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| New at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center |
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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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| NEW THIS SEASON AT THE 92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER: DOUG VARONE, TODD WILLIAMS, AND HIP-HOP DANCE-STAR TWEETIE |
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PLUS: NEW DIRECTOR FOR DANCE-EDUCATOR PROGRAM AND NEW INTENSIVE TRACK FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS |
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| The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center receives major support from the Harkness Foundation for Dance and additional major support from the Arnhold Foundation. |
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| New York, NY, October, 31, 2007—The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center announces several exciting developments for the 2007-2008 season. Doug Varone and Dancers will be the Center's first company-in-residence in three decades, choreographer Todd Williams has signed on as artistic director for the Center's teen performance troupe, hip-hop phenom Tweetie is teaching the Center's first adult hip-hop class, former New York City Ballet education director John-Mario Sevilla has come on board to direct the Y's dance-educator program; and the Center has launched an intensive track for advanced students. |
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| DOUG VARONE AND DANCERS IN RESIDENCE |
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Having a resident dance company is a longtime dream of Renata Celichowska, director of the Dance Center. This season, she gets her wish as Doug Varone and Dancers settles down at the Center through May to develop new pieces; lead workshops; work with Harkness Repertory Ensemble, the Center's teen performance troupe; and oversee an oral history project in which movement is used to shape life experience. Varone has a long history with the Dance Center that includes studying with the last company in residence, the Limon Dance Company, in the '70s; developing work in the Center's studios as a young choreographer in the '80s; performing with his company in the '90s and since; and teaching workshops, which he has done for over a decade. Please see the enclosed press release for more information.
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| TODD WILLIAMS DIRECTS TEEN PERFORMANCE TROUPE |
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The Dance Center has merged its teen ballet and modern performance groups, the Harkness Youth Ballet and the Young Masters Repertory Ensemble, respectively, into the Harkness Repertory Ensemble (HRE). The group, will provide performance and choreographic training in both ballet and modern dance to students aged 12 to 18). Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Todd Williams, a veteran of the New York City Ballet and the Stephen Petronio Company and director of the eponymous WILLIAMSWORKS is the Ensemble's new artistic director. Ensemble members will be chosen by audition. They will study and rehearse twice a week throughout the year with Williams, who will also create a new work for the group. The dancers will also gain invaluable real-world experience by working company-in-residence Doug Varone and Dancers who will set a piece from their repertoire on the group. Unlike other teen dance groups in New York, HRE aims to develop choreographic skills among its students, providing mentoring and performance opportunities. Interested students can choreograph works for the troupe, consult with Williams, and present their work as part of the group's repertory. The year of study and rehearsal will culminate in performances at the 92nd Street Y and elsewhere in the city.
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| HIP-HOP STAR TWEETIE AND OTHERS JOIN DANCE FACULTY |
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Tweetie is one of the brightest dance stars in hip-hop, which is why the Dance Center invited her in to teach its first adult hip-hop class (the Center has offered a children's hip-hop class since 1994). The host of MTV's Dances from Tha Hood, Tweetie has worked with leading rap and hip-hop performers like Jay-Z, Destiny's Child, *NSync, Mya and Angie Martinez, and has appeared in ads for Verizon, Spring, Cingular, Stride gum, Nike and iPod. She recently taught Oprah the moves as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and has appeared on BET and Live with Regis and Kelly. Tweetie, whose real name is Lenaya Straker, studied ballet, modern dance and hip-hop at New York's High School for the Performing Arts.
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Other new faculty members this season include former Metropolitan Opera Ballet principal soloist Jean Anderson Volpe; Patrick Ferreri, who has danced with David Dorfman Dance, Keigwin + Company, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Clare Byrne Dance and the Julian Barnett Project; and Storme Sundberg, a one-time member of Jordan Fuchs Dance who has performed in works by Stephan Koplowitz, Noemie LaFrance, Ali Kenner, and Wendy Blum.
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| NEW INTENSIVE-TRAINING TRACK FOR YOUNG DANCERS |
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Starting this fall, serious dance students at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center will find it easier than ever to study more than one movement discipline at the same time. A new intensive-training option, the Pre-Professional Track, will prepare them for college dance programs or for advanced training geared toward a career in dance. An essential component of the program are the mid-year evaluations that involve students, parents and teachers. "While the Harkness Dance Center isn't a dance academy, it is a home for talented young dancers," says director Celichowska. "This advanced program gives those who want to take their training to the next level a way to do that here."
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| NEW DIRECTOR FOR Y'S DANCE EDUCATION LABORATORY |
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For the first time in its 12-year history, the 92nd Street Y's Dance Education Laboratory (DEL), a professional development program for dance teachers, has its own director. He is John-Mario Sevilla, former Director of Education for the New York City Ballet, a choreographer, a veteran of Pilobolus, part of the development team for New York City's Blueprint for Teaching and Learning Dance — and a dancer in a 1998 Marilyn Manson video. Through workshops and week-long intensives throughout the school year, DEL helps dance teachers expand their portfolio of skills and integrate their work with history, sociology, literature and art programs at their schools. Sevilla will develop the DEL curriculum, run the program, and serve as DEL's liaison with Empire State College (DEL courses can be taken for credit at the College).
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER |
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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, dance professionals and the community at large through classes and performance programs including The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, the Y's annual contemporary dance festival.
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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 each year — both in person and 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 8,000 public school children through fully-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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