2007-2008 Artists in Residence

Baraka de Soleil - Award-winning interdisciplinary artist Baraka de Soleil currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and has been involved in the experimental movement, music and performance art scene, throughout the country and internationally, for the past 15 years. At the center of his career is the explorative development of experimental works for theatre, dance and alternative spaces. His artistry reflects moving images excavated from the multi-layered traditions of the African Diaspora, immersed in an urban contemporary reality; actively crafting from ancestral memories, post-modern aesthetics and cultural legacies. Most recently, for his choreographic work on Sango: Lord of Thunder, Baraka was awarded the prestigious Katherine Dunham Choreography/AUDELCO for excellence in Black Theatre at the 34th annual Vivian Robinson/ AUDELCO ceremony. This past summer he traveled to Ghana under the auspices of Jerome's Travel & Study Fellowship; researching the historic slave routes & spatial configurations for the future project - WATER MOVES THE SOUL. As a Teaching Artist, he has taught classes in Africanist culture, performance and dance methodologies to various ages. His contemporary technique, Afro-Modern, draws upon movement traditions from the African Diaspora to create an energetic and exciting kinesthetic environment. Internationally, he has toured Europe with frequent collaborator DJ/Multimedia Artist/Composer Daniel Givens at various music festivals including: Musique Volantes, Toulouse "Jazz sur son 31" Festival & Periferias. Baraka is presently an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and spearheads D UNDERBELLY, celebrating its tenth year as an underground network of independent artists of color. Endeavors of D UNDERBELLY include EGRESS - a series of kinesthetic compositions inspired by Jean-paul Sarte's No Exit'; developed at Dixon Place this past June. Upcoming: The multimedia experience CHILDR'N OF "O."

Young Jean Lee has directed her plays at P.S. 122 (Pullman, WA), Soho Rep (The Appeal), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals). She has worked with Radiohole (None of It) and performed with the National Theater of the United States of America (What's That On My Head?!?). She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P, a resident artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. In 2006, Samuel French will publish Three Plays by Young Jean Lee, and the University of Minnesota Press will publish her play The Appeal in New Downtown Now, an anthology edited by Mac Wellman and herself. She is the 2005-2006 recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Individual Artist Award and the 2006 recipient of grants from the Rockefeller MAP Foundation and Greenwall Foundation. She will direct Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven at HERE in September 2006 and Church at PS 122 in April 2007. She will present Pullman, WA in Slovenia in December 2006 and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh in 2007. She was featured in the Village Voice as one of New York's finest emerging playwrights and in Time Out New York as one of 25 People to Watch in 2005.

Andrew Dinwiddie's choreography has been performed at Galapagos, P.S. 122, St. Anne's Warehouse, Ur, BAX, the Chocolate Factory, the Club at LaMama, Downstairs at the Ontological, the Red Humor Salon and WAX at University Settlement. He is a Resident Artist at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he's developing The Accursed Items, an evening-length dance concert slated for late summer 2008. With Jeff Larson, he co-curates Catch, a bimonthly performance series that will destroy your mind with short works by emerging artists and downtown luminaries. Andrew has had the pleasure of performing for Big Dance Theater, David Neumann, Stacy Dawson, Nellie Tinder, Karinne Keithley, Sibyl Kempson, Jennie Marytai Liu, Ken Nintzel, Richard Maxwell, Linas Phillips, Kourtney Rutherford, Kate E. Ryan/13P, Jenny Seastone Stern and Chris Yon.

Sam Kim is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer originally from New Brighton, Minnesota. She insists on making honest dances that draw attention to the margins of culture and behavior, creating space for vulnerability while courting danger. Her dances have been presented by venues such as Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 122, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church and The Kitchen, among many others. Sam' s work has been supported by awards from progressive organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation/Multi Arts Production (MAP) Fund, Movement Research and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Sam is honored to be a BAX Artist in Residence and will use her residency to create a new trio about body panic. She is currently at work on a new, evening-length dance, dumb dumb bunny which will premiere at The Kitchen, October 18-20

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Photos on this page from top:
Andrew Dinwiddie (photo: Karinne Keithley)
Sam Kim (photo: Ryan McNamara)
Baraka de Soleil (photo: Patrick Secco)
Young Jean Lee (photo: Dona Ann McAdams)