Kathryn Posin To Create World Premiere For Milwaukee Ballet II

KATHRYN POSIN will create a world premiere for Milwaukee Ballet II Program during the 2017-18 season. The ballet will receive its premiere as part of the MOMENTUM Series on February 10, 2018 at the historic Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

During the Milwaukee Ballet's 2016-17 season, the company revived Ms. Posin's Scheherazade, a favorite with Milwaukee's audiences which has also been danced by the Louisville Ballet, the Sacramento Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, and the Sofia National Ballet in Bulgaria.

KATHRYN POSIN studied composition with Louis Horst, Anna Sokolow, Merce Cunningham and Hanya Holm. She is a graduate of Bennington College and holds a Master of Arts in interdisciplinary multi-cultural dance from New York University. In 1975 she received her first choreography commission, Waves, which she choreographed for the American Dance Festival.

Ms. Posin has choreographed works for Ballet West, Netherlands Dance Theater 1 and 2, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Feld Ballets/USA, the Ohio Ballet, The Kansas City Ballet, the Sacramento Ballet, the Cincinnati Ballet, the Hartford Ballet, BalletMet, the Repertory Dance Theater of Utah, Extemporary Dance Company of London, Ballet Pacifica, and the Milwaukee Ballet. She has also developed new works at the Joffrey Ballet School, the Alvin Ailey School, and the Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy. She was the first international choreographer to stage a work for Cloud Gate Dance Theater, the national company of Taiwan.

In 1990 she choreographed Of Rage And Remembrance, set to John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, for the Milwaukee Ballet. It was voted "Premiere of the Year in Music and Dance" by the Milwaukee Journal. She has also been a recipient of ADF's Doris Humphrey Fellowship. The Milwaukee Ballet, Ballet Met, the Hartford Ballet, the Cincinnati Ballet, and Kansas City Ballet have performed her Stepping Stones, which is set to a commissioned score by Joan Tower which was underwritten by awards from Meet the Composer. Ms. Posin also received a second award from Meet the Composer to underwrite music from the Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos for a work for the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble. Galena Summit, to the music of Steve Reich, was voted Choreography of the Year by the Boston Globe. Her work Four World Songs won first place in the Sarasota Ballet's 1996 Choreographic Competition.

Ms. Posin was also a recipient of a 1995-96 National Endowment on the Arts Choreography Fellowship.

During the 1996-97 season Ms. Posin restaged her comedy hit, Bach's Lunch, for the Milwaukee Ballet. This work was developed during the summer of 1995 for the Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy, and was the first work in the School's 20-year history taken immediately into the Milwaukee Ballet's repertory. Ms. Posin also created Poem Without A Hero for the Cincinnati Ballet. In 1999 Ms. Posin re-staged Stepping Stones and created a new work, Crossroads, for the Hartford Ballet.

During the 1999-2000 season Ms. Posin created, Tehillim, a world premiere for the Milwaukee Ballet and re-staged Bridge of Song for the Milwaukee Ballet, Stepping Stones for the Cincinnati Ballet, and John Adams Violin Concerto for the Sacramento Ballet.

Ms. Posin has also been the artistic director and resident choreographer for her own company, the Kathryn Posin Dance Company. She has choreographed over 50 works for her company and the company has received support from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Jerome Robbins Foundation. In 1991, Ms. Posin's company received two grants from the Joint Program of the Ohio Arts and Humanities Councils for the Appalachian Dance/Music work, Shady Grove.

Ms. Posin has taught in London, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Switzerland. For six summers she taught composition at Harvard Summer School and has taught full time at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

In 1999 Ms. Posin conceived and designed the Joffrey Ballet School/New School University B.F.A. in Dance and was named founding Chair. She created the curriculum and budgets to interface New School University, with its 70 million-dollar-a-year budget, with the Joffrey Ballet School. At the debut concert of this program, Copland and Dance, at the Joyce Theatre, the New York Times called the BFA "promising both artistically and academically." In 2000 Ms. Posin became an instructor in the program and continued with the program until 2001. In 2000 Ms. Posin created Piano Concerto for the students of this program's year-end performance at the Joyce Theatre in New York.

In 2003 Ms. Posin created her new version of Scheherazade for the Milwaukee Ballet, which was also acquired by the Louisville Ballet in 2004, and the Sacramento Ballet and Nevada Ballet Theatre in 2006. In 2004 the Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah revived Ms. Posin's Waves. In 2008 Ms. Posin created the choreography for the Florentine Opera's production of Salome. In 2011 Ms. Posin's Stepping Stones was given its company premiere by the Sofia National Ballet.

In 2012 Ms. Posin was the recipient of a Fulbright Award to teach dance at one of the major dance academies in Sofia, Bulgaria. Also, in 2012, the Sofia National Ballet presented its company premiere of Ms. Posin's Scheherazade.

Ms. Posin has shown her versatility in also choreographing for the theatre. She choreographed the hit rock musical, Salvation, with Bette Midler and Richard Gere, and Andre Serban's Lincoln Center revival of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep and Raul Julia. She has also choreographed for plays at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard, at the Arena Stage, for the Acting Company with Liviu Cuilei as director, and at Hartford Stage with Yuri Yurimen, of the Pushkin Theater in Moscow, as director. In 2002 Ms. Posin choreographed the dance for Jennifer Jason Leigh in Al Pacino's production of Salome.

About Milwaukee Ballet

Founded in 1970, Milwaukee Ballet is a leader in Wisconsin's arts and culture scene. Under the stewardship of Artistic Director Michael Pink, Milwaukee Ballet has become world-renowned for presenting both bold new interpretations of story ballets, and cutting-edge contemporary works. Milwaukee Ballet is the home to an international company of dancers and is one of only a few companies in the nation to feature its own orchestra. Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy is the only professional dance school in the Midwest accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance. Milwaukee Ballet's award-winning Community Engagement department serves more than 30,000 people in Southeastern Wisconsin through original, interactive programs. More at www.milwaukeeballet.org.