The Reclamation Digital Program
THE RECLAMATION
Choreographer Reggie Wilson
Lighting Designer Tim Cryan
Associate Lighting Designer Betsy Chester
Costume Designers Naoko Nagata and Enver Chakartash
Production Management Tim Cryan
Stage Manager Anna Green
Running time: 60 minutes
PERFORMERS
oluwadamilare (Dare) ayorinde
Bria Bacon
Paul Hamilton
Rochelle Jamila
Annie Wang
Henry Winslow
Miles Yeung
MUSIC
Son House, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Ali Farka Touré, Tom Smothers, Ngqoko Women’s Ensemble, Lulu Masilela, Ethel Perkins, Rosalie Hill, One String, Fist & Heel Performance Group, Staple Singers
The Reclamation is dedicated to the loving memory of Lois J. Wilson, long time donor, and mother to Reggie Wilson.
These NYU Skirball performances of The Reclamation honor Paul Hamilton’s 26 years of dancing and Carol Bryce-Buchanan’s 20 years of Board service with the Fist & Heel Performance Group.
ABOUT THE ARTSISTS
Fist & Heel Performance Group is a Brooklyn-based dance company that investigates the intersections of cultural anthropology and movement practices and believes in the potential of the body as a valid means for knowing. Our performance work is a continued manifestation of the rhythm languages of the body provoked by the spiritual and the mundane traditions of Africa and its Diaspora, including the Blues, Slave and Gospel idioms. The group has received support from major foundations and corporations and has performed at notable venues in the United States and abroad.
Reggie Wilson (Executive and Artistic Director, Choreographer) founded Fist & Heel Performance Group, in 1989. Wilson draws from the cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he often calls “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances.”
His work has been presented and workshops taught nationally and internationally including venues: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Live Arts, Summerstage (NY), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Summer Stages Dance @ ICA Boston (MA), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, UCLA Live, Redcat (CA), VSA NM (New Mexico), Myrna Loy (Helena, MT), The Flynn (Burlington, VT), Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Dance Umbrella (Austin, TX), Linkfest, Festival e’Nkundleni (Zimbabwe), Dance Factory (South Africa), Danças na Cidade (Portugal), Festival Kaay Fecc (Senegal), The Politics of Ecstasy, and Tanzkongress 2013 (Germany).
Wilson is a graduate of New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (1988, Larry Rhodes, Chair). He has studied composition and been mentored by Phyllis Lamhut; Performed and toured the US with Ohad Naharin Dance Company before forming his Fist & Heel Performance Group. He has lectured, taught and conducted workshops and community projects throughout the US, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. He has traveled extensively: to the Mississippi Delta to research secular and religious aspects of life there; to Trinidad and Tobago to research the Spiritual Baptists and the Shangoists; and also, to Southern, Central, West and East Africa to work with dance/performance groups as well as diverse religious communities. He has served as visiting faculty at several universities including Yale, Princeton and Wesleyan. Mr. Wilson is the recipient of the Minnesota Dance Alliance’s McKnight National Fellowship (2000-2001). Wilson is also a 2002 BESSIE-New York Dance and Performance Award recipient for his work The Tie-tongued Goat and the Lightning Bug Who Tried to Put Her Foot Down and a 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. He has been an artist advisor for the National Dance Project and Board Member of Dance Theater Workshop. In recognition of his creative contributions to the field, Mr. Wilson was named a 2009 United States Artists Prudential Fellow and is a 2009 recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in Dance. His evening-length work The Good Dance–dakar/brooklyn had its World premiere at the Walker Art Center and NY premiere on the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2009 Next Wave Festival. In 2012, New York Live Arts presented a concert of selected Wilson works, theRevisitation, to critical acclaim and the same year he was named a Wesleyan University’s Creative Campus Fellow, received an inaugural Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and received the 2012 Joyce Foundation Award for his successful work Moses(es) which premiered in 2013. His critically acclaimed work CITIZEN, premiered 2016 (FringeArts – World; BAM Next Wave 2016 – NYC); both these works continue to tour. Wilson was curator of Danspace Project’s Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance (Platform 2018) and created the commissioned work “…they stood shaking while others began to shout” specifically for the space at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. In 2019, he curated Grounds That Shout! (and others merely shaking), a series of performances in Philadelphia’s historic sacred spaces. POWER which premiered in 2019 continues to tour and inspire audiences.
