Ralph Lemon News

The School at Jacob's Pillow, a world-renowned center for artistic growth and excellence, announces 2020 professional advancement programs in Contemporary Ballet, Street & Club Dances, Contemporary, and Musical Theatre Dance; and professional development programs in Choreography and Dance Photography. Situated in the heart of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the longest-running dance festival in the United States, The School has been instrumental in furthering the careers of dance artists for over 80 years and offers innovative programs each year with its roster of renowned and sought-after choreographers and dance leaders who serve as faculty. Dancers selected to attend The School at Jacob's Pillow join one of the most influential international dance networks in the field. 

You oughtta know that Jagged Little Pill is officially in preview son Broadway!  The new musical is inspired by the themes and raw emotions laid bare in Alanis Morissette's seminal album of the same name. The Healys appear to be a picture-perfect suburban family - but looks can be deceiving. When the cracks beneath the surface begin to show, they must choose between maintaining the status quo or facing harsh truths about themselves, their community, and the world around them.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre's (DBDT) Director's Choice series features classic works of master choreographers and the world premiere of an emerging choreographer, continuing its 43-year tradition of launching the careers of talented choreographers. Texas Instruments is the presenting sponsor of the series that runs November 1-3, 2019 at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in the AT&T Performing Arts Center, located at 2400 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas.

The Autorino Center for the Arts and Humanities  at the University of Saint Joseph announces the presentation of Dan Froot & Company in Pang! a?" Stories from Another America, a unique theatrical experience that mashes up the podcast era and the classic radio drama. The performance is Friday, October 25 at 7:30pm with tickets available as part of the Autorino Center's Pay-It-Forward program made possible by prior gifts of generosity. Attendees can choose their own ticket price knowing that their generosity will underwrite future free and Pay-It-Forward performances

Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) at Miami Dade College (MDC) will present Black Power Naps/Siestas Negras byNavild and Sosa, a multi-sensory, interactive installation designed to provide joyful and relaxing relief from fatiguing systems of inequality.

The Kitchen, founded in 1971, is one of the most enduring non-profit arts organizations in the rapidly changing landscape of New York, and it continues to serve as an important catalyst for a broad community of groundbreaking artists working across disciplines.

In recognition of its 20th anniversary, the renowned arts philanthropy Creative Capital is pleased to announce that it will be moving to an annual cycle of awards and retreats from its previous, more irregular cycle.

The Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) will award the 25th Annual Herb Alpert Award in the Arts to five exceptional mid-career artists at a celebration hosted by the Herb Alpert Foundation in New York City on Monday, May 13.

May 13 marks the 25th year the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (HAAIA) will be presented to five risk-taking, mid-career artists - experimenters - who are challenging and transforming art, their respective disciplines, and society. Founded and conceived by legendary musician, philanthropist and artist Herb Alpert, and his Grammy-winning vocalist wife, Lani Hall in conjunction with the California Institute of the Arts, the HAAIA has been awarded to 125 artists in the five disciplines of dance, film/video, music, theatre and visual arts. Each artist receives a $75,000 unrestricted prize and a one-week residency at CalArts which administers the prize on behalf of the Herb Alpert Foundation.

This Friday, March 15, OntheBoards.tv—the first online pay-per-view film series dedicated to bringing provocative performance art, dance, theater, and music to audiences around the world—is launching a 24-hour PBS-style telethon. I thought the telethon would be a great opportunity to shed light on this progressive platform and new model for audience engagement, and make your readers aware of this unique resource for anyone who's interested in the performing arts.

Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre will present the World Premiere of choreographer Dusan Tynek's Le Jardin Qui Rit (The Laughing Garden) at Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC), 25th Street between 3rd & Lexington Avenues, New York, NY 10010 for three performances only, Thursday, March 7 - Today, March 9 at 7:30pm.

Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre will present the World Premiere of choreographer Dusan Tynek's Le Jardin Qui Rit (The Laughing Garden) at Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC), 25th Street between 3rd & Lexington Avenues, New York, NY 10010 for three performances only, Today, March 7 - Saturday, March 9 at 7:30pm.

Bryan Arias, Artistic Director of ARIAS Company, receives the Jacob's Pillow Fellowship at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU Post. The fellowship includes a $15,000 grant, a residency at the Pillow Lab, and a residency at LIU Tilles Center. The newly established Fellowship represents a shared vision between the two organizations to broaden resources that allow artists to thrive and bring new work to stages in Massachusetts, New York, and beyond.

