RAW Material
RAW Material
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Dance New Amsterdam’s RAW Material series has been supporting new and emerging artists since 2000. In an effort to create more opportunities for artists at various stages of development, RAW Material has expanded into two distinct programs: RAW Material and RAW Directions. RAW Material will support the work of up to six new and budding choreographers who wish to gain more choreographic experience. DNA will provide an artistic advisor, marketing and production support, a small artist fee, 3 informal showings, discounted and free rehearsal space, a marketing workshop, and panel feedback on application materials leading up to two performances of new 10-minute works in DNA’s theater. The RAW Material performances take place in September or October each year.
The artistic advisor for 2012 is Yanira Castro.
Puerto-Rican born and Brooklyn-based director/choreographer Yanira Castro collaborates with a core group of performers and designers on individual projects under the name, a canary torsi. She and her collaborators work in a multiplicity of spaces: from warehouses, restrooms, and gardens to the stage, embedding dances within visual and audio installations where the audience’s presence dramatically impacts the work. Castro began dancing at Amherst College where she graduated with a B.A. in Theater & Dance and Literature in 1994. Her work has been presented by Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, The Chocolate Factory, and Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center, among others, and has toured nationally and internationally. Castro was a 2007 artist-in-residence in Bacau, Romania through Artist Ne(s)t and has received several fellowships and awards for her work, including The MAP Fund, The Jerome Foundation, New Music USA and National Dance Project. She was a 2007 Choreography Fellow at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, and a 2006 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. She and the team of Dark Horse/Black Forest won a 2009 NY Dance & Performance (aka Bessie) Award for the performance of that project at The Gershwin Hotel. Her current project, The People to Come, is commissioned and developed at Vermont Performance Lab with support from MANCC’s Media Fellowship program.
Questions may be directed to: RAWMaterial@dnadance.org
photo of Stephanie Blackmon Woodbeck | LABOR FORCE DANCES from RAW Material 2008
