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| 92Y Street Y Harkness Dance Festival: Feb 5-Mar 9, 2008 |
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| Tickets/Registration: 212.415.5500 |
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| Media Contact: Sarah Morton, 212.415.5435, email |
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| THE 14TH ANNUAL 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL |
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with Ailey® Citigroup Theater at the Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th Street at 9th Avenue |
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| Wednesday, February 13—Sunday, March 16, 2008 |
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Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug
Wed, Feb 13; Thu, Feb 14, and Sat, Feb 16, 8pm; Sun, Feb 17, 2pm
[ZØGMA]
Wed, Feb 20; Thu, Feb 21, and Sat, Feb 23, 8pm; Sun, Feb 24, 2pm
nathantrice/RITUALS Dance Theater
Wed, Feb 27; Thu, Feb 28, and Sat, Mar 1, 8pm; Sun, Mar 2, 2pm
Out of Israel: LeeSaar/The Company & Netta Yerushalmy
Wed, Mar 5; Thu, Mar 6, and Sat, Mar 8, 8pm; Sun, Mar 9, 2pm
Brian Brooks Moving Company
Wed, Mar 12; Thu, Mar 13, and Sat, Mar 15, 8pm; Sun, Mar 16, 2pm
Tickets at $20 ($10 for students/seniors, $16 for groups of 10+) can be purchased at www.92Y.org/HarknessFestival or call 212.415.5500.
The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival and Center receives major funding from the Harkness Foundation for Dance; Jody and John Arnhold; the Mertz Gilmore Foundation; the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development; the New York City Council; the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation; public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and Capezio/Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, Inc., among others. |
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NEW YORK, NY, January, 7, 2008—The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center announces the 14th season of its contemporary-dance showcase, the 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL. The Festival opens Wednesday, February 13, at 8 pm, at the Ailey® Citigroup Theater at the Joan Weill Center for Dance (405 West 55th Street at 9th Avenue). Continuing its tradition of diversity, the Festival, which runs through Sunday, March 16, presents choreographers from Israel, Japan and Canada; a troupe that incorporates text, projection and song into the performance; and a company, celebrating its 10th anniversary, known for its athletic, rigorous movement. All five companies will present world or U.S. premieres.
WEEK 1: KOTA YAMAZAKI/FLUID hug-hug— Picnic and April-May-June
Wednesday, February 13; Thursday, February 14; Saturday, February 16, 8pm
Sunday, February 17, 2pm
Originally from Japan and trained in Butoh, choreographer Kota Yamazaki has always been drawn to other cultures and dance styles. His work has been described as a mixture of ballet, African, hip-hop and Butoh and his company, Fluid hug-hug, is dedicated to "traveling, teaching and exploring," says Yamazaki. The choreographer presents the world premiere of April-May-June, for three women. The work explores the changeability of human emotion and the rapidity with which people switch gears, movements and moods—a topic that has long interested Yamazaki. Picnic, which he created and premiered in Tokyo in 1997, was inspired by New York's gay nightclub scene. Yamazaki brings this popular work to the city that led to its creation with the New York premiere of Picnic...for Men, a revival now performed by a group of male dancers.
WEEK 2: [ZØGMA]—Rapaillé
Wednesday, February 20; Thursday, February 21; Saturday, February 23, 8pm
Sunday, February 24, 2pm
The Québec-based [ZØGMA] calls itself an urban folklore collective. The troupe is dedicated to keeping alive the French Canadian folk tradition of step-dancing, which the choreographers, who work together, blend with story-telling, singing and contemporary dance to create a unique theatrical experience. In its first U.S. appearance, the company presents its new work, Rapaillé, which is based on the poetry of iconic Québecois writer Gaston Miron. Five dancers and two musicians use the rhythms of Miron's poetry and the percussive phrasing of French Canadian gigues (lively, formal dances derived from old English jigs) to create what a Québec newspaper termed "beautifully poetic choreography...upliftinG...absolutely compelling." Inspired by Québec's folk heritage, Mario Boucher, Dominic Desrochers and Frédérique-Annie Robitaille formed [ZØGMA] in 1999, and the group encourages a fusion of traditional culture with the new culturally diverse traditions blossoming in Canada's cities.
