Richard Alston Dance Company to Premiere Music-Inspired Works at Peak Performances

Over the last few years, Peak Performances has become a New York / New Jersey home for the work of Richard Alston Dance Company (RADC), one of Britain's foremost contemporary dance companies.

The institution has presented RADC, with live music, to tremendous acclaim in 2012 and 2014; The New York Times' Alastair Macaulay called them "a tonic to watch...even in a season so full of excellent dancers," in 2014, and placed their 2012 performances of Alston's Unfinished Business at the top of his year-end best-of list.

The Company returns to Montclair, joined by the acclaimed Shanghai Quartet, artists-in-residence at Montclair State University, with an evening-length program of new, music-inspired works: the world premiere of Alston's Chacony, commissioned by Peak Performances; the American premiere of Martin Lawrance's Stronghold; and the American premieres of Alston's Mazur and An Italian in Madrid, which The Observer called "one of the year's finest new works" in its world premiere at Sadler's Wells earlier this year.

Performances will take place at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ) February 2 & 3 at 7:30pm; February 4 at 8pm; and February 5 at 3pm. Tickets, affordably priced at $20, can be purchased at www.peakperfs.org or 973.655.5112. Running time is approximately 2:05, including two intermissions.

The upcoming Richard Alston Dance Company program at Peak Performances epitomizes the artistry that prompted London's The Times to call Alston "our most musical choreographer." The works comprising the evening arose from-and imaginatively, joyously bring to life in movement-a wide range of compositions. Alston's Chacony consists of two parts: his settings of the Chacony in G Minor, composed by Benjamin Britten's hero Henry Purcell, arranged by Britten and premiered in Aldeburgh, UK, in October; and Britten's own Chacony from 2nd String Quartet Op.36. The latter is commissioned by Peak Performances and makes its debut at the Alexander Kasser Theater.

The Peak Performances engagement also gives American audiences an opportunity to experience the Company's celebrated An Italian in Madrid, choreographed by Alston and featuring the outstanding young kathak dancer Vidya Patel. An Italian in Madrid is about composer Domenico Scarlatti's journey from Italy to Lisbon, and then to Spain, to teach the young Princess Maria Barbara, who was betrothed to a Spanish Prince. In Spain, Scarlatti was exposed to the vigor and passion of popular Andalusian music and proceeded to write over 500 keyboard sonatas for the Princess. A selection of these compositions is played live in RADC's work by pianist Jason Ridgway. Alston casts Patel, "an astounding stage presence" (The Guardian), as the Princess, alongside ten of the Company's contemporary dancers, resulting in a novel, seamless fusion of styles. In a five-star review of the work's world premiere at Sadler's Wells, The Financial Times called An Italian in Madrid "a wholly enchanting creation."

The American premiere of Stronghold marks the Peak Performances choreographic debut of RADC Associate Choreographer Martin Lawrance. Lawrance built the work around Julia Wolfe's composition of the same name, for eight double basses. Mirroring the dynamics of the music, Lawrance choreographs a collage of fluid movement interspersed with sharper moments and then, as the sound deepens and becomes richer, the dance changes focus on to individuals and their relationship with the rest of the group.

Alston's Mazur is a dance for two friends sharing what they love and what they feel they have lost. What Chopin and his friends lost was Poland, the country to which they could not return. Mazur is another Polish word for the Mazurka, in which Chopin again and again expressed longing for his beloved homeland. RADC dancers Liam Riddick and Nicholas Bodych perform the duet as pianist Jason Ridgway plays seven of the Mazurkas. The Guardian says of the duet, "Riddick demonstrates an affinity for Chopin's music which absolutely embraces its silences, echoing them in a vibrant and profound stillness. To be still, Riddick shows us, is not to stop dancing."

Richard Alston Dance Company at Peak Performances - Program:

Stronghold

Choreography: Martin Lawrance
Music: Julia Wolfe, Stronghold

Lighting: Karl Oskar Sørdal
Costumes: Inca Jaakson & Martin Lawrance

Dancers: Ihsaan de Banya, Nicholas Bodych, Elly Braund, Jennifer Hayes, Monique Jonas, James Muller, Nancy Nerantzi, Liam Riddick, Nicholas Shikkis, Oihana Vesga Bujan

Stronghold:

A fortress,

A protected place,

An area dominated by a particular group,

A place of survival or refuge.

