[funky music] - Welcome, my name is Duke Dang.

I'm the general manager of Works & Process at the Guggenheim and I'm so delighted to welcome Omari Wiles with us, who is the founder of Les Ballet AFRIK.

This is a very young company.

We were so taken by your work that we immediately commissioned a piece from you.

That's been in multiple residencies in 2019, 2020 and throughout the pandemic.

And the piece is called New York is Burning and it's an homage to Paris is Burning.

- Yes.

- Now tell us why you wanted to name this piece New York is Burning.

[funky music] - I wanted to name it New York is Burning because that's... to me New York was the Mecca, it is the Mecca of like ballroom, right?

And although the documentary is titled Paris is Burning it really showed for that community, at that time to, their aspirations of where they wanted to take ballroom, I felt.

- [Duke] Omari Wiles is a legend within the ballroom community.

And when I say ballroom, I mean vogue ballroom.

He has modern in him.

He has African dance in him.

He has ballroom in him and he has vogue in him and he's crafting an exciting new vocabulary that we are championing.

Since 1984 Works & Process has presented and produced these illuminating programs at the Guggenheim museum.

For the bulk of the history these programs took place in the theater, which many people don't even realize exist, but it is underneath the rotunda of the Guggenheim.

When we really didn't know what this pandemic was going to be times got really, really, really rough.

And then around late March, the entire ecosystem just completely collapsed.

[train rumbling on tracks] - Once the pandemic hit, we had no ability to present anything live, anything in our gorgeous theater downstairs, anything in this magnificent rotunda.

All the artists were out of work.

Everybody was suffering.

- [Duke] It became very clear to us that live performances were not going to be a reality for quite some time.

- I have to take a deep breath when I think about this.

Not being able to dance.

Not being able to create or perform as freely as I want to.

We had everything going.

You know, we had everything ready, set in play in motion.

Back in January, we were like really excited, cause we got so much great feedback from it.

And then to get it snatched, 'cause that's how it feels.

- We at Works & Process knew that that was not an option.

And so the idea was how could we bring these artists to the Hudson Valley where infection rates were lower?

And then I realized that there is the Petronio Residency Center, which is on 170 acres, completely isolated.

Twenty minutes in another direction there was Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, again on 150 acres, completely isolated.

And that was how the Bubble Residency came about.

- [Technician] Okay.

[Omari groans uncomfortably] - Ooh, Jesus, Lord.

- You always describe the vocabulary of Les Ballet AFRIK as AFRIK-fusion.

- Definitely.

- You literally are fusing members from the ballroom community, members from African dance, members from house and vogue.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

I'm bringing all those communities together and within this fusion, we're really finding a lot of the similarities within our cultures, within our dance moves, within our styles that we do.

And then with the differences that we come about, we challenge each other through those differences and kind of like find a balance.

- Five, six, seven and...

The first one, don't do it so much as a snake but it's more like a... and an attitude of the neck versus the whole back, right.

Les Ballet AFRIK is very, very, very unique from any other company, I feel.

Not to toot their horn, but they are, they're diverse in race, in physicality, in dance.

You know, it's just so much that each individual in the company brings in.

I don't want AFRIK to just be my style, just what I do, but I'd want to find people who understand the importance of bringing us together as a collective, our differences and finding our similarities and being okay with our differences and learning from them and learning from each other.

I think that's the beauty of my company.

[dancers squealing and shouting] - Oh my God, there's so many people!

Hey, hey, how are you?

Long time no see!

How's everything?

I think we're wearing the same color.

Welcome everyone to the Kaatsbaan Mock Ball.

My name is the Legendary Omari Oricci, the Founding Father of the House of NiNa Oricci, and I'm so happy that you're here for our first annual Kaatsbaan Mock Ball.

My work has to represent growth, my work has to represent a questioning of identity itself.

But then at the same time a realization or an awakening of community and what that really means.

- [Duke] After Les Ballet AFRIK and Omari's second Works & Process Bubble Residency, which took place in April and May of 2021 at the Catskill Mountain Foundation, the company went directly into two performances in the rotunda of the Guggenheim for audiences of 90, socially distanced.

[funky music] The goal of these performances was to provide hope that live performances could happen again, indoors, in New York and embody the resiliency of New York City.

- You know, Duke and Works & Process, they really, really, really helped as much as they can to provide us with just the opportunity to feel some sort of normalcy, you know, some sort of type of, okay, don't worry.

We got this.

We still on track.

We're still on that path.

We here, we still going.

- Has the meaning changed, for you, of New York is Burning?

- I think the meaning has gotten even more complex.

When people see these new dancers dancing, collectively in the same space as a unit, and they see them from all walks of life, you know what I'm saying?

To me it's something beautiful, something inspiring.

It's something like, oh my God, if these people can do this with a piece, a dance piece, why can't we do this as humans in different conversations?

Why can't we do this as humans, just in the workforce?

Why can't we do this in life in general, you know?

We all come from different places and there's so much that we can learn from each other.

And that's the, what I'm trying to project into the company, but hopefully projecting to the world.

[funky music]