Introducing Artist Process Group at Green Space!

We are excited to announce Artist Process Group.

This will be a process group for all artists of any discipline that promotes physical, emotional, mental & spiritual growth through movement, expressive work & group dynamics in a safe & therapeutic environment.

This group will help with: PTSD ~ Various Forms of Abuse ~ Relationship Issues ~ Concerns Related to Personality ~ Anger Issues ~ Body Image Concerns ~ Guilt and Shame ~ Anxiety, Panic, or Depression ~ Life Transitions ~ Self Esteem ~ Depression ~ Injury ~ Professional Transitions ~ Addictions ~ Personal Growth ~ Social Anxiety

Facilitator: Valerie Green, CCEP, Certified Practitioner in Core Energetics and Body/Mind Fitness

When: 10 Bi-Monthly Sessions (Tuesdays 7pm-9pm)

9/20, (No session 10/4 - holiday), 10/11, 10/25, 11/8, 11/22, 12/6, 12/20, 1/3, 1/17/ 1/31

(Attendance of a minimum of 8 sessions is required)

Where: In-person @ Green Space- 37-24 24th Street, #211 Long Island City, NY 11101

How: All interested can apply by filling out this form here.

Session Series Fee: $300

Early Bird Rate: $250 if registered by August 31st

VG/DE Summer Dance Intensive is a Wrap!

We have just completed another successful Summer Dance Intensive! This summer's students were motivated, open, and passionate - a complete inspiration! For seven days the summer dance students trained daily in hip hop, contemporary techniques, yoga, and choreography practices all led by a wide range of Teaching Artists. Apart from dancing, students were given the opportunity to dig deep into themselves as artists, clearing the way for some major self discoveries. Students worked very closely with Artistic Director Valerie Green throughout the week, and put all this new information into practice for their culminating final performance "Come to the River".

We love hearing what our students have to say about their Summer Dance Intensive experiences:

“Deep breath in! This was such a wonderful journey through all forms of art in this studio. After completing this process, I feel liberated. I am so motivated and encouraged to keep releasing control in the new experiences I’ll encounter. The community of different personalities has broadened my list of resources for networking. Not only have I found comfort in opening for myself, but I’ve found a healing in opening for others. I am grateful to Valerie for offering me a scholarship as I know the value of the classes and the artist teaching. I appreciate all she has sacrificed in order to make this program come to fruition and I hope to work with her again someday”

“I loved that we got to have a wide range of styles and teachers. As well as constantly being pushed to be better artist in all aspects”

This was a special week, with special dancers, and even MORE special humans. We are incredibly proud of the work they did and can't wait to see what is in store for next year!

Senior Stars!

Valerie Green/Dance Entropy presented free performances throughout the borough of Queens as the culmination of their SU-CASA residency.

Dance Entropy and it's teaching artists have been leading onsite movement workshops with seniors across Queens, providing free performances and open rehearsal opportunities and a performance series onsite at each center.

The culminating events featured a performance of Everything by Dance Entropy and a presentation by the participating seniors themselves from Hanac Ravenswood Neighborhood Senior, Elmcor's Golden Phoenix Club Two, Rego Park Neighborhood Senior Center performing "Senior Prom" and "Dance with Somebody."

Dance Entropy, Inc is grateful for the opportunity of working with seniors, it important cherished work, and we look forward to the program coming back next year.

“I didn’t know I could still move like that! ”

— Senior Student

“It was my first time teaching seniors, I looked forward to seeing them each week, their energy was inspirational, it was a great experience!”

— -Hayleigh Schmidt, Teaching Artist

About SU-CASA

SU-CASA is a community arts engagement program that places artists and organizations in residence at senior centers across the five boroughs of New York City. The program, funded by the New York City Council, provides grants to artists and organizations for the creation and delivery of arts programming for seniors. The program supports a total 255 residencies for individuals and organizations at senior centers across the City's 51 Council districts.

About the Work

Everything a dance performance installation evoking the ever-expanding universe, transforming the performance space into a constellation of stars and human bodies in various states of formation and explosion. Inspired by astrophotography, string theory, interconnectivity and meditations on space and time. The new dance work weaves together a visual, physical and emotional translation of the cosmos.

And a very special presentation by the participating seniors created from their time in the workshops with Dance Entropy's teaching artists.

