Southern Theatre and James Sewell Ballet Present BALLET WORKS PROJECT, 2/24-27

Building upon the success of last year's sold-out run at the Southern Theater, James Sewell Ballet returns with a very special set of world premieres from emerging choreographic voices. Featured dancemakers include Afro-modern hip-hop artist Kenna Cottman, eclectic James Sewell Ballet company member Chris Hannon, SAGE award winner Judith Howard and movement maverick Patrick Corbin, long time leading dancer with Paul Taylor and now artistic director of CorbinDances which is celebrating its 5th anniversary. The performance will also feature a new solo work by James Sewell.
 
"We've found these artistic collaborations and imaginative experiments to be profoundly symbiotic - and are thrilled that the dance community and our audiences have embraced them," said JSB artistic director James Sewell. "We start with mutual admiration, trust and respect for each other's work and end up all growing in the process.  Our audiences get to see creations that are strong, grounded and yet very groundbreaking."
 
Sewell added, "This year's Ballet Works Project will feature an interesting mix of choreography, providing a wide variety of movement styles to push dancers and audience in exciting new directions.  I have long admired Cottman's work and am eager to see how her hip-hop background synthesizes with ballet. Corbin brings a distinct blend of ballet styles, emphasizing the more contemporary works he experienced with Paul Taylor Dance Company. And Hannon's movement-philosophy and vision has strongly influenced my own choreography for him in the past. It's great to set him free to create independently on JSB now."
 
In his first collaboration with the company, Patrick Corbin presents a new untitled piece of two men and two women working from a calligraphic essence to create movement. Beginning from writing themselves a letter in the air about a very personal matter, the dancers have created a movement vocabulary within a world that explores acceptance and resolutions with a focus on relationships and community. The piece is set to an original soundscape by Corbin deconstructed from musical works as divergent as Bach and Pink Floyd.
 
Afro-modern hip-hop dance artist Kenna Cottman presents PRIME with music by Oran Etikin and choreography by herself and the dancers. According to Cottman, the piece is based on a series of basic questions; "what is innate to the way we move... what are the foundations of ballet, of West African, of hip-hop? What are the primitive movements of the dancers?"
 
Company member Chris Hannon makes his choreographic debut with a new untitled piece for seven dancers set to a varied collage of music ranging from MiLes Davis, to Sun Ra and his Orchestra, to punk ska from California. The work is a series of vignettes with a shifting, abstract narrative featuring solos, duets and trios that fuse ballet with punk aesthetics in a quirky and frenetic explosion of movement reminiscent of "hard-core" concerts of the early 80s.
 

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