Live Stream: Sat, Mar 23 at 7:30pm EST

Click here to view the live webcast of BELL.

Inaugural Resident Comissioned Artist World Premiere

In one of the most anticipated events of our season, New York Live Arts will present the world premiere of Yasuko Yokoshi’s BELL. Hailed by Time Out New York as “a brave, postmodern intellect,” Yokoshi was appointed as the inaugural Resident Commissioned Artist (RCA) of New York Live Arts in July 2011.

For BELL, Yokoshi has assembled a multidisciplinary cast from Japan and the U.S. to perform in a contemporary reimagining of the classical Japanese dance Kyoganoko Musume-Dojyoji (A Woman and a Bell at the Dojoji Temple), reputed to be the most important and most difficult dance work in the Kabuki theater repertoire.

BELL continues Yokoshi’s collaboration with Masumi Seyama, 82-year old master teacher of Kabuki Su-odori style dance and successor of renowned choreographer Kanjyuro Fujima VI. Through this collaboration, Yokoshi investigates the parallel aesthetics of traditional and contemporary forms and the transgression of cultural boundaries.

Yasuko Yokoshi is New York Live Arts’ first Resident Commissioned Artist, receiving a two-year residency with salary, benefits and a commission to create a new work produced by New York Live Arts.

Mar 20 Stay Late Discussion: “BELL”: Merging Traditional and Innovative Practices with Bill T. Jones

Mar 21 at 6:30 Come Early Conversation: Building “BELL” with Reginald Jackson (Assistant Professor in the department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where he specializes in pre-modern Japanese literature and performance)

Sign up for Yasuko's Shared Practice class, Feb 23, 1:30-3:30pm, $15.

BELL is commissioned and produced by New York Live Arts through its Resident Commissioned Artist Program, with lead support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund. Support is also provided by the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and the Japan Foundation.

BELL was developed, in part, at the University of Chicago with support from the Japan Committee and the Program in Theater and Performance Studies, and at the Herberger Institute School of Dance at Arizona State University with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. A solo work-in-progress version of BELL was presented by Dublin Dance Festival 2011.