Baryshnikov Arts Center Announces Spring 2017 Season

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) announces the Spring 2017 performance and residency series, which runs January 7 through June 17. Tickets for BAC Presents performances in theater, music, and dance can be purchased now at bacnyc.org and 866 811 4111. Throughout the season, BAC Residencies will provide critical support to eleven artists across disciplines to develop new work in BAC's studios.

BAC Presents: THEATER
Béla Pintér and Company (Jan 25-29)
Ain Gordon with Josh Quillen, Pick Up Performance Co(s) (May 16-24)

BAC's new season is bookended by two Theater Productions drawing on historical moments that poignantly reflect current cultural and political realities. The first is a rare appearance by Béla Pintér and Company, the theater ensemble's first New York performance since its 2009 debut at Lincoln Center Festival. In Our Secrets (N.Y. Premiere), January 25-29 in the Jerome Robbins Theater, Hungary's leading theater director and playwright offers a searing examination of 1980's communist Budapest through the lens of an artist community torn apart by powers of government surveillance, secrecy, and betrayal. Employing his signature style that fuses comedy, tragedy, and live music, Pintér's play "starkly paints the politics of the present precisely in terms of the buried secrets of the past," (American Theatre). BAC's presentation of Our Secrets is part of a three-destination U.S. Tour made possible with leadership support from Trust for Mutual Understanding, that include Hopkins Center for the Arts (Dartmouth) and ArtsEmerson (Boston).

The second theater presentation is a World Premiere by three-time Obie-winner Ain Gordon, written and directed in partnership with percussionist and composer Josh Quillen of S? Percussion. Gordon's oeuvre "haunts the margins of history...conjur[ing] the sort of distant lives that don't make it into textbooks, processed into oblivion by what he calls history's 'ruthless editing machine'" (The New York Times).Radicals in Miniature, May 16-24 in the Howard Gilman Performance Space, is a series of textual-sonic odes to Gordon's personal icons of 20th century "alternative" culture, between the Summer of Love in 1967 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980's. Gordon and Quillen, a gay man and a straight man of different generations, perform Radicals in Miniature, theatrically annotating our cultural record via alternative requiems to John Sex, Elaine Shipman, Sylvester, and others. The work was developed in collaboration with dramaturge Talvin Wilks during a Spring 2015 residency at BAC.

BAC Presents: DANCE

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith (Jan 7-10)

BAC's new season of dance includes the World Premiere of Basketball by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith January 7-10 in the Howard Gilman Performance Space, a co-presentation with Performance Space 122's COIL Festival. The New York-based dance artists have been making and performing experimental works together since 2006, exploring the tension of a powerful inner world, cultivated through a continuous study of duet improvisation.

BAC Presents: MUSIC
Stanley Jordan (Mar 9)
BAC Salon: The Originals (Mar 20-23)

BAC's music concerts begin in March with the world-class guitarist Stanley Jordan, master of the two-handed tapping technique, in which he simultaneously plays rhythm and melody. On March 9 in the Jerome Robbins Theater Jordan performs solos from his repertoire, ranging from reinventions of classical masterpieces to improvisational works. A special guest artist-his daughter, singer/songwriter Julia Jordan-will join him.

And BAC's signature music series-hour-long concerts performed in an intimate salon setting-offers a program entitled BAC Salon: The Originals. Four evenings in the John Cage and Merce Cunningham Studio will feature music by composers with groundbreaking musical styles: Leoš Janá?ek and Charles Ives, mavericks from Czech Republic and America, respectively, that drew inspiration from their homelands; and Heinrich von Biber and Conlon Nancarrow, who took virtuosity to unprecedented heights. BAC Salon: Janá?ek + Ives on March 20 and 21features performances by Gilles Vonsattel, piano; Jay Campbell, cello; and Paul Appleby, tenor. On March 22 and 23 is BAC Salon: Biber + Nancarrow, with Mark Fewer, violin; Avi Stein, organ; Charles Weaver, theorbo and guitar; Daniel Swenberg, theorbo; andRobert Willey, Yamaha Disklavier and synthesizer.

BAC Residencies

At the core of BAC's mission is the Residency Program, which provides time, space, and resources for creative experimentation and artistic freedom. The first BAC Residency of 2017, January 9-21, will support NYC's Maria Hassabi (Dance) in her creation of a new work,STAGING, to premiere at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as part of the Merce Cunningham: Common Time retrospective, February 8-9.

