Brooklyn Premiere of "Yam, Potatoe an Fish!"

"Yam, Potatoe an Fish!" is a multi-media performance art project and solo dance exploring ideas of home and cultural loss amidst my family's stories of migration from the Caribbean to the US--the first wave of Caribbean immigrants in the 1960's.

This work has been developed during a Creative Residency with Art On Purpose (dir. Jamie Philbert) in Arima, Trinidad; under a residency with the Brooklyn Ballet School (dir. Mary Ellen Beaudreau) and Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn; via Tofte Lake Center’s Emerging Artist Program (Ely, MN); and with support from the New Waves! Festival in Port of Spain, Trinidad, The Jerome Foundation and individual donors.

"Yam, Potatoe an Fish!" premiered in a split bill in Minnesota October 2018, produced by AMVTP and featuring solo works and performances by Jonthan van Arneman (AJ) and Khary Jackson.  YPF!/ SALT., an an evening of dance, live music and multimedia sharing of Caribbean diasporic stories, enjoyed a sold-out run at Off-Leash Art Box Oct 18-21.

As a part of the Caribbean diaspora, YPF! will be performed at the beautiful Mark O' Donell Theater at Actors Fund Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY January 3-5.  A featured performance at the OffSet Dance Fest.  Produced by Belinda McGuire  Dance Projects and featuring performances by:

Vanessa Goodman (Vancouver) - Action at a Distance Dance Society

Kyra Jean Green (Montreal/Florida) – Trip the Light Fantastic

Belinda McGuire (Brooklyn/Toronto) - Belinda McGuire Dance Projects

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel (Twin Cities/Brooklyn) – Alanna Morris-Van Tassel Productions

Yin Yue (New York City/Shanghai) – YY Dance Company

$650 is being raised to support the Brooklyn Premiere of "Yam, Potatoe an Fish!" Includes travel to NY, living costs for 5 days, and the 3rd stage of a completed costume design for YPF!

Thank you for your support as I bring this important work to Brooklyn in 2019 and before key Presenters during APAP to create sustaining platform for this work to be shared in many more places!

(Photo: Bill Cameron)

"It is amazing how your simple gestures and design choices (sound, image, etc.) manage to transport me to far away lands and deeply intimate connections to your family and ancestors. I remembered the recordings from one of your other showings and it hit me again, how it simultaneously captured so much beauty and yearning, The heartbreak of your mom's account of leaving behind home and family for this new life in America, that so many people romanticize as being so fantastic when, for her, it clearly marked great loss.

All of those things coupled with your luscious dancing steeped in all of that rich history. I love your restraint and looseness. The quality of the dancing felt like it was straddling this gorgeous line between complete and utter control with relaxation and letting the body soar. Winding up on that diagonal and bursting into another "exercise" or "across the floor" and then resetting to do it again. We were all with you living in that exuberance. It was really something special."

-Chris Schlichting (Choreographer)

"I will never hear the song Exodus the same again.  The explicit movement transformed the lyrics into motivation to continue the fight for power and decency. The whole piece reflected my childhood and being a West Indian in America trying to connect to a homeland."

-Yvette Hewitt

"I am not a connoisseur of dance. But I was rocked Thursday night by how talented Alanna Morris-Van Tassel is. Strong, quick, fast, balanced ... humble, even. 

I went into the OFF-LEASH AREA theater in southeast Minneapolis wanting to close my eyes. She, along with Jonathan van Arneman and Khary Jackson, jolted me into wakefulness. 

I have never seen anyone express the gamut of human possibility in dance like these three did last night. Not to mention the concept of confronting homesick, lost in America Caribbean emotions and knowledge was BRILLIANT. 

I thought, this must be like what it was to see the young Michael Jackson perform. I know, bad analogy, but that's what I told myself. It was that immediate and that amazing. 

She is also unbelievably athletic and beautiful. WOW."

-Mike Finley (Author)

" I saw Alanna Morris-Van Tassel's new show, and it is genius! Alanna's solo performance is of such virtuosity as both choreographer and dancer, that you'll leave breathless and uplifted. It's also one of those rare performances in which the dancer/choreographer, though obviously superb--and I mean world-class--exhibits no ego, but engages in a constant, vulnerable dialogue with the audience, simply offering a gift."

-Marisha Chamberlain (Librettist)