Gibney Facility Expands Commitment to D...Ommunity

7/17/2019 Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community - The Villager | The Villager

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Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community

May 1, 2018 | Filed under: Arts & Entertainment | Posted by: Sylvan Migdal

On stage, L to R: Dancers Tamrin Goldberg, Thomas Tyger Moore, Calleja Smiley and Emily Tellier at a Hands are for Holding assembly at PS81 in Ridgewood, Queens. | Photo by Dusica Sue Malesevic BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | Enthusiasm pulsed in the air as the fifth graders remained in rapt attention of the dancers onstage.

“If you hear my voice, give me a clap,” Thomas Tyger Moore instructed. “If you hear my voice, give me three claps. If you hear my voice, give me six claps.”

The students followed suit, and in the hush that followed, two of the dancers — Calleja Smiley and Emily Tellier — showed how to stand up while being back to back. It was then the students’ turn. They bounded onstage and tried to do the same, to mixed results and giggles.

The recent morning assembly at PS81 in Ridgewood, Queens was part of a program called Hands are for Holding, which uses dance to spur conversations among middle and high school students throughout the city about healthy and unhealthy relationships, bullying, technology, and social media. https://www.thevillager.com/2018/05/gibney-facility-expands-commitment-to-dance-community-3/ 1/10 7/17/2019 Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community - The Villager | The Villager “The kids are very receptive to what they see,” Tellier said afterwards, noting that most kids “love to dance, and so using dance that way to communicate this kind of message, I think, is the best point about this. We’re not just talking at them, they’re actually seeing the differences between healthy and unhealthy.”

In between the dances and demonstrating gestures that signal healthy relationships, such as respect, trust and support, someone from the nonprofit Day One, or from the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence facilitates a conversation around what the students saw, Tellier explained.

Hands are for Holding is one branch of a larger organization now known as Gibney, which focuses on social justice work, community, and its beating heart: dance (visit gibneydance.org for more information).

At the center of the organization is Gina Gibney, who founded her eponymous dance company in 1991, and when she last spoke with NYC Community Media in fall 2014, had recently taken on the space at 280 Broadway — in addition to running 890 Broadway.

Now, Gibney Dance recently rebranded as Gibney, expanded its studio space, and has become a presenter of dance.

It took about 18 months to renovate the space into studios. | Photo by Scott Shaw “People come here and I overhear their conversations on the phones, they say, ‘I’m at Gibney,’” she said in a recent interview at 280 Broadway.

She added, “We feel that we have grown incrementally, but we’re kind of approaching being an institution now, and so we want to have a name that feels a little bit more — rolls off the tongue, simple.”

Gibney reiterated the deep commitment to dance, despite the removal of the word.

“At the same time, think of how many organizations you’ve heard of that are — fill in the blank — dance,” she said. “We think we needed to have a name that really in some way just captured the concept that we are an

https://www.thevillager.com/2018/05/gibney-facility-expands-commitment-to-dance-community-3/ 2/10 7/17/2019 Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community - The Villager | The Villager institution, we do many, many things. Part of what we do is have a resident dance company but we have grown… beyond that.”

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Gina Gibney founded her eponymous dance company in 1991. | Photo by Scott Shaw That growth has been literal as well. Six new studios — 10,000 square feet of space — recently opened at 280 Broadway.

“First and foremost, dance artists just need space,” Gibney explained. “There is a crisis of space, and we had, before having those six studios, we had 17 studios that were literally full morning to night and we’re turning people away.”

Of the 17 studios before the expansion, she said many of them were not large, and those are needed to serve sizable groups of dancers.

Initially, when Gibney signed the lease at 280 Broadway, there was a subtenant in the back.

“The original space here was 26,000 square feet, our space at 890 is about 16,000 square feet and this was another 10. So at the time, I just thought are you kidding, you know, more risk, more responsibility, more rent,” she said with a laugh.

Then she started to realize the back space was ideal.

“The original space was complicated. There are a few spaces where there are pillars right in the middle of rooms,” she said. “The columns back there just cooperated beautifully, they just lined up, literally, as if… the space was meant to be used as a dance studio.”

It took about 18 months for the renovation.

“We want that back wing to feel like a residency space. So we’re working on mechanisms that would allow us to either rent it to people in blocks of time, or to partner with other organizations to provide residency space, or to use some of our own funding,” she explained.

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Gina Gibney said the new black box was “consciously built so you could do everything from a rehearsal in bare feet to build a set in that room.” | Photo by Scott Shaw One of the residencies — called Dance in Process — is aimed at mid–career artists.

“It’s very generous funding. It gives the artist complete access, 24/7, to the space for three weeks,” Gibney said, noting the funding came from the [Andrew W.] Mellon Foundation. “It gives them a really generous fee. It gives them a resource menu. It gives them a budget for artistic advisors, or rehearsal assistants, or some resource connected to their creative process.”

