PROSODY
and the preciousness of life
a site dedicated to the elucidation and practice of prosody
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Over the last 25 years, I've taught various aspects of prosody in contexts as diverse as the Harvard Divinity School, Duke University, SFSU Poetry Center, Laboratorio Alameda in Mexico City, BRIC Arts Media in Brooklyn, HIAP Gallery Agusta in Helsinki, Deep Listening Institute at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan, New School for Social Research, the Robert Wilson Watermill Center and Hofstra University.
In 2006, I co-founded, with choreographer Daria Faïn, an integrative artscience called The Prosody Body, along with its performative body called The Phoneme Choir (subsequently morphed into The Commons Choir).
In spring of 2018, I taught a 3-month prosody course at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in NYC. The course consisted of 11 sessions and was titled Prosody, Privatization, Performance and Peace. This course established the basis for an ongoing, ever-evolving, expansive prosody curriculum, as well as a committed group of participants and practitioners. The course is currently presented under the title Prosody and the Preciousness of Life, continuing prosody's total implication in the composition of our lives.
A prosody program is also currently being proposed as an interactive, trans-disciplinary field in various educational settings. The program could also be considered a very extensive creative writing course, covering, for example, poetry's basic elements of composition, comparative classical and contemporary poetics, evolutionary linguistics, biosemiotics, psychoacoustics, phonosemantics, mantra, and cosmogony.
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general definition of prosody:
Prosody is limitless expression beyond, and encoded within, the lexical limits of language. It's extralinguistic, as well as intrinsic to our impulse to speak. Prosody is, of course, poetry's basic elements of composition: tempo, tension, intensity, timbre, rising and falling intonation, rhyme, meter (and all its metaplasms), duration, cadence, caesura, pause, pitch, sound and syntactic recurrence, and assorted stresses (comprised of loudness, duration and pitch variables). A whisper is purely prosodic, as is a word withheld. Prosody is the overall measure, the music, the manner of making meaning. Pragmatically, emotion, mood, attitude, implied meaning, and the tonal differences between questioning, explaining, exclaiming and commanding, are also prosodic phenomena. Socially, it is by means of prosodic correlates (timbre, intensity, pitch, loudness, formants, frequency contours, interactional response time and speech rate) that we form snap inferences with regard to each other's qualities, character and condition. While conscious use of prosodic elements sets poetry apart from speech, these same elements also constitute speech. And in turn, speech can be set to poetry. This song/speech contrariety is one of the oldest stories on earth... Non-acoustic (retinal/written) transcriptive, typographic devices such as font-choice, boldface, striking-through, overprinting, handwriting, word-spacing, enjambment, line page-placement and use of white space can also be read prosodically, as an extra-lexical score or performance notation. The poem’s stored performance on the page or screen (or in the cloud) might be its only presence, written for no ulterior stage, as pure page or screen prosody untransduced from vocalization, awaiting the metabolic speed of diffusion on paper or speed of light electronic transmission. (And in our soundless reading of writing, prosody is present, perhaps even more boundlessly, in mind.) As a science, prosody can be defined as suprasegmental phonology, focused on the primary correlates of prosody (intensity, pitch, duration, rhythm) of course not necessarily related to poetry. On the other hand, the science of versification (orally transmitted, prehistorically, then written as treatises on pronunciation, articulatory phonetics, phonotactics and appropriate metrics as applied to poetry, tracing back to the Vedic Pratishākhyas, the Dravidian Tolkāppiyam, Aristoxenus's Ἁρμονικὰ στοιχεῖα, Hephaestion's Enchiridion, to name a few) is as old as versification itself. (I think it's fair to say that linguistics itself was conceived for the purposes of poetry.) Defined more broadly, the science of prosody includes a rich array of current linguistic research in areas such as biolinguistics, psychoacoustics, cognitive philology, sociolinguistics, phoniatrics, semiochemical ecology, evolutionary linguistics, phonosemantics, kinesics, biosemiotics, affective prosody, comparative poetics, graphemics, corpus linguistics and choreoprosodia. Yet, these sciences are rarely, if ever, referred to within the teaching and practice of poetry, even though tending to the opaque, material qualities of words is basic to verse. Reciprocally, poets' contribution to linguistic science is, I believe, negligible-to-nonexistent. Of course, literary studies and cultural literary theory and