Monday, June 13th and Wednesday, June 29th

Senior Prom- a dance performance celebrating the highest of all ranks in life and that is being a senior. This performance is upbeat, playful and energetic. Infusing hip hop, house, Afro beat and Latin movements. Reminding seniors that we will always remain children in the eyes of the universe and maintaining a youthful spirit.

Monday, June 27th

Dance With Somebody! - a celebration displaying the power and magic that happens when we come together in dance. A fun and energetic performance combining aspects of jazz, Latin, and contemporary movements.

APRIL TAKE ROOT: MEET THE ARTISTS AND THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THEIR WORK -Part Two

BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance is thrilled to be participating in Take Root 2022 on April 8-9 at Green Space in Long Island City. Our work this year is titled Continually Healing and we are having so much fun developing this new work after our COVID hiatus. As the choreographer of BodyStories, my work examines society’s darkest and brightest moments, moving audiences to perceive emotional and psychological aspects of the human condition. Social justice is a core tenet of our choreographic mission, and our work explores issues of the human experience while raising awareness on a local and global scale. BodyStories is committed to reaching diverse populations through performances, community engagement, and accessible education. Over the past two years the company fluidly transitioned to virtual and in-person performance and educational programming, working with an international roster of collaborators to focus on themes of social tumult and isolation.

Continually Healing continues research from a choreographic series that began in 2018, and has gone through many progressions, advancing my artistic inquiry into the management of trauma, violence, inaction, and eventual reconciliation through movement and creative expression. This work, in particular, will focus on the mental distress caused as a result of the pandemic. Through Continually Healing, we aim to explore the frustration caused by the isolation and separation from loved ones. This work intends to speak to traumas and healings experienced by a diverse range of individuals throughout the pandemic. Stories are extremely varied, yet our work seeks to uncover universal truths through a shared artistic experience. Choreographically, we worked on differing dynamics in phrase work to demonstrate the quick changes in mandates, variants, and social issues.

We also played with the contrasting qualities of isolation and demonstrating the varied experiences from person to person. This allowed each dancer to express their individual experience and a space to work through the feelings of isolation and longing for others through text to movement and pulling from that to develop our material. We hope that through Continually Healing the audience will feel invited to process their own feelings and emotions in a safe space alongside us.

The final form will be an evening-length performance integrating live dance with elements of video projection and audience participation. Developed choreography will be layered with video projections of rehearsal footage, as a means to represent the full arc of the work which would include integrated text and reflection. Bill T. Jones’ work, Still/Here, serves as a major source of inspiration. Using choreographic phrases and key imagery synthesized through prior research of current events, personal reflection, and shared stories, this work explores the process of healing and finding social equity through dance. Our music score was composed by Kevin Keller, Muriel Louveau, Kiernan Robinson, and John Yannelli. Performers include Kate Bishop (and Baby Siena), Nicole Kadar- Greene (and baby b & baby a), Emma Iredale, and Sabrina Petrelli.

“The “W” in the title stands for “world,” and Ms. Fellion and her colleagues do succeed in creating one.... John Yannelli and members of the SLC Experimental Music Ensemble contribute a richly textured, partly live score of drones, strings plucked and strummed, swelling distortion, and high hums. The choreography is action-packed with a strong flow, a current that is sometimes tidal, washing the dancers back and forth across St. Mark’s Church, turning the terrarium into an aquarium.”

-Brian Seibert, The New York Times

Make sure to follow BodyStories on Instagram (@bodystories_teresafelliondance), Facebook (@BodyStoriesTFD), and Twitter (@BodyStories_TFD) for updates and behind the scenes footage of our season!

APRIL TAKE ROOT: MEET THE ARTISTS AND THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THEIR WORK - Part One

Choreographed by Clouds

By Kristin Hatleberg

Choreographed by Clouds is a duet between body and sky. The work is a solo performance in the way a cloud is a solitary form. It embodies the singular but contains a multitude. The individual raindrops comprise a cloud; this solo is culled from myriad stories, memories, moments, artistic creations, and voices.

I can hear Katie Duck’s voice reminding me, “The group choses the solo.” That’s certainly true in both dance improvisation and in life. Working on this show, I have been amazed time and again, by the rich generosity we people constantly offer one another. Everything in this show has been given to me to share with you, and the parts that have made it onto the stage are just a little wisp of it all.

