The Shed. New York, NY. Courtesy Brett Beyer
One-Night-Only Juneteenth Celebration by Troy Anthony and The Fire Ensemble, June 18
Eight New Performance Works by Emerging NYC-Based Artists in Open Call, July 8 – August 27
Summer Sway: Outdoor DJ Sets and Dance Performances, Select Friday and Saturday evenings in July and August
A New Exhibition Explores Contemporary Black Dance Across a Range of Forms Practiced Today, by Conceptual Artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden, August 3 – 28
The Shed’s free summer-long, indoor and outdoor programs will feature local and regional artists in new works of dance, music, theater, movement, and visual art throughout The Shed in June, July, and August. As part of the summer program, The Shed is collaborating with Nike to produce and present Summer Sway’s outdoor dance and DJ sets and a new multidisciplinary exhibition by Tiona Nekkia McClodden exploring contemporary Black dance.
“It’s a privilege to produce this exciting slate of artists and present their work to audiences for free this summer. An important part of our mission has been to support emerging artists, especially those based in NYC, alongside established artists,” said Alex Poots, Artistic Director and CEO of The Shed. “We look forward to welcoming new and returning audiences, both inside The Shed and to the public space on our outdoor Plaza, to experience new dance, music, theater, movement, and visual art this summer through Open Call and Summer Sway. We’re also excited to work with Nike in providing a platform for showcasing contemporary Black dance through Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s multidisciplinary project as she brings that archive to life through her exhibition.”
Troy Anthony and The Fire Ensemble
The Revival: It Is Our Duty
June 18, The Griffin Theater
Following a sold-out Open Call performance in 2021 and as part of a new threeyear collaboration with The Shed, Troy Anthony’s The Fire Ensemble presents The Revival: It Is Our Duty. This one-night-only music performance brings together the choir community with a live band to offer this musical event featuring original songs written by Anthony and performed through ritual to activate individual and collective liberation in celebration of Juneteenth. This event is a culmination of a series of choir community rehearsals that have taken place over the spring as part of the ongoing collaboration.
Summer Sway: Outdoor DJ and Dance Sets
Friday and Saturday Evenings in July and August on The Shed’s Open-Air Plaza
On select Friday and Saturday evenings in July and August, Summer Sway will take over The Shed’s public Plaza—created when The Shed’s movable shell is nested— to feature DJ sets, dance performances, and specialty cocktails by Cedric’s, The Shed’s on-site bar. A schedule and roster of dance groups and DJs will be announced. This series is presented in partnership with Nike.
Open Call
July 8 – August 27, Level 4 Overlook and The Griffin Theater
Launched during The Shed’s inaugural year, Open Call is The Shed’s commissioning program for early career NYC-based artists. Artists and collectives selected for the program receive a commissioning fee of up to $15,000, production support, and other resources to further nurture their practices and expand their audiences. This season, The Shed presents a series of live performance works in The Griffin Theater and the interdisciplinary space, Level 4 Overlook, including:
● Yo-Yo Lin: channels is a multisensory performance detailing experiences of isolation and togetherness, technology and the human body. (July 8 – 9)
● Eleanor Kipping: In Daddy Issues, Kipping’s solo performance presents the artist’s dating exploits as a queer Black woman new to New York City and pursues the impossible: to reconcile her family’s memories of life in Brooklyn in the ’80s and her childhood memories of Maine in the ’90s, all within the context of the AIDS crisis. (July 14 – 16)
● Niall Jones: a n u n r e a l imagines how one space can exist within another in the blurred terrain between performance and installation. (July 21 – 23)
● JJJJJerome Ellis: BENEDICTION is a concert imagining what Black ancestors witnessed in the landscapes of Virginia. (July 28 – 30)
● Benjamin Akio Kimitch: In Tiger Hands, Kimitch brings together choreography, costume, and stage design in an original production that challenges assumptions about the relationship of East Asian art forms to American contemporary dance. (August 4 – 6)
● z tye: The Available Bodies builds on an ongoing performance series born from artist z tye’s reaction to the growing number of trans/gender-non-conforming fatalities in America. As tye began conducting interviews on the subject with friends of trans experience, they responded to questions regarding genocide, safe houses, and more. (August 11 – 13)
● Justin Hicks: The song performances in Outside pull together stories and musings generated on hikes throughout the city and beyond, unpacking how “nature” lives in Black bodies and minds. (August 18 – 20)
● Kinetic Light: Wired is an immersive contemporary aerial dance experience of sound, light, and movement that traces the fine line between “us” and “them” while exploring the gender, race, and disability stories of barbed wire. (August 25 – 27)
Tiona Nekkia McClodden
The Trace of an Implied Presence
August 3 – 28, Level 2 Gallery
Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s The Trace of an Implied Presence meditates on the living history and influence of Black dance styles in the United States. The exhibition, a multichannel video installation, will feature in-depth portraits of cultural producer and programmer Mikki Shepard; scholar and tap dancer Michael J. Love; dancer and choreographer Leslie Cuyjet; the Rod Rodgers Dance Company; and a portrait of dancers Audrey & June, a couple upholding the legacy of a Black social dance based in Philadelphia, the Philly Bop. These portraits are presented alongside four minimal yet distinctive dance floors, each prepared for the specific needs of each dancer, to be activated during scheduled performances throughout the course of the show. The exhibition is inspired by the artist’s research into the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 1983 landmark festival, Dance Black America. The festival, curated by Mikki Shepherd, offered a dynamic presentation of American dance that brought together legendary Black dancers, choreographers, scholars, and dance companies. McClodden combines archival footage, film portraits of key figures involved with the festival, and her own documentation of the Philly Bop, a Black social dance from her native Philadelphia, to continue her ongoing work of exploring ideas belonging to the African diaspora. This exhibition is presented in partnership with Nike.
