In 2001 artistic director Nathan Trice created the Recognizing Women Project (RWP), an annual community research initiative that creates educational residencies and artistic performances about the experiences and stories of women across generations, cultures and geographies. From Fall throughout Winter the (RWP) initiative brings together a multi-generational and multi-cultural group of adolescent, young adult and adult female dancers, with students and practitioners of the social sciences to work as a research analysis team. Their aim is to explore and understand the dynamics of their stories & experiences as it relates to our themes, while also developing visceral thought-provoking performances inspired by their findings.
Since 2001 the (RWP) has explored themes that include: Self-Identifying within patriarchal culture, Rites of passage among mothers & daughters, Female objectification / self-objectification, Myth and Grief.
Our (RWP) 2023 – 2024 activities will include:
A 2023 Winter/Spring/Fall discussion series with 6 groups of fathers of daughter to help develop our new work that will illustrate “How fathers recognize, understand and support daughters”. Premiering March 2024, this new work entitled “Alchemist In The Garden” is inspired by my mother, Monica, who hoped of a future where father and daughter relationships evolved through spiritual practices.
The launch of 2 (RWP) pilot-programs in 2 new locations led by (RWP) alumni, as co-artistic director.
A (RWP) 22 year Anniversary Season, March 2024 in NYC.
A fundraising campaign to support our 2023/24 activities.
The Recognizing Women Project has an ongoing creative residency through the Billie Holiday Theaters ChoreoQuest program.
Creating the (RWP) has become a path to healing my own personal culture, as it relates to the feminine/masculine split within. Healing this split is essential to spiritual recovery “. Nathan Trice”
Highlights:
Testimonies:
Process:
Since 2001 the Recognizing Women Project (RWP) has worked collaboratively with dancers and students enrolled Women’s and Gender Studies, Africana Female Studies, History, Sociology and Psychology departments at Fordham University, Brooklyn College, Hollins University, Adelphi University, Barnard, Columbia University, Brooklyn Arts High School, Fort Hamilton High School, Talent Unlimited High School and Taft High School. Our inter-disciplinary collaborative processes have become an integral tool to producing informative thought-provoking work, that subsequently bridge art and academia in ways that present new insights into women’s experiences. Work developed through the (RWP) has been presented at numerous dance festivals and the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis and the Association of Psychoanalysis Culture and Society. The (RWP) was born out of the Judson Church (DADD) Dance Of African Descent Downtown series, created and curated by Aziza.
As we prepare for the (RWP) 2022/23/24 activities, we ask for your help to ensure that we successfully engage our efforts by making a tax-deductible donation to: nathantrice/rituals dance theater music
Donations made to nathantrice / RITUALS dance theater music will support our goal to continually present educational residencies and artistic performances that inspire dialogue and activism around women’s concerns across cultures, generations and geographies. Please make a donation today.
Press
“Nathan Trice’s Recognizing Women Project is the result of years of work and a life-time of learning about women”
– Quinn Batson, Off, Off, Off Dance
“Trice’s Recognizing Women Project delivers the poetry of a mothers struggle to love her child, yet let them go”
– Nana Euka, New York Metro
“Orondava’s beautifully conceived and executed costumes evince the culture background of each woman in “MOTHERS”
– Carl Paris, Attitude Magazine
I, the object in my eye (work-in-progress) 2018
Choreography: Nathan Trice in collaboration with the dancers, Music: Ryuchi Sakamoto, Text: Dancers, Costumes: Nathan Trice.
I, the object in my eye explores what might be the contributions to adolescent, young adult and adult female self-objectification.
https://youtu.be/mWQe85eXNNM
“3” a new production (2017)
Choreography by Nathan Trice. Music: Arvo Part, costumes: Nathan Trice
“3” is a new production and is inspired by sacred middle eastern verses: The universe is feminine. A gift of light and dark, time and timing, creation and destruction. “3” was originally commissioned by Dance New Amsterdams’ In The Company of Men series in 2006.
MOTHERS (2002)
Choreographed by Nathan Trice, Music: Hanz Zimmer & James Horner, Costumes: Olu-Orondava Mumford, Props: Marisa Lowenstien.
MOTHERS is conceived and conceptualized by Nathan Trice with Olu-Orondava Mumford & Marisa Lowenstien and is a procession of solo’s that interpret and explore the processes and aspects of grief for the mothers of prominent figures: Mahatma Gandhi, Ernesto “CHE” Guevara, Adolf Hitler, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and Tupac Shakur.
banDrui (2004)
Choreographed by Nathan Trice, Music: Various, Costumes: Nathan Trice & Elana Commendador
banDrui conceived and conceptualized by Nathan Trice, is inspired by indigenous myths and legends on rites of passage between mother and daughter. The work is a progression of exchangeable symbiotic roles that illuminate the rituals between mother & daughter that act as the essential germ to identity and linage.
One’s Trilogy (work-in-progress) 2011
Choreographed by Nathan Trice, Text by Nathan Trice and the dancers, Music: Thomas Newman, Costume: Nathan Trice.
One’s Trilogy (work-in-progress), conceived and conceptualized by Nathan Trice, is inspired by me learning how to be with my mother whom at a period of her life suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and 8 years of homelessness. It is a cryptic search we both navigated to understanding who we were, are and could be as mother and son.
Their Speech Is Silver, Their Silence Is Gold (1997)
Choreographed by Nathan Trice, Music: Peter Gabriel & Nathan Trice, Text: Nathan Trice, Costumes: Olu-Orondava Mumford.
Their Speech Is Silver, Their Silence Is Gold is an evocative visceral work in responds to the experiences, exchanges and transformations that occur within and between mothers and daughters who aim to self-identify within patriarchal culture/society.