Dancing in Palestine: Samar Haddad King in conversation with Katie Baer Schetlick
Katie Schetlick interviews Samar Haddad King, artistic director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, a New York dance theater company. They discuss King’s exploration of Palestinian identity and family history in her new work, which is being made with a group of dancers at [...]
Written By: Sarah J. Hart
Three walls, pushed into different positions by restless dancers, become the boundaries within, on, and against which the dramas of this piece take place. At times they represent the walls of buildings, other times they are [...]
Months ago, my colleague Sara inspired this rumination on the collective similarities and differences of various art forms. As I read her last blog posts, I wondered, what is the distinction between performers across mediums? How do the performances of dancers, actors or musicians differ? I like to imagine that [...]
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We’ve reached 40% of our funding goal in the first 12 days of our Kickstarter campaign! [...]
Recently it feels like we have taken on three new company members; all of who are heavy, blind, and with little sense of direction. It doesn’t sound like the greatest asset for a dance company known for their athletic movement style in the process of creating a new piece; and yet they are [...]
Every time we rehearse Bound, I uncover more layers of this girl I am trying to bring to life. It’s like chipping away at a person who I am both creating and discovering, as though she exists both in my mind and separately from my mind, as an eternal figure in this perpetual drama. [...]
I am from Japan. I don’t have any family here in the US. Most of my family members and friends- including my parents, my brother and sister- have never lived abroad.
I’ve lived here for seven years, and I used to think my home is so far. It is as far [...]
How wonderful is it that we can go to a class and stretch out our stress, or turn on music in the living room and shake out our anger? To me, this is movement therapy. Turning off our voice and going inside of our bodies enables us to connect to a wellspring of information that [...]
It has often occurred to me that the combination of being heavily enamored with both dance and writing is seemingly incongruent. One art form is physical, (usually) non-verbal and requires collaboration with others to some degree; the latter is fairly sedentary and certainly solitary.
I sit here waiting in Jordan for my flight that departs in five hours. Waiting, waiting-the perfect time for reflection if you don’t let too much expectation get in your way. It is a time to let other things soar despite feeling static. So, I just sit here and let my thoughts and [...]
Last year a musician and friend Diego Alamar approached me about conducting a dance workshop at the Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center, a school for children with special needs.
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About a month ago, Kelli Youngman- a senior at the Fordham/Ailey BFA Program in New York City- performed a solo that we choreographed in collaboration with the dancers of YSDT for the Fordham/Ailey BFA Senior Solo Concert. This was my fifth senior solo commissioned by students of the Ailey/Fordham BFA [...]
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The other side.
I arrived in Palestine late on Tuesday night. After entering and exiting the doors of nine different means of transportation (subway, AirTrain, elevator, plane, taxi, bus, van, mini-bus, taxi), I was glad to walk through the final door to find Samar. We sat [...]
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Since Samar’s departure in December many things have changed: almost all of the dancers now have smart phones, which facilitates us watching videos or reading emailed notes during rehearsal; everyone has downloaded Skype- for both social and professional reasons- where we hang out in a new sort of virtual apartment; Samar has become [...]
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This is the time of year in Palestine when contemporary dance companies from around the world come to participate in the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. The festival is part of a network of contemporary dance festivals that for the past five years have taken place in Lebanon, Syria*, Jordan, and [...]
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As an artist, I feel both inspired and informed by the everyday occurrence. Perhaps you’ve heard this before. I do believe we are all artists. Some are more or less encouraged, others are more or less defiant, insistent, or confident. At any rate, we all have stories to tell and we are all [...]
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On Saturday, April 2, YSDT members Zoe Rabinowitz and Sara Genoves-Sylvan taught two masterclasses at the Roseland Performing Arts Center in West Caldwell, NJ. Introducing modern dance and improvisation concepts to students trained primarily in ballet can be challenging- but also rewarding! Watch below [...]
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The spices I brought back from the Middle East while on tour last Spring have not been enough to satiate my hunger for the experiences I had while in Ramallah. Their aroma fills my mind immediately with the memories of welcoming faces, passionate dreamers, and open spirits…
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While all women have to make significant adjustments to their lives to become mothers, having a career as a dancer comes with it’s own set of unique challenges…
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Sometimes in rehearsal we play with partnering improvisations that focus on the kind of touch occurring between dancers. We usually focus on four basic types of touch: hair, skin, bones, and muscles.
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Read Jennifer Edward's feature about YSDT's newest work, Bound, featuring interviews by Samar Haddad King and Zoe Rabinowitz.
