Buglisi Dance Theatre to Present WOMEN OF DISTINCTION at Ailey Citigroup Theater, 6/7-9

Buglisi Dance Theatre, celebrating its 23rd anniversary, is proud to present "Women of Distinction," a program that celebrates women, June 7-9 at The Ailey Citigroup Theater. The season will see a World Premiere by Buglisi, inspired by the first recorded author/poet, as well as Buglisi masterworksRequiem, Sand, Sospiri, Suite:Solos and Duets, and a special performance by Christine Dakin with pianist Brian Zeger. The Opening Night performance will honor Terese Capucilli, Associate Founding Director and Principal Dancer of Buglisi Dance Theatre, and will include a performance by Graham principal dancer Blakeley White-McGuire of Martha Graham's Deep Song (opening night only). Chrstine Dakin will dance at all performances, appearing in Graham's Lamentation.

The new Buglisi work represents women of distinction from the fascinating but now mostly forgotten Enheduanna, the earliest known author/poet, born in Mesopotamia, to Theodora, one of the most influential and powerful of the Byzantine empresses.

The program continues to celebrate women with Buglisi's Requiem, created for an ensemble of five women and set to Gabriel Faure's soaring Requiem. The visually ravishing work was originally inspired by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who, forced by the oppression of her society, used her brushes to win the admiration of kings and eventually her own legal right as an independent woman. One of Buglisi's most exquisite works, Requiem has been described as "gorgeous, expressive, original.......This is no small magic." (Tobi Tobias, Village Voice, 2003) Pia Catton wrote of the dance's "...purity and gravity that make it sublime. Five women stand on pedestals looking like classical statues of goddesses." (The New York Sun, 2003). Following the work's 2002 premiere, Anna Kisselgoff described the work as "stunning...typical of the creative breakthrough achieved by (Buglisi)" (The New York Times, 2002), and Sylviane Gold remarked simply that "Buglisi is a poet." (Newsday, 2002) Ms. Buglisi dedicates these performances of Requiem to her beloved friend and colleague Dudley Williams.

Sospiri, set to music by Edward Elgar, was premiered at City Center by the Martha Graham Dance Company during their October 1989 season. The duet tells the story of Camila O'Gorman and her lover, the Jesuit priest Ladislav Gutierrez who, in 1848, were hunted down and executed by a firing squad for their illicit love. This timeless story has become legend among the peasants of Argentina.

Sand, set to Philip Glass' brilliant String Quartet #5, is a tribute to the beauty and fragility of life in the desert." Reviewing in Dance Magazine, Lynn Garafola remarked that "The partnering is complex and charged with eroticism," adding "She (Buglisi) works in images that seduce the eye as much as the imagination, with shapes, luminous textures, and stilted moments in time that offer an adventure in perception."

A special performance by Christine Dakin with pianist Brian Zeger.

** Program subject to change.