Kathryn Roszak Presents DANSE LUMIERE at 92nd Street Y

San Francisco's Kathryn Roszak brings her Danse Lumiere to share a program with other women choreographers from New York and California on the 92nd Street Y's Moving Forward: Women Ballet Choreographers East and West. Two performances on Friday April 28, 12 Noon (on the Fridays at Noon series) and 8 PM (on the Dig Dance series) at the 92nd Street Y/Buttenwieser Hall, Lexington and 92nd Street. Roszak will present excerpts from Reverse Flow, inspired by the geological shifts of the Amazon River, and Emily Dances, with poetry of Emily Dickinson.

The Fridays at Noon performance will show works by Gemma Bond, Lydia Johnson, Cherylyn Lavagnino and Kate Thomas of New York, and Dalia Rawson and Kathryn Roszak of California. The hour of excerpted dances will be followed by a discussion with author Wendy Oliver on the unique place held by women ballet choreographers, their future in ballet, and the recently formed Women Ballet Choreographers Institute at Djerassi. Oliver, author of Dance and Gender: An Evidence-Based Approach reads from her groundbreaking and newly-published (2017) book. The event will also include an 11 AM screening in the Dance Center lobby of Kathryn Roszak's "Secrets on the Way," inspired by the Swedish Nobel Prize-winning poet Tomas Transtromer, presented last year by Scandinavia House in NYC.

Dig Dance, at 8 PM, will show works by Gemma Bond, Lydia Johnson, Cherylyn Lavagnino, all of New York, and Dalia Rawson and Kathryn Roszak of California.

Works by Roszak (performed on both programs):

Reverse Flow/Xingu River
A trio to Philip Glass's Aguas da Amazonia, played by the group Uakti. The choreographer was inspired to create the piece after reading about the geological shifts of the Amazon River.

The Emily Dances
Three dancers portray Emily Dickinson in this work to "White Election," a song-cycle by Gordon Getty based on the poems of Emily Dickinson, and featuring soprano Katie Geissinger, known for her work with Meredith Monk. Following performances in the Bay Area, Rita Felciano remarked "(Roszak's work) proved to be a thoroughly intelligent and finely crafted dance theater piece that illuminated a great creative mind through music, dance, and language." (San Francisco Bay Guardian)

Fame is a Bee

It has a song

It has a sting -

Ah, too, it has a wing.
Emily Dickinson

Kathryn Roszak's Danse Lumiere is acclaimed for adapting literature for the stage and have performed their original productions throughout the Bay Area and at The Smithsonian Institution in D.C., LaMaMa E.T.C. and Scandinavia House in NYC, and at the Copenhagen Cultural Festival in Denmark. The Company was selected as one of the top ten performances of 2011 in the S.F. Bay Guardian, and received a proclamation last year by the Mayor of Berkeley for their work with dance, which includes Roszak's role as Dance Specialist with Cal Performances. Danse Lumiere has produced Dance on Center: New Works by Women ballet choreographers in downtown Berkeley for the past two years.

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