Then, for a sixth season, BAC hosts BAC Space, a residency format designed to encourage peer exchange, during which artists will work concurrently in all of BAC's studios. BAC Space Spring 2017 artists will be in residence for three to four weeks between March 13 and April 21. A series of public events will be announced by February 1. ?BAC Space Spring 2017 Resident Artists include New York-based artists Dana Lyn (Music and Poetry) (also a BAC and Irish Arts Center Resident Artist), Kyoung Park (Theater), Muna Tseng (Dance/Theater), and Netta Yerushalmy (Dance), and Dorothée Munyaneza of Marseille, France (Dance/ Music).

In addition to BAC Space, BAC's Princess Grace Foundation-USA Works-in-Progress Residency will support three Princess Grace Award recipients in the development of new projects. They are: Victor Quijada (Dance, Montréal), April 3-14; Jiehae Park (Theater, NYC), May 15-26; and Evan Yionoulis (Theater, NYC), May 30-June 17.

BAC also launches a new residency partnership with the Bogliasco Foundation to provide an expanded residency opportunity for artists to develop projects first at Bogliasco's facility in the serene coastal Italian environment, and then continue at BAC's studios in the urban setting of New York City. The inaugural Bogliasco Fellow is playwright Cori Thomas (Theater, NYC), who will be in residence June 12-17.

Lastly, in early 2017 BAC will announce the second Cage Cunningham Fellow, the recipient of an annual $50,000 award and residency given to an artist or artists committed to innovation and collaboration as exemplified by John Cage and Merce Cunningham.

Tickets for BAC Presents can be purchased online or by phone:

BACNYC.ORG / 866 811 4111.

A complete schedule of BAC Spring 2017 Presentations follows.

BAC PRESENTS SPRING 2017:

DANCE

Molly Lieber + Eleanor Smith

Basketball (World Premiere)

January 7-10
Jan 7 / Sat at 7PM
Jan 8 / Sun at 4PM + 7PM
Jan 9 / Mon at 4PM
Jan 10 / Tue at 7PM

Howard Gilman Performance Space
Tickets: $20

Co-presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center and PS122 as part of COIL 2017 Festival.

"These women are tied together. One would carry the other across a desert, it seems, if they didn't kill each other first."
- The New York Times

Basketball reinvents past shames as colorful, sculptural, and textural expressions. Engulfing one another with fully embodied presence, Lieber and Smith move backward and forward through time and space in a dreamlike reimagining of personal histories. Improvisation acts as an empowerment of physicality and emotionality, viscerally felt through observing the intimate, raw nature of their bodies in space.

Running Time: 60 Minutes

THEATER

Béla Pintér and Company
Our Secrets (N.Y. Premiere)
January 25-29
Jan 25-27 / Wed-Fri at 7:30PM
Jan 28 / Sat at 2PM + 7:30PM
Jan 29 / Sun at 2 PM

Jerome Robbins Theater
Tickets: $25

In Hungarian with English supertitles.
Adult language, graphic sexual content. Recommended for audiences age 18 and over.

"Pinter is a comic genius: a former folk dancer who creates wildly ironic, charmingly grotesque fables reflecting on folk life, ethnicity, and nationalism - with original music and, yes, Hungarian folk dancing." -The Village Voice

1980's communist Budapest, amateur folk dancing, disturbing secrets, and government surveillance intertwine to form Our Secrets, an epic tale performed by the internationally acclaimed ensemble Béla Pintér and Company. When confronted with his own unspeakable transgression, a folk musician must choose between exposing his own egregious acts and betraying his community.

Reminiscent of the Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others, and infused with humanity, humor, absurdity, and vulnerability, this no-holds-barred production uncovers a generation of artists who learn the hard way that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. Our Secrets offers a poignant and incisive look at Hungary's past while providing a blueprint for the present day.

Leadership support for the U.S. Tour of Our Secrets provided by Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Running Time: 115 Minutes, No Intermission

MUSIC

Stanley Jordan

March 9

Thursday at 8PM

Jerome Robbins Theater

Tickets: $25

"Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles, but it has been rightfully applied to Stanley Jordan."
- The Los Angeles Times

Among the most gifted guitarists of his generation, Stanley Jordan is master of the two-handed tapping technique, in which he simultaneously plays rhythm and melody. More than a technical phenomenon, however, Jordan conveys an astounding depth of musical expression through a multi-faceted repertoire, ranging from bold reinventions of classical masterpieces to improvisational contemporary works.