criticism (often written by poets themselves) necessarily focus on the language-art object. Still, a vital interchange, a profoundly integrative, non-polar prosody artscience, has not been part of the curriculum. "I am myself hopeful that linguistic studies will bring to contemporary criticism a vocabulary and method more sensitive to the basic activity of poetry and less dependent upon assumed senses of literary style." Robert Creeley Prosody and gesture are co-occurrences in the same semiotic system, processed in the same areas (Broca's and Wernicke's) of the brain. Motor gestures conduct/accompany/pantomime prosodic expression. Deictic gestures point things out. Iconic gestures like waving goodbye or throwing a kiss substitute for words. Lexical gestures are like non-verbal, semiotic onomatopoeia. Gesture Theory posits that language evolved from manual gesturing. Gesture enactment helps us select and recall words. In effect, articulation is a highly specific sequence of gestures performed by the tongue within the vocal cavity. Gesture is one way in which performance is a part of prosody's multimodality. Prosody conducts conversation, syncs work, organizes play, frees emotion, regulates bioprocesses and modulates mood. "... it’s that I experience myself inside these constantly swerving, intensely physical processes of semiosis. Biochemistry and language just don’t feel that different to me." (Donna Haraway). In terms of evolutionary development, in my approach, prosody is the precursor of both language and music. And ontogenically, prosody (beginning with embryoprosodia and even conception and preconceptive impulses to nurture and parent) is the precious proto-linguistic motherese (Infant Directed Speech). Through tone and touch, we're basically made to be infinitely attentive, receptive, nuanced and loving. Although prosody is conventionally considered a suprasegmental phenomenon, I include the segments (the phonemes) as part of prosody — these few dozen fundamental sounds specific to human phonation, as potencies in themselves. In terms of both physics and metaphysics (say, vibration, invisibility, indivisibility) the elements of composition of poetry — the forces that pattern matter — can be directly experienced as cosmogenic, as background silence, un-caused sound, relic rhythm, the beginning's pre-condition, formative phonemic energy, initial arising re-enacted as the impulse to speak. Prosody includes cosmos as part of nature. Nature makes 'our' nature part of the cosmos. Immateriality of language is also part of prosody. Here, I'm not referring to 'transparency' in contradistinction to 'opacity.' The term 'transparency' is often used to disparage poetry unaware of the physicality of its medium; see-through poetry. Prosody is partnered with the immateriality of mind and the inscrutable arising, presence, disappearance of language. Prosody is formative rhythm, if you prefer. It solves and dissolves the hard problem of the division of energy and matter. Spiritual Prosody, if you will. Perhaps Subtle Prosody. Here, Samuel Beckett's statement is perfectly apt: "All poetry, as discriminated from the various paradigms of prosody, is prayer.” Prosody is that which makes language poetry. Which words? Entheogenic words. Logos is human perception of language by means of prosody. Because language exists at all, words are realization no matter what we say. Prosody inscribes spirituality in language. Vocal, vibrational patterns resume materialization. We speak seed sounds. Sequences of phonemes make mantras and orisons. The sequences, as speech, make interrelationship. (We formed around the phones, once upon a time.) Prosodic Listening picks up total interconnectivity: cross-species call and response and rhythmic entrainment. The unstruck word, anahata-śabda, the deepest listening practice. Patanjali's vāg-yoga, union with words as original. Word after word — grammar — the force for breaking through the doubled door of ignorance and ego. The meters each assigned a divinity. Meaning, however changeable (because contingent) is meant to last forever. For the Vedic rishis and rishikas, it was an initial act of ascesis that brought the world about; an operation dimensionlessness performed on itself; a fervor, if you prefer, embodied by the poets; disciplines and anti-disciplines; basic skills and somatic/energetic practices indispensable to the creation of poetry: nature-of-mind meditation, chant, fasting, withdrawal of the senses, pranayama, kumbhaka, dark retreat, medical practice, ritual, nonconformity, total attunement, lunacy, channel opening, becoming luminous. When appropriate, I've integrated ascetic practices in my teaching. I've always presented prosody as experiential, not as a study or topic per se. Prosody is what is most human about us; conscious, attuned conduct; the totally transformative power of tone of voice and potency of words emanating from insight and heart; the pleasure of rhythmic reciprocity. The role of the poet: the responsibility in picking up the pith elements of composition as the means for realizing one's life in being of benefit to