Julia Wolfe talks about her Stronghold Parts I and II, composed for eight double basses, as having "webs of rolling harmonics" at the beginning. Choreographer Martin Lawrance used this idea to create a collage of fluid movement interspersed with sharper moments, building a sense of urgency with unique rhythmic tension. As the sound in Part II deepens and becomes richer, the dance focuses more on the individuals and their relationships within the group.

Richard Alston Dance Company first performEd Stronghold at Theatre Royal Brighton on October 15, 2015.

Mazur

Choreography: Richard Alston
Music: Frederick Chopin, from Mazurkas Op.30, Op.7, Op.33, Op. 68, Op. 67, Op.41 and Op.50

Piano: Jason Ridgway
Lighting: Zeynep Kepekli
Dancers: Nicholas Bodych, Liam Riddick

Mazur (2015) is a duet for Richard Alston Dance Company members Liam Riddick and Nicholas Bodych, danced to seven of Chopin's Mazurkas, with flurries of movement, softly sprung cabrioles and unforced lifts. Alston's choreography is again profoundly shaped by the music to which it is set, the emotional effect evoked through the deep, intimate connection between the dancers and the score.

Alston explains, "Mazur is a dance of friends sharing what they love and what they regret having lost. For Chopin and his friends what was lost was Poland, the country to which they could not return. In Paris as an exile, Chopin's fellow expatriates were particularly important, his close friends in a vast strange city. The Mazurkas, perhaps of all his compositions the most strikingly Polish, are an intense outpouring of longing for his beloved homeland."

Richard Alston Dance Company first performed Mazur at The Place, in London, on June 10, 2015.

Chacony

Choreography: Richard Alston
Music, Part I: Henry Purcell, Chacony in G Minor (arr. Benjamin Britten 1948)
Music, Part II: Benjamin Britten, Chacony from 2nd String Quartet Op.36 (1945)
Music by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes

Lighting: Karl Oskar Sørdal

Costumes: Peter Todd

Dancers: Ihsaan de Banya, Nicholas Bodych, Elly Braund, Jennifer Hayes, Monique Jonas, James Muller, Nancy Nerantzi, Liam Riddick, Nicholas Shikkis, Oihana Vesga Bujan

Chacony, Alston's newest dance, is inspired by the powerful Chacony in G Minor, by 17th century composer Henry Purcell, and the Chacony, from Benjamin Britten's 2nd String Quartet. Choreographing to this music, performed live by the Shanghai Quartet, Alston wanted to portray the formal order of the original Chacony, and then to show that order being shaken to its very roots before defiantly reasserting the resilience of the human spirit.

Britten was an ardent admirer of Purcell, paying tribute in his extended Chacony and variations. Shortly before Britten wrote this piece, he found himself travelling to Germany for a series of concerts in the recently liberated concentration camps, later confessing that he was marked for the rest of his life. The formal framework of the Chacony thus became for Britten a means to express his deepest feelings about coming face to face with such horror. However, the music does not end in despair, but rather breaks through to finish in a series of major chords that reaffirm hope for the future.

Richard Alston Dance Company first performed Purcell Chacony at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Aldeburgh, on October 21, 2016. The Company will world-premiere Britten Chacony at Peak Performances.

An Italian in Madrid

Choreography: Richard Alston
Music: Domenico Scarlatti, Keyboard Sonatas: recordings of K.146, K.284, K.39, played on accordion by Teodoro Anzellotti (Winter & Winter, 2001), and K.27, K.420, K.159, K.3, K.70, K.141, K.32 played live by pianist Jason Ridgway.

