News: Kinesis Project Presents (Virtual) Annual Spring Gala May 8

Image courtesy Michelle Tabnick PR
Kinesis Project is a dance organization that creates outdoor, public dance performances, facilitates educational programs, and produces site-specific performances with diverse communities. Kinesis Project's Board of Directors will present Kinesis Project's Annual Spring Gala in a virtual realm, honoring Jennifer Wright Cook and Yasemin Ozumerizfon, hosted by TruDee, with live performances by Kinesis Project NYC and Seattle, on Friday, May 8, 2020 at 7:30pm ET. Tickets are available here.

For a fun, sparkling, connected, staying-home evening, you can join Kinesis Project in a private Zoom room from wherever you are to enjoy a toast, watch performances, bid on fun and virtual offerings, and win a double thumbs up from Erin Courtney for your best Zoom Party Top.

7:30pm - Enter + cocktails (recipe will be available)
7:45pm - Live performance by Kinesis Project
8:00pm - Honorees Celebration!
8:15pm - Performance by Kinesis Project NYC and Seattle
Continue party, into virtual dance party

A native of Istanbul, honoree Yasemin Ozumerzifon, Director of Community Action at Gibney, enjoys her roles as an administrator, researcher, and facilitator. Trained in dance and psychology, her background in arts education, prior to joining Gibney in 2011, includes working at New 42nd Street's Education department, All Stars Project and Lyman Allyn Art Museum. Ozumerzifon has developed and conducted research projects such as a two-year study that investigates the Development of Children's Art Making and Comprehension of Art, a study that evaluates Guggenheim Museum's Learning Through Art program as well as administering data collection for Yale University's Emotional Literacy program.

As Director of Community Action at Gibney, Ozumerzifon administers programs that use the arts to address gender-based violence including movement workshops for survivors; violence prevention assemblies and residencies that promote healthy relationships among young people; and ongoing trainings, workshops, and resources locally, nationally, and internationally that provide support for projects that are at the intersection of arts and social justice. In addition, she is working as a co-instigator for a two-year clinical trial to determine the effects of group-based dance and movement workshops on the physical and mental health of survivors of domestic violence.

The Field empowered Executive Director Jennifer Wright Cook, the event's second honoree, to cut her teeth twice: first, in 1996 when she was an exhausted dancer/waitress/personal trainer in need of a life change; and then again in 2006 when her full-time performance life was waning and she was ready to test her leadership skills. Her current role as Executive Director is firmly grounded in these two experiences - that The Field can truly change someone's life. As Executive Director of this 34-year-old organization, Wright Cook oversees The Field's mission delivery to 1,200 artists in NYC and beyond and is deeply proud of The Field's commitment to individual artists, anti-racism in the arts, and its courageous and humble self-examination of its work and the sector - as evident in its publications like to fail and fail big, We Are No Longer Strangers, and Beyond 26%. From that place in 2019, The Field launched an ambitious new Vision to support artists' full life resilience (thefieldvision.org). Wright Cook's work has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal, WNYC Public Radio, and by participation on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, emcArts, CUNY Prelude Festival, and the former Dance Theater Workshop. Wright Cook is Co-Chair of the Board for New Yorkers for Arts and Culture and is active advocate for city funding. She is also a proud alum of Coro Leadership NY XXI. As a (now retired) dance/theater performer, she performed/created with the San Francisco-based Joe Goode Performance Group (1997-2005) and others. She has performed her own work in Madrid, New York, San Francisco and Portland, OR; sings alto in a gospel choir; and lives in Brooklyn with her partner and daughter.

Host TruDee is a formidable dance artist and storyteller as well as an award winning lip sync artist and ribboned competitive speed walking champion and holds the title as the youngest member of her church choir, joining the ranks at the age of 11. An elusive genre straddler, TruDee has gone on to share her dance stories at Joe's Pub, American Dance Festival, Chicago Contemporary Circus Festival, and the beloved West Village drag bars Boots & Saddle and Stonewall Inn. SILO and Marble House Project and Djerassi Artist Residency have hosted her musings and creative exercises. She has created dances and led workshops in performance for Advanced Curation and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. You can follow her on instagram @yourstrudee

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