Running Time: 60 Minutes

MUSIC

BAC Salon: The Originals

A salon series of music by composers with uncompromising visions, performed by some of today's most respected musicians.

March 20-23

BAC Salon is a series of concerts presented in an intimate salon setting.

BAC Salon: Janá?ek + Ives

March 20 + 21

Monday and Tuesday at 7:30PM

John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio

Tickets: $20

Gilles Vonsattel, piano
Jay Campbell, cello
Paul Appleby, tenor

Composers Leoš Janá?ek and Charles Ives were mavericks who drew inspiration from their homelands to create highly original musical styles.Janá?ek transformed folk music of his native Moravia into a distinct poetic narrative, and Ives used popular American melodies to create unique, multi-layered soundscapes. This program features Janá?ek's Fairy Tale for cello and piano, his piano sonata "1. X 1905," and a selection of songs by Ives.

Running Time: 60 Minutes

BAC Salon: Biber + Nancarrow

March 22 + 23

Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30PM

John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio

Tickets: $20

Mark Fewer, violin
Avi Stein, organ
Charles Weaver, theorbo and guitar
Daniel Swenberg, theorbo
Robert Willey, Yamaha Disklavier and synthesizer

Heinrich von Biber and Conlon Nancarrow were composers who took virtuosity to unprecedented heights. Biber experimented with differently tuned strings to expand the possibilities of the violin, while Nancarrow wrote for the mechanical "player piano," as his compositions surpassed human performance capability. This program juxtaposes Biber sonatas with a selection of Nancarrow Player Piano Studies.

Running Time: 60 Minutes

THEATER

Ain Gordon with Josh Quillen, Pick Up Performance Co(s)
Radicals in Miniature (World Premiere)
May 16-24

May 16-20 / Tue-Sat at 7:30PM
May 21 / Sun at 2PM
May 23-24 / Tue-Wed at 7:30PM
Howard Gilman Performance Space
Tickets: $20

"Ain Gordon haunts the margins of history...conjur[ing] the sort of distant lives that don't make it into textbooks, processed into oblivion by what he calls history's 'ruthless editing machine.'" - The New York Times

Radicals in Miniature is a series of textual-sonic odes to personal icons of 20th century "alternative" culture that lost their toehold on immortality. Conjuring years between 1967's Summer Of Love (not everyone's "love") and 1982/83, when The New York Times finally published the word "AIDS," Radicals is performed by Ain Gordon and Josh Quillen; a gay man and a straight man of different generations theatrically annotating our cultural record via alternative requiems to John Sex, Elaine Shipman, Sylvester, Lou Plotnick, Brad Dinolfo, David Hahn, and more.

Running Time: 90 Minutes

BAC PRESENTS ARTIST BIOS:

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith have been making experimental dances in New York since 2006. Their work is unique in that it is an equal collaboration between the two choreographers, always within the duet form, always performed by Lieber and Smith. Their most recent work,Rude World, was their third project together over the past three years and premiered through PS122 and The Chocolate Factory Theater in the COIL 2015 Festival. Their work is recognized by the tension of a powerful yet submerged inner world, cultivated through a brave and continuous study of duet improvisation. Recent works include Tulip (Roulette, 2013, Judson Now at Danspace Project, 2012) and Beautiful Bone (The Chocolate Factory Theater, 2012). They were a 2015 Rosas Summer Studios Residency Artist, were among the inaugural season of PS122's 2014/2015 Ramp Residency artists, a 2014 Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) Artist in Residence, were nominated for a 2013 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award for Emerging Choreographer, and received the 2013 NYFA Fellow Finalist Award. Lieber and Smith were Guest Artists in Residence at Connecticut College in September 2015.

Founded in 1998, Béla Pintér and Company is a leader in the independent theater scene in Budapest, and Béla Pintér is considered of the most influential playwrights, directors and actors working in Hungary today. While deeply rooted in classical theater tradition, Pintér's singular approach to playwriting fuses comedy, tragedy, and live music to create original, accessible, and personal approaches to life's absurdities and current events. Béla Pintér and Company is dedicated to creating contemporary productions based on critical and ironic observations of Hungarian society.