It is the third artistic collaboration between myself, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, and Erik Moe and something like the hundredth between myself and Fred Hatt. The project was born out of the year-long research and performance project, Half | Life, that was made in 2018-2019 with support from DC-Commission for Arts and Humanity. It has been building slowly and steadily throughout the pandemic years. I have a feeling the show will keep amassing and shifting in many more forms -- if you see this iteration, I would love to hear what was on your mind while taking it in.

While tethered to a specific geographic region, the show expands to cover the globe. Visually, the clouds compiled in it were shared by friends around the world who knew what I was up to – namely, attempting to directly transpose the cloud motion onto my own limbs to create movement sequences -- and saw a cloud that made them think of me. They pointed their phones straight up into the sky, and I tried to become the cloud as they witnessed it to be and to morph.

During the show, the body multiplies through voices. Men and women young and old regale us with stories. These stories speak on how clouds that were once here have drifted and changed and are now over far-flung places or no longer clouds. It seems to me our lives are much like clouds in this way. Our stories themselves drift, to other times and other places, to remembered sensations and unanswered questions.

We all have the extreme force of nature as our own make up. We all yield to it now and then. This yielding is what shapes our lives. I mean, that’s the point of cloud gazing, right? Sure, we all know somewhere back in our minds that clouds are incomprehensibly heavy masses of water and ice droplets and that we’d die if we were dropped into them, probably. We’ve mainly never given them a moment’s notice and yet innately know when a storm’s brewing. At some point, we all yield to the bigness of it all.

On the good days we can relax into the shapes we think we see, or into the texture against the brightness, or let our thoughts drift through our minds. That’s the point of this piece. Getting whichever thing you need a little of tonight, while you’re here. Thank you to all who have contributed to the making of this project so far: Annmarie Sculpture Gardens; Gaby Agis; Isabella Bruno; Cecilia Fontanesi; Dallas Graham; DC-Commission of Arts and Humanities; Valerie Green; Jenny Hatleberg; Steven Hatleberg; Fred Hatt; Kirsi Heimonen; Marianna Kosharovsky; Eliza Langley; Russell Langley; Mary Madsen; Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann; Rebeca Medina; Erik Moe; Sarah Moore; Next Reflex Dance Collective; Alexa Schmid; Elaine Stampalia; Ana Stegnar; Vasiliki Xrysan Tsagkari.

Someday maybe, this show would be performed in new iterations in all the places it holds: Brussels; Mantova; Mombasa; St Cloud; Vals; Washington DC; etc. In each new city, the dance would be passed on to a local performer who would recreate their own expression of the score. The stories could be retold and reformed to tether to that place in its own language. The continual morphing of the production reflects the transient nature of its original authors, the clouds themselves.

Eating Disorder Awareness and Arts Advocacy: Borne Dance Company’s Mission to Fight Eating Disorder Stigma

Written By: Julia O’Brien | Photos By: Cary Davis at Human Stories Photography

I’ve danced for Borne Dance Company for the past three years, and each year our season ending National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) Awareness Showcase event raises hundreds of dollars for the organization. This year, we were lucky to have hosted our event at Green Space with the beautiful LIC skyline as our backdrop. It was our first in-person show back since 2020, and it was an eventful return to the stage. 

Borne Dance Company was first created in 2015 by Katie Kilbourn-Santiago and Kiana Moye with the goal of creating work that challenges the stigmas surrounding mental health difficulties and eating disorders.  Awareness week is created and initiated by NEDA, and each year collaborators of NEDA host workshops, groups, and events during Awareness Week to celebrate recovery, educate the public, and connect people to resources they need to access adequate eating disorder treatment. 

Borne’s 2022 work, titled Out of Darkness, explored the phenomenon of succumbing to bad habits or negative influences that distort our realities and manipulate our behavior. This could include negative people in our lives, vices, or cyclical patterns of behavior that do not help us be who we desire to be. The piece, which totaled about 34 minutes in length, was separated into nine movements including group numbers, solos, duets, trios, and spoken word poetry. Black and white feathers were used throughout the performance to symbolize the choices we are faced with - to either surrender to maladaptive patterns of behavior or fight to make a different choice. 

As a long-standing member of Borne, the core of our work centers around raising awareness through our performances and community mental health workshops. It is at these events we are able to educate our audiences and participants on the impact of these illnesses and create a community where people feel safe to embrace themselves fully - diagnosis or no diagnosis, mental health struggle or allyship with those who struggle. 