The Shed’s multidisciplinary commissioning program is conceived by Artistic Director and CEO Alex Poots with the senior program team, including Andria Hickey, Chief Curator; Tamara McCaw, Chief Civic Program Officer; Madani Younis, Chief Executive Producer; and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Senior Program Advisor.
Ticketing
All summer events are free with advance ticket reservations strongly encouraged. Tickets will be available beginning later this month on The Shed’s website. Please visit theshed.org for the latest information on ticket availability and safety policies.
Nike and The Shed Partnership
The multiyear partnership between Nike, Inc. and The Shed honors a shared belief that art and sport can expand human potential. Nike, Inc. and The Shed are dedicated to expanding human performance and are committed to artistic creativity, empowerment, diversity, and risk-taking. During this partnership Nike, Inc. will collaborate in relevant programming connected to The Shed’s annual program. This summer’s partner programming includes the dance and DJ sets on the plaza and Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s exhibition, The Trace of an Implied Presence.
About the artists
Troy Anthony is a Kentucky-born composer/lyricist, director, and theater-maker based in NYC practicing Black queer joy. He has received commissions from The 5th Avenue Theater, The Civilians, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and The Shed. He’s enjoyed residencies with Musical Theater Factory (MTF), The O’Neill Theater Center, and Village Theater. Additionally, he’s presented work at Joe’s Pub, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, JACK, Prospect Theater Company, the National Alliance for Musical Theater Conference, and 54 Below. Anthony recently received the Vivace Award from the Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation and is currently an artistin residence at The Chelsea Factory. As an actor, Anthony has been seen in the Public Theater’s As You Like It, Hercules, and Twelfth Night, as well as Prospect Theater Company’s Tamar of the River. Anthony’s work lives at the intersection of art, social justice, and community practice. In this spirit, he recently founded The Fire Ensemble as a home to develop his work and to share the joy of singing in community.
JJJJJerome Ellis is an animal, stutterer, and artist. He was raised by Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants in Tidewater, VA, where he prays, gardens, and resides among the egrets and asters. He dreams of building a sonic bath house!
Justin Hicks is a Drama Desk–nominated singer-songwriter and sound artist who makes music and performances that investigate identity and value. He’s collaborated with notable artists such as Abigail DeVille, Kaneza Schaal, Mimi Lien, Andrea Miller, Lynsey Peisinger, Meshell Ndegeocello, Charlotte Brathwaite, Hilton Als, Bill T. Jones, and Steffani Jemison. His work has been featured at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Public, Baryshnikov Art Center, Festival steirischer herbst (Graz, Austria), and The Albertinum Museum (Dresden, Germany). Most recently, he was the composer for Lynn Nottage’s latest play, Clyde’s, on Broadway. Hicks was a member of Kara Walker’s 6 – 8 Months Space and holds a culinary diploma from ICE in New York City.
Niall Noel Jones is an artist working and living in New York City. Jones constructs, inhabits, and explores the theater as a mode and location of instabilities. Working through an ongoing fascination with labor, temporality, and fantasy, Jones creates immersive, liminal sites for practicing incompleteness and refusal. Jones received a Bessie Award nomination for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer in 2017 and, more recently, a 2021 Grants-To-Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Recent works include: A Work for Others at The Kitchen OnScreen (2021); Fantasies in Low Fade at The Chocolate Factory, New York (2019); Sis Minor: The Preliminary Studies at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany (2018); Sis Minor, in Fall at Abrons Arts Center, New York (2018); and Splendor #3 at Gibney Dance, New York (2017). Jones received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. He teaches at the University of the Arts School of Dance in Philadelphia, where he is also producer and co-curator of The School for Temporary Liveness (Vol. 1 & 2).
Benjamin Akio Kimitch is an artist and producer living in Brooklyn. His works are deeply influenced by his mixed-race Japanese American heritage and childhood training in Chinese dance in Minnesota. Kimitch was recently a 2021 visiting artist at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University and a 2019 – 21 Movement Research artist-in-residence. His choreography has been presented by The Noguchi Museum, The Kitchen’s Dance and Process, and commissioned twice by Danspace Project. He holds a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch and studied briefly at Shanghai Theater Academy School of Chinese Opera. Kimitch’s writing has been published in Movement Research Performance Journal, Dance Magazine, and Gibney Journal. Alongside his artistic practice, Kimitch has been a full-time arts worker. Since 2020, he is the program director and associate curator at Danspace Project.