Tim Cryan (lighting designer) has been working with Reggie Wilson / Fist & Heel Performance Group in a variety of production roles since 2008. He is a frequent collaborator of BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance as well as Edisa Weeks-Delirious Dances. Tim has taught classes on design and collaboration at Sarah Lawrence College, Providence College, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, LIU Brooklyn, and is currently the resident lighting designer for dance at Barnard College. MFA: NYU Tisch Design. Portfolio: www.timcryan.net
Betsy Chester is an NYC-based freelance lighting designer, endlessly fascinated by the ways in which color and shadow can shape a story. She found her passion for lighting after registering for the wrong class and has been enchanted by its magic ever since. Betsy is passionate about creating work that sparks meaningful conversation. She finds inspiration in the way her collaborators experience the story. Having finished three years of grad school without a single cup of coffee, she finds that the energy of a rehearsal room gives her more than caffeine ever could. She has designed work for productions with NYU Grad Acting, Tisch Dance, Columbia University, as well as Ayodele Casel + Arturo O’Farrill at the Joyce Theater. Betsy received her MFA in Lighting Design at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2021.
Naoko Nagata (costume designer) was born and raised in Kobe Japan. She worked as a biochemist before moving to New York in 1991. Since than with no formal training, she has been creating costumes for award-winning choreographers and dancers non-stop (Urban Bush Women, Kyle Abraham, David Dorfman, Doug Elkins, Ralph Lemon, amongst many others). Her work with Co- Costume Designer Enver Chakartash for Reggie Wilsons/Fist & Heel’s POWER has been placed in the permanent collection of Jacob’s Pillow. Most recently Naoko and Enver co-designed costumes for Raja Feather Kelly’s play FIRES. She also has just completed costumes for Ralph Lemon’s Ceremonies Out of the Air. Naoko has designed and constructed costumes for many of Reggie Wilson’s memorable evening-length dance pieces. She enjoys working closely with collaborators.
Enver Chakartash (costume designer) is a New York based costume designer and wardrobe stylist. He has designed costumes for: Tony Oursler, The Wooster Group, Young Jean Lee, and Half Straddle. Enver began collaborating with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group in 2016. Since then, he has designed costumes for CITIZEN and consulted on costumes for …they stood shaking while others began to shout. Working with Naoko has been one of the most rewarding experiences of his life.
Annaporva Green (stage manager) is a New York-based multidisciplinary theater artist. Recent projects include: “Terror Is the Order of the Day” (The Flea Theater), “AMA” (Target Margin Theater) and “Sunshower” (The Tank Theater). Anna has worked with Fist and Heel Performance Group since 2024 as their company tour manager. Find her here: www.annaporvagreen.com, @annaporvagreen
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
oluwadamilare (dare) ayorinde (they/them) is raised in Lenape Achkinheshcky jersey land. They received their undergraduate degree from Rutgers University, and recently, their master’s from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Both degrees in dance. Dance. Dance. Dance. They’re grateful to be part of this iteration of the Fist and Heel Performance Group.
Bria Bacon is a 20-something, queer, performing artist. Although she is predominantly trained in movement art/dance, she holds passions and gifts in writing, sound-making, and theater. She has worked with Sally Silvers Dance, ChameckiLerner, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Stephen Petronio Company, and Kyle Marshall Choreography, as well as Beth Gill and Rachel Comey in NYFW and Company Christoph Winkler in Berlin. As of late, she is a contributing choreographer and performer in the new immersive dance-theatre show “Life and Trust”. Originally from Munsee-Lenape lands in New Jersey, Bacon currently resides on Munsee-Lenape land in Brooklyn.
