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what will we be like when we get there premiered at Live Arts in March 2018. Choreographer Joanna Kotze is accompanied by dancer Omagbitse Omagbemi, visual artist Jonathan Allen, and composer/musician Ryan Seaton (2018 Bessie Nominee) in the newest iteration of this charged collaboration. Through their various artistic forms, the performers respond to the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and its dichotomies: the order to chaos, the humor to violence, and the intimacy to isolation.
Conceived & directed by Joanna Kotze
Choreographed & Performed by Jonathan Allen, Joanna Kotze, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Ryan Seaton
Music Composed & Performed by Ryan Seaton
Visual Design by Jonathan Allen
Lighting Design by Kathy Kaufmann
Costume Design by the performers in consultation with Stacey Berman
Original Song House on Fire written by Ben Dickey
Joanna Kotze remounts “what will we be like when we get there” for Live Artery 2019 from New York Live Arts on Vimeo.
Joanna Kotze is a Bessie Award winning dancer, choreographer and teacher who is based in Brooklyn. Her choreography has been presented at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Velocity Dance Center, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, American Dance Institute, Bard College, Danspace Project, New York Live Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at Judson Church, Roulette, Dixon Place, 92nd Street Y, and other venues and galleries. She has received support from the Jerome Foundation, New Music USA, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, NYFA BUILD, Brooklyn Arts Council, Yellowhouse, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Joanna has had commissions to create new works on Gibney Dance Company, Toronto Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury, Zenon Dance, and James Sewell Ballet. She has had residencies at Milvus Artistic Research Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, Bennington College, Sedona Arts Center, Marble House, The Camargo Foundation, The 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, Djerassi, Movement Research, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Gibney Dance, and Mt. Tremper Arts. She danced with Wally Cardona from 2000-2010 and is currently dancing for him again as well as for Kimberly Bartosik and Kota Yamazaki. She has also worked with Stacy Spence, Netta Yerushalmy, Sam Kim, Sarah Skaggs, Christopher Williams, the Metropolitan Opera ballet, Daniel Charon, Nina Winthrop and others. Joanna is on teaching faculty at Movement Research and Gibney Dance in NYC and has taught at Barnard, NYU’s Tisch, The New School, LIU, Southern Utah University, Ohio University, Miami University, Salt Dance Fest and the American Dance Festival. She is originally from South Africa and has a BA in Architecture from Miami University. www.joannakotze.com
Jonathan Allen (Visual Artist/Performer) is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work focuses on painting, collage, video and performance. His latest body of work, ‘Knowing that Your House is On Fire’, hung in the New York Live Arts lobby gallery and was made in response to the process and performing of piece, ’What will we be like when we get there’. In New York he has exhibited at Lu Magnus, PS122, Exit Art, Socrates Sculpture Park, Artists Space, and FiveMyles, among others. He has participated in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC)’s Workspace, Process Space, and Swing Space residency programs, the Bronx Museum of Art’s Artist in the Marketplace program, and has been awarded residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, Cill Rialaig in Ireland, and Blue Mountain Center. He is the recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner, Chenven, Puffin, George Sugarman Foundations and Brooklyn Arts Council. Allen often collaborates with poets (http://www.jonathanallen.org/about-a-minute) and performers and is currently working on a series of subway ad interventions Interruptions that you can see on Instagram (@jonathanallenstudio). Allen is on the Programming Committee of VoCA, regularly curates at Repair The World NYC, and was the On-Site Assistant (2013–2018) at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island. He earned his BA from Columbia College, Co- lumbia University in 1997. www.jonathanallen.org
Omagbitse Omagbemi (Dancer) received her BFA in dance at Montclair State University. In 2012 she was awarded a Bessie for Sustained Achievement in Performance. She has performed nationally and internationally with the Punch Drunk production “Sleep No More” NYC/ Shanghai, Neil Greenberg, Vicky Shick, Maria Hassabi, Heather Kravas, Jon Kinzel, Deborah Hay, Ralph Lemon, Wally Cardona, David Gordon, Jeremy Nelson, Keely Garfield, Irish Modern Dance Theater, Walter Dundervill, David Thomson, Anna Sperber, Bill Young, Pear- son/Widrig Dance, Urban Bush Women, Shapiro & Smith, Gerald Casel, Barbara Mahler, Christopher Williams, Sean Curran, and Kevin Wynn.
Ryan Seaton (Composer/Musician/Performer) is a Bessie-nominated, New York-based composer and multi- instrumentalist. Seaton has created sound design, horn arrangements, vocal works and electronic compositions for many acclaimed recording and performing artists, including Joanna Kotze, Zsuzsa Rozsavolgyi, Lance Gries, Zenon Dance Company, Ririe Woodbury, Dark Sky, Ictus, Beth Gill, Vision Control and Mara Hoffman. His work has been featured at BAM, New York Live Arts, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Kitchen and Danspace. Seaton also composes for film and TV. His band, Callers, has released three critically acclaimed albums and toured internationally with Dirty Projectors, Here We Go Magic, and Wye Oak, among others. Dubbed “stark in execution, dazzling in effect” by Pitchfork, Callers have often been featured on NPR and have appeared in various local and international festivals includ- ing Primavera, Tanned Tin, and the Ottawa Blues Fest. Seaton is also a founding member of Open House along with Steven Reker (People Get Ready), Eliot Krimsky (Glass Ghost) and Matt Evans (Tigue). www.ryancseaton.com
Kathy Kaufmann (Lighting design) A New York City native, Ms. Kaufmann has had the honor of designing for many renowned artists and choreographers including Michelle Dorrance, Ephrat Asheri, Vicky Shick, Rebecca Davis, Moriah Evans, Tatyana Tenenbaum, Meredith Monk, David Parker, Eiko and Koma, Lauren Bakst, Sally Silvers, Jon Kinzel, Rebecca Stenn, Jonathan Gonzales, Gina Gibney, Benjamin Kimitch, Marian Valencia, Jasmine Hearn, Mina Nishimura, Kota Yamazaki, Patricia Hoffbauer, and Larissa Velez-Jackson. Having designed Kotze’s It Happened….. and Find Yourself Here, Ms. Kaufmann is delighted to collaborate again with Joanna and her always excellent company on what will we be like when we get there. A two time New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” recipient, Ms. Kaufmann is a resident designer at Danspace Project at St. Marks Church and teaches at Sarah Lawrence.
