Tom Gold Dance Announces Complete Program And Dancers For June 23 Untermyer Park And Gardens Program

For its return to Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, NY for the third consecutive year, New York City-based classical dance company Tom Gold Dance, which celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2023, will present Tom Gold Dance Founder and Director Tom Gold's XV, B-Shert, and, for the first time in its entirety since its 2018 premiere, Rapid Oxidation, Friday, June 23 at 7:00PM.

The rain date for this outdoor performance in the Amphitheater of the Walled Gardens, is Sunday, June 25 at 5:00PM. General admission tickets, $35, can be purchased online at tomgolddance.org/untermyer-2023.

 

In addition, the Company will make its debut at the 2023 Newport Dance Festival, a program of Newport Contemporary Ballet, in Newport, RI, Friday, July 21, with encore performances Saturday, July 22 and Sunday, July 23. All three performances, on the Outdoor Stage on the Lawn of The Great Friends Meeting House, begin at 7:30PM. Festival tickets, starting at $39, are available at tomgolddance.org/ndf-2023.

 

At the Newport Dance Festival, the Company will present XV and B-Shert.

 

Dancers Savannah Durham and Ruby Lister of New York City Ballet, along with Amy Herchenroether of St. Louis Ballet, Brian Gephart and Robert Mulvey are currently scheduled to perform at Untermyer Park and Gardens. Brian Gephart and Robert Mulvey are also scheduled to appear on the Newport Dance Festival program. A third dancer for the Festival will be announced at a later date.

 

XV, to Felix Mendelssohn's Variations Concertantes, Op. 17 for cello and piano, had its World Premiere during the Company's 2023 spring season this past April at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.

 

B-Shert, to selections from Erik Satie's Gnossiennes for solo piano, premiered at The Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Family Auditorium at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan in October 2022. The work incorporates themes from the Bless: Design for Good exhibition then on display at the JCC's Laurie M. Tisch Gallery.

 

The Company premiered Rapid Oxidation during its 2018 spring season, also at The Kaye Playhouse. Based on characters from an episode of the television series Mozart in the Jungle, Rapid Oxidation portrays the passion of two individuals who ignite one another's creative flame. The duet is set to “Kitchen Music,” “Body Music,” “3+2,” and “Mishmash” from Junk Music by Donald Knaack, known as The Junk Man.

 

Tom Gold Dance first appeared at Untermyer Park and Gardens in July 2021, eight years after legendary New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham urged Gold to find a way to find a way to stage a performance in the Amphitheater, what Cunningham dubbed “the magical garden.” That performance was the subject of a “Talk of the Town” piece in the August 31, 2021 edition of The New Yorker.

 

“We're excited to increase the number of opportunities to see the Company this summer, including during our debut at the Newport Dance Festival,” says Tom Gold.

 

“Taking Tom Gold Dance beyond New York is an ongoing goal,” adds Gold. “At the Newport Dance Festival, we look forward to sharing the stage with several other companies from around the globe.”

 

Between April 2020 and November 2021, Tom Gold Dance cancelled four self-produced seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic. During this time, the Company appeared in the 39th Annual Battery Dance Festival in August 2020 with Gold's Plan & Elevation, as well as in livestreams from the Nave of the Church of the Heavenly Rest with the World Premiere of Gold's Portraits in February 2021 and a revival of his All the Lonely People (2015) in October 2020; and conducted a residency in the Berkshires in January 2021, following the Company's first in-person performance of Plan & Elevation on the grounds of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, the previous September. A work-in-process showcase at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre in March 2022 represented the Company's first indoor appearance in more than two years. In spring 2021, Tom Gold Dance partnered with the Penguin Random House imprint Riverhead Books to create dance-based promotional videos in connection with the publication of several novels, including Katie Kitamura's Intimacies, on which Gold's work of the same title is based. In April 2022, the Company restored its annual spring season, returning to The Kaye Playhouse for the first time since 2019. Following engagements in both locations in 2021, Tom Gold Dance returned to TurnPark Art Space and Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, NY last summer; and made its debut at Little Island in Hudson River Park, also last summer. The Company gave the first complete in-person performance of Portraits in The Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Auditorium at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan in October 2022.

 

Friday, June 23 at 7:00PM. Untermyer Park and Gardens, 945 N Broadway, Yonkers, NY 10701. In the event of rain, this performance, which will be held in the Amphitheater of the Walled Gardens, will be rescheduled to Sunday, June 25 at 5:00PM. Directions to Untermyer Park and Gardens at www.untermyergardens.org. Tickets, $35 general admission, can be purchased anytime online at tomgolddance.org/untermyer-2023.

 

Friday, July 19, Saturday, July 20, and Sunday, July 21 at 7:30PM. Newport Dance Fetival, Outdoor Stage on the Lawn of The Great Friends Meeting House, 21 Farewell Street, Newport, RI 02840. Festival tickets, starting at $39, can be purchased online at tomgolddance.org/ndf-2023

 

Please visit untermyergardens.org and newportcontemporaryballet.org for any Covid-19 related policies.

 

Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2023, Tom Gold Dance was founded by former New York City Ballet soloist Tom Gold to bring the past, present, and future of classical dance to audiences in New York and around the world. Through its annual self-produced seasons in New York City and other engagements, Tom Gold Dance aspires to the highest level of artistry expressed through a traditional classical dance vocabulary, including in nearly two dozen original works by Gold, envisioned for and set directly on Company dancers, among the world's most accomplished. Tom Gold Dance has developed unique and site-specific programs with, among others, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan; Fondazione Burri in Città di Castello, Italy; the JCC Manhattan; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; TurnPark Art Space in West Stockbridge, MA; and Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers. In addition to Italy, Tom Gold Dance has also performed in Bermuda, Bulgaria, Cuba, Israel, France, and Spain. The Company has conducted several residencies in the Berkshires, and has been awarded two CUNY Dance Initiative residencies through the Gerald W. Lynch Theater and On Stage at Kingsborough. Tom Gold Dance participated in the 39th Annual Battery Dance Festival in 2020, and appeared at Little Island in Hudson River Park in 2022. In 2021, the Company created a series of dance-based promotional videos with Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Learn more at tomgolddance.org.

 

Internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, and instructor Tom Gold is the Founder and Artistic Director of Tom Gold Dance. A 2016 National Choreographers Initiative participant, Gold has created original works for his eponymous company, as well as for Vassar College, the Bermuda Arts Festival, Oregon Ballet Theater, the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, St. Louis Ballet, and many other dance academies, companies, festivals, television, and special events, including the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Bravo series Odd Mom Out starring Jill Kargman, and the New York City Fringe Festival for which he won the 2016 award for Overall Excellence for his work in The Joey Variations: A Play With Dance. A 21-year member (1987– 2008) of New York City Ballet where he rose to the rank of soloist, Gold is the choreographer and performer of the 2wice Arts Foundation's DOT DOT DOT, an interactive iPad application by Abbott Miller of Pentagram.