Lighting: Karl Oskar Sørdal
Costumes: Fotini Dimou

Dancers: Ihsaan de Banya, Nicholas Bodych, Elly Braund, Jennifer Hayes, Monique Jonas, James Muller, Nancy Nerantzi, Vidya Patel, Liam Riddick, Nicholas Shikkis, Oihana Vesga Bujan

An Italian in Madrid tells of the journey of the composer Domenico Scarlatti from Naples to Lisbon to teach music to the young Portuguese Princess Maria Barbara, and of her betrothal to a Spanish Prince. Once again taking influence from the life of the composer, Alston turns this simple story into an emotive dance. Naples is all dash and flutter, while Lisbon and Madrid are depicted with dances of a silkier weave.

In Spain, Scarlatti was exposed to the vigour and passion of popular Andalusian music and proceeded to write over 500 keyboard sonatas for the Princess, displaying the exotic and colourful influence of Andalusia. So far removed from Italy, Scarlatti perhaps felt free to break musical rules and the Sonatas are not only rhythmically vigorous but also astonishingly inventive.

Richard Alston Dance Company premiered An Italian in Madrid at Sadler's Wells in London on March 29, 2016.

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Richard Alston Dance Company is celebrating its 22nd anniversary this year. Since its founding in 1994, the Company has become one of the United Kingdom's most avidly-followed contemporary dance companies, performing the work of its Artistic Director Richard Alston and Associate Choreographer Martin Lawrance.

Music plays a vital part in the Company's identity, and since its inception Alston has used the work of a diverse range of composers including Brahms, Hoagy Carmichael, Chopin Heiner Goebbels, Scott Joplin, Astor Piazzolla, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Shukar Collective, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and, most recently, Scarlatti, Britten, Purcell and Piazzolla.

In 2006 the Company performed the closing piece of the Sadler's Wells gala, marking the retirement of Dance Umbrella's founding Artistic Director, Val Bourne. In January 2007, the Company was nominated for two South Bank Show awards. In October 2008, at Sadler's Wells, the Company's 60/40 season celebrated Alston's 60th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his first piece of choreography. In 2011 Richard Alston Dance Company was nominated as Outstanding Company in the National Dance Awards, presented by the Critic's Circle. Following its critically acclaimed performances for the Barbican Britten celebrations in autumn 2013, the company's piece Phaedra was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production. Alston's Barbican Britten: Phaedra received a 2014 Critics' Circle National Dance Award nomination for best modern choreography.

Richard Alston Dance Company's reputation on the British dance scene is now increasingly being matched overseas. In May 2004 the Company made its U.S. debut with a week-long season at The Joyce Theater. The Company returned in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011, giving its third, critically acclaimed and sold-out New York season in January 2010. The Company continues to perform regularly in the U.S., at New York City Center (as part of Fall For Dance Festival), in 2011, 2013 and 2016; Peak Performances at Montclair State University, in 2012 and 2014; and the Virginia Arts Festival, in 2014 and 2016. The Company returns to the Virginia Arts Festival, as well as to Peak Performances, in the spring of 2017.

Other overseas tours have included China, South East Asia, Holland, Greece and Russia where the Company represented Britain at Moscow's first International Festival of Contemporary Dance. The Company performed as part of the Schrittmacher Festival in Aachen, Germany in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

About the Choreographers:

Richard Alston choreographed his first work in 1968, as one of the twelve students of the newly formed London Contemporary Dance School. Upon leaving, in 1972, he formed the UK's first independent dance group, Strider. In 1975 Alston went to New York to study at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio. When he returned, two years later, he worked throughout the UK and Europe as an independent choreographer and teacher.

In 1980 Alston became Resident Choreographer with Ballet Rambert and was later appointed Artistic Director, a position he held from 1986 to 1992. In his time there he created 25 dances for the company, and was also commissioned to create work for the Royal Danish Ballet (Kingdom of Pagodas, 1982) and the Royal Ballet (Midsummer, 1983).

In 1992 Alston was invited to create a full evening of his own work, including Boulez's Le Marteau Sans Maitre, for the Ballet Atlantique in France. He made another full evening for London Contemporary Dance Theatre at the 1994 Aldeburgh Festival, going on to form his own company when he became Artistic Director of The Place in 1994.

