A site-specific music and dance performance that toured NYC community gardens. In each site neighborhood children were incorporated into the piece and each performance was preceded by parade through the local neighborhood.
Performances took place at Westside Community Garden, Union Settlement Garden, Howard Avenue Garden, Warren Street Community Garden and Red Hook Waterfront Garden. It sought to highlight the value of these green spaces to community residents as New York City sought their destruction to make room for new development projects.
Credits
Oasis Pre-performance Workshops: Pleasant Village Community Garden
Choreography and Direction: Martha Bowers
Project Manager: Kym Woodford
Music: composed by Ralph Denzer
Musical Director: Peck Almond
Costumes and Props: G.W. Mercier
Dance/Theatre/Etcetera Dancers: Bethany Formica, Anna Maria Mendoza Garcia, Francine Sheffield, Kazumi Taoka, Tania Varela -Ibarra, Katie Workum, Michael Yasenak
Vocals by Valerie Winborne
OASIS was made possible with support from Dancing in the Streets OnSITE/NYC Commissioning Fund and its supporters (the Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust); NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; the Harkness Foundations for Dance; the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship: the Gowanus Arts Exchange’s Artist Residency Project; and the generous support of private individuals.
Special thanks to Rutgers University Dance Department and dance students for their collaboration in developing early versions of this work.
