Dance Theater Workshop

presents

The Sea Inside

a new work by

Johari Mayfield

as part of the

Studio Series

June 26-27, 2009 at 7:30pm


New York, NY, May 14, 2009 – Johari Mayfield culminates her 100-hour residency as a part of Dance Theater Workshop's Studio Series with a showing of her new work in development. Mayfield's work is an eclectic combination of African and modern dance, music, theater and digital media. Her latest project, The Sea Inside, is inspired by the myth of Echo and Narcissus – a story about rejected love and love for one's self. Within this dance-scape, technology is used to capture, loop, and amplify the sounds of movement patterns as they intersect and resonate through the dance surface. The result is a live score that is created as the dance unfolds in new pathways of time and space. The Sea Inside features Mayfield along with Mallory Butcher and Melissa Padham, with sound design by Michael Wimberley.


Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the Jerome Robbins Studio on the third floor, June 26-27 (Friday – Saturday at 7:30pm). There will be a Post-Performance talk with Dyane Harvey on June 27 (Saturday). Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $5 at the door. Tickets can be reserved in person at the box office or by calling (212) 924-0077. Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.


About the Artist

Double Dutch meeting Martha Graham meeting African dance meeting Edgar Allen Poe meeting Ballet meeting beatboxing best describes Johari Mayfield's eclectic enclave of dance, theater, and, music, and digital media. As a neo Gothic storyteller who weaves tapestries of past memory to present reality, her pieces transform the voyeur experience blurring the lines between technology, narrative flow, and movement. Johari's works have been well received in several venues both in the city and abroad including Dance New Amsterdam, P.S. 122, 45 Bleecker Theater, and the Spark Festival for Electronic Music and Art in Minneapolis. She was a recipient of an award for best choreography at the New York Fringe Festival in 2005. Currently, she is a soloist and the Rehearsal Director for Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company and a resident artist at HERE Arts Center.


The Studio Series brings new artistic voices to Dance Theater Workshop and opens our studios for public showings. Eight artists each year receive a 100-hour creative residency in our studios and a commission/stipend. This residency gives each artist the opportunity to research and develop work in a raw, process-oriented space. The outcomes are

shared through two informal presentations by each artist, inviting the audience to see work at different stages of development. Studio Series artists are curated internally by the Artistic Director in conjunction with Programming staff and guest curators from Urban Word NYC and Dance Theater Workshop's season artists.


The Sea Inside is commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop's Commissioning and Creative Residency Program with support from The Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Jerome Robbins Foundation.