Lydia Johnson Dance Coming to SOPAC, 2/28

Lydia Johnson Dance has been cited for passionately lyrical dances that illuminate the stage with feeling. Now, this professional classic contemporary dance roupe brings three of its most acclaimed works, set to the music of Mozart, Schubert and The Bad Plus, to the South Orange Performing Arts Center on Sat, February 28 at 8PM. They will also perform a work-in-progress set to compositions by Osvaldo Golijov and Mark Mellit. Barretts Mill Road: A Remembrance (2014), Night and Dreams (2013), What Counts (Preview) and a yet-to-be-named new work, are on the program for the evening. Capturing a sense of the depth and spirit of the human struggle, Ms. Johnson's evocative work is noted for an underlying sense of drama, which resonates through her choreography. Tickets for this performance are $25-$30 can be purchased at www.SOPACnow.org or by calling the box office at (973) 313-ARTS(2787).

Founded in 1999, Lydia Johnson Dance has been consistently praised for its distinctive choreography, which uses components of ballet woven seamlessly into a contemporary dance vocabulary. The Company has received acclaim from The New York Times, The New Yorker and Backstage Magazine as well as Oberon's Grove blog. The company has performed throughout the region and has appeared the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Downtown Dance Festival and The Great Friend's Dance Festival in Newport, Rhode Island among many others. Ms. Johnson is a Guest Artist faculty member at the Peridance Capezio Center in New York.

Barretts Mill Road: A Remembrance (2014), set to Mozart's Fantasia in C Minor and Adagio from the C Minor Piano Sonata.

A tribute to Ms. Johnson's mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Created for 10 dancers, it beautifully recalls the elegance and grace of a bygone era when her mother was a young woman.

Night and Dreams (2013), set to selections from Franz Schubert's Winterreise song cycle.

In Night and Dreams, Lydia seems to have surpassed herself yet again. Avoiding the literal, she ventures to the heart of the music in ways that few active choreographers have managed to find. Her vocabulary is unique and could be codified, much as Isadora Duncan's has been. But beyond technique, Lydia understands the emotional colors of the music and she has the dancers to do her work proud. ~ Philip Gardner, 2013 review

What Counts (Preview), set to music by The Bad Plus

Set to the intricately rhythmic music of the jazz trio, The Bad Plus, this work for 5 dancers explores both the phrasing and counterpoint of the jazz to which it is set along with the relationships between the dancers. The work features a recurring trio for women in which the dancers move in a connected train-like pattern of movements which subtly echo the glamorous shapes we associate with feminine fashion. The work also holds at its core a duet for Sarah Pon and Blake Hennessy-York, which explores a long-term relationship with its wide range of feelings.

Work-in-Progress

Lydia Johnson Dance will perform excerpts from a work currently in progress set to pieces by contemporary composers Osvaldo Golijov and Mark Mellits. The central section is set for four couples who move through similar passages simultaneously but whose interpretations of the phrases are widely divergent. The piece has a driven, dark tone.