Martha Graham News

BALAM Dance Theatre (BALAM), a New York City based ensemble dance company that has performed throughout the world, will debut the new program, Women of Wonder, featuring an eclectic repertoire of Balinese, Spanish, and American modern and fusion pieces.

(Phoenix, Tempe, AZ) Thirty-two artists, choreographers and film makers will take over Tempe Center for the Arts March 20th and 21st for a two-day festival of contemporary dance and film. BREAKING GROUND 2015 is an exhilarating weekend of performances, master classes and social events featuring some of the most important voices in contemporary dance today.

Garth Fagan, Tony Award winner for "Best Choreography" in The Lion King, founder and artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance, is receiving the Apple Award from Wayne State University's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance. "A Conversation with Apple Award Recipient Garth Fagan" will be hosted at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts on March 28 at 7:00 p.m. Mr. Fagan will appear in an "actors studio" style interview and question-and-answer session.

Next month Juilliard Dances Repertory presents masterworks by acclaimed choreographers Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Juilliard dancers perform Martha Graham's Dark Meadow and Merce Cunningham's BIPED. Aaron Sherber will conduct the Juilliard musicians performing the music live with the dancers for Dark Meadow.

After the successful New York and Bay Area premieres of the dance ritual Bear/Skin, Keith Hennessy is back with the World Premiere of Sara (the smuggler). This dynamic solo performance by Sara Shelton Mann pays tribute to her iconic and iconoclastic role in Bay Area and international dance history, starting with her years in NYC with Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis through her decade plus as the choreographer of Contraband to her subsequent collaborations with local and international artists.

The distinguished Cuban-American playwright Eduardo Machado has created a touchstone piece by taking a one-act play with music, written in 1982, and turning it into a full-length, two-act musical. His 'Rosario and the Gypsies,' with songs by composer Rick Vartorella and lyrics by Mr. Machado and Mr. Vartorella, was a short, wild rock 'n roll play with music about the backstage romances and melodramas of a hippie performance troupe in southern California who were devoted to the art of change. Its songs were a combination of street pop and 60's-70's rock. It was produced in NYC by Ensemble Studio Theater in 1982 and it got Machado recognized as a writer to be reckoned with. Machado and Vartorella have now revised the piece and completed its story, adding a second act, in which we learn the future for its characters. Theater for the New City will present this revised and expanded version of 'Rosario and the Gypsies' from tonight, February 18 to March 8, directed by Machado.

Hubbard Street Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton and Kathryn Humphreys, Director of the organization's Youth, Education and Community Programs, are delighted to offer a wide range of diverse dance opportunities for young people for a fifth consecutive summer.

Hubbard Street Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton and Kathryn Humphreys, Director of the organization's Youth, Education and Community Programs, are delighted to offer a wide range of diverse dance opportunities for young people for a fifth consecutive summer. Early-Childhood, Primary, Secondary, and Intensive categories both align with Hubbard Street Youth Dance Program classes held during the academic year, and allow the families of first-time students to easily find the Youth Summer Camps best-suited to their needs. Technique-specific workshops provide space for continuing progressive study, while interdisciplinary and creative camps focus on self-expression. Hubbard Street's "a la carte" registration for Youth Summer Camps facilitates "mix-and-match" scheduling, making movement practice accessible to young dancers of all ages, skill levels and interests.

Saturday night, Alexis Cole continued a Valentine tradition at Jazz at Kitano with a different twist on By Request. Patrons were given an extensive list of songs from which to select favorites and blue file cards on which to write one or more choices. These were deposited in a small shopping bag. After the first person pulled out a card, whoever requested the song would draw the next. Many dedicated a number to an accompanying loved one. Cole, with John di Martino on piano and Jon Gordon on sax, spontaneously performed every song as if it had been rehearsed earlier in the day, which reflects just how good they are.