And because Dance in Process was started before the organization was a presenter, artists are under no obligation to create a work to present.

When Gibney took the space at 280 Broadway, she recalled, “We had converted studio C into a white box theater, and the downstairs into a lab, so we now had three performance spaces, and were a somewhat reluctant presenter.”

She added, “I was concerned about the idea of becoming a presenter because presenting is as much about who is not on the stage as it is about… who is in that square of space for that amount of time. Those dynamics at the time seemed somewhat at odds with the character of our organization, or our kind of ethos as a community- minded organization.”

Gibney said they developed separate tracks for the organization — social justice work, training, digital technology, the resident dance company, and presenting. Ben Pryor — the founder of the festival American Realness — is the in-house curator for Gibney.

Class offerings have also increased, and many are down in partnership with Movement Research, and some intensives in partnership with the Joyce, she said.

“We are essentially trying to, in a very sort of thoughtful way, expand offerings around a framework that we have, but in ways that we think are needed by the [dance] community,” she said. https://www.thevillager.com/2018/05/gibney-facility-expands-commitment-to-dance-community-3/ 5/10 7/17/2019 Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community - The Villager | The Villager The larger community of Lower Manhattan is also welcome at 280 Broadway, where Community Board 1 has held meetings, as well as other groups.

“I continue to be really energized by the fact that we are across… the street from City Hall,” she said. “It’s just very exciting to me to be a civic player. To be able to provide space to the Progressive Caucus, or to a specific group, or to the community board.”

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Dancers Nigel Campbell, the company’s co-director, and Zui Gomez. | Photo by Scott Shaw Gibney said it has been more challenging “to sort out what is the relationship between our actual programming and the Lower Manhattan community.”

To that end, she said the organization is partnering with the nonprofit Theatre Development Fund “where we’re focusing on our own resident company and doing audience development from the neighborhood with that.”

From May 3-5, the Gibney Dance Company will perform two pieces: Amy Miller’s “Valence” and Bryan Arias’ “One Thousand Million Seconds.”

“For many years, the company was a vehicle for Gina Gibney’s work,” Miller, the senior company director, explained by phone. “For the past three years we’ve started the initiative where we invited guest choreographers.”

Miller said she is “resetting an older work” with “Valence,” a piece with a lot “fierce, virtuosic moments” she created in 2009. Somehow, she recalled, she came across a laminated cheat sheet for chemistry, saw valence and its definition, and was inspired to create the dance.

Company co-director Nigel Campbell said by phone, “It’s a wonderfully mixed program.”

Arias’ piece is a new commission, and Campbell called it a “study on memories and moments.”

Gibney Dance Company has five full-time dancers, known as “artistic associates,” which Miller is explained is a model based on three ideas — the dancer as an artist, activist, and advocate.

“Gina has created something so special here,” Campbell said.

For more information about Gibney Dance Company’s May 3-5 performances, go to gibneydance.org/event/gibney-dance-company-amy-miller-bryan-arias/2018-05-03.

https://www.thevillager.com/2018/05/gibney-facility-expands-commitment-to-dance-community-3/ 7/10 7/17/2019 Gibney facility expands commitment to dance, community - The Villager | The Villager

Gibney at 280 Broadway has recently opened six new studios. | Photo by Scott Shaw

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Performance and Symposium On March 9 Addressed Bullying and Teen Dating Violence In an ongoing effort to increase awareness of and address the issues surrounding teen dating violence, bullying and domestic violence, Gibney Dance, in partnership with the Mayor’s Ofce to Combat Domestic Violence, presented a special Hands are for Holding assembly on Thursday, March 9 at 10 Dance News: Archive in Motion a.m. at the organization’s 280 Broadway location in Lower Manhattan. The Jerome Robbins Dance Div from July 15th Onwards

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Photo credit: Scott Shaw. The event also recognized Spectrum — America’s fastest growing TV, internet and voice company — as the new lead sponsor of Hands are for Holding, Gibney Dance’s school-based enrichment program that uses dance as a tool to engage students in the subjects of teen-dating violence and bullying. Students, elected ofcials and business leaders from across New York City took part in a performance, talk-back and symposium conceived to raise awareness of bullying and teen dating violence, while offering insight into creating and maintaining healthy relationships and identify additional resources available in the New York area.