others. The writing of the poem is both a small part of the practice of poetry and all there is to it. I've called this capacious approach 'integrative' or 'implicate' prosody. Conscious Prosody, for balancing; Vestibular Prosody, for forthrightness, for conflict resolution, for bioregulation, for being conscious and caring for each other. Prosody Diagnostics. Dead Giveaway Prosody. It's written all over us. I have been variously practicing, researching, presenting, performing, propagating and publishing prosodic works for over 30 years. In 2006, with choreographer Daria Faïn, I co-founded an experiential art-science named The Prosodic Body. In 2008, in order to put into practice and perform our research, Faïn and I then formed a theater group known as The Phoneme Choir, commingling movement and language as choreoprosodia. In 2010, to apply our practice more directly to social, systemic, civilizational and karmic suffering and wellbeing, the choir morphed into The Commons Choir. In March of 2018 I began teaching a prosody course (through the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, grâce à Simone White) titled Prosody Privatization Performance and Peace — a poetry and creative writing course with voice, movement, somatic, medical, meditation, mantra and spiritual practices integral to the teaching. This ongoing course is now called Prosody and the Preciousness of Life. And there will be further iterations and subtitles. Although the course is conceived in series, the individual sessions are also stand-alone presentation/discussions, complete in themselves. While the sessions do, for the most part, follow and fulfill a predetermined sequence, the energetics is also experiential and improvisatory; the sessions react to themselves; they may be out of sequence or in sync with breaking news or participant needs. Although the course is whole at every point, at the same time, the elucidation of prosody is exhausting and inexhaustible. It's prosody's ever-present and impossible wholeness that impels me forward, backward, outward, inward, everywhere, anywhere. 'This' story of prosody, told through the cosmogenic stich that brought the world about (and has continually been updated by poets to this day) with a special focus on contemporary poetry, poetics and the current plethora of prosodic innovations.
photo credit: Tim Davis
Robert Kocik is a poet, prosodist, trans-disciplinary essayist, teacher, artist and designer/builder. In 2006, working collaboratively with choreographer Daria Faïn, Kocik initiated a field of research called the Prosodic Body, an experiential artscience that explores prosody (the tone, tempo, intention, intensity and total body language of speech) in relation to movement, bioprocesses and health. In 2008 he cofounded The Commons Choir, a multi-lingual/racial/generational performing group that draws on the findings of the prosody research and presents socially charged operatic and educational events. Kocik writes the scripts and librettos for the choir and constructs installations and sets to accompany choir presentations. Architecturally, he seeks out projects in need, projects with a purpose, social vision or beneficial mission, using methods that countervail the usual violence of construction and exclusivity of the architectural process by working regionally with local materials and crews, traditional skills, site-built furnishings, and with client involvement throughout all phases.
CURRICULUM VITAE selections:
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Traditional Tibetan Medicine, Sowa Rigpa Institute, 2022 (ongoing)
Sa Che (Tibetan Geomancy), Sowa Rigpa Institute, 2023
Hospice Care Program, Mayo Clinic Health System, Rochester, MN, 2009.
École Polytechnique Fédérale IBOIS, Wood Engineering Program: Lausanne, Switzerland, 1995-1996.
New College of California, Poetics Program: San Francisco, CA, 1980-1983.
Center For Archaic Studies: Franconia, NH, 1977-1980.
St. Johns University: Collegeville, MN, 1973-1976.
PUBLICATIONS
The Prosody Book, Auric Press, 2024
WHAT, Auric Press, 2023
Supple Science, ON Contemporary Practice, 2013. Mixed genre writings.
E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E, Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2013. Libretto/script.
Rhrurbarb, Field Books, 2007. Poetry.
Overcoming Fitness, Autonomedia, 2000. Poetry/Essay.
Even A Child, Burning Deck, 1997. French translation of the poetry of Alain Veinstein.
Aukso, Object, 1995. Poetry
Xbo, Sun & Moon, 1993. French translation of the poetry of Dominique Fourcade.
PERFORMANCES / READINGS
"Therefore They are called Poets," Durham, NC, November, 2023. Poetry reading and somatic practices presented to the Contemporary Poets Working Group.
Boog City Arts Festival, Torn Page, NYC, February, 2023. Poetry Reading.
Aeon Books, NYC, June, 2021. Poetry reading with Zoe Brezsny, Robert Kocik, Tessa Bolsover, Jen Fisher, Michael Cavuto.
“AGOG,” Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn, NY, 2019. Commons Choir residency and performance.
“Invisible Matter,” Movement Research Fall Festival, NY, NY, 2017. Commons Choir performance.