Kinetic Light is an internationally recognized disability arts ensemble. Working in the disciplines of art, technology, design, and dance, Kinetic Light creates, performs, and teaches at the nexus of access, queerness, disability, dance, and race. Kinetic Light is led by disabled artists; disabled artists create, design, and perform the work. The company’s work speaks to and emerges from disability aesthetics and disability culture, and it is connected to the rich traditions and exciting contemporary conversations of disabled artists in all artistic fields. In Kinetic Light’s work disability is not a deficit; it is a powerful, intersectional creative force that is essential to artistry. Access is integral to their art and creative process. Founded in 2016 under the direction and artistic leadership of Alice Sheppard, Kinetic Light artists include Laurel Lawson, Michael Maag, and Jerron Herman. The performing company is supported by a talented team of administration and production professionals who work behind the scenes, and a roster of additional artists join to contribute on a project basis.
Eleanor Kipping is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the experience of the Black diasporic body in the United States through the examination and deconstruction of historical and contemporary narratives. She is interested in the public, private, and civic negotiations of race, gender, and class in addition to the effect and practice of violence and surveillance upon the body. This hybrid work exists as performance, video, photography, poetry, spoken word/monologue, installation, and writing.
Yo-Yo Lin is a Taiwanese American, interdisciplinary artist who explores the possibilities for self knowledge in the context of emerging, embodied technologies. She often uses animation, live performance, and lush sound design to create meditative “memoryscapes.” Her recent body of work reveals and revalues the complex realities of living with invisibilized chronic illness, investigating ideologies of healing, resilience, and care. Her practice often facilitates sites for community-centered abundance, developing into physical and virtual installations, workshops, accessible nightlife parties, and artist collectives. She was a 2019 artist-in-residence at Eyebeam, a 2020 Open Call recipient from The Shed, and teaches at NYU Tisch ITP/IMA as the 2021 Red Burns Fellow. Her work has been featured in NOWNESS, Art in America, and Surface magazine. She is the co-founder of ROTATIONS, a collaborative movement practice working towards deepening our understanding of artistry, disability, and access. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
Tiona Nekkia McClodden is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, photography, sculpture, and sound installations. Her work addresses and critiques issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary, exploring shared ideas, values, and beliefs within the African diaspora, or what she calls “Black mentifact.” Her works have shown in major exhibitions, including most recently in Prospect 2021, New Orleans; New Grit: Art & Philly Now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Owkui Enwezor’s Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America at the New Museum, New York. Other presentations of her work have been on view at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and MoMA PS1, New York. Work by McClodden is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Rennie Museum, Vancouver.
z tye is a Brooklyn-based artist who is interested in physical investigations, including but not limited to: movement, voice, and theater. z explores concepts through ancestral praise. She is intrigued by somatic relations and how they associate with emotional connectivity. These works are intended to serve as queer offerings to LGBTQIA-POC communities. z continues to research the kinesthetic body with instinctual energy to fulfill their curiosity. She has been included in exhibitions with Bronx Museum of Arts, Volta/Armory Art Fair, The Living Gallery, Long Gallery Harlem, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Postmasters Gallery, Fridman Gallery, Art in Buildings, and Participant INC. Choreographies have been shown through BOFFO, JACK, Gibney, Movement Research, and Dance Canvas ATL.
Support
The Trace of an Implied Presence and Summer Sway are co-produced by The Shed in partnership with Nike.
The Lead Sponsor of Open Call is the TD Ready Commitment.
Support for Open Call is generously provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and The Shed’s Creative Council. Additional support is provided by WarnerMedia OneFifty, The Wescustogo Foundation, and Jody and John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation.
About Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc., based near Beaverton, Oregon, is the worlds leading designer, marketer, and distributor of authentic athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories for a wide variety of sports and fitness activities. Converse, a whollyowned NIKE, Inc. subsidiary brand, designs, markets, and distributes athletic lifestyle footwear, apparel and accessories. For more information, visit news.nike.com and follow @NIKE.
About The Shed
The Shed is a new cultural institution of and for the 21st century. We produce and welcome innovative art and ideas, across all forms of creativity, to build a shared understanding of our rapidly changing world and a more equitable society. In our highly adaptable building on Manhattan’s west side, The Shed brings together established and emerging artists to create new work in fields ranging from pop to classical music, painting to digital media, theater to literature, and sculpture to dance. We seek opportunities to collaborate with cultural peers and community organizations, work with like-minded partners, and provide unique spaces for private events. As an independent nonprofit that values invention, equity, and generosity, we are committed to advancing art forms, addressing the urgent issues of our time, and making our work impactful, sustainable, and relevant to the local community, the cultural sector, New York City, and beyond.
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