Stanley Jordan has performed in over 60 countries on 6 continents. He has performed at many festivals, including the Kool Jazz Festival, the Concord Jazz Festival, and the Montreaux International Jazz Festival. During the 1980s he collaborated with a diverse array of artists, including performances with Art Blakey and Richie Cole and recordings with Stanley Clarke and Kenny Rogers. Today Jordan performs frequently as a soloist and with his band, as well as collaborating with other guitarists such as Kevin Eubanks, Sharon Isbin, and Muriel Anderson. He is also a frequent guest with jam bands such as the Dave Matthews Band, the String Cheese Incident, Phil Lesh, Moe, and Umphrey's McGee. Jordan has received four Grammy nominations. His most recent album Friends was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote, "Genius is a word often tossed around in musical circles, but it has been rightfully applied to Stanley Jordan." In 1981 he earned a BA in music from Princeton University, where he studied theory and composition with composer Milton Babbitt and computer music with composer Paul Lansky. Jordan came to prominence with the release of his 1985 album Magic Touch, a revolutionary project that placed him at the forefront of re-launching legendary Blue Note Records into a contemporary entity in jazz and beyond, and also established the then-twenty-something Jordan as among the most distinctive and refreshing new voices of electric guitar.

Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions. In recent years he has made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, and performed recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo's Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Chamber Music Northwest, La Roque d'Anthéron, Music@Menlo, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. Chamber partners include James Ehnes, Anthony Marwood, Frank Huang, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, and many others. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous works both in the US and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. Recent and upcoming projects include appearances with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Vancouver Symphony, Florida Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, as well as multiple appearances with the Chamber Music Society. A former member of CMS Two, Vonsattel received his bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master's degree from The Juilliard School. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Cellist Jay Campbell, armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, has been recognized for approaching both old and new works with the same probing curiosity and emotional commitment. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Campbell has soloed in major venues around the globe including Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, Avery Fisher Hall, Lucerne's KKL, as well as recitals in Carnegie's Weill Hall, the Kennedy, Mondavi, and Krannert centers. He made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013, and worked with Alan Gilbert in 2016 as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward for the New York Philharmonic Biennale. Equally enthusiastic as a chamber musician and teacher, Campbell is a member of the JACK Quartet, a piano trio with Stefan Jackiw and Conrad Tao, has served on faculty at Vassar College, and has been a guest at the Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Moab, Heidelberger-Fruhling, DITTO, and Lincoln Center Festivals.

Following a summer season that featured Paul Appleby at Glyndebourne in the title role of a new production by Laurent Pelly of Béatrice et Bénédict, the tenor's 2016-17 opera diary includes Metropolitan Opera performances of Don Giovanni, a debut at the Dutch National Opera inDie Entführung aus dem Serail, and a debut at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in a new production of The Rake's Progress conducted by Daniel Harding and directed by Simon McBurney. A robust concert calendar brings the artist together with David Zinman and the Bamberger Symphoniker for Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, and with Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Recital appearances include programs given under the auspices of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and of the George London Foundation for Singers in NYC.

Known for his exceptional versatility, violinist Mark Fewer has toured worldwide in famous halls such as Wigmore, Carnegie, and Salle Pleyel, to smaller venues such as Le Poisson Rouge (NYC), Bartok House (Budapest), and The Forum (Taipei). He is a regular member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players (DC), where he performs on their priceless collection of decorated Stradivaris, and with whom he has made several critically acclaimed recordings. Fewer was appointed William Dawson Scholar at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in September 2015, prior to which he was Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University, where he performed regularly as a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet. He is a Juno and Prix Opus winner, a host of CBC's This is My Music, and is the subject of an episode of People Uncut on the Biography Channel.

Avi Stein serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School, teaching chamber music and continuo accompaniment and as a lecturer in vocal repertoire at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. In May of 2014, Stein was named Associate Organist and Chorus Master at Trinity Wall Street. Stein has performed throughout the United States, in Europe, Canada, and Central America. He is an active continuo accompanist who plays regularly with the Boston Early Music Festival, the Trinity Church Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra, the Clarion Music Society, and Bach Vespers NYC. Stein directed the young artists' program at the Carmel Bach Festival and has conducted a variety of ensembles including the Opera Français de New York, OperaOmnia, the Amherst Festival opera, and a critically acclaimed annual series called the 4×4 Festival. Stein studied at Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music, the University of Southern California, and was a Fulbright scholar in Toulouse.

