April 18, 2008

To celebrate the purchase of new lighting, sound, and video equipment for the Chocolate Factory, we did a photo op with some of the good folks who funded it. Pictured (in no particular order): Councilman Eric N. Gioia; Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin; Jennifer Manley, the Queens Director of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit; Roel Van Der Kooi from the office of Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan; and yours truly. Photos courtesy of William Alatriste.

Gia Kourlas - Time Out NY, April 16, 2008

As its manifesto states, "AUNTS is about having dance happen." Founded by Jmy Leary and Rebecca Brooks, the free-spirited collaborative creates opportunities for performance in unlikely places, resulting in moments that can last five seconds or five hours.

This weekend at the Chocolate Factory, the group takes a slightly more conventional route with "Team One by AUNTS," a show of three artists selected by a 24-member curatorial team. The three contenders were chosen at a lengthy meeting on February 17: Bradlee Hicks, currently pursuing his M.F.A. in sculpture at Yale University; Kenta Nagai, a sound and visual artist; and Ishmael Houston-Jones, a remarkable dance improviser from the '80s and '90s whose performances are all too rare nowadays.

And while wine will flow-the social aspect is just as important as the artistic one-the issue behind "Team One" is serious: Organizers Leary, 29, and Biba Bell, 31, are concerned about innovative dance curation. "I basically curate all the AUNTS stuff, and I just felt like my knowledge was limited," Leary says. "And that if my knowledge is limited then, of course, the people who are really presenting things-their knowledge is super limited in terms of what's out there. I feel like the curatorial process is so much behind closed doors, and I really don't understand why. I wanted to open it up."

Members of the AUNTS curatorial team�who simply responded to a mass e-mail invitation�were asked to show up at the Chocolate Factory with a nomination for at least one person, group or specific work; the meeting, which was videotaped and photographed, will be included in an installation portion of the performance. Attendees were asked to remain for the duration, until three artists were chosen; Leary and Bell served as moderators. Bell notes, "In a way, we saw the meeting as being a particular aspect of the performance."

For the pair, immediacy was also an intentional point: "I feel like the Next Wave Festival at BAM is curated four years in advance by people who sit in offices," Leary says. "Of course, people have their lives, but it's not really Next Wave! Another idea was to open up this process so that the curators would really be responsible for what they were representing. You can complain, but you don't often get the chance to even think about what you might want to see. And that was great. Everybody submitted their proposals and three were chosen, but everybody got to know so much more about what was out there."

Another incentive for action was the Performa biennial, which excluded New York choreographers in favor of European artists. "We were kind of just appalled by [curator] RoseLee Goldberg and her complete dismissal of a field," Leary says. "The people who are actually in New York weren't really represented at all." Bell adds, "But there's nothing wrong with a curator having an agenda. I feel that really exists in the visual-art world. How does a curator work to make an artistic moment occur? Not to say that we're aspiring to start a movement, but I got the sense that with all of the people who came to our meeting-and many didn't know each other-that there's a real fragmented, but also open community. To bring it together in conversation in unprecedented ways was really great."

The two women were actually surprised by the outcome of their experiment, especially the inclusion of Houston-Jones: "I thought that people would want to see more of their friends perform," Leary says. "Instead, it was apparent that they wanted to see their mentors. Ishmael represents a certain time; I've heard through the grapevine that he's going to present an old piece and have younger people do it, which will be awesome."

They were also pleased at just how easy the process was; Bell and Leary are considering more installments in the future. "It being so doable was encouraging," Leary says. "How you could just spend five hours with a group of people and figure it out. And so what if your person didn't get chosen? You still had a hand in the outcome."

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September 11 - October 4, 2008