Paul Hamilton is a Jamaican-born Bessie-nominated dancer/choreographer who has collaborated with a wide range of choreographers. His longest ongoing collaboration, with Reggie Wilson Fist and Heel Performance Group since 2000, has yielded five original works: Black Burlesque (revisited) 2003, the Bessie-winning Big Brick 2004, The Good Dance: dakar/brooklyn 2009, the duet 2012, and Moses(es) 2014. With Keely Garfield: Scent of Mental Love 2005, Telling the Bees 2013, Wow 2014, and Pow 2016. With National Medal of Arts winner Ralph Lemon: Scaffold Room and Chorus 2015. For MoMA, he has restaged Bruce Nauman’s Wall Floor Position in the largest-ever retrospective of the artist’s work and performed in works by David Gordon and Deborah Hay. Other notable performances include two Bessie-winning productions—Jane Comfort’s 40th Anniversary Retrospective and David Thomson’s He his own mythical beast—and works by Melinda Ring and Neil Greenberg. He has toured and lectured internationally. His work as a choreographer was seen in Kevin Beasley’s Sound of Morning, Performa 2021 NYC, and most recently at Judson Memorial Church NYC. He is currently a Movement Research Artist in Residence.
Rochelle Jamila Wilbun is a Brooklyn based dancer, choreographer, and doula from Memphis, Tennessee. She graduated from Columbia University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Rochelle has performed for Ebony Noelle Golden, Jasmine Hearn, Jodi Melnick, Beth Gill, Maria Bauman, Joanna Kotze and many others. Rochelle’s work imagines liberation inspired by Nature’s cycles, folk practices of the African diaspora, and the physical and psychic realms of bleeding people. She has presented work at Judson Church, AUNTS!, Chez Bushwick, Triskelion Arts, The Buckman Theater, University of Amsterdam, and spaces across Turtle Island. Rochelle is elated to join Fist and Heel.
Annie MingHao Wang (she/they) is a freelancer based in New York. She is a 2024 LMCC Manhattan Arts Grantee and has been Artist-In-Residence at Movement Research (2022-2024), Topaz Arts (2024), Marble House Project (2024). Leimay Foundation (2022), BRIC (2016), and the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2015). They have been presented by Pioneers Go East at the Out-FRONT! festival, Movement Research @Judson, Leimay’s OUTSIGHT series, BRIC, Five Myles, and the Exponential Festival. Annie currently dances for Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, Sugar Vendil, 水素co., and Marie Lloyd Paspé.
Henry Winslow grew up dancing in Bellingham, Washington. At 17 he moved to Oregon to study in The Portland Ballet’s Career Track program. He went on to study at a plethora of programs including with Limon, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Batsheva, Jacob’s Pillow, and Springboard Danse Montreal. In 2021 he graduated with a BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance with an Emphasis in Choreography from Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He moved to Brooklyn after graduating where he began working with Fist and Heel, and John Passafiume & Kristin Vining Collaborative, as well as other independent artists. Currently he lives in Oakland, California, where he works as a freelance performer, choreographer, and dance teacher, and hopes to continue building sustainable and enjoyable careers in the arts.
Miles Yeung-Tieu is originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and is a dance artist currently based between Philadelphia, PA and New York City. Miles studied at the University of the Arts completing both his BFA in Modern Performance and MFA in Dance. Miles’s performance credits include Stacey Tookey’s Still Motion, Helen Simoneau Danse, national tours with Brian Sander’s JUNK, the New York City production of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, tedted Performance Group, La Biennale di Venezia’s Arsenale della Danza, and has worked with notable artists such as Ismael Ivo, Douglas Becker, Isabel Lewis, Mark Haim, Jakob Karr, Alex Da Corte, Tierra Whack, and Sapphira Cristál. Miles has served as faculty at Cornell University, the University of the Arts and Drexel University. He currently performs with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, BigKid Dance. and The Metropolitan Opera.
