Pontus Lidberg Dance to Perform at Byham Theater, 4/18

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust announces internationally acclaimed Swedish choreographer, filmmaker and dancer Pontus Lidberg, with his dance company Pontus Lidberg Dance, will perform on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at 8:00 p.m., at the Byham Theater, 101 Sixth Street, in Pittsburgh's Cultural District. The presentation is part of the 2014-2015 Pittsburgh Dance Council season.

"During his outstanding career, Pontus Lidberg's creative works have made important and inspiring contributions to a broad spectrum of artistic mediums. We are honored to premiere his exceptional company Pontus Lidberg Dance and choreographic works for our patrons of dance," commented Paul Organisak, Executive Director of Pittsburgh Dance Council and Vice President of Programming for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

Tickets ($19.00 - $55.00) may be purchased in-person at the Box Office at Theater Square, 655 Penn Avenue, online at www.TrustArts.org, or by calling 412-456-6666. To purchase 10 or more group tickets, call 412-471-6930.

Pontus Lidberg will take the stage along with world class dancers from his company to perform the area premieres of poetic work, SNOW and Written on Water. The choreography for SNOW features an ultra-expressive Japanese-style Bunraku puppet with life-like characteristics. SNOW, as the title suggests, takes place during an unrelenting snow fall and sharply contrasts the fragile, fleeting nature of human existence with the bluster and fury of nature. The delicate choreography offsets the gusty forcefulness of winter. Swedish newspaper, Västerbottens-Kuriren,enthusiastically stated, "Movement-wise, the freely flowing combinations of recurrent falls, slides and lifts give a feeling of weightlessness." Lidberg was praised by Svenska Dagbladet as "an exquisite dancer with exquisite aesthetics."

Pontus Lidberg Dance first premiered SNOW on September 21, 2013. SNOW was originally created for the centenary celebration of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. It was then re-set to an original score by composer Ryan Francis. Choreography and stage design by Pontus Lidberg; with costume design by Reid Bartelme; original lighting design by Patrik Bogårdh and puppet design and direction by Kevin Augustine, The Lone Wolf Tribe. A dance excerpt of Lidberg's Snow, is available here: https://vimeo.com/91962210.

As a prelude to SNOW, Pontus Lidberg Dance will present the shorter work Written on Water. Set to an original score by Stefan Levin, the work was originally conceived of as a Pas de Deux for American Ballet Theater principal ballerina Isabella Boylston, premiered at New York City Center's Fall For Dance Festival. It has been expanded to include three dancers. Lidberg explains, "As most of my work deals with or includes human relationships, partnering has become an important and prominent movement language in my choreographic output. Dance is much about encounters and farewells. I often start creating a duet by giving an impetus in the form of an initial physical contact between two people. It could be as simple as one person reaching for the other person's hand or shoulder; this only serves as an arbitrary point of departure that may later be removed or changed. By watching the other person's reaction to the initial movement, I intuitively have a sense of what will or could happen next. Much like how a conversation unfolds without conscious thinking, the response to your partner's action is intuitive and immediate. In this way I guide my partner or the dancers for whom I am creating to develop longer sequences. The movement becomes a hyper realization of subtle levels of anxieties, fear, excitement, intimacy, or a combination thereof. I see the work with partnering as a vehicle to share these experiences with the audience. Thus, my work often focuses on intimate one-on-one encounters and small group dynamics."

Swedish choreographer, filmmaker and dancer, Pontus Lidberg is most recognized for his award-winning dance film "The Rain" (2007) for which he received numerous awards around the world, including Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Film at the Dance Media Honors (Los Angeles); Best Film at the London International Dance Film Festival; Best Dance Short at the Tiburon International Film Festival; a nomination for the Rose D'Or in Lucerne; and the Jury's Special Mention at the Gothenburg International Film Festival.

As a choreographer for the stage, Mr. Lidberg has created over 40 works for major international dance companies such as SemperOper Ballet Dresden (2013), Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève (2012), The Royal Danish Ballet (2010), The Beijing Dance Theatre (2009), The Norwegian National Ballet (2005), Stockholm 59° North (2000, 2001, 2009), The Royal Swedish Ballet (2012, 2014), Morphoses (2008, 2010, 2012), Oregon Ballet Theatre (2013) as well as for his own group Pontus Lidberg Dance, which made its New York debut with "Faune" at New York City Center's Fall For Dance Festival in 2011.

In just a few short years Pontus Lidberg has firmly established himself as a creative and visionary artist bringing dance and film together. He was recently nominated for a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in Outstanding Visual Design for his dance and film evening WITHIN (Labyrinth Within), created during his 2012 tenure as Resident Artistic Director of Morphoses. His first work for the camera: "Mirror" (2003) was commissioned by Swedish National Television, and has been screened on television as well as in dance film festivals in the US and abroad. His most recent dance film, "Labyrinth Within" (2011) received the "Court Métrange du Jury" prize at the Court-Métrange Film Festival in Rennes, France in 2011 and won Best Picture at Lincoln Center's Dance on Camera Festival in New York 2012.

Mr. Lidberg received a 2012 finalist award from The Vilcek Foundation for Creative Promise in Dance and a 2012-2013 Choreography Fellowship from New York City Center. In addition, he has been in artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2008), Joyce Soho (2010), and the Baryshnikov Arts Center (2010). He held a 2013 Blodgett Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, co-sponsored by Harvard University's Department of Music. Raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Lidberg trained with the Royal Swedish Ballet School. From 1996-2003, he danced with The Royal Swedish Ballet, The Norwegian National Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, and The Göteborg Ballet. He holds an MFA in Contemporary Performative Arts (2014) from the University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts. For more information, please visit website: http://www.lidberg.se/pontus/.