Susan Marshall News

San Francisco, CA, June 17, 2015 – New and recent works by PUSH Dance Company and leading mid-career and emerging dance artists from the Bay Area and beyond will be featured during PUSHfest 2015, presented by PUSH Dance Company, a San Francisco-based contemporary dance company, founded by artistic Director Raissa Simpson. PUSHfest is a mixed-genre dance festival that showcases the work of  mid-career and emerging choreographers alongside the PUSH Company at San Francisco's ODC Theater (3153 17th Street) on September 18-20, 2015. Program A will be performed on Friday, September 18, at 8pm and Sunday, September 20, at 4pm. Program B will be performed on Saturday, September 19, at 8pm and Sunday, September 20, at 7pm. www.pushdance.org/festival.  

Abrons Arts Center and 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. are pleased to present the world premiere of Sibyl Kempson's Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag (tonight, April 28-May 17), a musical meditation on the slippery nature of the photographic image.

This year's Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, a prestigious honor carrying an unrestricted $25,000 cash prize, will be presented to contemporary choreographer Liz Gerring in recognition of her talent and outstanding contributions to the dance field. Active in the dance world for nearly 20 years, Gerring regularly garners acclaim for her 'enthralling and important' works (Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times) that also 'reveals the dancers as the splendid athletes that they are' (dance critic Deborah Jowitt). Gerring will accept the Award and members of Liz Gerring Dance Company will perform at the Pillow's Season Opening Gala on Saturday, June 20 in the Ted Shawn Theatre. The company will return to perform the evening-length work glacier in the Doris Duke Theatre August 19-23. Previous recipients of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Award include tap artist Michelle Dorrance, the legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham, 2013 MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham, and Tony Award winner and director of New York Live Arts Bill T. Jones, among others.

Abrons Arts Center and 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. are pleased to present the world premiere of Sibyl Kempson's Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag (April 28-May 17), a musical meditation on the slippery nature of the photographic image.

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.

One of the world's leading contemporary dance companies, The Lyon Opera Ballet is renowned for its vast repertory of work by emerging and established choreographers. The company has acquired and commissioned ballets by a wide range of international dance makers including Jirí Kylían, Nils Christe, Nacho Duato, Trisha Brown, Ralph Lemon, and Bill T. Jones, among others. Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times hailed Lyon Opera Ballet as “a company full of surprises,” marked by “impressive individuality [and] versatile dancers.” The company returns to Meany Hall with a mixed program: William Forsythe's Steptext (a quartet set to J.S. Bach), Sunshine by Emanuel Gat and Sarabande by Benjamin Millipied.

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.

Today, November 1, 2014, Montclair State University will celebrate a decade of stellar performances at the Alexander Kasser Theater, a cultural institution that has garnered regional, national and international recognition for serving as a home for the world's most visionary talents and an incubator for the next generation of innovative performing artists.

?On November 1, 2014, Montclair State University will celebrate a decade of stellar performances at the Alexander Kasser Theater, a cultural institution that has garnered regional, national and international recognition for serving as a home for the world's most visionary talents and an incubator for the next generation of innovative performing artists.

PUSH Dance Company, under the direction of Raissa Simpson, announces the inaugural season of PUSHfest: a cross-genre (modern, ballet, hip-hop, ethnic, and multi-disciplinary) dance festival that situates 14 mid-career and emerging choreographers in two different programs at ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, this weekend, September 19-21, 2014.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's 'wildly imaginative' (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

Despite the welcoming size of its stage and its top technical offerings, nothing about the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University has been considered sacred since its opening ten years ago. Peak artists have moved inside, outside and about the theater with the greatest of ease, with only a single directive issued by Peak's Artistic Director Jedediah Wheeler: Challenge the minds and imaginations of audiences in unexpected ways.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's "wildly imaginative" (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

PUSH Dance Company, under the direction of Raissa Simpson, announces the inaugural season of PUSHfest: a cross-genre (modern, ballet, hip-hop, ethnic, and multi-disciplinary) dance festival that situates 14 mid-career and emerging choreographers in two different programs at ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, September 19-21, 2014. Tickets for the 2014 PUSHfestDance Festival are priced $30 general admission, $28 advance, $25 SeniorStudent, $50 festival pass for both programs, and may be purchased at http://odcdance.org/buytickets.php or visit www.pushdance.org for more information about PUSHfest or PUSH Dance Company.

Bang on a Can: Other Primary Structures, a concert featuring Bang on a Can All-Stars Vicky Chow (piano) and David Cossin (percussion) with Dither Quartet guitarists Taylor Levine and James Moore, will take place at the Jewish Museum on Thursday, July 10 at 7:30pm. This program is the first auditorium concert of the Jewish Museum and Bang on a Can's new partnership to produce a series of dynamic musical performances at the Museum from June 2014 to May 2015, inspired by the Jewish Museum's diverse slate of exhibitions.

PUSH Dance Company, under the direction of Raissa Simpson, announces the inaugural season of PUSHfest: a cross-genre (modern, ballet, hip-hop, ethnic, and multi-disciplinary) dance festival that situates 15 mid-career and emerging choreographers in two different programs at ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, September 19-21, 2014. Tickets for the 2014 PUSHfest Dance Festival are priced $30 general admission, $28 advance, $25 SeniorStudent, $50 festival pass for both programs, and may be purchased at http://odcdance.org/buytickets.php or visit www.pushdance.org for more information.

Tonight, May 29 (8 pm), The Nouveau Classical Project and TrioDance Collective present the world premiere of a new modern ballet titled Potential Energies at BAM Fisher's Fishman Space. The 50-minute piece, choreographed by Barbie Diewald to music by rising composer Trevor Gureckis, will be seen in a single performance.

This year's Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, a coveted honor carrying a $25,000 cash prize, will be presented to choreographer John Heginbotham in recognition of his talent and outstanding contributions to the dance field. Heginbotham, an alumnus of The School at Jacob's Pillow, has garnered critical and popular acclaim for his contemporary works, eclectic and rich with “movement that exhibits sharpness, energy, formality and, yes, oddity” (Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times). His company, Dance Heginbotham, will perform the evening-length world premiere of Chalk and Soot in the Doris Duke Theatre July 30-August 3. In Chalk and Soot, Heginbotham joins forces with composer Colin Jacobsen to create a work featuring imaginative, theatrical choreography, live music performed by superstar string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the vocal stylings of Shara Worden (lead singer of My Brightest Diamond), and singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane on harmonium.

Last weekend, The Brooklyn Academy of Music saw the return of the Lyon Opera Ballet and the American premier of Christian Rizzo's Ni Fleurs, Ni Ford-Mustang. While commissioning works by contemporary choreographers is now a staple with ballet companies (particularly in Europe), Lyon Opera Ballet has developed a bit of a vanguard reputation in championing "modern ballet." Since its inception in 1969, the Company has commissioned works by American choreographers Bill T Jones, Susan Marshall, William Forsythe, and Trisha Brown as well as avant-garde European artists Alain Buffard, Maguy Marin and Jerome Bell, just to name a few.

The seventh installment of BC Beat on Monday, May 19th highlights award winning choreographers and performers from television, film and Broadway who have created and performed in some of the year's most anticipated productions.