ABOUT FIST & HEEL
Fist & Heel Board
Ann-Marie Joseph (President), Rhetta Aleong, Susan Manning, Joshua Sirefman, Jesse Wolfson, Reggie Wilson.
Advisory Council
Elise Bernhardt, Michael Connelly, Paul Engler, Germaine Ingram, Phyllis Lamhut, Martha Sherman, Megan Sprenger, Radhika Subramaniam, Laurie Uprichard, Ivan Sygoda, Charmaine Warren
For booking information, contact Sophie Myrtil-McCourty at Lotus Arts Management 72-11 Austin Street, Suite 371 Forest Hills, NY 11375 Tel: 347.721.8724;
email: [email protected]; website: www.lotusartsmgmt.com
Funding Credits
The Reclamation was created with the support of a 2024-25 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency at Brooklyn College: School of Visual Media and Performing Arts; is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. Also the development of The Reclamation was made possible in part by NCCAkron and other support in part from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of Dance Place’s Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency hosted at the Kennedy Center.
Special Thank You’s
GOD; Ancestors; Ira Sutton Ewing; Lois J. Wilson, A’nt Jean, A’ntie C; A’nt Wilma, Uncle Rev., Uncle Von, Uncle George, Aba, Abba, Saba, David Wilson, Jr., Elaine Flowers, Phyllis Lamhut, Susan Manning and Doug Doetsch, Polly Morris and Lynden Sculpture Garden restaging Labs, BAM for their continued support, Ainsley Boisson, Deborah Thomas, Madeline Brine, Anne Miller, Sevenah Lynah, Herbert A. Bacon, Tayloria L. Grant, Anonymous donors, Sophie Myrtil-McCourty and Lotus Arts Management, the Fist and Heel Board of Directors, the Fist & Heel Advisory Council, Every single one of the Fist & Heel performers past and present for their time on this project, their commitment over the years, prioritizing and sacrificing, and their relentless talent. Blessings, Blessings, Blessings for the things they gave up and the infinity of things they gave. And to the Original performers of “Red Raspberry”, “Big BRICK: a man’s piece, “the duet”… as well as Michel Kouakou “duet-ing” physically with Reggie after the illness of Paul Hamilton and Elaine Flowers.
NYU SKIRBALL
NYU Skirball holds close James Baldwin’s dictum that “artists are here to disturb the peace.” Our mission is to present adventurous, cross-disciplinary work that inspires yet provokes, confirms yet confounds, and entertains yet upends. We proudly embrace renegade artists who surprise, productions that blur aesthetic boundaries, and thought-leaders who are courageous, outrageous, and mind-blowing. We are NYU’s largest classroom. We want to feed your head.
NYU SKIRBALL FUNDING
This project is made possible in part with support from the Harkness Foundation for Dance.
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater; Collins Building Services; Harkness Foundation for Dance; Villa Albertine; Polish Cultural Institute; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Québec Government Office in New York; Goethe Institut-New York; Austrian Cultural Forum New York; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
BECOME A MEMBER
NYU Skirball Members are friends …. with benefits. Members receive discounted tickets to productions, events, pre-sale opportunities, exclusive invitations, and special access to innovative artists, academics, and thought-leaders. More importantly, members support a broad range of cutting-edge performances to New York City. Memberships start at $75.
GO BEYOND THE STAGE
NYU SKIRBALL STAFF
Director Jay Wegman
Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Emily Anderson
Ticket Operation Specialist Cliff Billings
Engagement Director J De Leon, PhD
Theater Technician Brian Emens
Company Manager Tayler Elizabeth Everts
Theater Technician George Faya
Theater Technician Angie Golightly
Operations Manager Jenny Liao
Marketing Manager Clare Lockhart
Box Office Manager Craig Melzer
Development Director Kimberly Olstad Piegaro
Front of House Supervisor Jordan Peters
Production Manager Alberto Ruiz
Senior Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Don Short
Finance and Administrative Manager Caroline Grace Steudle
Operations Director Ian Tabatchnick
Press Representative Helene Davis
NEXT @ NYU SKIRBALL
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