2015 DANCENOW Joe's Pub Festival Kicks Off This Month

DANCENOWNYC continues its 20th anniversary celebration with the 2015 DANCENOW Joe's Pub Festival. Acclaimed for its adventurous short-takes format, the annual DANCENOW Festival presents a wide variety of work from some of today's most exciting choreographers. Continuing its focus on New York-based artists across generations, the 2015 Festival will feature short works by 50 emerging and established dance makers, all of whom DANCENOW has presented over the last twenty years. The Festival will take place at Joe's Pub, Wednesday-Saturday, today, September 9, through September 12, at 7pm, with an encore performance featuring a dozen producer picks on Thursday, September 24, at 7pm.

"This celebration is about honoring the amazing artists who took a leap of faith to create work for our unconventional programs over the past two decades," said DANCENOWNYC founder and producer Robin Staff. "It also celebrates our future, moving forward into the next decade with the endless possibilities that producing at Joe's Pub in New York City and the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA, provides us. After twenty years, we remain steadfast in our 'less is more' vision, embracing limitation as a powerful inspiration for creativity."

Each of the 2015 Festival programs will be hosted by a choreographic team representing DANCENOW's past, present and future, including Raja Feather Kelly and B.S. Movement (Bryan Strimpel and Shaina Branfman); Nicole Wolcott and Larry Keigwin; Deborah Lohse and Mark Gindick; and Chelsea Murphy and Magda San Millan. Several artists will revive works for this special occasion. David Parker and Jeffrey Kazin will present Old Fashion Wedding, their endearing duet from their work ShowDown, commissioned by DANCENOW in 2009.

PearsonWidrig DanceTheater returns to the Festival with an excerpt from its acclaimed work Lot's Wife, performed at the festival in 2001, and Heidi Latsky and Lawrence Goldhuber reunite as Goldhuber & Latsky for the first time in fifteen years, with a reimagined version of their Head Duet. New and recent works by other DANCENOW veterans such as Aszure Barton, Doug Elkins, Paul Matteson, and Ellis Wood will be presented alongside works by emerging choreographers Jordan Isadore, Cori Marquis, and Donnell Oakley, to name a few. Brian Brooks and Nicholas Leichter will join the encore as special guests. The complete lineup follows.

Festival tickets are $20 in advance / $25 at the door. Encore tickets are $25 in advance / $30 at door. Tickets can be purchased by calling 212-967-7555, online at joespub.com, and in person at The Public Theater box office from 2pm to 6pm. Joe's Pub at the Public is located at 425 Lafayette Street (between East 4th Street and Astor Place).

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2015 DANCENOW Joe's Pub Festival Schedule:

Date indicates the first time the artist(s) performed as part of the DANCENOW Festival.

Tonight, September 9 at 7pm

Hosted by Raja Feather Kelly/feath3r theory (2014) and B.S. MOVEMENT: Bryan Strimpel and Shaina Branfman (2011)

The Bang Group (1996)

Aszure Barton & Artists (2003)

Jane Comfort & Company (1999)

Mark Dendy Projects (1999)

Jordan Isadore (2011)

Paul Matteson (2000)

PearsonWidrig DanceTheater (1999)

Jessy Smith and Sydney Skybetter (2005)

Thursday, September 10 at 7pm

Hosted by Deborah Lohse/a.k.a. TruDee (2004) and Mark Gindick (2005)

binbinFACTORY/Satoshi Haga & Rei Fukuzawa (1998)

Li Chiao-Ping Dance (1998)

Goldhuber & Latsky (1996)

Lawrence Goldhuber/BIGMANARTS (1997)

Happy Hour Clowns (2005)

Sara Hook (1996)

Heidi Latsky (1996)

Lohse + Marquis + Oakley (2014)

Donnell Oakley (2012)

Yin Yue Dance (2007)

Friday, September 11 at 7pm

Hosted by Larry Keigwin (1999) and Nicole Wolcott (2002)

Tricia Brouk (1997)

Jamal Jackson Dance Company (2009)

Ali Kenner Brodsky (1999)

Cleo Mack Dance Project (2001)

Cori Marquis + The Nines [IX] (2011)

Gus Solomons Jr. (1997)

TAKE Dance (2010)

Megan Williams (2005)

Kathy Wildberger Dances (1996)

ZviDance (1996)

Saturday, September 12 at 7pm

Hosted by Chelsea & Magda: Chelsea Murphy and Magda San Millan (2013)

Banana Peel Dance (2005)

Doug Elkins Choreography (1997)

Christopher K. Morgan & Artists (2003)

Pengelly: Projects (1999)

Claire Porter/PORTABLES (1996)

Erin Reck Dances (1998)

RG Dance Projects - Rubén Graciani (2012)

Amber Sloan (2002)

Ellis Wood Dance (2000)

WKcollective/Wanjiru Kamuyu (2005)

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DANCENOWNYC is produced by directors Robin Staff, Sydney Skybetter, and Tamara Greenfield. For twenty years, DANCENOW has bent the rules to offer all-inclusive destination events that reveal the bustling energy and innovation of NYC dance makers. Created in 1995, as a program of the Downtown Arts Festival, DANCENOW launched in 1996 as an independent festival. Without a performance venue, DANCENOW learned to embrace limitation as a powerful source for creativity. Seeking creative ways to bring dance and community together, DANCENOW developed partnerships to connect new audiences to innovative dance makers. Presenting dance in venues both traditional and not, DANCENOW designed all-inclusive destination events for drained swimming pools, firehouses, galleries and Joe's Pub, where, in 2003 DANCENOW introduced the Dancemopolitan series. In 2005, DANCENOW furthered its "less is more" mantra, creating a "challenge initiative" to encourage work marked by brevity, clarity and effect. This inspired the commissioning of full-evening works specifically for the Pub, and the merging of all DANCENOWNYC programs to the Pub in 2011.

DANCENOW's programming at Joe's Pub has defied the standard and encouraged artists to think outside the box and utilize the unique space, creating an inspiring new platform for dance. In the last decade, DANCENOW has produced numerous critically acclaimed works at Joe's Pub including Doug Elkins' Fräulein Maria, David Parker's ShowDown, Misters and Sisters and Head Over Heels, Nicholas Leichter's The Whiz and 20/20, Kyle Abraham's Heartbreaks and Homies, Nicole Wolcott and Vanessa Walters' Alley of the Dolls, Camille Brown's One Second Past the Future, Monica Bill Barnes' Snow Globes, Takehiro Ueyama's Somewhere Familiar Melodies, Claire Porter's Sent-ence, and, most recently, Mark Dendy's NEWYORKnewyork@Astor Place.

From a small festival series to four distinct programs, from NYC to Pennsylvania, DANCENOW presents young innovators and emerging and maturing artists side by side, building relationships at varying stages of development and providing comprehensive assistance to advance creativity and new career paths. DANCENOW Joe's Pub challenges artists to investigate new directions. DANCENOW Raw funnels new artists into its programs. DANCENOW Silo and DANCENOW SteelStacks provide paid teaching, residencies, and commissioning and performing opportunities through partnerships with DeSales University, Muhlenberg College, Lehigh Valley Charter School, and ArtsQuest at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA.

DANCENOWNYC is supported, in part, with funds from the Barbara Bell Cumming Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information, visit dancenownyc.org and silokirklandfarm.dancenownyc.org.