Nancy Karp + Dancers Unveils 2024 Season With Musical Guests Friction Quartet

Nancy Karp + Dancers has revealed its 2024 Season. The program will include a new work set to music by composer Samuel Adams, followed by the revival of fly through the night, and land near dawn set to music by David A. Jaffe. Nancy Karp + Dancers will be joined on stage by the members of Friction Quartet who will perform throughout. The event takes place April 6 – 7, Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Taube Atrium Theater at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco. Tickets, $30 - $60, will go on sale in December at City Box Office.

 

Since forming Nancy Karp + Dancers in 1980, Artistic Director Nancy Karp has choreographed more than 80 major works, appearing in venues around the world. Over this time, the company has earned a reputation for striking interdisciplinary collaborations, commissioning numerous composers, visual artists and designers in the creation of new dances. After premiering fly through the night, and land near dawn last year at the Paul Dresher Performance Studio in Oakland, Nancy Karp + Dancers is pleased to return to the Taube Atrium in San Francisco.

 

The company last performed in this space in 1981 when it was the Rotunda of SFMOMA. Karp recalls that at that time it was filled with Frank Stella paintings. The site-specific work her company presented then was an homage to the Rotunda's architectural features and its function. Just so, the still untitled work for seven dancers Karp is now making will respond to the Atrium's classical volumes and voids.

 

In equal measure, the work will respond to a string quartet with percussion by Samuel Adams, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and former composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Titled Sundial, Adam's piece explores ideas of resonance and brightness.

 

“The work is made of two distinct types of music,” writes Adams in a program note, “rocking music—fast, pulsing dual harmonies that sway back and forth—and cyclic music—slightly off-kilter contrapuntal figurations that blossom over long stretches of time. Only in the final minutes of the work does the music break out of these two types of material, ascending to a ringing, intensely bright conclusion.”

 

Joining the Friction Quartet for this performance will be guest percussionist Haruka Fujii. The Quartet's core members are violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Mitso Floor and cellist Doug Machiz. Now in their 12th year, Friction Quartet has demonstrated its commitment to new music, having commissioned 47 works for string quartet and premiered more than 100 works.

 

In the second half of Nancy Karp + Dancers' April program the company will reprise fly through the night, and land near dawn. Praised for its “imaginative movement,” performed by “a powerhouse ensemble” (Critical Dance), the work for seven dancers draws inspiration from the movement of small songbirds such as “warblers, thrushes, vireos, orioles, fly catchers, tanagers and grosbeaks,” how they “take their cue from each other, their interconnectedness,” said Karp.

 

Developed in three parts, fly through the night features music by Berkeley-based composer David A. Jaffe. The first two movements were written by Jaffe as separate works; the third movement, commissioned by Karp, unites them. Part I, “Fox Hollow” is a string quartet from 2013; Part II, titled “String Quartet for Two Instruments,” was written in 1983 during the composer's visit to Jerusalem and is based on an old Yiddish folk melody; and Part III, which premiered last year for Nancy Karp + Dancers' 40th anniversary, is scored for violin, cello, mandolin and mando-cello. Next April, Jaffe will join members of the Friction Quartet, performing the parts of mandolin and mando-cello.

 

Jaffe's works have been presented by the San Francisco Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Lithuanian Opera and Ballet Theatre Orchestra and numerous chamber ensembles. On the festival circuit, his works have been featured at Other Minds, the Berlin Festival, the Bergen Festival, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the Venice Biennale and the American Festival in London.

 

The dancers this season include Rachel Garcia, Sonsherée Giles, Anna Greenberg, Katie Kruger, Amy Lewis, Nol Simonse, Calvin Thomas and Elizabeth Zepeda. The lighting and production designer is Jack Carpenter, and the costume designer is Sandra Woodall.

 

Following the matinee performance on Sunday, April 7, the audience is invited to participate in a talkback with the artists. For more information, visit nancykarp.org.

 

ABOUT NANCY KARP + DANCERS

 

Since forming Nancy Karp + Dancers in 1980, artistic director Nancy Karp has choreographed more than 80 works. She and company members have performed together in many distinguished venues, here and abroad, including The Washington Project for the Arts in Washington D.C., The Kitchen in New York, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, the Für Augen und Ohren and Sprachen der Künste Festivals at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Kyoto College of Art in Japan, and the Zagreb Experimental Theater Festival in Croatia. The company has remained committed to interdisciplinary collaboration, commissioning numerous composers, visual artists and designers in the creation of new dances each season. Among these collaborators are Charles Amirkhanian, Alvin Curran, Kui Dong, Paul Dresher, Bill Fontana, Ingram Marshall, Sandra Woodall, Carol Law, Lutz Bacher and Wolfram Erber.

 

Nancy Karp + Dancers' 2024 Season is supported in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and the company's generous individual donors.

EVENT DETAILS: 

WHAT:

Nancy Karp + Dancers presents its 2024 Season featuring a world premiere, untitled, and the revival of fly through the night, and land near dawn. The program features live musical accompaniment by Friction Quartet.

 

Choreographer: Nancy Karp

Dancers: Rachel Garcia, Sonsherée Giles, Anna Greenberg, Katie Kruger, Amy Lewis, Nol Simonse, Calvin Thomas, Elizabeth Zepeda

Composers: Samuel Adams, David A. Jaffe

Musicians: Friction Quartet (violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Mitso Floor, cellist Doug Machiz, with guest percussionist Haruka Fujii and guest mandolinist David A. Jaffe)

Lighting & Production Designer: Jack Carpenter

Costume Designer: Sandra Woodall

 

WHEN & WHERE:

April 6 - 7, 2024

Saturday @ 8 p.m.

Sunday @ 3 p.m. (post-performance talkback with the artists)

 

WHERE:

Taube Atrium Theater

War Memorial Veterans Building

401 Van Ness Ave, Floor 4

San Francisco, CA 94102

 

TICKETS:

$30 - $60

Tickets go on sale in December via City Box Office.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

nancykarp.org

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