VANESSA JUSTICE DANCE and movement training
(2024)
The Wake
Written by Vanessa Justice with some quotation
Directed by Vanessa Justice, in collaboration with the actors
Performed by actors from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford
(2019)
10,000
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Dancers: Vanessa Justice and Kelly Garone
Venue: Riverside Park South, NYC. Sept 21 & 22 5PM.
Using the number 10,000 as a coincidental link between obscure facts in history, this dance assembles aspects of past and present to materialize an alternate portrayal of current anxieties, contradictions, and privileges in America. The work originated from the desire to process problems of the day through embodied, creative action--and to search for and acknowledge past conditions that have influenced where we are today.
Artist’s Note: I embrace that this Summer on the Hudson event occurs one day following the Global Climate Strike and one month before Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
(2018)
Sky Ambit
Score created and performed by Vanessa Justice
Venue: “Dance on the Hudson” at Riverside Park South, New York City
Commissioned by Riverside Park Conservancy
An improvised, site-specific dance that opens a dialogue between the performer’s rhythm of the breath, and the negative space within her and within the immediate environment. Conceived while witnessing the haze caused by recent wildfires, the dance honors the air and the sky. It is a study of the perception of space, the interoception of the breath, and the playful interaction between different pathways of sensory information.
(2017)
Turning and Other Everyday Objects
Dancers: Bates College Dance Students (16 dancers)
Venue: Schaeffer Theater, Lewiston, Maine
Length: 10 minutes
Music: “Knee Play 5” from Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass)
Commissioned by Bates College
Created as a kind of homage to the analytic, post-modern choreographers of the early 1970's, the piece explores subtle connections of the dancers’ physical architecture in relationship to gravity and space. (Dance historian, Sally Banes, describes the experimental dance emerging in New York City during the early 1970’s as “analytic post-modern dance,” with Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs as key artists in this movement. This work was developed as a kind of homage to these choreographers, but does not intend to imitate but simply embrace, deflect, and question the values displayed by them, while staying true to my own choreographic methods.)
(2015)
The Relational Body Project, Installation 4
Dancers: Long Island University Dance Majors (Sasha Bowman, Aja Carthon, Elizabeth Juarez, Janeysi Morel, Timothy Muniz, David Myrie)
Music: "Take It to the Max" by Dan Deacon, “Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks
Lighting: Tim Cryan
Venue: Kumble Theater, Brooklyn, Dec 4-5
Length: 9 minutes
Commissioned by Long Island University
The Relational Body Project, Installation 3
Performers: Kendra Portier, Marion Spencer, Jasmine Hearn, Vanessa Justice
Venue: “Dance on the Hudson” at Riverside Park South, New York City
Length: 10 minutes
Commissioned by Riverside Park Conservancy
Live Music: Lucy Horton
Sept 19-20
The Relational Body Project, Installation 2
Various pedestrian locations in NYC: Union Square subway passage, The Highline, outside the Whitney Museum, etc.
July 28-30
Performers: Kendra Portier and Lily Ockwell
Assistant: Marion Spencer
The Relational Body Project absorbs conversations overheard in NYC (primarily on the subway) and transforms them into songs and dances injected back within the pedestrian spaces of the city. The intent? To create a connection to "otherness," to energize public spaces, to contemplate our contemporary condition through a myriad of overheard conversations, to embrace difference, to transform fleeting soundbites into art, to witness others as important, to nurture the relational body.
The Relational Body Project (Research Phase)
Movement Research at The Judson Church
May 4 2015
Performers: Vanessa Justice, Lily Ockwell, Kendra Portier
(2014)
Dancing the Edits (multichannel dance-based video)
Installed at New Museum
December 17, 2014-February 15, 2015
Performers in video: Lily Ockwell and Kendra Portier
Dancing the Edits (multichannel dance-based video)
Installed at Trouw, Amsterdam
November 6-December 3, 2014
Performers in video: Lily Ockwell and Kendra Portier
New Museum/Trouw Amsterdam MovingImage Installation Party
New Museum
November 6 2014 3PM-9PM
Performers: Lily Ockwell and Kendra Portier
Multiple live performances plus live-streaming of events between the party at New Museum and the party at Trouw, Amsterdam
venue website: http://www.newmuseum.org/
Residency at The New Museum
September 8-14, The New Museum NYC
AUNTSforcamera Residency at New Museum to create a multichannel dance video project.
(2013)
Hiatus from making new work while caring for baby daughter.
(2012)
Studio Series: New York Live Arts
NEW YORK LIVE ARTS presents Vanessa Justice
in two Studio Series work-in-process showings
May 4-5 at 6:00PM
The Relational Body Project, Installation 1
For the Studio Series, Justice is inspired by vibration and the conductivity of the tissues of the body. She explores the everyday experience of sensory impressions combined with thoughts, emotions, and energy to collectively constitute the contents of consciousness. She sets up a framework for internal and external sources of movement to coexist, and explores the expressive potential of performance in close proximity to the audience. Performers include Talya Epstein, Lily Ockwell, Kendra Portier, Devika Wickremesinghe, and contemporary artist Janine Antoni. There will also be a showing of an interactive video installation created in collaboration with Rachel Boggia.
