New York City

NYC dance performance targets social injustice

March 24, 2015 By Ula Ilnytzky Associated Press
Dancers rehearse for a show called FLEXN, co-directed by Peter Sellars, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The emotionally charged performance by 21 African-American dancers explores social and criminal justice issues through dance, photography and public dialogue. AP Photo/Park Avenue Armory, Stephanie Berger
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An emotionally charged series in New York City is exploring racial and social injustice through dance, photography and public dialogue.

Among the elements of the production opening Wednesday is a stirring performance by 21 African-American dancers whose style of street dance known as “flex” is inspired by events in their own lives as well as larger issues like police-involved shootings of blacks.

The 21 dancers, most of them men ages 18 to 32, will perform at the cavernous Park Avenue Armory as part of a series that includes a panel of experts exploring pressing issues of social and criminal justice and a photo installation described as the single largest documentation of juveniles in solitary confinement in the United States.

“Every one of them has lost someone to a shooting, frequently to a police shooting,” said Peter Sellars, a theater director known for stretching artistic boundaries and the co-director of FLEXN, which runs at the armory through April 4.

The dancers’ first workshop for the commissioned performance began in August — around the time Eric Garner and Michael Brown, two unarmed black men, were killed by police.

During the exercise, two dancers began chasing a third dancer to a far corner of the room where they pretended beating him. He didn’t get up, nothing was said “but everyone in the room knew that Eric Garner was on everyone’s mind,” Sellars said.

“Black young men are killed by police quite often, and that story wasn’t going away. It became clear people were really outraged, people were saying something has to change,” Sellars said. “One of the reasons that art exists is to give people a way to express extremely difficult things without violence and to articulate complex feelings.”

“The protest march is powerful but then what?” he said.

FLEXN comes amid a national debate about revisions to police training and policy.

The dancers’ freestyling pieces are based on “flex” a street dance that evolved from a Jamaican style popular in Brooklyn dance hall in the 1990s. It involves a range of styles including flexing, gliding — and “bone-breaking” whereby dancers dislocate parts of their body to make moves “you could not imagine are possible,” Sellars said.

Prior to each performance, a half-hour discussion will be led by educators, community leaders and public officials on a range of topics, including reforming Rikers Island, community policing and stop and frisk.  

 

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