In collaboration with The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, ARC presents:

Dance, Dance, Wherever You May Be ...
an exploration of movement, body, spirit

at The First Unitarian Congregational Society
48 Monroe Place
Brookly Heights, NY

Saturday, November 5, 2005

Dance and the Western religions have always been in tension. The role of the body has been one of ambivalence early in our history. The program will explore new and exciting possibilities in dance both in the areas of art and religion.

melissa briggs dance will present Book Dances at this location on Friday, November 4 at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, November 5 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 6 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets at $15.00 each will be available to the door. Please note reservations on registration sheet. Persons who register for the ARC program are strongly encouraged to attend Book Dances on Friday evening.

Book Dances draws upon one scene from each of four classic novels: Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), The Fountainhead (Rand), East of Eden (Steinbeck, and Franny and Zooey (Salinger). Through choreographed duets, four distinct relationships are magnified, as viewers are given a window into the characters’ inner lives.

The First Unitarian Congregational Society, located in historic Brooklyn Heights, is a complex of three connected buildings, all redolent with a sense of history. The audience, divided into small groups, will move through the complex, viewing each of the four duets in a specific location: a narrow passage in the sanctuary, an elegant parlor complete with a roaring fire, a dark, hidden room in the undercroft, and the bright expanse of the chapel. Dance, literature, history and architecture will weave together in a unique evening of performance storytelling.

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ARC is grateful to the Brooklyn Arts Exchange and its Director, Marya Warshaw, for collaborating with the Society for the program. Founded in 1991, this non-profit organization promotes Irish Talent in theater, dance, and music.

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THE SCHEDULE

9:15 a.m. Registration, continental breakfast and conversation

9:45 a.m. Introduction to the day

--Charles Henderson, President

--Erling Hope, Program Chair

10:00 a.m. Intrinsic Sound of Being

--Akim Funk Buddha, performance artist

Blending the spiritual and urban worlds, Akim Fund Buddha combines sound and movement hip-hop in his performance

11:15 a.m. melissa briggs dance

Dancing a Story

--Melissa Briggs, choreographer

--Mindy Nelson, performer

Ms. Briggs describes the workshop: “Using a scene from one of the novels as a starting point, we will closely examine the text.” We will also discuss and examine definitions of gesture, body language, pedestrian vs. virtuosic movement and what constitutes dance. We will conclude by reflecting on these exercises in the context of seeing the previous night’s performance of BOOK DANCES.”

12:30 p.m. Lunch

1:45 p.m. The Ways of Body, A Means to Prayer

--Claire Byrne and Sharon Estacio

They will explore the idea of movement, dance and the creation of choreography as a practice of prayer. They will look at specific movements and gestures involving release and resistance to gravity and how they embody ideas of surrender and resurrection.

3:00 p.m. Dialogue

--Lisa DiFranza, Facilitator

4:00 p.m. Wine, cheese and conversation

For more information about the program leaders

Registration information:

Members/Fellows $55
Non-Members  $60; Students $15
Fee includes continental breakfast, lunch and reception.
($5.00 extra at the door.)

To register
 please contact Charles Henderson
chashenderson@mindspring.com or 
Tel: 212-870-2544

To discuss this or other ARC programs, please check our message board

ARC Message Board

More about ARC
including membership information and news about our recently published book:
 The ARC Story

From time to time the Board of Directors elects as Fellows individuals it identifies as having made a distinguished contribution to their respective fields. The list of Fellows elected over a period of nearly four decades thus exemplifies what the Society understands as the necessary and vital connections between art, religion and culture.

ARC Fellows

PROGRAM ARCHIVE

Spring 2005
Theology and the Arts as Play

Winter 2005
Alpha-bet:
Uncertainty Principles in the Atoms of Language

Fall 2004
Languages that Shape the Soul

Spring 2004
The Moving Image

Winter 2004
Religion and the Visual Arts

Fall 2003
Theology and Music

Spring 2003
Theology and Poetry:
Languages that Shape the Soul

Winter 2003
Tracing the Garden

Fall 2002
Drawing on the Human
Spirit

Spring 2002
MoMA's PAPA:
Alfred Barr and
the Religious Dimension of Modernism

Winter 2002
A Theology of Beauty

Fall 2001
Lifting the Veil

May 2001
Utopia/Dystopia

February 2001
Antigone
Performance and Symposium

November 2000
Illuminations & Transformations:
Cross-Cultural Spiritual Dynamics 
in Music, Text, Dance and Film

May 2000
Alternative Readings: 
Sacred Text Embodied in Visual Art

February 2000
The Meaning of Myth

November 1999
Myth, Ritual and the Mediation of Violence

May, 1999
Writers' Ways with Loving and Dying

February, 1999 
The Divine Image
Implications for a changing image of God.

October, 1998 
Uneasy Constellations of Meaning
Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe &
The Religious Art of Andy Warhol

May, 1998 Meeting
AYNI: The Andean Concept of Reciprocity

Webpage design courtesy CrossCurrents
Charles Henderson, Executive Director