The Kitchen Presents Dance and Process, Featuring Rena Anakwe, ms. z tye, and Ogemdi Ude, September 20–22

The Kitchen’s Longest-Running Series Is Led by Newly Appointed Stewards of the Program and Dance and Process Alums mayfield brooks and Niall Jones

The Kitchen presents public performances for its longest-running series, Dance and Process, September 20–22 at The Kitchen at Westbeth (163B Bank Street, 4th Floor Loft). Continuing to shape current and future approaches to movement and embodiment, Dance and Process (DAP) stages an interrogation of methods of choreographic and dance practice, whereby artists challenge default structures in their own work and the field at large.

The series this year features a cohort including Rena Anakwe, who examines intersections between traditional healing practices, spirituality and performance, and creates works focused on sensory-based, experiential interactions using creative technology; ms. z tye, whose physical investigations explore concepts through ancestral praise; and Ogemdi Ude, whose work is exploring Black femme desire, longing, agency, and refusal. They are led by newly appointed stewards of the program and Dance and Process alums mayfield brooks (DAP 2019) and Niall Jones (DAP 2016).

Dance and Process 2024: Rena Anakwe, ms. z tye, and Ogemdi Ude is organized by mayfield brooks and Niall Jones, with Matthew Lyons, Curator, and Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant. Tickets are available today (September 9), on a sliding scale ($10-30), here. Performances begin at 6pm.

About the Artists

Rena Anakwe is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, poet and healer working primarily with sound, visuals, and scent. Exploring intersections between traditional healing practices, spirituality and performance, she creates works focused on sensory-based, experiential interactions using creative technology. Currently, she is a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Interdisciplinary Arts and was part of the 2023-2024 Lincoln Center Social Sculpture Cohort with her durational, public art project Lifting the Ground Up [iter.02], she was awarded a 2022 Art Matters Artist2Artist Fellowship, a 2021-2022 MacDowell Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Arts, a 2022 Jack Nusbaum Artist Residency at BAM and the 2021 Canadian Women Artists’ Award from NYFA & the CWC of New York. Rena has collaborated, produced, and shown work at (select list): Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Serpentine, ‘Arts & Ideas’ (UK), The Guggenheim Museum, SCAD Museum of Art, Creative Time/Governors Island Arts, New Forms Festival x Lobe Studio (CAN), Counterpublic, The Momentary, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Basilica Hudson, TFNA (Theatre for a New Audience), Park Avenue Armory/NY Live Arts, En Garde Arts/Brookfield Place, Weeksville Heritage Center and the Dia Foundation. Under the moniker A Space for Sound, Anakwe released her album Sometimes underwater (feels like home) through RVNG Intl’s Commend THERE Label in Fall 2021. She is based in Brooklyn, New York, by way of Nigeria and Canada.

ms. z tye is a Brooklyn-based artist who is interested in physical investigations, including but not limited to movement, voice, and theater. z explores concepts through ancestral praise. She is intrigued with somatic relations and how they associate with emotional connectivity. These works are intended to serve as queer offerings to LGBTQIA-POC communities. She has been included in exhibitions with Bronx Museum of Arts, Volta/Armory Art Fair, Swivel Gallery, Untitled Art Fair, Cierra Britton Gallery, The Living Gallery, Long Gallery Harlem, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Postmasters Gallery, Fridman Gallery, Art in Buildings, and Participant INC. Choreographic work has been commissioned by The Shed, BMW, Danspace, Lotto Royale, MQBMBQ, BOFFO, Jack, Gibney, Movement Research, and Dance Canvas ATL.

Ogemdi Ude is a Black queer femme dance and interdisciplinary artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. Her performance work focuses on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at Gibney, Harlem Stage, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Center for Performance Research, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. As an educator, she serves as Head of Movement for Theater at Professional Performing Arts School and has taught at The New School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, MIT, and University of the Arts. She is a 2022-2024 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence and a 2024/2025 BAX Artist-in-Residence. She has been a 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Artist-in-Residence, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. In January 2022 she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. Most recently, she has published a book Watch Me in a collection edited by Thomas DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson entitled Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press.

Funding Credits

The Kitchen’s programs are made possible in part with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors, The Kitchen Global Council, Leadership Fund, and Director’s Council, as well as through generous support from The Amphion Foundation, Inc., Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Cowles Charitable Trust, The James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New Music USA, The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York, Ruth Foundation For The Arts, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and Teiger Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from the Manhattan Borough President, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.