Molissa Fenley And Company To Present A Collection Of New And Recent Dances At Roulette

Acclaimed choreographer Molissa Fenley will present new work in an evening of dance: From the Light, Between the Lamps. Performances will take place at Roulette January 31-February 3 (Wednesday-Saturday), at 8pm.

The program features three world premieres: De la Lumière, Entre les Lampes, a new work of two duets performed by alternating members of the company, and featuring a new score by longtime collaborator Philip Glass, performed live by Michael Ferrera on piano; the quintet Etruscan Matisse/Blake with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and In the Garden (with Ryuichi), performed to the sound of birdsong. In the Garden (with Ryuichi) was commissioned by the Fine Arts Center of the University of Massachusetts as part of its tribute project, Sakamoto Blue Sky, in homage to the late composer. The dance premiered on its YouTube channel. The performances at Roulette will be the first live performances.

The program also includes Cosmati Variations #5 set to the Third Construction (1941) by John Cage. Fenley created Cosmati Variations while a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 2008, and has added other variations over the years; she completed the series in May 2022. The work is inspired in part by the 12th-century Cosmatesque mosaic floors in many of the cathedrals and churches of Rome and its serpentine patterning. The work was first shown at a studio performance at Sundays on Broadway in May 2022, and then received its stage premiere at the Agropoli Danza Festival in Agropoli, Italy, July 2022.

Current Pieces #1-3, a New York premiere, features three solos danced by Molissa Fenley with music by Vijay Iyer; Christiana Axelsen with music by Nico Muhly; and Timothy Ward with music by JP Jofre. The scores are part of Min Kwon's series America/Beautiful and are performed live by Enriqueta Somarriba on piano. The work premiered in Boston in April 2023.

An audience favorite, Lava Field (2004), with music by John Bischoff, will also be presented.

The evening of new and recent works will be performed by Molissa Fenley and company members Christiana Axelsen, Justin Lynch, and Timothy Ward, with guest dancers Lloyd Knight (Saturday only) Cassandra Trenary (Saturday only), and Michael Trusnovec (Friday and Saturday), and musicians Michael Ferrara and Enriqueta Somarriba.

Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, $20 for students and seniors, and can be purchased at https://roulette.org/artist/molissa-fenley/. Roulette is located at 509 Atlantic Avenue (corner of Third Avenue) in Brooklyn.

Molissa Fenley (1954) founded Molissa Fenley and Company in 1977 and has since created more than 90 dance works during her career. She grew up in Ibadan, Nigeria, moving there with her family in 1961, completing all of her early education there in international schools and her last two years of high school in Spain. She returned to the U.S. in 1971 to study dance at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Upon graduation in 1975, she moved to New York. With her company, Molissa Fenley and Company, and as a soloist working in collaboration with visual artists and composers, she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Her work has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, Dia Art Foundation, Jacob's Pillow, The Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop/New York Live Arts, the New National Theater of Tokyo, and the National Institute of Performing Arts in Seoul. Fenley is the recipient of three New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards for Choreography for Cenotaph (1985) and State of Darkness (1988), and for Outstanding Revival for State of Darkness (2021).

Fenley has been commissioned to create work for other companies including Australian Dance Theatre, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane, Richard Move, Oakland Ballet, Ohio Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Peggy Baker Projects, and Robert Moses Kin. Fellowships include American Academy in Rome, American Masterpieces of the National Endowment for the Arts, Asian Art Council, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Bogliasco Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts. Residencies include Bainbridge Dance Center, Bard College, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Bloedel Reserve, Dance HUB in Florence/ Agropoli, Italy, Dance Hub in Santa Barbara, CA, Harvard University, Hotchkiss School, and Yaddo.

Rhythm Field: The Dance of Molissa Fenley, Seagull Books/University of Chicago (2015), is available through the University of Chicago Press - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/R/bo19121881.html

Fenley was on faculty at Mills College from 1999 to 2020, and is now Professor Emerita.

                       

Funding for Molissa Fenley and Company includes the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Louis L. Borick Foundation, the Rebecca Fuller Trust, the Merrill Wagner Ryman Trust, and the many supporters of the Momenta Foundation.

For more information about the company, visit www.molissafenley.com.

About Roulette:

Founded in 1978 by four artists in a TriBeCa loft in NYC, Roulette has grown into an internationally recognized performing arts venue and presenter of experimental music, dance, and intermedia featuring some of today's most prolific artists and their extraordinary emerging counterparts. Roulette presents 120 annual performances alongside an additional 150 community/rental events, serving up to 70,000 annual visitors in our 12,000-square-foot venue in Downtown Brooklyn. In addition to its robust in-person and virtual live programming, Roulette presents a monthly podcast, weekly and monthly radio shows, and weekly TV segments on Manhattan and Brooklyn public access. Roulette's mission is to support artists creating new and adventurous art in all disciplines by providing them with a venue and resources to realize their creative visions, and to build an audience interested in the evolution of experimental art.

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