When I am not creating and dancing with Borne, I am studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Dance/Movement Therapy at Rider University in New Jersey. I also work part-time at a residential eating disorder facility for adolescent women. With my education and clinical experience, in addition to being 10 years in recovery from anorexia myself, I know and see first-hand the devastation of these diseases.

Eating disorders are formally the deadliest mental illness of all psychiatric illnesses. Now they are in second place, only surpassed by the opioid crisis within the last few years. Eating disorders take many forms, and for lack of better words, there is no “one size fits all” criteria for who is susceptible to an eating disorder or what it will look like. 

Common eating disorders include Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Unspecified Feeding and Eating Disorders, Pica, and Orthorexia.

It is beyond the scope of this article to explain the differences between all of them, but many times these illnesses get the stigma that they only affect middle class, heterosexual, white, cis-gendered women, which is far from the truth. Eating disorders affect people of all ethnic and racial groups, religious groups, genders, sexual orientations, and ages. They do not discriminate. 

Here are a few facts that are coming straight from the National Eating Disorder Association to demonstrate the severity and prevalence of these illnesses:

• Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 with anorexia have 10 times the risk of dying compared to their same-aged peers.

• Males represent 25% of individuals with anorexia nervosa, and they are at a higher risk of dying, in part because they are often diagnosed later since many people assume males don’t have eating disorders.

• Subclinical eating disordered behaviors (including binge eating, purging, laxative abuse, and fasting for weight loss) are nearly as common among males as they are among females.

• Binge Eating Disorder is 3x more common in the USA than anorexia AND bulimia combined.

• The best-known environmental contributor to the development of eating disorders is the sociocultural idealization of thinness.

What makes these disorders increasingly complex is the common prevalence of comorbid conditions, or co-occurring disorders that complicate treatment and make recovery for these individuals that much harder to attain. Common co-occurring disorders include anxiety disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, substance use disorders, and PTSD or stress-related disorders. Current research shows two-thirds of people with anorexia also showed signs of an anxiety disorder several years before the onset of eating disorder symptoms (NEDA).

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted those with eating disorders by either exacerbating current eating disorder symptoms or influencing the onset of eating disordered behavior. We are already seeing the mental health repercussions of the 2019 pandemic, and will continue to do so for the next few years. This makes attention to mental health that much more important now than it has ever been before, including in the artistic sphere.

Borne believes art can help us heal and that recovery is possible. It is our mission to help give voice to those on every part of the recovery spectrum. We were so grateful for the opportunity to perform this year and continue to share our message. Thank you to our wonderful guest artists, and thank you to Green Space for giving us the opportunity to share our message our stories, and raise awareness for the cause.

Please feel free to follow our Instagram @bornedancecompany and Facebook page for company updates, future workshops, and performances. Or visit us online at www.bornedance.com. 

If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, you can call or text the NEDA Helpline at (800) 931-2237

L’Apres Le Monde

Artistic Director Valerie Green participated in the 9th Edition of the “In Out Festival” in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, Africa.  

The places I travel with my dance making and teaching are often off the beaten path. And so it continued to be even more so an adventure to travel to West Africa and the lovely country of Burkina Faso immediately following a coup, in the same week.  While safety was a concern, I am happy to report that staying within close proximity to the festival headquarters the tour felt very safe.

I worked with 8 local dancers and 6 world class musicians. Offering my signature class Dance Your Frame, alongside creating a new dance work to be presented for the festival finale. Our creation and performance hub was the French Institute of Bobo-Dioulasso, we worked on a giant outdoor theater daily. Modern/Contemporary dance styles are new for the dancers. It was a very different movement experience for all and quite challenging for them to say the least. But somehow each day provided more growth and understanding as well as curiosity to new ways of moving, as well as how to think about dance and create it from our personal life experiences.  

For the new creation, topics explored were how the dancers saw themselves, their emotions, what their wish for Burkina Faso after the coup is, what they wanted to bring into the world.  Words that came up were independence, struggle, hope, anger, unity, freedom, connection, and liberty.  But what I experienced among the process that keep rising to the top was the desire for connection and unity. The dance titled “L’Apres Le Monde” also included the use of African textiles, and some cultural dance influences.  The drummers accompanying my residency and performance were phenomenal world class musicians, and the most exciting part of this residency. It is rare or moreover never occurring that I have had 6 percussionists to accompany me on a daily basis. I felt so this to be the largest gift of the experience.

