Francesca Harper News

The Pentacle/rubin Museum Dance Series Concludes With May 8th Performances Of THE  FRANCESCA  HARPER  PROJECT

Now in its 73rd year, the Limón Dance Company continues to garner fresh interest for its performances of both new works and American classics.  The May 29-June 2 season at The Joyce Theater will feature two Limón classics: The Moor's Pavane andPsalm, along with The Weather in the Room by company Artistic Director Colin Connor; and Radical Beasts in the Forest of Possibilities by guest choreographer Francesca Harper, with an originial score composed and performed live by Nona Hendryx.

The new Broadway production of Oklahoma! begins previews at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre (1633 Broadway) on tonight, March 19, 2019. Get to know the cast below as they begin Broadway performances!

Garnering fresh interest for its rich musicality and full bodied performance of both new works and American classics, Limón Dance Company offers two world premieres and two Limón masterpieces. Alongside the sweeping ensemble dancing of 'Psalm,' the potent tragedy of 'The Moor's Pavane' speaks eloquently of social issues central to our time. Explosive new works by Francesca Harper and Colin Connor showcase the company's fiercely virtuosic dancers to create an inimitable experience of American modern dance.

The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) will present the New York Premiere of The Tallest Man in the World by Ailis Ni Riain (Desolate Heaven with Theatre503 in London), directed by Ran Xia (Independent Study at The Tank), at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), March 6-17.

Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre has been offering its unique dance educations program through its arts education arm Notes in Motion Outreach Dance Theatre since 2000. We became a vendor of NYC Department of Education in 2005 and since that time, have been offering a wide array of residency, professional development, interactive performance, and after-school programs that teach ballet, modern, jazz, African, tap, hip hop, yoga, Latin dance, and more.

It's the last week to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Vermont Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater Foundation, announced today the New York City dance organization's programming for its Spring/Summer '19 season. Featuring a host of New York and world premieres, as well as iconic works from lauded companies, The Joyce Theater fulfills its mission of promoting the richness and variety of the performing arts to embrace the entire spectrum of movement styles and traditions. the upcoming Joyce season is poised to deliver engaging pieces for dance aficionados and newcomers alike.

JAG Productions joins full-ship African-American music festival at sea with its production of the profound jazz musical, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill.

Minneapolis-based Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy, celebrated for her ability to "[weave] together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine" (The New York Times) discusses her multidisciplinary original work Let the Crows Come featuring collaborator and "genre-busting" (The Guardian) composer/DJ/author Jace Clayton and Twin Cities dancer Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, who "embodies the power of dance to create deep and lasting connections where words cannot" (Dance Magazine, "25 to Watch"). Using the mythography of crows as a framework to explore memory as a source of guidance and dislocation, the work layers Ramaswamy's visceral interpretation of ancestry, ritual, and tradition with a genre-defying evolution of movement and music across cultural and corporeal boundaries. Presented at the newly-renovated Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis, the work-in-progress conversation is part of the SPCO's Tapestry19 Festival and will include video footage of Ramaswamy's Space Residency at The Baryshnikov Arts Center. 

Since its creation in 2015, JAG Productions focuses on creating theater to engage challenging issues of race, gender, sexuality and identity.

Funk rock pioneer Nona Hendryx continues her year at Joe's Pub as the inaugural recipient of The Vanguard Residency and Award. In collaboration with renowned American artist Carrie Mae Weems, award-winning theater director Niegel Smith and acclaimed choreographer Francesca Harper, Hendryx created Refrigerated Dreams, an immersive multimedia installation and concert transforming Joe's Pub into the dinner party of the season. Inspired by Weems's seminal The Kitchen Table Series, the work-in-progress is directed by Smith and features choreography and performances by Harper, Josh Johnson and The Francesca Harper Project, with original music by Hendryx.

The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) will present the World Premiere of Independent Study, written by Ben Gassman (Sam's Tea Shack) and directed by Ran Xia(Echo) at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), November 1-17.

At this year's Chita Rivera Awards, actress, dancer, and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade received the second annual Lifetime Achievement Award, iconic composer John Kander received the Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theater as a Composer and legendary theater director and producer Harold Prince was presented with the SDC Director Award for Exemplary Collaboration with Choreographers.

JAG Productions (Vermont's one and only award-winning, professional African-American Theatre company!), will present, the profound jazz musical, Lady Day  Emerson's Bar & Grill by Lanie Robertson. The show will be run from May 24th-May 27th at the Engine Room in White River Junction, May 31st-June 3rd at The Grange Theater in Pomfret and June 7-10 at Main Street Landing's Black Box Theater in Burlington, VT. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill will be directed by JAG Productions' Founder & Producing Artistic Director, Jarvis Antonio Green.

JAG Productions has announced casting for their upcoming production of Lanie Robertson's Tony award-winning play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill directed by Jarvis Antonio Green (JAG Productions: Choir Boy, Fences, JAGfest), will run from May 24th-May 27th at the Engine Room in White River Junction, May 31st-June 3rd at The Grange Theater in Pomfret and June 7-10 at Main Street Landing's Black Box Theater in Burlington, VT.

Nominations for the 2018 Chita Rivera Awards were announced today. In keeping with the mission of the Chita Rivera Awards, nominators considered shows and films that opened during the 2017-2018 theater season. View the full list below

ichmond Ballet's decade-long running New Works Festival included pieces by Francesca Harper, Tom Mattingly, Mariana Oliveira, and Bradley Shelver. Each choreographer received twenty-five rehearsal hours to create a new work on the company. Shelver described the process (in a pre-performance video introduction) as condensing the intimacy and knowledge of a “ten year relationship into one week.”

The 2nd annual Chita Rivera Awards (www.ChitaRiveraAwards.com) will take place on Sunday, May 20, 2018 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place off of Washington Square Park), it was announced today by Nikki Feirt Atkins, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of American Dance Machine for the 21st Century (www.ADM21.org) and Joe Lanteri, Founder and Executive Director of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation (www.NYCDAFoundation.net). ADM21 has joined forces with the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation to present this year's Awards. Atkins, Lanteri along with Patricia Watt are the Executive Producers of the Chita Rivera Awards.

MacArthur Award-winning artist Carrie Mae Weems presents the D.C. premiere of Grace Notes: Reflections for Now today, October 20 at 8 p.m. in the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater.