Saturday, March 2, 2013

The GIVE LOVE Dance Jam Recap

Thanks to all who came out and supported The GIVE LOVE Dance Jam this past Valentine's Day in collaboration with Gibney Dance, and in solidarity with the organization 1 Billion Rising. Lead by Camille A. Brown and Gibney Dance Company, this donation based event raised over $100 for Sanctuary for Families, the leading non-profit in New York State dedicated exclusively to serving domestic violence victims sex trafficking victims, and their children.



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Brooklyn Brewery Sponsors The Playground

A huge thanks to Brooklyn Brewery for sponsoring The Playground this year! Look out for some great beer at our next After Darks and events in 2013 :)

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Playground Spring Session

Some pics from Spring Session 2012 featuring Richard Siegal pics courtesy of Charlie Winter

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Since our last sessions, which were so successful and we want to thank all the amazing choreographers and dancers who came out, we have been working hard to take The Playground to the next level. We knew with the summer approaching, we wanted to come back with some special surprises, and give both the NYC community and all the visiting artists an amazing summer of play. This will mark our first official summer session and so far it's pretty fresh. We have a teaser week beginning May29-June1, and then a special bonus two day collabo with the visiting BODYTRAFFIC on June 4th and 5th. We have also been making some moves in our real-estate game as well. We have had the great fortune of sitting down with the force of nature Gina Gibney who has been gracious enough to partner with us for this summer and we are extremely excited to be housed at her beautiful space located at 890 broadway on the 5th floor. What a fire location!!! She is extremely excited to be working with us as are we with her. Its a match. Our two day collabo with BODYTRAFFIC is going to be the jumpoff. We are featuring two of thier choreogrpahers, Barak Marshall and Richard Siegal. This is a very special and very rare opportunity for NYC artists to get in the room with these guys, and they both have incredible skils. BODYTRAFFIC will be here in NYC to make their JOYCE Theater debut, so if you like what you do in the studio with them, you got to go check out their show on June 6th and 7th as part of The Gotham Dance Festival! We then are coming with a solid 3 weeks in July running from the 16th- August 3rd. Same drill, Monday-Friday, from 12-2!!! We are talking to some incredible artists for this and can't wait to deliver it to NY! There is still so much more to come, so keep staying tuned, keep telling your friends, keep checking in with us, but most of all keep playin!!!!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Playground is Rocking!

Hey NY!,
 What an amazing two weeks it has been so far. Our second week saw the Playground reach capacity 3 times! It is beautiful to watch this thing grow by the day. We love seeing The Playground popping up on other people's sites, profiles, tweets, all of that. Keep em coming. The more you talk about it, the further we go.

We have to thank the choreographers from this past week: Malcolm Jason Low, Zoe Scoffield, and Danielle Agami. Malcolm had such a dope time that he wrote this on mine and Loni's wall after his session: "THANK YOU SO MUCH yesterday was so much fun. Its changed my concept of what is to teach dance. It is place where I can share what I have to share with artist and that is the performing aspect of dancing. I'm not a tech teacher but here at the playground I can share my biggest gift with dancers. Thank You for that opportunity." Malcolm Low

We had a great conversation with Zoe after here session and she wants to help The Playground grow out to the west coast and Seattle, where she is based. She dropped so many jewels of knowledge in her session with us. Here is a photo of it above:

Danielle Agami was amazing as usual. We are siked that she wanted to use her time with us to cast for a big project she has coming up in February. She shared so much beautiful movement with us and created a beautiful atmosphere for dance.


We are so thankful to everyone that has reached out to support and offered their help. We gotta shout out one person in particualr: Frances Chiaverini, amazing dancer and visionary dance film maker. She put together this video below and will be doing more of then for us. She rocks! Thank you Franny



the playground with Alex Ketley from Frances Chiaverini on Vimeo.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Recap of the week 1

Week 1 was a success! For those who missed it, check out what happened. If you still haven't got a chance to come down to MMAC, you still have 2 weeks left!

Here is what happened!

Alex( Ketley) lead us through a beautiful complex phrase full of gesture and sweeping fluidity that inspired the entire room. He also introduced us to a great movement game he plays called "hot mess" where each dancer shows the ugliest and most beautiful versions of their individual dancing.

Co-founder Loni (Landon) began her session with improvisational duets that traveled through the space and focused on inventive ways to manipulate one another. She then shared a piece of phrase work from her vocabulary that challenged and excited the room. Everyone wanted more.

Francesca Harper took a very original approach and began her session with a tool called "auto-dramas", where the dancer compresses their life story into a two minute monologue using text and movement and sound. It was amazing to see what people came up with and how brave everyone was in their stories. We then made those stories interact with each other in larger improvs. It was a very uplifting day.



Harumi Terayama, was able to get away from her rehearsal schedule at Cedar Lake to come play with us for a day. She used the time to teach two small, wonderfully organic phrases in her style, then she immediately began to structure a formal dance, using everyone in the session to build a big, fun ensemble piece. Her work is fun, challenging and fulfilling to do.

Emery Lecrone closed out the week with a great session involving incredibly fluid phrase work that felt so good on your body. She then guided us through an improv where we had to sing our favorite song while we explored our own movement through improv. We worked with her phrase trying it with many different qualities and tempos. It was a great end to an awesome week!

 
 
On Monday, Alex started the week off right by leading us through a beautiful complex phrase full of gestures and sweeping fluidity that inspired the entire room. He also introduced us to a great movement game called "hot mess," where each dancer contrasts their most "ugliest" and most "beautiful" versions of their individual dancing.On Monday, Alex started the week off right by leading us through a beautiful complex phrase full of gestures and sweeping fluidity that inspired the entire room. He also introduced us to a great movement game called "hot mess," where each dancer contrasts their most "ugliest" and most "beautiful" versions of their individual dancing
On Monday, Alex started the week off right by leading us through a beautiful complex phrase full of gestures and sweeping fluidity that inspired the entire room. He also introduced us to a great movement game called "hot mess," where each dancer contrasts their most "ugliest" and most "beautiful" versions of their in

Sunday, November 27, 2011

1st WEEK BEGINS!

Hey NY!
  It is finally here! The very first week of The Playground begins. Remember, it is FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED per session. There is no pre-registration. Show up early for your spot! We look forward to everyone coming out and playing and we are extremely grateful to our choreographers participating this week.

Below is a little sample of each choreographer for this week. To get to know them and their work better, check out these links:

Novmeber 28th: Alex Ketley
Work Sample: http://bit.ly/vilhXn
For more info visit: alexketley.com



November 29th: Loni Landon
Work Sample:http://vimeo.com/27783624



November 30th: Francesca Harper
Work Sample: http://bit.ly/sSqdkj
For more info: http://www.francescaharper.com/



Dec 1st: Harumi Teryama
Work Sample: http://vimeo.com/27783624




Dec 2nd: Emery LeCrone
Work Sample: http://bit.ly/s8TWlW
For more info visit: emerylecrone.com


Don't miss the chance to work with these amazing artists for just $5! See you down at The Playground!