“Mayday Heyday Parfait,” (commission) BRIC Arts Media, 2017. Commons Choir world premiere.
“Swale,” Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY, 2017. Commons Choir performance for Mary Mattingly’s barge project (Swale).
“Brooklyn Rezound,” (commission) BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY, 2015. Commons Choir performance.
“Brooklyn Rezound,” (commission) BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY, 2015. Commons Choir performance.
“Last Wishes,” St. Mark’s Poetry Project, NY, NY, 2015. Concert and poetry reading.
“Ubiquitous Dividend,” Poets House, NY, NY, 2014. A day-long celebration marking the publication of Supple Science, including prosody workshops and a Commons Choir performance of the “Ubiquitous Dividend” libretto.
Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI. 2014. Talk and poetry Reading.
“Poetry And/As Social Practice,” Gray Center, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Mar 2014. A colloquium on performance, prosody, Supple Science and the East Cleveland Salon des Refusés, presented with Julie Ezelle Patton.
“VIBE: Composing With That Of Which We’re Made,” Commons Choir presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum as part of their Moving Sounds Festival—New York City, New York, 2013
“E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E,” New York Live Arts, NY, NY, Feb-Mar 2013. World premiere of the investigative musical “E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E” co-directed and written by Kocik, presented by the Commons Choir.
“School Nite with the Commons Choir,” New Museum Festival of Ideas for a New City, NY, NY, May 2011. Choir performance, discussion and presentation of a film about the choir by Iki Nakagawa.
“Re-English,” St. Mark’s Poetry Project, NY, NY, April 2011. Choreographed and scored script performed by the Commons Choir.
“Garland of Letters,” Harlem Stage, NY, NY, 2011. Commons Choir performance.
“Re-English,” Dixon Place, NY, NY, 2010. Choreographed and scored script performed by the Commons Choir for a Belladonna Collaborative benefit.
“The Law Locks Up the Man or Woman Who Steals the Goose from off the Commons But Leaves the Greater Villain Loose That Steals the Commons from the Goose,” Roger Smith LAB Gallery, NY, NY, 2009. Commons Choir residency and performance, with murals and drawing exhibition.
“Commoning,” Governors Island, NY, NY, 2009. Exhibition, lectures and performance based on the history and future of the commons.
“All At Once,” Movement Research Spring Festival, Judson Church, NY, NY, 2009. Commons Choir performance of all the sounds of the alphabet spoken individually and at once at various volumes and tempos.
TEACHING / TALKS / WORKSHOPS
"Sowa Rigpa Treating Poetry: The Poetics of Traditional Tibetan Medicine," Duke University, Franklin Humanities Institute, Entanglement Project, November, 2023.
"Prosody and the Preciousness of Life," Prosody and Creative Writing Teaching, 2018 to present.
“Prosody, Privatization, Performance and Peace,” St. Mark’s Poetry Project, NY, NY, 2018. 3-month, intensive, extensive workshop on prosody.
“For Opacity: Visceral Poetics Now,” St. Mark’s Poetry Project, NY, NY, 2017. Speaker in a symposium focused on Eleni Stecopoulos’ book Visceral Poetics.
“Passage, a dialogue with doulas, dancers and caregivers.” Movement Research Studies Project, NY, NY, 2016. Dialogue moderated by Risa Shoup with co-panelists Anna Carapetyan, Devynn Emory and Iele Paloumpis.
Community Workshops for Voice and Movement, BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY, 2016.
Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, 2015. Visiting artist, invitation by Pia Lindman.
“Body Building Project,” HIAP Gallery Agusta, Helsinki, Finland, 2015. Collective inquiry into embodied practices that respond to planetary emergencies; 3-week residency followed by weekend exposition; coordinated by Saara Hannula.
“Prosody and Performance,” Department of English, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, 2014. Lecture presented in the context of Jennifer Scappettone’s “Poetry Off the Page” series.
Residency/Workshop/Lecture-Performance, Laboratorio Alameda Mexico City, Mexico, 2014
New School for Social Research, NY, NY, 2104. Workshop for voice/movement/performance, invitation by Neil Greenberg.
New York University/ Arts and Politics Department, NY, NY, 2014. Lecture.
Residency/Workshop/Lecture-Performance at Bella Artes Cante San Lui Potosi and Laboratorio Alameda Mexico City, Mexico, 2013
“Producing Poverty Won’t Be A Crime Until Poets Make It Illegal (and the interrelated matter of the unformed field of prosody), ” Bay Area Public School, Oakland, CA, 2013. Lecture on the “missing” ubiquitous dividend.
