Abrons Arts Center is very busy this summer, and two big events are kicking off this week.
This week marks the inaugural edition of Festival TBD, a five-day series of dance and performance conceived by downtown dance impresario Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor as a series of “loosely related curatorial endeavors.” Festival TBD brings together a new generation of like-minded choreographers and performance makers, and asks them to take a stab at something new. This summer’s first annual festival, titled “Emergency Glitter,” is about joy and fun and play. It asks the choreographers to grapple with their obsessions with everything from pop culture and feminist ideologies of objectification, to the “inherent queerness, hope and sadness in dance.” Choreographers Rebecca Warner and Burr Johnson launch the festivities Wednesday. Warner’s Into Glittering Asphalt is about “deep love of and urgent need to dance.” Johnson’s Shimmering Islands is a pas de deux in which “romantic energy is generated between the dancers and the audience rather than between the two dancers on stage.” Expect a lot of sweaty bodies. So come with an open mind, a tank top and generous spirit.
Thursday evenings through Aug. 1, Abrons opens its backyard garden for Hot Meet. Three NYC artists take turns hosting these informal outdoor barbecues, which include up-close-and-personal artist talks and tunes. Thursday, artist Tamar Ettun will be suspended upside down and wet from a tree as performer Jody Wood holds and rotates her body until she dries off. Yellow outfits are requested. So get out your brightest sun color and bring an appetite; beer and sizzling burgers, including tofu, will be on hand.
Festival TBD / July 24 – 28 / $15
Hot Meet / Thursdays, July 18 – Aug. 1, 6:30pm / Free
Abrons Arts Center / 466 Grand St.
sounds loony! but fun.