Richard Alston Dance Company started in the autumn of that year, and over the past 22 years Alston has made more than 45 dances for the Company. Commissions from other companies have included Sheer Bravado, for Ballet Theatre Munich (2006); Walk Through a Storm, for Ballet Black (2008); Carmen, for Scottish Ballet (2009); A Rugged Flourish, for New York Theatre Ballet (2011); Even Song, for the Holland Dance Festival (2012); All Alight, for Phoenix Dance Theatre (2013); Light Flooding into Darkened Rooms, remounted on New York Theatre Ballet (2013); Such Longing, remounted on New York Theatre Ballet (2015); Brisk Singing, remounted on the students of the University of Michigan (2015); and Carmen, on Miami City Ballet (2015). Sheer Bravado will be remounted on the students of The Juilliard School in early 2017.

Alston was made Honorary Doctor of Philosophy (in Dance) at Surrey University (1992) and received an Honorary MA from University College Chichester (2003). He was made an Honorary Doctor of the Arts by the University of Kent (2015) and an Honorary Doctor of the Arts by Kingston University (2016). Alston was made Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France (1995) and received the CBE in the New Year Honours list (2001). Alston received the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards (2008). He was presented with the Award for Excellence in International Dance by the International Theatre Institute (2012). Alston was Chair of Youth Dance England, a position he held from 2009 until March 2016, when he became U.Dance Champion. He is a Trustee of the Royal Ballet Benevolent Fund.

Martin Lawrance (Associate Choreographer / Rehearsal Director) was born in Leicester and began dancing with Leicester Youth Dance Theatre under the direction of Sue Rosenbloom. He trained at Coventry Centre for the Performing Arts and then at London Contemporary Dance School. He first worked with Richard Alston while performing with the postgraduate performance group 4D. He danced with Richard Alston Dance Company 1995-2007, having over 25 works created on him. He became Rehearsal Director in 2007.

In 2000, Lawrance was invited by Meltdown Festival director and composer Scott Walker to make Thimble Rigging to an original score. He has created five works for London Contemporary Dance School, and two works, Grey Allegro and Silken Steel, for the State School of Dance in Athens. In June 2003, Lawrance presented a full evening of his work at The Place, and in 2004 Charge was commissioned for The Place Prize. Grey Allegro and Charge subsequently became part of the Richard Alston Dance Company repertoire.

Lawrance's creations for RADC include About Face, Brink, Stealing Poison, Body & Soul, To Dance and Skylark, Lie of the Land, Other Than I, Madcap, Burning, Stronghold and Tangent. He created Pendulum, Captured and Limbo for Ballet Black; Run for It (for Dance GB) and Dark Full Ride (Edinburgh International Festival 2013) for Scottish Ballet; and Misfit or Maverick, Rebel and Amid Shadows for Ballet Manila.

About the Performers:

Ihsaan de Banya was born in London, and began his training with The Place's Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) and Shift. During his time with both, he danced works by Bawren Tavaziva, Tom Dale, Jose Agudo and Maresa Von Stockert. In 2010 he continued training at London Contemporary Dance School. Graduating in 2013, he danced Theo Clinkard's Murrisant (Ripening). Ihsaan joined Richard Alston Dance Company in 2013 as an apprentice, becoming a full member in 2014. In 2015, following the success of a 2013 Resolution creation, De Banya was commissioned by The Place to choreograph for the Company's At Home season. He created Rasengan, a dance for three exploring an abstract energy within us all.

Nicholas Bodych was born in Cheshire. He trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and Rambert School, where he graduated in 2011. He has worked with National Dance Company Wales (including Dream for Dance GB), LOCOG 2012 events, 2Faced Dance Company, The Musicall Compass and New Movement Collective. Bodych has performed works by Ohad Naharin, Stephen Petronio, Christopher Bruce, Itzik Galili and Mark Baldwin. He joined Richard Alston Dance Company in 2013.

Elly Braund trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, graduating in 2011. She has performed works by Gary Lambert and Kerry Nicholls' Ave Maris Stella, a commission for Purbeck Arts Week 2011, in collaboration with Meridian Brass. In 2011, she performed at the Royal Festival Hall for the 60th anniversary celebrations for the 1951 Festival of Britain. After her apprenticeship in 2011, Braund became a full member of Richard Alston Dance Company.