MBDance will be in New York this summer with their concert GRACE IS HIGH AND LOW, as part of the Tisch Summer Residency Festival!
Maria Bauman and MBDance are premiering "Attend Me," an ode to love of all kinds between Black women, at the NYU Jack Crystal Theater on Thursday June 30, 2016. "Attend Me" is inspired by love poems from feminist writer Audre Lorde and the work was made possible in part by residencies with the CUNY Dance Initiative and the Tisch Dance Residency Festival. Special gue...
MBDance will be in New York this summer with their concert GRACE IS HIGH AND LOW, as part of the Tisch Summer Residency Festival!
Maria Bauman and MBDance are premiering "Attend Me," an ode to love of all kinds between Black women, at the NYU Jack Crystal Theater on Thursday June 30, 2016. "Attend Me" is inspired by love poems from feminist writer Audre Lorde and the work was made possible in part by residencies with the CUNY Dance Initiative and the Tisch Dance Residency Festival. Special guest performances by Oxana Chi, lauded German-Nigerian performing artist from Berlin, and other works by MBDance round out the evening.
TICKETS: MBDanceJune30.brownpapertickets.com
$18 (NYU Students Free/Other Students $12)
"Storied bodies, mythological bodies, bodies-in-creation, and bodies as manifestos...these are where I create from. I need muscles, beads of sweat, and exertion as well as surrender and softness to help bring a vision of beauty in to existence."
-Maria Bauman, Artistic Director MBDance
BIOS:
Choreographer/Artistic Director: MARIA BAUMAN is an artist and a community organizer. Maria Bauman founded MBDance in 2007, creating duets & small group dances from a sense of physical & emotional power, a desire for equity, and a fascination with intimacy & relationship. For that work, she has been honored by GO! Magazine as a “Woman at the Helm.” Described in the New York Times as “texturally rich in its gestural language, and beautifully performed…,” Bauman’s choreography employs both linear and circular narrative, drawing viewers in to address pressing social issues from multiple perspectives, and is also influenced by Bauman’s extensive study of capoeira, an African Brazilian vernacular movement form.
In New York, Bauman’s work has been showcased at Harlem Stage, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, Dixon Place, the Kumble Theater, SummerStage NYC, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), WOW Café Theater, BRICstudios, and DTW (now NY Live Arts). In addition, Bauman and MBDance have shared work across the U.S. and in Singapore.
Bauman has danced with Urban Bush Women, Nia Love/Blacksmith’s Daughter, Adele Myers and Dancers, Angela’s Pulse, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and jill sigman/thinkdance, and apprenticed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. She was with Urban Bush Women for eight seasons, originating several roles, and recently serving as Associate Artistic Director of that company.
Among other honors, she has received 2015 and 2014 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency Awards, 2012-13 and 2009-10 Harlem Stage Fund for New Work via The Jerome Foundation, and a 2010-11 Dance Theater Workshop Studio Series. She has been recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts as an Emerging Leader in the Arts.As a cultural organizer, Bauman has partnered with various kinds of groups to lift up important social issues and calls for justice via art. She has facilitated community engagement workshops for Chorus America, Ramapo College, Rider University, and has helped create cultural campaigns with various locals of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
She works closely with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond on Understanding and Undoing Racism workshops for arts communities, and is a WOW Café Theatre collective member (theater space by and for women and transgender artists). Bauman is a founding member of the Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts Working Group (NOCD-NY).
Guest Artist: OXANA CHI is a multi-talented performing artist who works as a dancer, choreographer, curator, festival organizer, filmmaker and publisher. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany of Eastern Nigerian and Eastern European descent and has been choreographing and performing her own pieces since 1991.
Her repertoire is comprised of 18 productions. As a solo dancer, she usually appears on stage with live-musicians who perform outstanding transcultural compositions specifically for her pieces. Her cutting-edge choreography has been praised in the international press for its aesthetic beauty and its ability to address the continuity between past and present sociopolitical issues.
Oxana has studied dance & movement in many parts of the world including: Berlin, Germany (Ballet with Yvonne Wendrig from China/Holland at Marameo Studio, Egyptian dance with Turkish dancer Zadiel Sasmaz); Solo, Indonesia (Classical Javanese Dance with special female dancer Endang Subono at Academy of the Arts STSI University and Taichi Kungfu with Abraham Soenarso); New York, USA (Judith Malina The Living Theatre, Merce Cunningham Studio, Susan Klein Studio) Pat Hall Afro-Caribbean Dance & Movement at Mark Morris Dance Studio; Paris, France (Ballet with Maestro Antonio from Argentina at Academie des Arts Choregraphiques, Cite Veron; and with Christine Kono from USA/Japan at Centre National de la Danse); Sydney, Australia (Ballet with Judy Rose from USA);
Taipei, Taiwan (Martial Arts with advanced female Master Azu Wu and Workshop at U-Theatre); Hong Kong (Qigong with Ma Wang Shang) and in discotheques in Egypt and Nigeria.
Drawing inspiration from her travels to 30 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, and America, she is also a self-taught artist who develops her own performing language transcultural fusion, which alternates between energetic sequences and soft moves in combining beautiful dance, dramatic expression, and poetic storytelling.