Nimbus Dance Works Announces 2014 Jersey City Spring Season, May 15-17

Nimbus Dance Works presents the company's 2014 Jersey City Season at Grace Church Van
Vorst, May 15-17. The season includes four eclectic dance works including the world premiere of Surface
Tension by Nimbus Artistic Director Samuel Pott, the Company Premiere of Backspace by New York-based
choreographer Francesca Harper, and reprises of Turkish choreographer Korhan Basaran's 2012 work for
the company Untitled, and Pott's 2010 work Six Chansons.
Nimbus company dancers represent a select group of international dance artists hailing from
Holland, Taiwan, South Africa, Japan, and throughout the United States.

PeiJu Chien-Pott, recently widely acclaimed for her New York performances with the Martha Graham Dance Company and subsequently promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer of that company, will perform in Nimbus' Spring Season. Samuel Pott's new work Surface Tension explores the notion of surfaces and borders - the surfaces of the dancers' bodies illustrate the meeting point between self and other and the stage space belies a world of borderlines and crossings. Surface Tension is set to the piano music of Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt, along with an edited sound score created by Mr. Pott. Also new to the company is Backspace, a duet by
Francesca Harper, former principal dancer of Ballet Frankfurt, Dance Theater of Harlem and Director of
the Francesca Harper Project. Backspace shows off Ms. Harper's uncanny ability to merge industrial,
abstract music with intensely personal and expressive movement invention. Nimbus will also reprise two
distinct works from the company repertory: Turkish choreographer Korhan Basaran's Untitled, a work
created for the company in 2010 and set to an anguished and exquisite musical score by Fazil Say, and
Pott's Six Chansons, a narrative work set to choral music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
Immediately following the performance on Friday, May 16th, Nimbus celebrates the opening of the
company's new Downtown Jersey City dance studio with: Signed, Sealed, Delivered! a DJ dance party and
reception event. Attendees will cut loose in the new dance studio with Nimbus company dancers and
company supporters. Donors to Nimbus' studio will be recognized with a champagne toast, including: the
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Goldman Sachs, SILVERMAN Building, aand the Hudson County Office
of Cultural Affairs and Continuum Design.

Says Artistic Director Samuel Pott of the season "For our Jersey City Spring Season we are proud
to present a program that is simultaneously emotional, poetic and rooted in fierce physicality. The
company has taken the big step of developing our own Dance Facility in Downtown Jersey City which is
allowing us to deepen our work in many ways: our company creative process, the quality of instruction at
our school, and our overall investment in artistic and community-based work."

Nimbus Dance Works 2014 Jersey City Spring Season
May 15th, 16th, 17th, 8pm:
Grace Church Van Vorst, 39 Erie Street, Jersey City, NJ 07302
Tickets: Available at www.nimbusdanceworks.org
$30 - Premium
$20 - General
$12 - Students/Seniors
Friday, May 16th: Signed, Sealed, Delivered Post-performance DJ Party/Reception
$45-$125 - (includes ticket to performance)

About Nimbus Dance Works

"Nimbus Dance Works helps define the American experience"-Newark Star-Ledger

"One of the country's most exciting young dance ensembles"-Bar Harbor Times

Nimbus Dance Works focuses its work on the intersection between high-level dance and innovative ways
of involving communities and audiences. A not-for-profit organization, Nimbus presents performances
and programs to diverse audiences locally and on tour: serving present audiences and building future ones.
Performers with Nimbus Dance Works are top-tier dance artists drawn from widely recognized companies
including Ballet Hispanico, Ailey II, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. In addition to work by
Artistic Director Samuel Pott, the company commissions dances by leading international dancemakers
including Pedro Ruiz (Cuba/USA), Huang Yi (Taiwan), Korhan Basaran (Turkey), and Xiao-Xiong Zhang
(Australia/Taiwan). Through critically acclaimed performances throughout New Jersey and the Northeast,
programs for Jersey City youth and seniors, partnerships with institutions such as the Jersey City Board of
Education, Rutgers University, and the Newark Museum, and collaborations with notable composers and
visual artists, Nimbus weaves together artistic excellence and community impact.

Entering the company's 10th season, Nimbus Dance Works programs impact more than 9,000 people each
year. The company's JC Grooves program serves over 2,000 youth each year in the Jersey City public
schools. Nimbus presents biannual home seasons in Jersey City, tours regularly throughout New Jersey and
the Northeast and in 2013 opened the School of Nimbus Dance Works offering dance classes to diverse
youth and adults from the region.

Samuel Pott, Artistic Director, Nimbus Dance Works, Choreographer

Samuel Pott founded Nimbus Dance Works in 2005 drawing on a deeply held personal belief in the
value that the arts can play in bringing people and communities together. Under his direction the company
has grown each year adding performances, new repertory, and new community initiatives and projects.
Known for creating structured and musical dances that evoke deep-rooted emotional connection, Mr.
Pott's choreography has been shown in New York City and throughout New Jersey, New England and
California at venues including the Joyce Theater, NJPAC and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. He has
choreographed dance to chamber music, choral music, jazz, new music, folk and mainstream vocal ballads;
collaborations have included productions with theater groups, visual and video artists, composers and
music improvisers. Collaborations have included work with many esteemed contemporary artists including
composers Daniel Bernard Roumain, Samson Young, Judd Greenstein, Aaron Parks and visual artists
Nicola Lopez and Trudy Miller.
A member of the New Jersey State Arts Council's Arts in Education roster of artists, he has taught
dance at the elementary, high school, college and professional levels and has served on the faculty of
Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 2008 Mr. Pott founded JC Grooves, a program
that brings dance to over 2000 Jersey City middle school youth each year through unique and participatory
methods. He is a certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. Mr. Pott received a Choreography
Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 2008 and was named a Distinguished Teaching
Artist by the council in 2012. He serves on the board of directors of Dance New Jersey and on the Arts
Advisory Council for the for the Jersey City Board of Education.
Mr. Pott began his dance training at the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his
Bachelor of Arts degree in 1999. As a soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, his repertoire
included such iconic roles as the Husbandman in Appalachian Spring, Agamemnon in Clyemnestra, and Adam
in Embattled Garden. In addition to work with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Mr. Pott has
performed as a lead dancer with many ballet and contemporary companies including New Jersey's
American Repertory Ballet and the Oakland Ballet. Featured roles are from a wide range dance styles and
choreographers including works by Marius Petipa, Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Isadora Duncan, Twyla
Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, and directors Robert Wilson and Ann Bogart among many others.

Francesca Harper, Choreographer
Francesca Harper blends original choreography, dance, music and film to create groundbreaking
works that are category-defying. Harper was raised in New York City, where she studied at the School of
American Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet School, The Ailey School, and under Madame Darvash and Barbara
Walczak. After performing with the Dance Theater of Harlem, she danced as a principal in William
Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt from 1994-1999. Since returning to the States in 2000, Harper has performed in
several Broadway productions including Fosse, The Producers, The Frogs, and The Color Purple. She played the
role of Helene opposite Molly Ringwald in a national tour of Sweet Charity, and the role of Judith originated
by Judith Jamison in a revival of Sophisticated Ladies. As a singer and lyricist Harper has released singles in
Europe and Japan. In November 2003, her single "Would I?" was released on Powerhouse Records. In
2006, she released her debut solo album Modo Fusion with 10 original tracks of soul-inspired R&B and
electronica. Francesca also recently worked as a ballet consultant for the feature film, "Black Swan," by
Oscar Nominated Director Darren Aronofsky, starring Natalie Portman, who went on to win an Oscar for
her work.

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