“Prosodic Body Workshop,” Arts Building Consortium, San Francisco, CA, 2013. 3-day workshop introducing and practicing the prosodic body, co-taught with Daria Faïn.
Deep Listening Art/Science International Conference: EMPAC, Troy, NY. 2013. Presentation on the Prosodic Body in the context of Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Institute.
“Poetic Blind Date,” Ithaca, Greece, 2013. Invited to Ithaca (by Adonis Volanakis) to explore poetry as a way of opening social relations with residents from the island of Odysseus.
“Poetics of Difficulty,” Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, 2010. Lecture on the subtle body in relation to prosody.
“Offering up the Body As Food,” Nonsite Collective, San Francisco, CA, 2010. A talk proposing “money” as the commons and “the market” as conscience.
“In Common,” Lower Manhattan Cultural Counsel, NY, NY, January 2010. A talk and conversation with Rob Halpern and Thom Donovan.
“The New Asklepion,” Poetry Center SFSU San Francisco, CA, 2010. Presentation on dream-healing, word-cure and the Greek Asklepion as part of a symposium series titled “The Poetics of Healing” collaboratively organized by Eleni Stecopoulos and the Poetry Center.
“Epigenetic Architecture,” Bowery Poetry Club, NY, NY, 2009. Presentation in the context of “Poetry and Architecture” with Vito Acconci and Benjamin Aranda. http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Poetry-and-Architecture.php
“Commoning,” Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, NY, 2008-2009. Moderating monthly discussions focused on the de-financialization of democracy.
“The BodyBuilding Project,” Robert Wilson Watermill Center, Water Mill, NY. 2007. 3-week residency in collaboration with Alan Prohm and students from the University of Art and Design Helsinki to develop movement and material responses to the climate crisis; my specific contribution involved materials research and the design and development of the “Stress-Response Building.”
“Intimation,” Movement Research Festival, NY, NY, 2005. Month-long public research and presentation to introduce the new experiential field called the “Prosodic Body.”
“A Way In Which Space Works,” Movement Research Festival, Judson Church, NY, NY, 2004. Talk/demonstration on totipotent choreography and the fullness of space.
“Poetry May Take Any Substrate Including Poetry,” SUNY Buffalo and San Francisco State University, 2004. Lecture and demonstration presented to poetics departments on the untapped vicariousness of poetry.
Writing instructor at Hofstra University’s Summer Writing Conference: Hempstead, NY, 2002.
ARCHITECTURE / CONSTRUCTIONS / EXHIBITIONS
Theresa Smith Ecology, Choreography and Retreat Center, Woodstock, NY, 2018-2019. Design and construction documents for the conversion of a 6000 square foot former medical facility.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivities home for Zak, Kerhonkson, NY, 2018. Consultant for developing a space safe for severe idiopathic environmental intolerance.
“Anechoic Naad Darkroom,” 14 Wall Street, NY, NY, 2010. Construction and programming of an open-to-the-public, financial district, sound-proof, light-proof space for contemplative experience and research.
Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI, 2008. Exhibition of architectural works as part of a group show, curated by Peter Dudek.
“ARCHICULE:,” Makor Gallery, NY, NY, 2006. Exhibition of sculptural and architectural works as part of a group show curated by Peter Dudek.
“Germ,” Chocolate Factory, Long Island City, NY, 2005. Set design and construction for a choreographic work by Daria Faïn.
“Coming Out of the Night with Names,” PS 122, NY, NY, 2004. Set design and construction for the dance-theater company humanfuturedancecorps.
Tabasco Health Care: Kerhonkson, NY, 2004-2005. Design and construction of an office for the family medical practiceof Lucinda and Kurt Grovenburg.
“Every Atom of My Body Is a Vibrascope,” 92ndStreet Y: NY, NY, 2004. Set design and construction for the choreographer Daria Faïn.
Lazzarini Furniture, 2003-2005. Fabrication of compound-distortion chairs and tables for the sculptor Robert Lazzarini.
“CONFABULATIONS,” Bertha and Karl Leubdsorf Art Gallery, NY, NY, 2003. Group exhibition, sculptural and architectural works.
Ursula von Rydingsvard Work Space: Alligerville, NY, 1999. Design/build 4,500 square foot workshop/storage facility for the sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard.
