On Buried Ground

Overview

In the wake of continued loss artists Emily Bate and Shayla-Vie Jenkins each present new meditations in the Christ Church Burial Ground. Each work, sited in one of the oldest resting places in Philadelphia, considers grief and communal gatherings of public healing. Bate and Jenkins each acknowledge the burial ground as a tender and troubled place that holds layers of the city’s history — casting it as a space that is ultimately as much about futures created together as it is the past. This program is curated and organized by Katy Dammers. 

 

Emily Bate: Wednesday, September 8th at 6:30pm

Shayla-Vie Jenkins: Saturday, September 11th at 6:30pm

Emily Bate, Shayla-Vie Jenkins

Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker whose current research explores race, presence and liberation. She received her BFA from the Fordham/Ailey program under the mentorship of Denise Jefferson and Ana Marie Forsythe.

Shayla-Vie spent a decade performing with the internationally touring Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. During her tenure, the company received two ensemble New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies) for Chapel Chapter (2007) at Harlem Stage and for the “Outstanding Revival” of D-Man In The Waters (2013) at The Joyce Theater. She has taught masterclasses and workshops for the company and also serves as a répétiteur, restaging some of Bill T. Jones’s most notable works. She was featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “On the Rise” performers (2008). Shayla-Vie has worked with many incredible artists, including Yara Travieso, Ni'Ja Whitson, Merce Cunningham Centennial Celebration (Night of 100 Solos), Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born’s Sitting on a Man’s Head, and Yvonne Rainer’s Part of Some Sextets. She has presented work in New York City at Harlem Stage, Joe’s Pub, Judson Church and New York University. Shayla-Vie regularly teaches at The American Dance Festival and NYU’s Summer Dance Intensive. She can currently be seen in two virtual performances for the 2020 Fringe Festival with multidisciplinary artists James Allister Sprang and David Gordon.

Credits

Emily Bate is a harmony fanatic, obsessed with cooking up voice sounds with people in the seething soup of humanity. This manifests in a wide variety of disciplines (music performance, theater, film, social practice) and roles (composer, vocalist, arranger, conductor, facilitator, performer). Emily founded and conducts a 65-member queer community chorus called Trust Your Moves, an experiment in collective singing designed around liberation and co-creation. Recent projects include: the “CSA,” a subscription art service that sends packages of interactive art to peoples’ home in the mail; the score for the film Queer Genius by Catherine Pancake; several shows with frequent collaborator Erin Markey, including the anarcho-musical A Ride on the Irish Cream, featuring “accessible, often punchy pop-rock” (New York Times), and “soaring musical numbers” (Artforum) that were “startlingly gorgeous, and packed with heavenly harmonies” (New York Post); and a composing collaboration with installation artist Patrick Costello. Emily has worked with artists like MJ Kaufman, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, and Mal Cherifi, and her work has been performed at venues across the US and UK. Emily’s work has been supported by an Independence Foundation Fellowship, two Leeway Art & Change Awards, the MAP Fund, Art is Essential, the SBMA grant, and more.

 

Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker whose current research and practice explores blackness, presence, and liberation. Shayla-Vie performed with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company from 2005–2016. During her tenure, the company received two ensemble New York Dance and Performance Awards for Chapel Chapter (2007) at Harlem Stage and for the “Outstanding Revival” of D-Man In The Waters (2013) at The Joyce Theater. She has restaged notable BTJAZ works at universities nationwide and continues to teach for the company at the Amer