Sweet Empty (premiere)
San Diego State University Don Powell Theater
March 21 2012
Also performed in SDSU Studio Theater on May 4, 5, 6 2012
(2011)
Conversation on Dance and Consciousness
October 7 2011
Gibney Dance Center, NYC
Developed and moderated by Vanessa Justice as part of Movement Research's Studies Project Series. Panelists include Michelle Boule, philosopher Alva Noe, and Daria Fain.
Guest Artist at San Diego State University
September 2011
C'est une tasse rouge (This is a red cup)
Score/video/performance by Vanessa Justice
Live vocals/looping by Kristin Page Stuart
Dixon Place, NYC
May 31 2011
Work-in-progress, Movement Research at Judson Church
Judson Church, NYC
May 2 2011
Vocals and live looping: Kristin Page Stuart
(2010)
stranger (live improvisation)
Long Island University Faculty Dance Concert, October 15 2010 8PM
am big ambiguous
Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn
Saturday September 25 8PM 2010
am big ambiguous explores the body as subject and object, self and other, pleasure and pain, and as a radical ambiguity in the context of contemporary philosophy and culture.
Choreographed/performed by Vanessa Justice made in collaboration with sound designer Nick Patterson and dance/video artist Rachel Boggia. Vanessa was in dialog with philosopher Richard Shusterman (author of Body Consciousness) during the making of the work.
"There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing dance that surprises me. It is rare. (Vanessa) traversed character and territory in incredibly original, transformative ways while staying true to the idea of the work. So refreshing to STILL be pondering the piece!
-Abby Bender, Executive Director of Trisklelion Arts
FLATLAND (tour)
San Diego State University - Studio Theater, San Diego, CA
Friday-Saturday, April 16-17, 2010 8:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowsk)
Tickets - call (619) 594-1017
It's Spring! (an improvisational study)
Movement Research at Judson Church, NYC
March 15, 8:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Vanessa Justice
Excerpts of FLATLAND
APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) Showcase 2010 at Joyce SoHo, NYC
Sunday, January 10, 11:00am
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski
Reservations Required - call (646) 792-8373
(2009)
FLATLAND World Premiere
Joyce SoHo, NYC (155 Mercer St., between Houston & Prince)
Thursday-Saturday, October 15-17, 8:00pm, Sunday, October 18, 3:00pm
(post-performance Q&A with Susan Rethorst after Friday's show)
FLATLAND Benefit Party Featuring live music, dance, silent auction, raffle, food.
$10 cover, all are welcome! Red Horse Cafe, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Thursday, September 24, 8:00-11:30pm ,
Thank you to everyone who donated talent, food, art & prizes to the party - and to all who attended!
Dance Talks at Joyce SoHo Open Rehearsal - VANESSA JUSTICE DANCE
RSVP required: 646-792-8377
Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:15-6:00pm
FLATLAND (short version)
A.W.A.R.D Show! (Artists with Audience Responding to Dance)
Joyce Soho, NYC Thursday, June 18, 7:00pm **
limited tickets go on sale 12:00 noon Friday, May 15 - call Ovation Tickets at 212-352-3101
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski
Expulsion (video installation with Anita Glesta)
Five Myles, NYC
March 29 - May 3 Video installation by Anita Glesta
Choreographed and performed by Vanessa Justice
Work-in-Progress (excerpt) Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church NYC
Monday, February 9, 8:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski
FLATLAND (excerpt) 2009 APAP
(Association of Performing Arts Presenters) Showcases
Dance New Amsterdam, NYC
Sunday, January 11, 6:20pm, 9:50pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski
(2008)
Artist in Residence, Liguria Center, Italy
Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship
November 17 - December 15 2008
Visitor
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
Friday-Saturday, October 31-November 1, 2008 at 8:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Rachel Boggia
my copy world
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice, performed by The Bodhi Company
December 7, 2008
Warsaw, Poland
my copy world (world premiere)
The Republic Theater Salzburg, Austria.
Saturday-Sunday, October 25-26, 8:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by the Company at SEAD (the Bodhi Company)
FLATLAND (Work-in-Progress)
SEAD, Salzburg, Austria
Sunday, September 21, 8:00pm 2008
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice Performed by Maggie Bennett, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski
Artist in Residence at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance)
Salzburg, Austria
August 25-September 21 2008
Work-In-Progress
Dance Theater Workshop Studio, NYC
Movement Research Open Performance Series
Tuesday, June 3, 7:00pm 2008
Choreographed/Performed by Vanessa Justice
Still Point (premiere)
Judson Memorial Church, NYC
As part of the city-wide celebration of Gandhi and Satyagraha
Sunday, April 27, 2008 during 11:00am service
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Vanessa Justice
Noise'sNoise (premiere)
Dance New Amsterdam NYC
DNA Presents: OB.ject.ob.JECT
Thursday, April 17-Saturday, April 19, 8:00pm Sunday, April 20, at 3:00pm
Choreographed by Vanessa Justice
Performed by Yari Alcaraz, Maggie Bennett, Kristin Hapke, Vanessa Justice, Kendra Portier, Alli Ruszkowski