Works & Process at the Guggenheim: "ARRAY's LEAP: The Reckoning" by Francesca Harper
Company:
Works & Process
Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents the World Premiere of ARRAY's LEAP: The Reckoning by Francesca Harper, music by Nona Hendryx. Tickets available now at www.worksandprocess.org.
ARRAY's LEAP: The Reckoning by Francesca Harper, music by Nona Hendryx
Saturday, March 11, 7:30 pm
Tickets $5-$45, Choose What You Pay
This World Premiere performance of The Reckoning is multidisciplinary choreographer and director Francesca Harper's response to the 2010 killing of seven-year-old Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones at the hands of Detroit law enforcement. In collaboration with composer Nona Hendryx, Harper creates an expressive historical record of injustice as she explores the relationship between erasure and commodification in the media's coverage of brutality against bodies of color. Dancers from Ailey II and FHP Collective perform in costumes by Elias Gurrola, with lighting design by Itohan Edoloyi. The Reckoning exists as both an upcoming film and a live performance, premiered for one night only on March 11, 2023.
"Francesca Harper's choreographed movements, through every gesture and elongation offered by the dancers, stirs up the sorrow and frenzy that was dispensed the night Officer Joseph Weekly's bullet struck and killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones," said ARRAY SVP of Public Programming Mercedes Cooper. "By imagining the future self of Aiyana, the artist condemns the erasure of her young life and demands we confront the systems that police our communities with a carelessness towards Black bodies."
A behind-the-scenes video, additional information about the film, and information about the Works & Process performance at the Guggenheim Museum are available to view at leapaction.org.
The Reckoning was commissioned by ARRAY's Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP), a propulsive fund dedicated to empowering activists to disrupt the code of silence that exists around police aggression and misconduct.
The development of The Reckoning and this live performance premiere is supported by Works & Process and developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community with the collaboration of Gabri Christa and The Movement Lab @ Barnard.
Presented in conjunction with the Guggenheim exhibition Nick Cave: Forothermore..
WORKS & PROCESS AT THE GUGGENHEIM
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
About LEAP
Launched in 2020 by the non-profit ARRAY Alliance, the LEAP fund commissions projects across multiple disciplines including film, literature, poetry, theater, dance, fine art and music. LEAP is envisioned as a two-year project to catalyze a minimum of 25 artist commissions to catalyze creative expression around police violence and accountability. LEAP's previously announced artist grantees include: photographer Steven Kirby's photo essay, 41 TO '99; poet and activist W.J. Lofton's visual poem WOULD YOU KILL GOD TOO?; culinary artist Jocelyn Jackson's FIXED PRICE MENU; singer/songwriter RaRe Valverde's SAFE WHERE?; and Delita Martin's BLUE IS THE COLOR WE SEE BEFORE WE DIE. The Ford Foundation was an inaugural funder of LEAP. Data was contributed by the analytics organization Mapping Police Violence. For more information, go to www.leapaction.org. Follow LEAP on social: @leapaction.
About ARRAY
Founded in 2011 by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, ARRAY is a Peabody Award-winning multi-platform arts and social impact collective dedicated to narrative change. The organization catalyzes its work through a quartet of mission-driven entities: the film distribution arm ARRAY Releasing, the content company ARRAY Filmworks, the programming and production hub ARRAY Creative Campus and the non-profit group ARRAY Alliance. www.arraynow.com
ABOUT WORKS & PROCESS
An independent process-focused non-profit performing arts organization, Works & Process champions creative process from studio-to-stage and illuminates the artistic process of creators from the world's largest organizations and simultaneously champions artists representing historically underrecognized performing arts cultures by providing rare longitudinal and fully funded creative residency, commissioning, and presenting support. Works & Process provides audiences with unprecedented access to creative process with programs that blend artist discussions and performance highlights, with the goal of fostering greater understanding and appreciation and broadening representation. This season Works & Process celebrates New York artists, street and social dance, and after four decades at the Guggenheim expands beyond the museum to also present at Lincoln Center and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Our ongoing LaunchPAD "Process as Destination" residency program knits together a constellation of 12 residency centers across New York state to support creative process.
"But praise and gratitude also must go to Works & Process and Jacob's Pillow. These organizations have not only been providing lifelines to artists during the pandemic, they have also been directing attention and resources to dance communities often neglected by the institutions of concert dance."
– The New York Times
"An exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process" – The New York Times
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