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"You Are Here" to Animate Lincoln Center Campus as Part of "Restart Stages"

Company:
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts today announced the world premiere of You Are Here, a public sculpture, sound, and live performance installation conceived by Andrea Miller, award-winning choreographer and artistic director of movement-based production company GALLIM. The commission is supported by the Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund (ADIF) and will be presented as part of Restart Stages, beginning July 14, 2021.

In a process that invites co-creation with the Lincoln Center site and local New York community, Miller continues her investigation of the human pursuit of understanding through the alchemy of performance in this ambitious work that focuses on processing this past year. Throughout the end of July, the campus will become a site for communion as we find our way through a pandemic and multiple civic crises.

Restart Stages is part of the SNF-Lincoln Center Agora Initiative with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), which activates outdoor space through artistic and community initiatives that speak to our current moment and reimagines public space for a new era. 

Visitors will first experience You Are Here as a sculpture and sound installation on the iconic Josie Robertson and Hearst Plazas. Sculptures created by Tony Award-winning scenic designer Mimi Lien will stand in the space of the human beings; each sculpture will house a speaker through which the audio portraits of New Yorkers are projected. Sound artist Justin Hicks will create this aural garden that stretches across the footprint of the installation. Artists, ushers, security guards, educators, and other staff members from within the Lincoln Center family alongside New Yorkers from across the city will tell a story, dance, sing, breathe, or reflect — offering a window into their experiences.

During the second half of the installation, the audio portraits will gradually be replaced by live performances by the participants. Live performances will each feature several portraits now brought to life in Hearst Plaza, with choreography created by Andrea Miller and performed by GALLIM dancers. The final evening of the installation will feature all of the performers live and on-site.

The project is designed with inclusion integrated throughout so that all guests, including those with disabilities, can experience the work. 

“I was inspired to create You Are Here in the plazas,” said Andrea Miller. “Creating a performance is an essential expression of hope, and this piece is a practice of sharing and witnessing each other, of placemaking in the heart of an art center, and art-making in the eye of a global storm. It’s a way for me to honor artists and the huge unseen community that makes the arts possible, that makes this labor of rebuilding possible. The title describes it best, I think, I hope.”

“As we begin to see hope through this pandemic, there is much to grapple with throughout our city and communities,” said Henry Timms, President and CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “We’re proud to offer You Are Here as part of our collective reflection, processing of shared experience, and renewal during a time of trauma.”

“Andrea Miller’s innovative concept for Lincoln Center is a powerful demonstration of the SNF-LC Agora Initiative’s vision for transforming public spaces into active creative incubators,” said SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos. “This sort of communal project is exactly the antidote we need for the isolation of the past year.”

“Andrea Miller’s newest work, You Are Here, exemplifies why the Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund was created,” said Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund. “Connecting communities, voices, and experiences through dance, music, and sculpture on the Lincoln Center campus is the kind of innovative, conceptual thinking we need as our city begins to heal from the trauma of the last year.”

 

About the Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund

You Are Here is a project of Lincoln Center’s Arnhold Dance Innovation Fund (ADIF), a source of support for creative, risk-taking artists who are innovating in the dance field, particularly those exploring new approaches to technology (performance and delivery platforms), community (partnering with fellow dancers and creators, sharing learnings, addressing social issues), education, and diversity.

 

You Are Here 

July 14-31, 2021

Co-Direction, Choreography, Conceived by Andrea Miller 

Production Design: Mimi Lien 

Sound Artist: Justin Hicks 

Dramaturge: Iyvon Edebiri

 

Since the pandemic began, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has driven efforts to bring the power of the arts to New Yorkers outdoors and digitally—from Love From Lincoln Center concerts for individual essential workers to works of art that elevate the voices and lived experiences of people of color in America, such as Carrie Mae Weems’ installation Resist COVID/Take 6!, Davóne Tines’ Vigil, and digital commissions like The Baptism by Carl Hancock Rux. Future SNF-Lincoln Center Agora Initiative international collaborations with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (SNFCC) will bring new approaches to cultural engagement in both cities. These are just the beginning of a reorientation towards prioritizing openness, access, and inclusive excellence – elevating talent from every corner of the globe and fostering a sense of radical welcome on the campus. 

 

About Restart Stages

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is spearheading Restart Stages, a sweeping initiative that will create 10 outdoor performance and rehearsal spaces—an outdoor performing arts center—as well as other outdoor civic venues to help kickstart the performing arts sector and contribute to the revival of New York City. 

As one of New York City’s leading arts institutions and an anchor of its cultural and public life, Lincoln Center is embarking on this effort as a symbol of its commitment to the city, and to an equitable revitalization which elevates all New Yorkers. Restart Stages is a major, public-facing component of its broader effort to provide resources in this moment not just to Lincoln Center’s resident companies, but to the performing arts community as a whole — helping get artists back to work and supporting institutions from Brooklyn to the Bronx to engage their communities in the elevating power of the arts.  

Designed with expert advice from medical and public health professionals, Restart Stages will create a safe, welcoming, accessible, and dynamic environment for arts and community organizations from across New York City, including Lincoln Center resident companies. 

Restart Stages begins its months-long activation of Lincoln Center’s outdoor spaces with the opening of “The GREEN” on May 10, a physical reimagining of Josie Robertson Plaza into an open space by celebrated set designer and MacArthur Genius grantee Mimi Lien. A land blessing ceremony —conducted by Chief Dwaine Perry of the Ramapough Lunaape and facilitated by the Redhawk Native American Arts Council — will open the evening’s free performances. Singer/songwriter Martha Redbone will follow, using a fusion of gospel, folk, and blues to celebrate her Native and African-American heritage and address pressing issues, both political and personal, head-on. Closing the evening is groundbreaking, Tony-nominated Broadway performer, actor, and powerful baritone Norm Lewis. 

Restart Stages launched on World Health Day, April 7, with a special performance for healthcare workers. It has continued with a New York Blood Center blood drive and several pop-up performances by ensembles from The Juilliard School, Passion Fruit Dance Company/Tatiana Desardouin in collaboration with Works & Process, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, and puppeteer Basil Twist. The transatlantic exhibition, Faces of the Hero, a partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) will be on view beginning in July. 

The initiative is being developed in coordination with NY State PopsUp, part of Governor Cuomo’s New York Arts Revival, in a partnership to help extend reach of the initiative far beyond Lincoln Center’s campus.

Restart Stages is made possible through the generous support of the Lincoln Center Board of Directors and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) as part of the SNF-Lincoln Center Agora Initiative, a collaboration that reimagines and reactivates public space for a new era. 

Select Restart Stages events will be offered via livestream on Lincoln Center and partner organization digital platforms, increasing access nationally and internationally, well beyond those able to travel to the physical campus. Visit RestartStages.org for more information.

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About Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is the steward of the world’s leading performing arts center, an artistic and civic cornerstone for New York City comprised of eleven resident companies on a 16-acre campus. The nonprofit’s strategic priorities include: supporting the arts organizations that call Lincoln Center home to realize their missions and fostering opportunities for collaboration across campus; championing inclusion and increasing the accessibility and reach of Lincoln Center’s work; and reimagining and strengthening the performing arts for the 21st century and beyond, helping ensure their rightful place at the center of civic life. LincolnCenter.org.