Dance/Film Projects:
The Civic Social by Mark Schmidt + Remi Harris (Fall 2021)
On September 2, 2021, Corning Civic Center Plaza, in the heart of Corning, NY will be reimagined as a social dance hub by NYC-based choreographers Mark Schmidt + Remi Harris. Part performance, part pop-up community dance party, The Civic Social will bring together 14 local artists along with their creative team, dance artist Martita Abril and DJ Krunk Pony.
The Civic Social will design and activate the underused Corning Civic Center Plaza through structured improvisation and set material, including a line dan created for Corning. With a “come as you are” ethos, this dance installation reflects a shared community, local pride, and individual expression value system. We are beginning an unprecedented transition; we are getting back together after being apart for so long. So, let’s rediscover the joy of social dance!
Presented by American Dance Asylum in partnership with Lift Up: Art Without Walls. Funded by NYS DanceForce, a NYSCA partner.
Remi Harris + Mark Schmidt Time Piece performance (2020)
7 days 7 performances 100 seconds each ‘Time Piece’ is an international virtual arts festival, initiated by ‘The Time Piece Collective’, and part of Climate Week NYC (21-27 Sept. 2020), the largest annual climate summit. It encourages the development of performative artworks from around the world, responding to current planetary threats. The artworks embrace a duration of 100 seconds long, which is the time left on the 2020 Doomsday Clock: a symbolic representation of manmade disasters and a plea for us to act. ‘Time Piece’ endeavors to engage audiences from around the globe in unique and accessible ways, within the new online art ecosystems of our time: a gallery space, without a physical space. What will the clock’s 2021 position be? Mark Schmidt + Remi Harris offer a series of repetitive movements informed by the repetitive nature of a ticking clock. Together they remind us that time is in fact running out unless we make fundamental changes to our relationship with the earth and the environment. Their unison movements also serve as a model for the need to work cooperatively to create change. Come dance with us!
Yes! Yes! Yes! by Mark Schmidt + Remi Harris (2019)
Yes! Yes! Yes! by choreographers Mark Schmidt + Remi Harris is inspired by one of NYC’s most legendary underground dance parties, The Loft. With a shared love of house music, composition, and club culture, they’ve created a dance performance/party event that creates inclusive spaces for real connections. Joined by collaborators Tiffany "DJ Krunk Pony" Pilgrim and Bruce Lewis, Yes! Yes! Yes! revisits moments of joy and affirmation that make house dance parties so special.
Presented at Triskelion Arts, December 2019 and with support from Bring It Home a project of the American Dance Asylum.
PINK (Version1) (2018)
Directed and Edited by Remi Harris
"I began researching historical spaces and landmark buildings that were part of Wilmington’s rife history including the now-defunct building on 714 Castle Street. During a solo film shoot, I sat down and looked at my subject, 30 yards of hot pink fabric, and got emotional; the news of Nia Wilson had just come out and had shaken me to my core. I had taken the fabric to several of those public sites to capture some 360 footage. Women have very different experiences in public spaces than men, particularly when they appear alone. The C.D.C. has found that black women die by homicide at nearly three times the rate that white women do and violence against black women is an often neglected part of our national history. I imagined replacing the fabric with a black female body, perhaps my own. What would it feel like to simply exist without fear? Or without the worry of crime or harassment and simply just being? This is the first draft of what I plan to develop into an evening-length work that will include an installation, live performance, and fully developed VR video. As you watch this consider if and when you ever felt unsafe in a public space." - Remi Harris
360 video created during The School of Making thinking VR Residency at Cucalorus during the summer of 2018.
Black and White (focus Up) (2021)
Choreographed, Directed, and Edited by Remi Harris
to be:free (2017)
Choreography: Remi Harris in collaboration with the performer
Performer: Melanie Greene
Director: Remi Harris and Ben Noftzger
Art Direction: Michelle Golden
Sound score: Adapted from text written by Christian Baxter spoken by Melanie Greene
to be:free asks the question "what does freedom feel like to you?" The viewer is immersed in the world of Melanie who begins to investigate the notion of freedom in her body and in the world she inhabits. Inspired by afro-futurism, history, and the politics of the black dancing body, to be:free looks towards a world where a black female body can just be.
to be:free was inspired by the adaptable apple curated gallery series at Brooklyn Studios for Dance in 2017 curated by Remi Harris and Michelle Golden as has been featured in The Spark Dance Film Festival and Triskelion Film Festival.
Curatorial Work:
2019: Dance/NYC Symposium, Co-curated with Stephanie Acosta and Dance/NYC Symposium Hunter College, New York, NY
2019: TILT in collaboration with Racoco/Rx at Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
2018: Food for Thought at Danspace Project, New York, NY
2018: Studies Project: A Taste of Home with Movement Research’s Artist of Color Council, New York, NY
2017: Adaptable Apple, Co-curated with Michelle Golden at Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Brooklyn, NY
2015: Brooklyn Ballet’s First Look, Co-curated with Richard Glover. The Actors Fund Theater, Brooklyn, NY
2010–13: with the Alternative Arts Association
2012 Anatomically Incorrect at the Magic Future Box, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Up In Arms at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Brooklyn, NY
2010 Mindful at The Brecht Forum, New York, NY