New York Live Arts (Live Arts) to present the New York premiere of Netta Yerushalmy's Paramodernities, March 14-17, 2019, having commissioned the work as part of the Live Feed Residency Program. The complete six-part encyclopedic series is a multidisciplinary work that weaves theory and performance into a four-hour-long hybrid event. Yerushalmy and a cast of 20 dancers and scholars, ranging in age from 20 to 68, perform deconstructed installments of Nijinsky's “Sacre” (1913), Graham's “Night Journey” (1947), Ailey's “Revelations” (1960), a mix of Cunningham works “Rainforest,” “Sounddance”, “Points in Space”, “Beach Birds”,  and “Ocean” (1968-1990), dance numbers from the 1969 Fosse's film “Sweet Charity”, and a response to Balanchine's “Agon” (1957) that includes none of the original choreography.

The Art Institute of Chicago presents Iterations, a new series of performance commissions opening in 2019 and running through 2021 that underline the wide range of artistic practices and attitudes in performance today. New works by Alexandra Bachzetsis, Math Bass, Cevdet Erek, Ralph Lemon, Paulina Olowska, Cally Spooner, and Evelyn T. Wang-anchored in choreography, sound art, spoken word performance, installation, music, gesture and movement research-explore how performance practice might be situated in the context of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre will present the World Premiere of choreographer Dusan Tynek's Le Jardin Qui Rit (The Laughing Garden) at Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC), 25th Street between 3rd & Lexington Avenues, New York, NY 10010 for three performances only, Thursday, March 7 - Saturday, March 9 at 7:30pm.

Mark Murphy has announced his decision to leave REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater), the California Institute of the Arts' contemporary performing arts and exhibition space located in The Walt Disney Concert Hall, at the end of the 2018/2019 season, in order to focus his attention on initiating new creative programs and productions in a variety of US and international cities. Murphy has led REDCAT for more than seventeen years, starting as its founding Executive Director in 2001, before overseeing the grand opening of the facility in 2003. Edgar Miramontes, Associate Director at REDCAT, will assume additional duties of interim leadership until a permanent appointment is made.

Mark Murphy has announced his decision to leave REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater), the California Institute of the Arts' contemporary performing arts and exhibition space located in The Walt Disney Concert Hall, at the end of the 2018/2019 season, in order to focus his attention on initiating new creative programs and productions in a variety of US and international cities. Murphy has led REDCAT for more than seventeen years, starting as its founding Executive Director in 2001, before overseeing the grand opening of the facility in 2003. Edgar Miramontes, Associate Director at REDCAT, will assume additional duties of interim leadership until a permanent appointment is made.

Co-curators: choreographer Stefanie Nelson of Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup and bestselling author David Shenk (The Forgetting) present the launch of a new festival devoted to memory and forgetting. The inaugural event will feature Stefanie Nelson's A, MY NAME IS…, a dance piece inspired by a family experience with dementia, using several short films from David Shenk's Living With Alzheimer's Film Project. It will take place on January 23, 2019, at Aaron Davis Hall at The City College of New York (129 Convent Avenue at West 135th Street), with performances at 11:00 am and 6:30 pm. Both shows will be followed by a discussion with invited panelists including Meredith Wong from CaringKind's Connect2Culture program, and a reception (evening show only). Tickets are $20 and can be purchased HERE (https://goo.gl/K9FoMb)

In advance of the full Festival announcement in mid-December, Jacob's Pillow announces four companies that will be presented in 2019. Following the record-breaking ticket sales of Festival 2018 and amidst a robust season of artist residencies in the Pillow Lab and new programming which serves Berkshire County's year-round population, America's longest-running dance festival gears up for its 87th consecutive summer, June 19-August 25. Compañia Irene Rodriguez brings a particular vision of flamenco that is both Spanish and Cuban, featuring a world premiere; Caleb Teicher & Company presents More Forever, a highly anticipated new collaboration with innovative composer/pianist Conrad Tao; the Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates female power with Graham classics, a suite of Lamentation Variations, and a new work by Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith; and Boston Ballet returns for the first time in over a decade with works by William Forsythe, resident choreographer Jorma Elo, and twentieth century Russian choreographer Leonid Yakobson.