Kentler International Drawing Space: Brooklyn, NY, 1999. Talk and Solo exhibition of furniture, sculpture and writings.
“ARCHTECTURE! ARCHITECTURE !ARCHITECTURE! Sculptors Engaging in 20thCentury Building,” Hunter College Gallery/Times Square Gallery; NY, NY, 1998.
CASINO CONVERSION: Alligerville, NY, 1997. Conversion of a dilapidated 3,500 square foot casino into a studio/residence for David Levi-Strauss and Sterrett Smith.
Capp Street Project: San Francisco, CA, 1993. 3-month residency for developing an experimental theater set for writer/director Fiona Templeton.
EXPERIENCE
Prosodic Body: an experiential field or research and practice based on the sonic, somatosensory and fully connotative aspects of language. Co-founded, with choreographer Daria Faïn, 2006-Present.
Commons Choir: the performative aspect of the Prosodic Body. Co-founded, co-directed with choreographer Daria Faïn, 2006-Present. (For the record, after one year the choir’s name was changed from “Phoneme Choir” to “Commons Choir.)
Caregiver, Austin, MN, 2004-2014.
Bureau of Material Behaviors; Brooklyn, NY; 1997-Present. Establish a design/build, materials research and consultation practice, mixing regional resources, traditional skills and “advanced” materials.
Compagnons du Devoir, Paris, France, 1995. Year-long architectural drawing course with the traditional French guild.
Furnished Poetry Reading Series: Paris, France, 1992-1994. Curate and construct sets specific to each invited reader.
Atelier Trigon, Paris, France, 1990-1994. A multidisciplinary arts, trades and performance space co-founded, constructed and curated with choreographer Daria Faïn.
CRUX, Paris, France, 1987-1996. Establish a design/build atelier based on the integration of traditional French and Japanese wood joineries.
Traditional Japanese Joinery, San Francisco, CA, 1981-1984. 3-year apprentice period in the Bay Area within the network around master temple-builder Makoto Imai.
Art Editor and Instructor, Center for Archaic Studies, Franconia, NH, 1978-1980
GRANTS / RESIDENCIES
Gibney DIP Artist in Residence, NY, NY, 2017-2018.
Exploring the Metropolis, 2017. Residency and grant.
Hip Up Foundation, 2017. Grant.
New Music USA, 2016. Grant.
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, 2016.
New York State Cultural Affairs, 2016. Grant.
Artist in Residence, BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY, 2016-2017. Residency to develop “Mayday Heyday Parfait” for the Commons Choir and to teach community voice and movement classes.
BRIC LAB Residency, BRIC Arts Media, Brooklyn, NY, 2016.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, NY, 2014. Residency.
James E Robison Foundation, 2013. Grant
Hip Up Foundation, 2013. Grant.
New York Foundation for the Arts Build Grant, 2012.
James E Robison Foundation, 2010. Grant
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, NY, 2009-2010. Six-month residency to research the history of the commons.
Movement Research AIR, 2008-2010. Grant (with Daria Faïn).
James E Robison Foundation, 2008. Grant.
New York State Cultural Affairs, 2008. Grant
Marseille Objectif Danse, Marseille, France, 2001. Commission.
Foundation Cartier, Paris, France, 1996. Commission.
Ecole de Beaux Arts, Paris, France, 1996. Commission.
PRESS / INTERVIEWS
“Meet The Commons Choir—Brooklyn’s ‘Polylingual and Multiethnic’ Performance Collection,” Artspace, 2017. Interviewed by Artspace Editors. https://www.artspace.com/magazine/news_events/in-their-words/meet-the-commons-choir-54784
“A Dance that Moves to the Many Tongues of Brooklyn,” Hyperallergic, 2016. Article about the Commons Choir written by Alexis Clements. https://hyperallergic.com/335582/a-dance-that-moves-to-the-many-tongues-of-brooklyn/
“The Architecture of E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E,” Performa, October 2012. Article by Cassie Peterson.
“Commoning,” 2010. Film based on the work process of the Commons Choir by Iki Nakagawa. https://vimeo.com/20726807
“Are We Human, or Are We Dancer,” Journal of Performance and Art, Volume 31, Issue 3, September 2009. Article by Thom Donovan
“Choir Praxis,” The Brooklyn Rail, April, 2009. Article written by Thom Donovan
Critical Correspondence: 2008. Interviewed by Thom Donovan and Alejandra Martorell. http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1233