Ishmael Houston-Jones
OO-GA-LA Reimagined
Jan 8-10, Co-presented off-site with Danspace Project: Ishmael Houston-Jones presents OO-GA-LA Reimagined (The Fred Holland and Ishmael Houston-Jones 1983 Duet Danced into the 21st Century). The 1983 Danspace Project festival Contact at 10th and 2nd celebrated the 11th year that Steve Paxton named the form “Contact Improvisation.” Fred Holland and Ishmael Houston-Jones were invited to perform a duet on the Partners Program alongside Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, and more. Considering themselves to be the Black Punks of Contact Improv, Holland and Houston-Jones decided to perform their improvised duet by doing everything wrong. As part of Danspace’s 50th anniversary in 2025, the piece was reimagined by three extraordinary young dancers of color—Stephanie Hewett, Kris Lee and AJ Wilmore—who were invited by Houston-Jones to Queer the duet and bring it to a new generation.
The 1983 performance, for all its radicalism, was subtle in its protean shifts; the new version was more flamboyant and freewheeling. The three, (Hewett, Lee, and Wilmore,) threw themselves around uninhibitedly, bouncing off, obstructing and pumping one another up. … Apart from their touching veneration of Houston-Jones, the spirit was irreverent — the best tribute.
Brian Seibert, The New York Times, March 31, 2025
