David Parker & The Bang Group Bring Their Showdown to SteelStacks 6/11

It's an amazing evening of dance innovation and creativity as DanceNOW (NYC) presents its first program, ShowDown at SteelStacks with David Parker and The Bang Group, at the new SteelStacks arts and cultural campus in Bethlehem this Saturday, June 11, 7:30 p.m. The performance will take place at the just-opened Musikfest Café Presented by Yuengling at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem. Tickets are $25-$35 and are available in advance at www.artsquest.org or at the door.

ShowDown at SteelStacks features David Parker and The Bang Group in a dynamic cabaret dance performance rich with rhythm and humor. Working with a series of beautiful recordings made by Judy Garland and Howard Keel for the 1949 MGM film version of the Broadway show (with Garland eventually replaced by Betty Hutton), ShowDown takes the songs out of their original narrative context and places them in a wholly contemporary, choreographic world. ShowDown unravels the venerable musical's themes of a show down between the sexes, the lure of show business and the juncture of love and ambition with freewheeling and anarchic vigor. The eight dancers of The Bang Group dip and swirl, thud, hoof, tap and sing with their characteristic mix of precision and abandon through Parker's carefully crafted dances. No one is Annie and yet, perhaps, everyone is. Parker treats the score seriously as music and poetry and allows the humor to bubble up inevitably where it will.

This ShowDown engagement, which premiered at Joe's Pub in New York City, is brought to SteelStacks by DanceNOW and is part of the DanceNOW/SteelStacks dance programming. The Bang Group performs regularly throughout New York City and has had five full-evening programs presented by Dance Theater Workshop and two by Danspace Project at Saint Mark's Church. It is also a regular participant in DanceNOW Festival and DTW's Family Matters Series. The Bang Group has performed at Joe's Pub, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Joyce Soho and at many other downtown New York venues. It recently became the first dance company in residence at the West End Theater.

For more information on the ShowDown at SteelStacks, visit www.artsquest.org.