See the Martha Graham Company at the Joyce through February 22nd. Three distinctive programs are being presented so you can enjoy the talents of this extraordinary troupe again and again.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 60th Anniversary Season with Holy Ground: Woody Guthrie's Yiddish Connection, a multimedia presentation by Nora Guthrie, daughter of iconic American singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie.

The prestigious Joffrey Ballet Concert Group graces THE BLACK BOX in downtown Franklin with a spectacular program of dance that includes Gerald Arpino's celebrated signature work, Light Rain. The performance, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 21, is presented as part of THE BLACK BOX Artist-in-Residence Series, which also features afternoon master classes with Nicole Duffy Robertson, a repetiteur for The Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey Foundation and a faculty member at the Joffrey Ballet School, a premiere institution of American dance.

The Martha Graham Dance Company's Shape&Design theme explores Graham's defining influence as an American modernist with programs that feature the sculptural and architectural aspects of choreography by Graham and others. The Company's two-week season at The Joyce Theater in New York City, today, February 10-22, 2015, will offer Graham classics, new commissions, and premieres by guest choreographers in three varied programs. The Company's expansive 2014-15 season also includes a twenty-city U.S. tour, and several projects related to Shape&Design, including partnerships with the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the international art gallery Hauser & Wirth.

According to the New York Times, dance legend Twyla Tharp, whose choreography has been seen on Broadway in such shows as Movin' Out and Come Fly Away, is going on the road. The choreographer will celebrate her 50th year in the business with a national tour that will eventually make its way to Lincoln Center on November 22, 2015. The 15-stop tour will feature twelve dancers and new works to the music of Bach, Henry Butler, Steve Bernstein and John Zorn. An official schedule has not yet been announced.

The Muny announced today its 2015 production of Oklahoma! will feature the Laurence Olivier Award-winning and Tony Award® nominated choreography of Susan Stroman. The Muny is honored to be the first theater in the world to recreate this extraordinary choreography, last seen in 2004. The Muny production will be directed by Rob Ruggiero, with music direction by Kevin Stites. Ms. Stroman's work will be recreated by Ginger 'Rodgers & Hammerstein's score is everything you dream a musical should be,' said Susan Stroman.

RIOULT Dance NY, a leading American modern dance company with a classic sensibility, performs Bach Dances, a series of works set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach tonight, February 5 at 7:00pm, Friday, February 6 at 7:00pm, and Saturday February 7 at 7:30pm at the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at: 100 Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

Musiqa and NobleMotion Dance join forces in Tonal Impact, a dynamic evening of music and dance at The Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall, April 24-25 at 7:30 PM. Musiqa, winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, matches wits with the physically daring and visually stunning work of NobleMotion Dance. The evening features original compositions by Pierre Jalbert and Marcus Maroney, a light and technology installation from Jonathan Kinsey and David J Deveau, and performances by some of Houston's best contemporary dancers and musicians. Tonal Impact is a bold evening that will awaken the senses.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, beloved as one of the world's most popular dance companies, will travel to 18 cities coast-to-coast presenting 80 performances, beginning tonight at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Hitting other major venues like The Fox Theatre in Atlanta, the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, CA, the tour culminates May 10th at the beautiful Prudential Hall of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, where Ailey is the Principal Resident Affiliate. For tickets, visit www.njpac.org.

FirstWorks presents Spain's most authentic flamenco touring company, SOLEDAD BARRIO and NOCHE FLAMENCA in a searing, spellbinding evening of incomparable flamenco dance, song (cante flamenco), and guitar.

The Joyce Theater Foundation, Linda Shelton Executive Director, presents the U.S. debut of Le Centre National de Danse Contemporaine-Angers (CNDC) from March 10 – 15. For this highly anticipated debut, CNDC-Angers, under the artistic direction of former Merce Cunningham dancer and protégé Robert Swinston, will perform Event, a compilation of excerpts from pieces choreographed by Cunningham from 1965-1990. Tickets range in price from $10-$49 ($26-$37 for Joyce Theater members), and can be purchased through JoyceCharge online at www.Joyce.org , by calling 212-242-0800, or at The Joyce Theater box office at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.