Courtney ToPanga: ALL INCLUSIVE AND MORE Work-In-Progress Showing

Join us at Bethany Arts Community on November 12th @ 2pm for a work in progress showing with Courtney ToPanga – Masterz at Work

Bio:
A legend within the ballroom community, founder of the Kiki House of Juicy Couture, leader of The House of Balenciaga, and this year’s Latex Ball Avis Penda’vis Angel Award winner, Black trans femme choreographer Courtney Washington Balenciaga creates dances that are a representation of resiliency, and which foster community in under-resourced areas of Brooklyn. Her new Works & Process commission, ALL INCLUSIVE AND MORE fuses street dance, street jazz, ballroom, vogue, and hip-hop. Informed by her own experience as a queer teenager who found refuge from teasing in dance, the work conveys how her gender transition spurred transformative emotional, creative, and physical liberation. An expansion of ALL INCLUSIVE, which was commissioned in 2020 and performed in the Guggenheim’s rotunda as performances were reopening in New York on March 31, 2021, this latest work furthers her ambitions toward shaping a more inclusive, fair, representative, and colorful world. 

Commissioned by Works & Process, this work was developed in a Works & Process bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in March 2021. This work is receiving a two-week Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency at Bethany Arts Community, which will provide creative time and commissioning resources for Masterz at Work Dance Family and its uplifting and inspiring dancers Luis, Lamell “Jay Parel” Clemons, Jai’Quin Coleman, DeAndre Cousley, Mehki Cuffee, Rasheed “NewBorn” Lucas Jr., Guya Marie, Armani Moore, Dashaun “DayDay” Peals, and Brian Starke.