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| 92Y Harkness Dance Festival: nathantrice/RITUALS (2.27-3.2.08) |
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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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| 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: nathantrice/RITUALS |
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In an Evening Entitled
THE SPACE BETWEEN US
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Including the World Premiere of TACTICS
and the New York Premiere of CONVERSATIONS |
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Choreography: Nathan Trice
Music: Keith Jarrett, William Catanzaro, Alvin Hill, John Powell, Eric Serra, Sean Callery, Nathan Trice
Costume Design: Hoppie Lynn Burrows, Nathan Trice
Lighting: Stuart Nelson
Wednesday, February 27; Thursday, February 28, and Saturday, March 1, 8pm;
Sunday, March 2, 2pm
"Formidable intensity"—Joy Goodwin, New York Sun
"An ensemble of astonishingly charismatic dancers...[Trice is} a master phrasemaker."—Lisa Jo Sagolla
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, 23, 2008—In its third week, the 92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL presents nathantrice/RITUALS Dance Theater, a New York company founded by choreographer, dancer, composer and singer Nathan Trice. The company shows a world premiere, a New York premiere and excerpts from a work-in-progress.
Trice's hallmark is what he calls a VAST—visual audio sensory theater —experience, in which dance is just one tool for expressing an idea. The music, sets and costumes are as important to Trice as his choreography, and he sometimes composes music and designs costumes himself. In his dances Trice creates a sort of emotional sign language, in which gestures become as clear as spoken language although the dances don't tell specific stories. Always seeking to refine his choreographic voice, Trice often revisits and reworks dances over several years until they finally satisfy him.
The world premiere is Tactics. While Trice used the same title for a work several years ago, this dance has new movement and new ideas behind that movement. Dancers struggle with an intangible force which is different for each dancer. Says Trice, "Sometimes it's a physical force, sometimes emotional. What matters is not the force itself, but how each dancer interacts with it." Some seek to harness, others to manipulate this invisible power. Trice sees the force as spirituality, which can provoke people to obsession, serenity, zeal or anger. Set to music by Alvin Hill, John Powell, Eric Serra and Sean Callery, Tactics has costumes designed by Trice.
Making its New York premiere is Conversations, in its final form after appearing in different versions over the past three years. Trice's inspiration was a dinner at which he and his friends discussed love, each person presenting a different aspect of the topic. Trice noticed the dynamics of silence, contemplation and anticipation as each person talked, and he has included these shifting moods in Conversations. To music by Keith Jarrett, three men and three women dance in couples, finding connections and shared emotional terrain, as gradations of white light suggest their changing moods.
The company also performs excerpts from a work-in-progress, Bottom of a Kiss...Floating. The dance is a more personal exploration of love than Conversations. "It's based," says Trice, "on my very first girlfriend and the feeling I had when we kissed." A series of tableaux explores the intoxicating and complex emotions that can accompany a kiss. Trice puts more than just his own memories into the work, collaborating on the costumes, composing some of the music, and writing lyrics for pieces by William Catanzaro and Keith Jarrett. Because the dance is particularly personal, Trice thinks it may take some time to develop. "How do I say 'I love you' the way I would say it?" he asks, and this dance is part of his answer. |
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| COMING UP IN THE 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE FESTIVAL: |
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WEEK 4
Out of Israel: LeeSaar/The Company & Netta Yerushalmy |
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Wednesday, March 5; Thursday, March 6; Saturday, March 8, 8pm |
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Sunday, March 9, 2pm |
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WEEK 5
Brian Brooks Moving Company: Spectrum
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Wednesday, March 12; Thursday, March 13; Saturday, March 15, 8pm |
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Sunday, March 16, 2 pm |
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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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| 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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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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