Photo credit: Scott Shaw. A cornerstone of Gibney Dance’s Community Action Program devoted to social justice causes, Hands are for Holding takes place throughout the year in New York City schools and involves short performances by professional dancers from Gibney Dance Company, followed by talk-backs with community educators. The goal is to help students identify signs of bullying and abusive relationships and provide them with preventative actions as well as information on where and how to get help should they nd themselves in any kind of an abusive relationship. Dance provides a particularly resonant tool, in that students readily relate to the physical support offered to someone in a dance and the parallels with emotional support offered in a relationship. Thanks to new lead sponsor Spectrum, Gibney Dance is able to employ more dance artists than ever before to implement Hands are for Holding, which will reach even more diverse student populations in more neighborhoods throughout New York City.

Hands are for Holding from Gibney https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/from-the-press/view/Hands-Holding-Gibney-Dance-Combat-Domestic-Violence 2/4 7/17/2019 Hands are for Holding, a Program by Gibney Dance, Continues to Combat Domestic Violence | The Dance Enthusiast

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Gibney Dance Community Action also provides New York City domestic violence shelters with over 365 free movement workshops each year. At these workshops Company members share activities that draw from artistic practices to address issues of choice and self-expression. Initiated in 2000 in collaboration with Sanctuary for Families, one of the country’s most prominent domestic violence agencies, the program has also partnered with agencies including Safe Horizon and Day One. Widely regarded as a model in the eld, Community Action’s methods for integrating arts and social action are distributed nationally via Institute for Community Action Training, which hosts dancers annually from across the U.S., and internationally through Global Community Action Residencies, most recently in Istanbul, Turkey and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/from-the-press/view/Hands-Holding-Gibney-Dance-Combat-Domestic-Violence 4/4 7/17/2019 Group Uses Dance to Tackle Serious Subjects For Kids

Group Uses Dance to Tackle Serious Subjects For Kids

By Kara Jillian Brown | January 2, 2019

Scott Shaw Gibney staff say the parallels between dance and life give weight to its work.

Four dancers glide across the floor, holding hands and leaping in tandem. Suddenly, they and the music are interrupted by the sound of incoming text messages that demand to know “What are you doing?” “Where are you?” “Who are you with?” The questions cause one of the dancers to lose focus and to break away from the others.

This performance is one of four in the repertoire of “Hands are for Holding,” a program created by the dance center Gibney to fuel discussions about healthy relationships and intimate-partner violence with students in grades four through 12. Each assembly features four dancers and a community educator who facilitates a post-performance conversation.

“We utilized the dances as a proxy for the conversation because what makes a healthy dance is often the same thing that makes a healthy relationship,” says Kara Gilmour, the center’s senior director of community training and outreach. “Communication, patience, equity — without those a dance falls apart.”

Gibney is more than a dance school. Yasemin Ozumerzifon, director of community action, says it has worked with survivors of intimate- partner violence since 2000 and realized a few years ago that they also wanted to focus on prevention through dialogue with young people. Join Our Weekly Newsletter “Hands are for Holding” held its first assembly in 2014, in conjunction with Day One, a youth-focused organization aiming to end dating abuse and domestic violence. The program expanded this year thanks to the Mayor’s Grant for Culture Impact, which funded six-month Subscribe to get City Limits' in-depth local reporting partnerships between city offices and cultural organizations. Gibney, along with six other groups, was one of the first to receive thisdelivered to you $50,000 grant.

The Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence has been working with “Hands are for Holding” since 2015, but this year is the first time the program received city funds. Five recipients for the second iteration of the grant will be announced in January 2019.Enter your email here...

Gilmour says the grant legitimized Gibney’s effort and that she’s excited to see the city investing in art as a form of activism. SUBSCRIBE “It’s a true testament to the city acknowledging in a very significant way that arts are integral to creating systemic change,” Gilmour says. “They are not an add-on, they are not a nice-to-have but that they are a core piece of really changing the way society functions.”We do not sell or share your information with anyone.

https://citylimits.org/2019/01/02/group-uses-dance-to-tackle-serious-subjects-for-kids/ 1/2 7/17/2019The grant allowed Gibney to host assemblies in more schools (75 last school year) and pilot a 10-week residency program that teachesGroup Uses Dance to Tackle Serious Subjects For Kids smaller groups of students about healthy relationships and communication.

“We know that kids learn from other kids and we know that a deeper dive is more significant,” Ozumerzifon says. “Having the intimacy and the commitment of that partnership as well as the time and the funding to go into the schools and pilot those was key.”

“Hands” is committed to doing four residencies during the 2018-2019 school year.

Megan Minturn, a dance teacher at Brooklyn International High School, says her school has worked with “Hands are for Holding” since 2014. Ten of her students are currently completing a residency, focusing their dance on the pros and cons of technology.

“There are two really talented dance artists who are offering the program and working with the students and I think it’s rare,” says Minuturn, who is present at the weekly sessions. “It might seem like a minute element but I think that students realize that what we’re doing is special and important when there are three adults in the room sharing these experiences and discussions with them.”

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