The greatest challenge to the process of working together was language.  Burkina Faso being a former French colony led to the population speaking French outside of their many local dialects. My French was extremely limited, and there was no translator. Somehow with a little help from some of the musicians who spoke a tiny bit, google translate, and my few words of French, we managed!

In the end all the dancers each of different ages and levels to begin to grow in their own ways. And we all were very proud to present the fruits of our labor for the festival finale. The offering was a great success and had the whole audience up and dancing in the end!

I also visited the American Corner of Bobo-Dioulasso operated by the American Embassy, who supported my participation in the festival.  There were about 20 university students present to participate in a movement workshop. I also shared a video clip of VG/DE’s work Utopia.  We then broke out in small groups to talk about what we saw in the dance. Allowing the locals an opportunity to practice speaking English.  We wrapped it up with a group discussion with each group sharing from their conversations.

The festival also had guests from other countries performing including Spain, Slovenia, Nigeria, Togo, and Mali. As well as a conference attended by other international dance leaders.  We all joined daily for meals, visiting cultural centers, viewing the performances and getting in some African Dance in the Village.

The experience was very meaningful and challenging for me in many ways, so I am not sure how to wrap up this latest experience except to say my heart and soul felt full as I started my journey home.

NYC Students Discovering the Power of Dance

Our Teaching Artists Sara Pizzi and Richard Scandola have just finished a fall residency working with students at Pan American High School in Queens. Students learned and explored a variety of contemporary and street styles!

Part of VG/DE's core mission is to create a platform for multicultural understanding through dance and to nurture connections between dance creation and education. We work with local schools to increase cultural exposure for youth and communities underrepresented in the arts. Dance encourages creativity, discovery, and inquiry; students who participate in dance develop coordination, observation, co-operation, listening, and memory skills.

As a DOE approved vendor, our Artist in Residence partnerships and performances are tailored specifically to each school's educational needs.

Valerie Green/Dance Entropy's teaching artists work with the Department of Education in NYC, partnering schools throughout the boroughs to share dance with as many students as possible.

Here's a look at what they accomplished this semester, can't wait to see what they do next!

“The students who attended the classes regularly improved significantly, found a better connection with their body, movement in general, and with the music and the space.”

— Teaching Artist Scandola

“I’m leaving the students remembering a 3minutes dance piece, having basic knowledge of hip hop, knowing how to count in eights, knowing steps in syncopation, moving in space, and with more awareness of their ability and the possibilities of teamwork.”

— Teaching Artist Pizzi

VG/DE’s Artistic Director Valerie Green returns from successful tour in Beirut, Lebanon!

From Nov. 20-Dec. 5 I was happy to be sharing my signature workshops with diverse populations in Lebanon. First, I spent a week offering my choreography workshop Enter the Body with local dancers and actors at Amalgam Studio. The group dove deeply into the theme of pain. I led the participants through various explorations and process’s targeted around releasing each individual’s buried trauma and pain.  The week was intense for all, many emotions were processed, beautiful movement was created among the group. Connection, healing and understanding emerged on this journey into the self and as a community. The result was 15-minute dance called “The Invitation”.  The work was performed at Amalgam Studio and The Sunflower Theater. Followed by in depth talk backs with curious audiences wanting to learn more about the therapeutic creative process.

Next up was workshops with Seenaryo a not for profit working with marginalized communities. Female Syrian refuges participated in Valerie’s Skimming the Surface workshop. Not knowing what to expect, I was touched by how deeply the women were able to open themselves to the experientials in the class and share. It was a very profound and new experience; whereby new means of expression and confidence were gained in short time. Sceenaryo facilitators also gained new skills to offer their students in the Enter the Body choreography workshop. Finding new ways to explore movement creation and play with a trauma infused lens.

The third stop was in the mountains at a new art center called Sarmada.  Skimming the Surface at this venue was offered to a general mix of people. It was exciting to how many people were curious and in need and wanting to explore the complexities of their emotions. Each workshop kept surpassing itself on how engaged students were. My experience as an educator and healer was very fulfilling. Each moment was so special in its own way.

