DIP is collaborating with Battery Dance Company on a new cultural relations project exploring new ways to make global cultural relations work accessible to arts organizations throughout the United States and the world. The project was funded by a grant from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.
Battery Dance Company performs at Space on White. Video by Rita J. King
The above short documentary was recorded and produced by Rita J. King as part of Battery Dance’s May 14 participation in Space on White, a new collaborative art space in Tribeca in New York City. The video is a montage of a series of interpretive dances featuring Battery Dancers Oliver Tobin, Robin Cantrell, Carmen Nicole and Sean Scantlebury who joined forces with visual artists John Kessler, Prawat Laucharoen and Jody Rasch to present site-specific dance at Space on White. Also featured in the video is Battery Dance’s Artistic and Executive Director, Jonathan Hollander.
We first met Jonathan at a Cultural Diplomacy retreat at White Oak Plantation where we learned that Jonathan’s efforts go well beyond providing a home for modern, independent dance in Lower Manhattan, but around the globe in some of the most remote corners of the world exploring how dance can serve as a bridge for cultural relations.
Jonathan’s commitment to cultural collaboration is local as well. He was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal about his participation in the creation of the Lower Manhattan Arts League, an effort to create more synergies between arts organizations in New York City.
Battery Dance Company’s impact and reach, finding inroads for cultural dialog through teaching and sharing dance has, in the last year, gone from, among other places, Uganda to Ghana and Algeria. The below clip is from the YouTube stream of the US Embassy in Algiers.
Battery Dancers were recently interviewed on Algerian television.
I asked Jonathan a question I saw tweeted recently by one of the British Council’s TN2020 fellows: “Some dance forms imply a set of values, esp in the south side of chicago. So, how do you find neutral forms for dialogue?”
His response: “I guess my reaction to this ‘neutral forms for dialogue’ is that modern dance fits the bill perfectly because it is a constantly changing, evolving form that can stretch in all kinds of directions. For example, when we gave young dancers the opportunity to be creative within the form and architecture of modern dance, they dove into the process … in Cambodia, Ghana, Algeria, Uganda, Swaziland, Germany, Taiwan, New York City public schools.”
