Ephrat Asherie Dance
In collaboration with New York City club legends
UNDERSCORED
UNDERSCORED acts as a living archive of five generations of New York City club dancers. The feature-length performance component of UNDERSCORED is a multi-generational collaboration with performers ranging in age from 29 to 80.
Celebrating and investigating their connections to the club scene from the 1970s until today, this work features Ephrat Asherie Dance ensemble members and three New York City club legends, Archie Burnett, Brahms “Bravo” LaFortune, and Michele Saunders. Audiences join the company in an exhilarating journey through deeply personal histories, rarely seen archival footage and, of course, decades of dancing through the culturally reflective styles of breaking, hip-hop, house, vogue, waacking, and hustle.
Initially set to premiere in October 2020, no one could have ever imagined that the very thing at the core of this work — the club — would be taken from us. Collaborating and dancing alongside club elders who lived through the crack epidemic, the AIDS crisis, and the globa pandemic is life-affirming beyond belief, their dancing bodies a testament to their resilience and fortitude. The pandemic kept all of us from gathering. Whether on or off the dance floor, UNDERSCORED is a reminder of how essential it is to connect to one another.
Ephrat Asherie Dance is a company rooted in African-American and Latine street and club dances. Dedicated to exploring the inherent complexities of these dances, Ephrat Asherie Dance investigates the expansive narrative qualities of various vernacular forms including breaking, hip-hop, house, and vogue to tell stories, develop innovative imagery, and find new modes of expression.
UNDERSCORED was commissioned by and premiered at Works & Process at the Guggenheim in November 2022.
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sponsored by
Shih-In Ma
Eberly Family Special Collections Library
support provided by
Mary Ann O’Brien Malkin Program Endowment
support for accessibility services provided by
William E. McTurk Endowment for Program Support
Gerald B. M. Stein Memorial Endowment
A grant from the University Park Student Fee Board makes Penn State student prices possible.
UNDERSCORED is a recipient of a National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund grant and is commissioned by: Works & Process, Inc., Guggenheim New York; ArtPower at University of California-San Diego; The Momentary, Benton, Arkansas; and The Yard, Chilmark, Massachusetts.
The presentation of Ephrat Asherie Dance was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