The fourth stop was the Sunflower Theater. Here the healing workshop was offered once again to diverse movers. This time exploring where each experience being stuck in their life and finding new tools and steps to create ways of moving forward. This was followed by the reprise performance of “The Invitation” and VG/DE’s film Time Capsule: A Physical Documentary and a talk back. The whole day was center around movement as a modality for healing.

The last stop was the beautiful Houna Center a yoga studio in Hamra. Again the healing workshop was offered to a cast of many different souls focused on the chakra system and personality drives. It was exciting to see familiar faces popping up at each workshop who wanted to follow my teaching and go deeper, be curious and explore themselves.

Filling out the trip was some site seeing, eating delicious Lebanese dishes and the seeking out of live Arabic music! Somehow, I was surprised that Lebanon is a third world country, what was not surprising was the populations struggles with trauma related to war, politics, the recent port explosion, and Covid. Even with all this baggage the Lebanese people are warm, generous, full of life, curious and ready to get up and dance and sing whenever they get the chance!

The tour was in collaboration with Bassam Abou Diab and the Beirut Physical Plant, and part of a cultural exchange in relation to Dance Entropy’s HOME Project.  The tour received generous support from American Dance Abroad.

“It was a great pleasure and honor to host your workshop, “Skimming the Surface”, at Beit Sarmada. Everyone who participated, including us who work every day in the space, experienced an opening and integration with the space, between one another, and within ourselves. It is important work for us to connect on different levels to space, community, and individually during a multi-faceted crisis in Lebanon.”

— Paul Saad, Project Manager, Beit Sarmada

Happy Thanksgiving to our Community, Supporters & Dance Family!

"At this time of year, we’re always reminded of the power of gratitude – and I’m thankful for you.   Your being a part of the work of Dance Entropy/Green Space has made so much possible this year and I know you share with me in celebrating the gift of dance to the world. 

I am also grateful for my beautiful and talented dancers who are open and trusting to follow me on my many creative journeys not knowing exactly where I will take them. I honor them for their gifts in allowing my artist visions come to life".   -Valerie

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NOVEMBER 25TH IS MY BIRTHDAY! I INVITE YOU TO HELP ME CELEBRATE!

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You’ve already made a difference with Dance Entropy/Green Space as an audience member, as a donor, and as a champion for bringing the joy of dance and movement to the communities we serve.

Please take a moment to share why you support Dance Entropy by posting a note or picture on your social media page and tag our Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and/or Twitter accounts.

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On Tuesday, November 30, nonprofits across the world will share in celebrating the impact of giving.  Amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, we’ll pause for a day and focus on what it means to give.  I hope you will plan on including Dance Entropy/Green Space in your #GivingTuesday plans.

May you and your loved ones enjoy a Happy Thanksgiving!

Home Goes from Virtual to Live for September

Photos by Alex Lopez

Valerie Green/Dance Entropy kicked off the Take Root series with Home as expressed by Lebanese guest artist, Bassam Abou Diab. In additon to a solo from Abou Diab, what also makes this event special is that Valerie Green/Dance Entropy dancers performed with Abou Diab.

Read the full Queens Chronicle review here.

Company Dancer Kristin Licata Shares the "Home" Rehearsal Experience with Bassam Abou Diab

In this phase of the "Home" project we are working with Bassam Abou Diab from Lebanon. Unlike any process I have been a part of, I feel like I am truly being educated on a culture and subject matter that is so foreign to me. I am learning about the common Islamic rituals of Wudu (a washing/ cleansing/ purification), Ashura (self punishment for feelings of guilt) and Sufi whirling meditation (turning).

It has been challenging for me. Although he is explaining everything in English, the language barrier of not understanding the intricacies of what he wants is difficult for a perfectionist like myself. While I struggled at first to know what to create and how to structure my ideas into phrases, after a few days of intensive structured improvs I realized the language of movement is universal. Similarly to other creative processes, where I have used pedestrian gestures to influence movement, we are using these ideas and the literal actions of these rituals as our inspiration to create the movement for this piece. I am becoming more comfortable in this process and seeing the piece take shape, as we repetitively work through our creative versions of these rituals and seamlessly and cohesively string them together.

We still have a few more days of rehearsal and I know the piece will continue to evolve. This process has been an enlightening journey for me to grow as an individual human being as well as a dancer. I hope I am able to transform what I have learned and created in these last two weeks of this “Home” journey into an expressive performance where I can share my newfound knowledge with the audience.

