Achinta S. McDaniel, Lindsey Red-tail, X'ene Sky
Past event

About

The 19th Annual New Original Works Festival kicks off with a program of works by Achinta S. McDaniel, Lindsey Red-tail, and X’ene Sky.

 

Achinta S. McDaniel: Restless autumn. restless spring.

Utilizing improvisation and collaboration to foreground process, artistic director Achinta S. McDaniel and the ensemble of artists of Blue13 Dance Company strip away production to explore the impact of movement alone in Restless autumn. restless spring. Relying on a Fluxus-inspired score, the performers revisit contemporary dance, revealing the multiplicity of intersectional global majority identities, seemingly incongruous to a basic dance score. Largely a response to the isolation and separation of the COVID-19 pandemic, Restless autumn. restless spring. is a return to collaboration and a rediscovery of what it means for artists to unite in a space to reflect on shared experiences and create work together. 

 

Lindsey Red-tail: You can vision with Them 

Conjuring both seen and unseen forces of nature, Lindsey Red-tail’s You can vision with Them ensemble dance work explores the journey to finding well water. Inspired by the story of an ancestor who received visions through the wind, this work is a call to be present with nature and those who have lived here before us. Red-tail explains: “The spine of a feather in the sky holds itself together against the wind. The giant plume spreads for miles long crossing the moon on its way to the mountains. The spine. My spine. The air can move through it and lift it up. Carry it across terrain and the sky.”

 

X’ene Sky: Vengeance 

Music and performance artist X’ene Sky’s new musical work Vengeance explores the connectivity between inheritance, state violence, and the way vengeance manifests itself in all parts of our being. Conceptualized in the summer of 2020, while under lockdown in Los Angeles amidst the noise of parrots in her backyard–an invasive species that begun to push out the native birds–and the constant helicopters and police surveillance above and on the ground of her neighborhood, this work is inspired by texts from Angela Davis and Toni Morrison, where themes of flying, surveillance, and surrender permeate. 

 

All three works will be presented each night. 

This is the festival that keeps weird, live performance relevant, dangerous and alive.

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cast & crew

ACHINTA S. MCDANIEL: RESTLESS AUTUMN. RESTLESS SPRING

Artistic Director: Achinta S. McDaniel

Choreographed by Achinta S. McDaniel and Dancers

Assitant Choreographer: Jon Paul

Performed by Bella Allen, Jackie Buckmaster-Wright, Emily Carr, Alisa Carreras, Chelsea Correa, Shea Hancock, Shreya Patel, Alondra Perez, Hayden Rivas

Songs by Sheila Chandra (“Speaking in Tongues I,” “Speaking in Tongues II,” “Speaking in Tongues III,” “Speaking in Tongues IV”)

Lighting Design by Brandon Baruch

Special Thanks to Arjun Kochhar for a fierce score phrase, and to Earl for his sound advice

 

LINDSEY RED-TAIL: YOU CAN VISION WITH THEM

Directed by Lindsey Red-tail

Choreographed and Performed by Lindsey Red-tail, Vanessa Neva, Tallulah Aujay, Aminah Jackson

Moon Medicine Songs by Abuela Malinalli (“Unidas Por Plumas,” “Amanecer,” “Hubo Un Tiempo”); Marisa Reyes (“Hubo Un Tiempo (cover)”); Stellamara (“Leda”); José González (“Slow Moves”); Marry Lattimore and Meg Baird (“Between Two Worlds”)

Costume Design by Terry Lollie

Lighting Design by Chu-Hsuan Chang

Thank You to my family and friends for their love and support, to Ancestor of Wind and the Red-tail Hawks and to Abuela Malinalli for her medicine songs

 

X’ENE SKY: VENGEANCE

Composed by X’ene Sky

Performed by Nailah Hunter, Greg Paul, Yafeu Tyhimba, X’ene Sky

Set and Landscaping Design by Kristen Edmond

Lighting Design by Chu-Hsuan Chang

about the artists

Achinta S. McDaniel

Achinta S. McDaniel’s work lives at the intersection of diaspora and disruption and traverses commercial, concert, and community engagements that challenge monolithic expectations of Indianness. Most recently, USC’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance commissioned her new work, 1947, which she set on 44 dancers for world premiere at the Wallis Annenberg Center in April. McDaniel is the Founding Artistic Director of Blue13 Dance Company, whose critically acclaimed world premiere of Terpsichore in Ghungroos was also presented by the Wallis in 2020. McDaniel was a 2021 NEFA National Dance Project finalist, and recently choreographed on Fox TV’s So You Think You Can Dance, and for AR Rahman at the Hollywood Bowl. McDaniel is passionate about audience engagement and approaches all aspects of her work with her ABIDE (Access, Belonging, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity) principle. Her first foray into film was Firebrand Sway, official selection of the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Keep in touch with her @achintablue13 and with the dancers @blue13dance.

 

Lindsey Red-tail

Lindsey Red-tail is a dancer and choreographer from Altadena California, located on Tongva land, home of the Gabrielino Tongva people. Daughter to Teresa and Gerard Lollie, Lindsey grew up in a home of eclectic world music with Indigenous-Mexican, Cherokee and African-American roots. Lindsey found refuge in dance at Calarts and continues training in house, Chicago footwork, and yoga. While making dances over the last decade Lindsey toured with szalt dance co., taught at Renaissance Arts Academy and staged pieces with the LA Contemporary Dance Company, Cal State LA and Scripps College. She is a recipient of the R+D Residency and ACCELERATOR Program through LA Performance Practice.

 

X’ene Sky

X’ene Sky is a pianist, vocalist and composer. She is a product of migratory patterns of Black Americans: born in Venice Beach, LA; raised in Inglewood and Houston, Texas with ancestral roots in Brooklyn, New York; Americus and Crawfordville, Georgia. Her art is an extension of her spiritual practice and situates itself in the legacies of enslaved Africans, hoodoo and queer/gender minorities. X’ene’s music features rhythmic, vocal and instrumental repetition as a way to access trance-like states that move us beyond who we are outside of our name, class and education.