Jul 9, 2019

Angie Pittman is a Bessie award-winning dance artist, maker, and educator whose work investigates how her body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power. A longtime Kitchen friend, Pittman returns to our space June 29 to perform in the final weekend of ASSEMBLY . Ahead of this performance, we spoke to her about her process of crafting multi-dimensional dance work and the ways inspiration of all media translate into movement. I'm not a dancer myself, so I'm quite curious to know more about your process. How do you first begin to develop a routine? Does your process demand extensive memorization or do you find yourself moving freely, often improvising? I think one of my strengths as a human and dancer is the ability to hold m... Read On

Jun 26, 2019

Lafawndah is a pop artist whose influences, approaches, and ideologies intentionally and self-proclaimedly defy categorizations of geography and genre. Her first full-length album, ANCESTOR BOY, came out earlier this year. In anticipation of Lafawndah’s June 29 performance at The Kitchen as part of the ASSEMBLY series, we spoke to her about her approach to live performance, her relationship to the labels of “pop” and “global pop,” the dichotomy between “colonial” and “local” music, and more. We're very excited to see your June 29 performance at The Kitchen. How would you say that your work interacts with ASSEMBLY's theme of "thinking about access, collective thought, and recognizing how sound/music and the structure of certain spaces lend themselves to a nuanced and rich cultural exch... Read On

May 6, 2019

On April 5 and 6, 2019, Stacy Grossfield presented metamorphosis at The Kitchen as part of Dance and Process. I sat down with Stacy Grossfield, along with performers and collaborators Nola Sporn Smith and Alexandra Albrecht to learn more about their experiences, process, and work. Initiated in 1995, Dance and Process is The Kitchen’s longest-running series. For ten weeks, participants discuss the work, develop a performance, and present it to an audience. This year, Dance and Process featured mayfield brooks, Rebecca Serrell Cyr, Stacy Grossfield, and Christopher Unpezverde Núñez, facilitated by Yve Laris Cohen and Moriah Evans. What ideas emerged from and informed the making of this work? Stacy Grossfield: I thought about kinds of women that feel like characters to me. Some... Read On

Mar 22, 2019

Japanese born, New York-based artist, Miho Hatori reimagines identity in her show Salon Mondialité at The Kitchen, March 22–23. Lyrical songs and improvised ambient sounds intersect in the form of an experimental TV talk show, accompanied by musicians Smokey Hormel, Patrick Higgins, and Melvin “Grave” Guzman. Hatori calls forward and re-envisions her faded memories of Japan in connection with her drive for multiple meanings. The show points to the effects of rising globalization, and the tension that questioning one’s identity produces. I feel it’s hard for me to choose which “kid” is the best [between music or video]. I don’t have kids, but I think about the whole thing of creating space in only one hour of one audience’s life. It’s like creating some home and space to travel, a... Read On

Mar 14, 2019

Musician, composer, and producer Rafiq Bhatia defies any one genre or category. After moving to New York in 2010 post graduating from Oberlin College & Conservatory, Bhatia released a succession of highly-praised, improvisation-driven albums challenging traditional jazz, electronic, and hip-hop composition. From here, he joined the experimental group Son Lux and began recording with groups like Lorde and Sufjan Stevens. Bhatia felt inspired from this time of musical technological manipulation to assume the role of producer resulting in his groundbreaking album Breaking English, which was released on Anti-Records last year. Bhatia will perform Breaking English live at The Kitchen with Ian Chang (electronic and acoustic drums) and Jackson Hill (bass and synthesizers) on Friday, Marc... Read On