Join us on September 24 & 25 at 8pm for the “HOME” project with visiting choreographer Bassam Abou Diab from Lebanon which will feature Diab's solo work "Eternal," and a post performance Q/A. In addition to the performance, the evening will include live Lebanese Music with Richard Khuzami on Percussion and Maurice Chedid on Oud, Pre & Post Show.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please click HERE.

Join Us for This Weekend for a LIVE Performance

We’re excited to return to performing live and it all starts with the Splash! Family Event on Saturday, July 24th at Landmark Lot in Port Washington, Long Island.

There’s water, buckets, and bright colors to make you forget all about the heat so you can enjoy some fun in the sun. The refreshing afternoon programming is 50 minutes and includes performances and a chance for you to dance with us.

What dances you will get to experience? Read on to find out.

Chiquita Chiquita is a humorously absurd performance, manipulating and transforming a multiplicity of props used in unexpected ways.

Dandia is based on the Indian folk dance of the same name. This upbeat work utilizes percussion through wooden sticks throughout and concludes with audience participation at the end.

SPLASH! is a site-specific outdoors dance incorporating brightly colored buckets filled with water. This dance is a structured improvisation to an exciting collage of music about water.

All you need to join us is a smile, lawn chair, and energy for a day like no other. We look forward to seeing you there!

Treehouse Shakers!

Pillow Fort with Miranda Wilson in NY Times Feature

We recently asked Treehouse Shakers to speak about their return to Green Space after the Pandemic, here is what they said:

Treehouse Shakers recently returned to in-person rehearsals at Green Space. Our company calls this studio space our home away from home, as we have been creating here since its first days of opening. And as of June, we have finally returned home to finish a piece we started pre-pandemic, Flutter: An Ode to Babies. Flutter is a discover play, that explores the seasons for ages 6-18 months through dance, puppetry, music and theater.

Cast and crew of Pillow Fort in Green Space during filming

The pandemic has changed us. Especially in New York City. Haunted by sirens, make-shift hospitals, refrigerator trucks, death counts, fear, it is truly taking many of us a moment to readjust to “pre-pandemic normalcy.” For me this normalcy, started when I received my first shot of the vaccine in February, and felt the closest to normal once we stepped into rehearsal for the first time this month.

But this was not our first time at Green Space. Beginning in February we began using Green Space as a filming studio, for several new virtual projects including Dance Break and Pillow Fort. Pillow Fort is our 9-part mini web-series for ages 3-7. We filmed the final 6 episodes at Green Space. For these filmings we followed strict union protocols, and had the entire company tested before shooting. By the time we reached the last three episodes, the entire company was fully vaccinated and we continued to ensure that we all had negative COVID tests. What made us film in Green Space was the strict guidelines and cleanliness of the space. Valerie Green manages Green Space always professionally, but during COVID her adherence to safety codes was so appreciated. Green Space uses an air purifier, strict cleanliness, and ventilation that make the studio feel safe. 

Over the next few months, we look forward to building Flutter at Green Space, as the city is rapidly moving to bringing performances back in full capacity. Thank you to our home away from home, for getting artists to this next step, and giving us normalcy once again.

Creation of Pillow Fort in Green Space with Emily Bunning & Ashley Chavonne

Mara McEwin is the Artistic Director, Writer, Director and Co-Founder of Treehouse Shakers. Responsible for implementing the artistic vision of Treehouse Shakers, Mara has also produced, written, directed and sometimes performed in all of Treehouse Shakers’ 17 original dance-plays including Hatched, which is recognized as being the first dance-play for babies to tour the U.S. by an American artist/company. She has created ongoing arts in education programming for preschools to colleges, and leads teaching artist and classroom trainings throughout the country. During the pandemic, she helped to quickly transitioned the company to virtual programming. During this time Treehouse Shakers’ created Pillow Fort, for ages 3-7, a 9-part mini-series to engage young people through the arts at home. As a professional storyteller, Mara was named “Best Storyteller of New York” by NY Press. She has been an artist in residence for 20+ years in both public and private schools, and has performed throughout the nation’s schools, festivals, theaters, colleges, and community events. She is currently the featured teller for F.I.T’s Toy Design Department, as well as Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, Gap, Miramax, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hans Christian Andersen Storytelling Center, Turtle Pond Publications, Chocolate Sauce Publishing, Tribeca Film Festival, to name a few. She is the writer, voice-over artist and story consultant for Activity Works, an interactive educational video-web series for classrooms across the U.S. She was the subject for a qualitative dissertation on the inclusion of storytelling in the classroom by Dr. Barb O’Neill and a featured 2019 speaker for O’Neill’s Transform Challenging Behavior Conference. To read her full bio visit treehouseshakers.com.

