Gibney Dance is launching its inaugural spring season in Lower Manhattan with “Making Space,” a 14-week series featuring dance, theater and multimedia artists. The program begins Thursday (February 26) with “El Regreso (The Return),” by Mariangela López. In this piece, the Brooklyn-based, Venezuelan-born choreographer explores the solo form in a ritualized dance that transposes the experience of a community onto a single body. “El Regreso,” also features music by Jason Grisell and dramaturgy by Jaime Shearn Coan, plays through Saturday (February 28).
Next week, the “Making Space” series continues with “Sister to a Fiend,” by Sam Kim, which draws the audience into the ambiguous zone between viewing and voyeurism, with its examination of the psychic interplay between three powerful female figures (Ms. Kim, Amanda Kmett’Pendry and Joanna Kotze). “Sister to a Fiend will be performed Wednesday through Saturday (March 4 through 7).
Noted dancers, choreographers and artists who will be featured in later installments of the “Making Space” series include Ori Flomin, Maya Ciarrocchi and Kris Grey, Marjani Forté, Anna Sperber and Mallory Catlett.
The arrangement that brought Gibney Dance to Lower Manhattan was brokered by two City agencies: the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, is the owner of 280 Broadway, which is managed and operated by Fram Realty under a long-term lease, and the Department of Cultural Affairs, which oversees an agreement that requires the space to be used for the performing arts. The facility that Gibney Dance now manages is approximately 51,000 square feet, and includes a 130-seat theater.
Gibney Dance also includes a public-service arm, Gibney Dance Community Action (founded in 2000) that provides New York City domestic violence shelters with over 500 free movement workshops each year, and is housed in the Community Action Center, a research, work space and community library at located in the 280 Broadway facility.