WEEK 3: THE SPACE BETWEEN US: nathanrice/RITUALS DANCE THEATER
Wednesday, February 27; Thursday, February 28; Saturday, March 1, 8pm
Sunday, March 2, 2pm
The trademark of nathantrice/RITUALS is what choreographer Nathan Trice calls a VAST—a Visual Audio Sensory Theater experience. Trice's multi-media projects use dance, music, text, singing and projection to explore human relationships. Critic Joy Goodwin says the resulting work has a "formidable intensity," while DanceviewTimes has noted the choreography's "supple, mesmerizing blend of African and modern movement." Tactics, a name used for a different work three years ago, makes its world premiere at the Festival. Dancers struggle with an intangible force and find ways to work with it or around it. For Trice, the point of the dance is not the force, but the dancers' varying reaction to it. Conversations, which has been performed in earlier versions, is now in its final form and making its New York premiere at the Festival. Three couples explore the idea of love, with Trice evoking a tender and melancholy mood by using partnering and his own brand of emotional sign language. The company also presents excerpts from Bottom of a Kiss Floating, a work-in-progress. Explains Trice "The piece is based on my very first girlfriend and the feeling I had when we kissed." The performers sing lyrics written by Trice to music by William Catanzarro and Keith Jarrett.
WEEK 4: OUT OF ISRAEL: LEESAAR/THE COMPANY & NETTA YERUSHALMY
Wednesday, March 5; Thursday, March 6; Saturday, March 8, 8pm
Sunday, March 9, 2pm
Intense, in-your-face choreography and dancing characterize the Out of Israel program. Two companies are on the bill: LeeSaar/The Company, directed by transplanted Israeli choreographers Saar Harari and Lee Sher, and Netta Yerushalmy. Harari and Sher use the techniques of both theater and dance to create works reflecting their experiences of war, peace and love in Israel and abroad. They offer the world premiere of Geisha, a sensual work combining the company's fearless movement style with Sher's singing, which conveys emotion even to audiences who don't understand the Hebrew lyrics she uses. The two, along with dancer Jye-Hwei Lin, look at an intense relationship; the movement variously suggests conflict, desire, need and independence. Also on the program is a work by Netta Yerushalmy, whom The Village Voice has extolled for her embrace of awkwardness and asymmetry in her choreography and whose work the paper has described as "pungent, potent, head-clearing." Yerushalmy presents the world premiere of Bilocale/Come Closer Please, a dance for two women (Yerushalmy and Toni Melaas) who find themselves confined in a narrow space. The women struggle and grapple each other as they try to find a way to co-exist in this restricted space, and a competitive, edgy spirit pervades the muscular, sometimes aggressive movement they use.
WEEK 5: BRIAN BROOKS MOVING COMPANY
Wednesday, March 12; Thursday, March 13; Saturday, March 15, 8pm
Sunday, March 16, 2pm
Brian Brooks celebrates the 10th anniversary of Brian Brooks Moving Company with a world premiere and a retrospective. Brooks's sometimes acrobatic style, along with his use of repetition and small variations of movement to theatrical effect has been called "thrilling" (The New Yorker), "provocative" (The Village Voice) and "daring" (Dance Magazine). At the Festival, he transforms the theater into a dance museum complete with videos and photographs of the company. Complementing the displays are performances of excerpts from Piñata, Acre, Dance-o-Matic and other works from the troupe's repertoire. Brooks has a chance to flex his choreographic muscles in the world premiere of Happy Lucky Sun, a vigorous athletic dance where the tumbles, runs, mid-air grabs and falls to the floor suggest full-contact football.
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER |
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Renata Celichowska, Director
In 1935, what is now the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center provided a home to the fledgling modern dance movement and its leader, Martha Graham. Among the great artists who have created, performed and taught at the Y are Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins, Agnes de Mille, Erick Hawkins, Robert Joffrey, Pearl Lang, and Donald McKayle, building the foundation for contemporary dance as we know it. In recent years, they have been joined by today's dance stars, like David Parsons, Zvi Gotheiner, Keely Garfield, Neil Greenberg, Bill T. Young, Maia Claire Garrison, David Dorfman and Sean Curran. With the generous support of the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Center continues to nurture the teaching, creation and performance of modern dance, serving adults, children and dance professionals through classes, professional development programs like the 92nd Street Y Dance Education Laboratory and performance programs like the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, the Y's annual showcase for contemporary dance. The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center is part of the Y's arts-education division, the 92nd Street Y School of the Arts. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/dance. |
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y SCHOOL OF THE ARTS |
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Robert Gilson, Director
The 92nd Street Y's arts-education division, the 92nd Street Y School of the Arts, comprises the Harkness Dance Center (estab. 1935), the School of Music (estab. 1917) and the Art Center (estab. 1930). Together they offer instruction to adults, teenagers and children of all ages and interests, as well as master classes and, in the case of dance, performance opportunities and professional performances. The School of the Arts's Educational Outreach initiative provides in-school dance, music and art education to 7,000 economically disadvantaged New York City elementary-school children. The Y's Scholarship Program enables all New Yorkers to enjoy the School of the Arts's programs regardless of income level. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/arts. |
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y |
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Sol Adler, Executive Director
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit in person each year as well as those who visit virtually, through the Y's satellite, television, radio and Internet broadcasts. The organization offers comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards nearly $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 7,000 public school children through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org.
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© 2008 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. |
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