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| 92Y Harkness Dance Festival: Kota Yamazaki (2.13-17.08) |
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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 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS FESTIVAL
NEW YORK DEBUT OF KOTA YAMAZAKI/FLUID hug-hug |
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Presenting the World Premiere of
APRIL-MAY-JUNE
And the New York Premiere of PICNIC...FOR MEN |
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Music: Masahiro Sugaya, Ryoji Ikeda, Kevin Aviance
Set Design: et in terra pax, Kota Yamazaki
Costume Design: Michiyo Sato
Lighting: Amanda K. Ringger
Wednesday, February 13; Thursday, February 14, and Saturday, February 16, 8pm
Sunday, February 17, 2pm
PERFORMANCE LOCATION: Ailey® Citigroup Theater at the Joan Weill Center for Dance
(405 West 55th Street at 9th Avenue)
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, 14, 2008—The 14th annual 92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL kicks off with contemporary Japanese choreographer Kota Yamazaki's company Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug. Yamazaki, who won a 2007 Bessie Award, embraces a wide range of dance styles and cultures. The program reflects his love of New York, its multiculturalism and its ethos of change and transition. His company presents the world premiere of April-May-June and, in its New York premiere, a reworking of 1997's Picnic, now cast entirely with male dancers and entitled Picnic...for Men. While Yamazaki has presented his work in New York before, this is the first time the full Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug company has appeared here.
Kota Yamazaki studied Butoh and then ballet in his native Japan. In 2001, in the midst of a successful career as one of Japan's leading choreographers, he was invited to create a work in Senegal. His time there influenced him profoundly, as did an earlier stay in New York. The effects of these experiences are clear in Yamazaki's eclectic choreography, which draws on Butoh, hip-hop, ballet and African dance. "Kota changes his style constantly," explains his wife, dancer Mina Nishimura. "He believes an artist has to be fluid and keep changing," hence the company's name, Fluid hug-hug, with "hug-hug" referring to Yamazaki's embrace of multicultural influences and movement styles.
In his new work, April-May-June, Yamazaki explores how time can pass quickly for some people yet drag for others, and how human beings can switch emotional gears almost instantly—a quality he says he finds "frightening, mysterious and remarkable." Yamazaki has choreographed the piece, which is set to music by Masahiro Sugaya, for three female dancers with similar body shapes and sizes. "I had an image in my head of three female ghosts inhabiting an old, big house for hundreds of years," Yamazaki explains. "[T]he links among the women make them seem almost like sisters." The performers start out trying to perform simple movements together, yet they never quite find themselves in synch. As the dancers increase their energy, speed and range of movement, the gaps in their timing become more and more glaring.
After a stay in New York in 1997, Yamazaki created Picnic, a piece influenced by the city's gay nightclub scene. Since then, he has dreamed of bringing the work—extremely popular when it premiered in Tokyo in 1997 and revived in Chicago in 2000—to the city that inspired it. His troupe's appearance at the Festival is the realization of this dream and of one other—to have dancers from Japan appear with his New York group. They do so in a reworking of Picnic, now called Picnic...for Men and cast with seven male dancers, including Yamazaki himself. Yamazaki says the piece is about several things: the "sense of solidarity that appears when different races and cultures dance together to a tight beat," the beauty of the community created when people dance together, and the loneliness and alienation often felt by people living in big cities like Tokyo and New York.
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| COMING UP IN THE 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: |
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WEEK 2
[ZØGMA]: Rapaille
Wednesday, February 20; Thursday, February 21; Saturday, February 23, 8pm
Sunday, February 24, 2pm |
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WEEK 3
nathantrice/Rituals Dance Theater: The Space Between Us
Wednesday, March 5; Thursday, March 6; Saturday, March 8, 8pm
Sunday, March 9, 2pm
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WEEK 4
Out of Israel: LeeSaar/The Company & Netta Yerushalmy
Wednesday, March 5; Thursday, March 6; Saturday, March 8, 8pm
Sunday, March 9, 2pm |
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WEEK 5
Brian Brooks Moving Company: Spectrum
Wednesday, March 12; Thursday, March 13; Saturday, March 15, 8pm
Sunday, March 16, 2pm |
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| ABOUT KOTA YAMAZAKI AND FLUID hug-hug |
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| Founded in 2002 in New York, Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug takes as its motto "traveling, exchanging, exploring." The company has presented solos, duets and group works in California, Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, New Mexico, Japan, Australia and Europe. Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times has written of the company's "highly articulated dancing" and The Wall Street Journal's Robert Greskovic has praised the company for "some of the most magical visions I've ever seen onstage." While Yamazaki has previously presented a scaled-down version of the company in New York, he considers this Festival season as the company's New York debut. |
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| Kota Yamazaki was born in Niigata, Japan, and, intending to be a designer, studied fashion at Tokyo's Bunka Fashion Institute. An interest in the movement styles of conductors (another career he considered) led him, at 18, to his first training in dance, studying with Butoh legend Akira Kasai. Four years later, in exchange for designing tutus, he began studying ballet. He started choreographing in his 20s and, at 30, was invited by Daniel Larrieu to choreograph a work for France's National Center for Contemporary Dance. In 1994, Yamazaki was a finalist in the Rencontres Choreographiques Internationale festival in Bagnolet, France. In Japan, Yamazaki formed his first dance company, Rosy co., in 1996. Extremely successful, the company was invited to perform at Jacob's Pillow, the Bates Dance Festival, and the University of Massachusetts as well as at events in France, Indonesia and England. In 2004, Yamazaki was invited to work with Germaine Acogny and her company, Jant-Bi, in Senegal. The resulting piece, FAGAALA, has been seen around the world and won a Bessie Award in 2007. Yamazaki's exposure to African dance heightened his interest in different dance cultures, and he decided to move to New York so he could learn about a broader range of dance traditions. Since his move, he has presented solo work while continuing to perform and choreograph around the world alone and with his company. |
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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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