Dance Entropy on Patreon!

Dance Entropy has joined Patreon and is asking you to become a patron of Dance Entropy. There are numerous levels of support that you can join for many wonderful benefits as a patron of DE. As a nonprofit professional dance company, Valerie Green/Dance Entropy is able to offer its performances, touring, educational and community outreach programs with the help of your generous support. You also support the creation of online content for DE. We invite you to check out all the benefits HERE!

PREMIERE SCREENING of Time Capsule: A Physical Documentary

Valerie Green/Dance Entropy is pleased to present the premiere in-person and virtual screenings of Time Capsule: A Physical Documentary on: 

Thursday, May 20th

8:00-9:30PM

Green Space, 37-24 24th Street Suite #211, Long Island City

*The in-person screening will NOT be livestreamed

Advance ticket purchase required

*The in-person screening will be limited, socially distant and ventilated, with masks required by all attendees. 

Viewers who are not able to attend the in-person screening may purchase a ticket to view the film online, on-demand.  

Ticket Information:

·         Regular Ticket, $25.00

Attend the in-person screening or receive a private viewing link to watch on-demand

For More Information and to Purchase Tickets, please click here

“Time Capsule – A Physical Documentary” is a dance film, directed and choreographed by Valerie Green, in collaboration with cinematographer Alex Lopez, composer Mark Katsaounis, and the dancers of Valerie Green/Dance Entropy. Eight solos physically trace emotional experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, filmed against the backdrop of iconic New York City landscapes. A dynamic interplay of beauty, strength, and resilience, "Time Capsule” is a testament to the faith we have in our City, its vast infrastructure, the delicate spirits that inhabit it, and the tender terrains we all hold within.

Time Capsule Virtual Gala

PURCHASE YOUR GALA TICKETS HERE!

Green Space Performance Programs Return!

Green Space is pleased to kick off our performance programs Take Root and Fertile Ground! All performances will be held virtually on a donation-made basis. Please click here for more information and donation links.

Take Root’s January 2021 performances feature exciting works by Nia & Ness and Misaki Hayama that will be available to view beginning January 22nd through June 2020.

Photo credits: Blake & Robinson Photography and Marius Shanzer

home. (an excerpt) is a portion of Nia & Ness’s second evening-length dance-poetry piece home. that deeply explores our daily realities as a Black, out-lesbian couple living and loving in New York. With this work, we posit that our bodies are our homes, collecting stories like dust and decor as we move through the world. This work also recognizes that as Black out-lesbians, our bodies themselves put our literal shared home on display every time we walk out of its doors. From sharing our everyday experiences with “micro” aggressions to making visible the impacts of violence, we go there with this work.

Misaki Hayama presents Warabe Uta for January’s Take Root performances. “Warabe Uta” are traditional Japanese songs, similar to nursery rhymes often sung as part of children's games. The dance pieces created and presented here explore this hidden history and show how the past has influenced new generations to find their future paths.

Fertile Ground features the works-in-progress of six NYC-based emerging choreographers. This performance will be available to view beginning January 26th through June 2020.

Featured Artists:

Maija Rutkovska, Olivia Passarelli, Kristina Hay & Jamie Robinson, Aya Jane Saotome / Who Knows The Show, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, Catherine Gallant/DANCE

Photo courtesy of Alison Cook Beatty Dance

Dance Gram: A Unique Gift Opportunity

Have you been looking for different way to give someone a gift? Dance Entropy has made a special way to show someone you care by creating Dance Gram. A short, interpretive dance created by Valerie Green or a Dance Entropy Company Member that you can gift to another (or can purchase for yourself if you’d like), is the idea behind the Dance Gram. The dance is personalized to fit personality, mood, and interests- and it's sure to put a smile on the face of anyone who receives it.

Valerie will create a dance based on the information you provide about the giftee who will receive a personalized Dance Gram within a week via a private YouTube link. For more information please visit HERE. This is a wonderful gift to consider for any occasion!