By CHARMAINE
PATRICIA WARREN
Special to the AmNews
The annual Battery Dance Festival returns for its 38th season, presented by Battery Dance in association with Battery Park City Authority, offering free performances from Aug. 11–16, against the backdrop of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park in Battery Park City. Dubbed the “longest-running free public dance festival, as well as one of its most wide-ranging,” the Festival annually presents original works by emerging and established companies from across the globe. Featured this year is a curated selection of local dance companies as well as dancers from Argentina, Austria, Curaçao, France, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Turkey. This season’s lineup includes: Danuka Ariyawansa (Sri Lanka), Leah Barsky and Cristian Correa (Argentina), Mezopotamya Dans (Turkey), Hussein Smko–Adel Euro Campaign for Dancers Seeking Refuge Fellow (Iraq), Water Street Dance Milwaukee, Jon Ole Olstad, Mari Meade Dance Collective/MMDC, Laboration Art Company (France), Emma Evelein Dance and Choreography (Netherlands), Buglisi Dance Theatre, Ashlé Dawson–Breaking Conformity Productions, B-E (Lithuania), Chloe London Dance, SEAD’s Bodhi Project (Austria), Reuel Rogers (Curaçao) and so many more. Thursday, Aug. 15, is set as the “Day of Indian Dance on Indian Independence Day—Celebrating Manipuri Dance,” with Darshana Jhaveri & Drummers and Dancers of Munipur. All performances run from 7-9, then at 9 p.m. the audience is invited to participate in an interactive dance experience led by members of a different company each evening from that night’s program. The closing performance Aug. 17 is a ticketed event and will happen at The Schimmel Center at Pace University. For more information, visit www.batterydance.org
Aug. 1-3—Malpaso Dance Company returns to Martha’s Vineyard with works by artistic director Osnel Delgado, featuring Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, plus Ohad Naharin, Beatriz Garcia and Robyn Mineko Williams. For more information visit www.dancetheyard.org
Aug. 3 & 10—Artistic director André M. Zachery and his Renegade Performance Group will premiere Ephemera “…an Afrofuturist site-specific dance and media work… expounding on the body as a living-archive…” activating the current exhibition, “Chronos Cosmos: Deep Time, Open Space,” at Socrates Sculpture Park, notes the release. For more information visit www.socratesssculpturepark.org
Aug. 7—For one-night-only, flamenco dancer Jesús Carmona comes to the Damrosch Park Bandshell as part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival with Amator, “…a deeply personal work that draws upon his love of Spanish dance,” according to the release. For more information visit www.lincolncenter.org
Aug. 8—Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park’s Bandshell brings Ailey II, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s second company, with a program of recent work including Road to One by Darrell Grand Moultrie, Breaking Point by Renee I. McDonald, and Where There Are Tongues by Bradley Shelver. For more information visit www.bricartsmedia.org
Aug. 16-17—For their annual season, executive & artistic director and founder Robert Villanueva’s Balasole Dance Company will present an evening of solo works titled “GAMME,” at Ailey Citigroup Theater. Featured soloists are: Alex Bar, Alyssa Bar, Kathlenne ‘Kat’ Bark, Jonalyn Bradshaw, Yu Fujiwara, Ezra Goh, Mckenzie Mullan, Leigh Schanfein, Caroline Sheehan, Tyreel Simpson, Roberto Villanueva, Stephanie Rae Williams (Guest Soloist). For more information visit www.balasoledance.org
Aug. 17-18—China Arts and Entertainment Group Ltd. returns to the David H. Koch Theater with Carmina Burana and Goddess of the Luo River, performed by the Guangzhou Ballet. For more information visit www.lincolncenter.org
Aug. 10 & 24—Continuing their special summer presentations to support more than 25 artists working in a variety of disciplines for the 2019 Watershed Lab, two are featured this month at the Mount Tremper Arts (MTA): camp3 by AUNTS (8/10), and Otherself (1st Sketch) by Mina Nishimura and Kota Yamazaki (8/24). To date the program included: Stephanie Acosta, Hadar Ahuvia, Tatyana Tenenbaum, Ballez, Lorene Bouboushian, Megan Byrne, Jennifer Kjos, Leslie Cuyjet, Lisa Fagan, Charlotte Gibbons, Madison Krekel, iele paloumpis, Jillian Peña, Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal, Raha Behnam, Tara Sheena, David Thomson, Julie Tolentino, Mariana Valencia, Takahiro Yamamoto, Mlondi Zondi, Gelsey Bell, Becca Blackwell and Edisa Weeks. Still to come: Ellie Ga, Antonio Ramos and the Gang Bangers and mayfield brooks. The program continues until Oct. 26. For more information visit www.mounttremperaerts.org
Aug. 31–Sept. 1—At LUMBERYARD Center for Film and Performing Arts, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will present the work-in-progress, “On the Water,” where “…he examines group identity and its relationship to aloneness… [and]…features spoken word and music performed live by the Company. Its staging will blur the boundary between audience and sculpted dancer, intensifying the theme of belonging versus isolation,” notes the release. For more information visit www.lumberyard.org