Headlining this month’s calendar is Edisa Weeks’ world premiere of “Action Songs/Protest Dances,” a live music and dance event at Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Nov. 12-13. “Action Songs/Protest Dances” will feature five original songs commissioned by composers/musicians Taina Asili, Spirit McIntyre, and Martha Redbone. Three of the songs are inspired by the life, speeches, and writings of civil rights activist James Forman (1928-2005), whose personal archives are housed at the Queens College Rosenthal Library; and two are about social justice issues in America today. Together, the songs and dances serve as a call to action, a protest against injustice, and a demand that America become a more just, equitable, inclusive and truly great nation. The piece is the first presented as a result of the innovative Kupferberg Arts Incubator. Weeks notes, “I started teaching at Queens College in 2010, which is also when the QC Rosenthal Library Civil Rights Archives acquired James Forman’s personal papers. I was incredibly excited as Forman was the first person I heard criticize capitalism as an exploitative economic system. I was a kid at the time, and remember feeling shocked, as I grew up playing monopoly and believing that capitalism was good and the ‘American Way.’” For more information visit https://kupferbergcenter.org/event/action-songs-protest-dances/
Nov. 1-5 – In her BAM debut, the choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and Company SBB will premiere “Embarqued: Stories of Soil,” a new dance-theater work described as “…an excavation of self and country, created in textiles, skin tones, labor, land, humor, and moving bodies…that centers around a transformative ship mast that invites reflection of our shared history and interrogates our relationships with memorialization, revealing post-colonial foundations and mythologies,” according to the release. For more information visit https://www.bam.org/embarqued
Nov. 2-13 – Returning for an in-person presentation of “Chasing Magic,” her 2019 digital Joyce debut, the tap dancer Ayodele Casel will again be joined by jazz musician and composer Arturo O’Farrill. Directed by frequent collaborator Torya Beard—who also served as creative director for Casel’s Joyce debut—“…the piece is an ode to craft and community, a celebratory display of artistic encounters that endure no matter when and where you leave them,” according to the release. “Chasing Magic” will also reunite singer/songwriter Crystal Monee Hall, pianist Anibal Cesar Cruz, and percussionist Keisel Jimenez, as well as fellow tap artists Naomi Funaki and Amanda Castro. For more information visit https://www.joyce.org/performances/ayodele-casel-chasing-magic
Nov. 3-5 – In the premiere of “Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist” for Danspace, Mina Nishimura continues to sketch out an alternate dimension of St. Mark’s Church, where “multiple energies, traits, memories, and identities are fluidly bubbling up and disappearing,” notes the release. For more information visit https://danspaceproject.org/calendar/fall2022-nishimura/
Nov. 4-5 – Camille A. Brown & Dancers concludes the presentation of “The Trilogy” with “ink” at The Apollo. Made in 2017, “ink” “…elevates the day-to-day experience of Black people—Black love, brotherhood, community—revealing the tender, loving, vulnerable, and supportive side of Black culture and the resiliency that keeps Black people rising, like superheroes,” notes the release. This performance marks the last for Brown as she moves into choreographing and directing for her company, theater, opera, and film full-time. “The Trilogy” included “Mr. TOL E. RAncE” (2012) and “BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play” (2015) presented at The Joyce in October. For more information visit https://www.apollotheater.org/event/camille-a-brown-dancers-ink/
Nov. 8 – Kayla Farris concludes a series of performances at The Trisk with a new work in process entitled “Put Away the Fire, Dear,” “a group work dreaming of American cinema into live performance…that reimagines thriller, romance, film noir, and musical theater through storytelling, movement, sound score, scene, and text,” notes the release. For more information visit https://www.triskelionarts.org/kayla-farrish-2022
Nov. 9-12 – Emerging choreographers Alexander Anderson and Jie-Hung Connie Shiau (Gibney Company artistic associates) and Chuck Wilt (UNA Productions artistic director) will present new works at Gibney. For more information visit https://gibneydance.org/gibney-presents-new-works-by-alexander-anderson-jie-hung-connie-shiau-and-chuck-wilt/
Nov. 11-12 – The Burkina Faso choreographer, Serge Aimé Coulibaly and his Faso Danse Théâtre will premiere “Wakatt,” with live music by Magic Malik Orchestra at NYU Skirball. “Wakatt,” which means “our times” in the Mooré language of Burkina Faso, features 10 dancers and three musicians and “…examines daily reality and social changes through a dance language that starts from internal violence, human instinct, urgency and the need to express oneself,” according to the release. For more information visit https://nyuskirball.org/events/faso-danse-theatre-serge-aime-coulibaly-wakatt/
Nov. 12 – NJPAC brings vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater and tap dancer Savion Glover together in “Interpretations” for an evening of jazz in solo sets of dance and improvisation. For more information visit https://www.njpac.org/event/dee-dee-bridgewater-savion-glover/
Nov. 15-20 – Garth Fagan Dance is back at The Joyce for the company’s 52nd anniversary season. Slated for this season’s program world premieres by Fagan and Norwood Pennewell and works from the repertory. For more information visit https://www.joyce.org/performances/garth-fagan-dance
Nov. 17-19 – Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez, a visually impaired choreographer and disability advocate, is expanding audio description as an art form in his latest work, “The Circle or Prophetic Dream” “…anthropological research on how the body and sound inhabit social space as new forms of nomadism, in the midst of the current international migration crisis caused by displacement, climate change and land appropriation,” according to the release. For more information visit https://danspaceproject.org/calendar/fall2022-nunez/
Nov. 18-20 – Alpha-Omega will celebrate their 50th anniversary season at LaMaMa with the premiere of “Once Upon El Barrio,” conceived and choreographed by artistic director, Enrique Cruz DeJesus. For more information visit https://alphaomegadance.org/at-the-ao/events/
Nov. 18-19 – Miro Maglorie’s New Chamber Ballet will present the world premiere of a yet-to-be-named ballet at Mark Morris Dance Center. For more information visit https://www.newchamberballet.com/performances
Nov. 19-22 – For in-person and virtual presentations, choreographer Roderick George and cellist Seth Parker Woods come together at the 92nd Street Y in the multimedia work “Difficult Grace.” For more information visit https://www.92ny.org/event/seth-parker-woods
Nov. 22 – Dec. 4 – COMPLEXIONS Contemporary Ballet comes to the Joyce in Chelsea and celebrates their 28th anniversary season with two programs under co-founding artistic directors, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. Included on the programs will be the world premiere of Rhoden’s “Endgame,” and the company premiere of a pas de deux from William Forsythe’s “Slingerland,” plus from their repertory, “Snatched Back from the Edges.” For more information visit https://www.joyce.org/performances/complexions-contemporary-ballet