Charles Weaver performs on early plucked-string instruments both as a recitalist and as an accompanist. Chamber music appearances include Early Music New York, Hesperus, Piffaro, Parthenia, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Folger Consort, TENET, ARTEK, Musica Pacifica, and Blue Heron. He is on the faculty of the New York Continuo Collective, an ensemble of players and singers exploring the poetic and musical antecedents of opera in semester-length workshop productions. He has also taught at the Lute Society of America Summer Workshop in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Western Wind Workshop in ensemble singing. He is also assistant director of the St. Mary's Student Scholar program in Norwalk, CT, teaching Gregorian chant and renaissance music theory to children.

Lutenist Daniel Swenberg concentrates on Renaissance and baroque performance practices with special devotion to the role of basso-continuo playing and the instruments central to its practice: the theorbo/chitaronne, renaissance and baroque lutes, early guitars, and the gallizona/callichon. He works regularly with ensembles: ARTEK, REBEL, Visceral Reaction, The New York Collegium, The Metropolitan Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Staatstheater Stuttgart, New York City Opera, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Stadtstheater Klagenfurt, Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier, Les Violons du Roy, Piffaro, Spiritus Collective, Les Voix Baroques, Musica Pacifica, the Sejong Soloists, Les Voix Baroques, Apollo's Fire, and Lizzy and the Theorboys. He studied previously with Pat O'Brien at Mannes College of Music (New York City), receiving a Masters Degree in Historical Performance-Lute. Prior to his concentration on lutes, he studied Musicology at Washington University and received a B.M. in classical guitar from North Carolina School of the Arts.

Robert Willey grew up on the San Francisco peninsula, studied classical piano and performed with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, attended Stanford University, earned a bachelor's degree in music from University of North Texas, a master's in computer music, and a Ph.D. in theoretical studies from University of California San Diego. A loan of a Disklavier and MIDI grand was arranged through Yamaha for two years, and a repertoire of music for interactive systems developed using Max and custom PC software. Willey worked for five years in a technology exchange program between UCSD, Stanford, and LIPM, a studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He received a Fulbright grant to teach computer music performance and composition in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where he participated in the development of the Brazillian Computer Music Association. Willey analyzed the music of Antônio Carlos (Tom) Jobim, wrote a book on Brazilian piano styles, and is now synthesizing the piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow and producing original music.

Ain Gordon is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer/director/actor, a two-time NYFA recipient and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. Gordon's work has been seen at BAM Next Wave Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep., The Public Theater, 651 ARTS, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, Baryshnikov Arts Center, HERE Arts Center, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (all NY); the Mark Taper Forum (CA), the George Street Playhouse (NJ), Vermont Performance Lab, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (VT), Krannert Center (IL), the Kitchen Theatre (NY), OnStage at Connecticut College, MASS MoCA, the Baltimore Museum of Art (MD), DiverseWorks (TX), Spirit Square (NC), VSA North Fourth Arts Center (NM), Jacob's Pillow (MA), LexArts (KY), and Dance Space (DC), etc. Gordon's 2003 work;Art Life & Show-Biz; A Non-Fiction Play, is published in Palgrave Macmillan's Dramaturgy Of The Real On The World Stage. Collaborations: with S? Percussion presented at the Walker Art Center (MN), BAM Next Wave Festival (NY), River To River (NY), and Philadelphia Fringe, etc; with Samita Sinha at American Dance Institute (MD) and PS122 COIL Festival (NYC); with Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance at Northrop (MN), NYLA, On The Boards (WA), and ODC (CA), etc; with Bebe Miller at the Wexner Center (OH), Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents (MT), and Bates Dance Festival (ME), etc; with David Gordon at American Repertory Theatre (MA), American Conservatory Theater (CA) and American Music Theatre Festival (PA). Gordon appeared in the original Off-Broadway cast of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell and toured the production to venues including UCLA, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (OR), ICA Boston (Elliot Norton Award nom), the Walker (MN), and New Territories (UK), etc. Gordon also wrote for NBC's Will & Grace. Gordon's work has received support from Jerome, Greenwall, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Stage Council on the Arts, Department of Cultural Affairs, AT&T, MAP (four times), ART NY, Mellon, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and NPN among many others. Gordon is a former "Embedded Artist" at the Historic Society of Pennsylvania, former Core Writer of the Playwright's Center (MN), former Resident Artist at the Hermitage (FL), was the inaugural Visiting Artist at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (PA), and a 2014 Artist-In-Residence at NYU Tisch Scho