeting via ZOOM; I've already received music files from several of the composers, and the others -- writing new music for the score -- will begin teleconferencing with me soon. As mentioned above, the choreography will now, by necessity, come last, though ideas are forming in my head all the time. So our plans are on track for TRAP IST (in fact maybe a little ahead of where they would have been -- had we not been confined to our homes with plenty of time on our hands).

I suppose the silver lining, if there is one, might be the chance to draw from our horrific present to enrich the work. (How would that change the characters? The plot?)

Eventually we'll all find a way out of this utter chaos, move beyond our current common struggle, and at that time TRAP IST will be premiered. In the meantime we'll send you updates when there's something to report, but please forgive me if they don't arrive on their regular schedule. At the rate things seem to be moving, who knows what will happen next week, let alone next month or several months from now.

I'm also not going to ask you for a contribution to our company right now. You've got more than enough to cope with, and there are those who need your help more at this point just to get through the crisis. I am fully aware that talking about the struggles to keep going with TRAP IST pale before your own daily efforts to stay positive, sane, and alive in this terrible time.

I look forward to the day when this will all end and we'll be able to resume our normal lives -- and our journey together to the planet, Trappist 4. Until then, please remain healthy and safe!

All the best,

Felice

© 2020 Felice Lesser

All Rights Reserved

The Aftermath

Above l-r: Ezlimar Dortolina and Jose Edwin Gonzalez against a background of video in FUNDING THE ARTS.

So how did it all turn out? 

The direct feedback from the audience and from the people who attended our "Meet the Artist" events was extremely positive, and it's very encouraging and satisfying to hear comments from strangers like those I heard. And we received a very nice review on Eyeondance.com. (You can read it via a link on our PRESS page, as well as see clips from the work on YouTube via a link on our VIDEO page.) But as Oscar Wilde said, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." And that was surely the case here.  I wish THE NEW YORK TIMES had come and reviewed the work. But unfortunately the TIMES critic never arrived. A TIMES photographer was sent to our Dress Rehearsal on Tuesday, and a dance critic was scheduled to review Wednesday’s Opening Night, but at the very last minute, the critic e-mailed to say she would not be attending due to financial cutbacks at the paper (so ironic and in a sense so very apt in terms of the subject matter of the piece). And without the "buzz" that a review in THE TIMES garners, our audiences remained smaller than I would have liked during the remainder of our run. I’m reminded of the scene in FUNDING THE ARTS where Lu and Robby finish a brilliant performance, and hear no applause. Robby remarks that instead of coming out to see them – the world’s greatest ballet dancers – performing live, people are all at home watching "Dancing With The Stars."  Lu responds, “But this IS Dancing With The Stars.” Which brings us to the subject of whether or not we are now witnessing the beginning of the end of live performances as we know them. Will the same technology that allows a small dance company to mount such an ambitious production ultimately be the thing that kills off live theater? Will interactive performances replace the traditional way of actors performing in front of an audience? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the arts develop in the next decade to find out.

I did learn a lot by bringing FUNDING THE ARTS to the stage. I think the most important lesson was that if you want -- if you need -- to do something, you must just go out and do it. Do it yourself. Do it any way you can. Don't let the fact that you don't have the resources you'd ideally like, stop you. When I first began work on this project I approached some well-known cartoon animators and asked them if they'd participate. They said, "This kind of work will cost you $5000 -- per minute!" (Being that the work was a ninety-minute piece... well, you do the math...) Obviously, at that point I was forced to find another way to realize the animation component of the project, so I went off on a tangent into animation, which I never would have done, had the animators simply said "yes." So don't let anything or anyone stop you. If you have to do it, you will find a way. -- Felice Lesser

The Performances

Producing this work was a huge artistic achievement for our company. With our largest cast ever (15 performers – eleven live, and four on video), a full-length script, live dance, video, and computer animation, we presented six performances at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Following three of the performances were "Meet the Artist" events (sponsored by the Experimental Television Center), and a 35th Anniversary Party was held on Saturday night. Foundation/corporate contributors included The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Puffin Foundation, Freed of London, the Rebecca H. Rawson Charitable Trust, and others. 

Above l-r: Robin Gilbert, Djassi DaCosta Johnson, Mark Peters, Debra Zalkind, Erin Ginn, Ezlimar Dortolina, Victor Oniel Gonzalez against a background of animated dancers created with Life Forms.

Above l-r: Ezlimar Dortolina, Mark Peters, Jose Edwin Gonzalez, Erin Ginn, Rebecca Whittington (and a background of Life Forms animations)

Above l-r: Charles Hinshaw (on floor), Ezlimar Dortolina, Jose Edwin Gonzalez, Mark Peters, Debra Zalkind (with a background drawn with Motion)