Revealing his vision for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for the first time, incoming Artistic Director Robert Battle today announced highlights of the company's 2011/12 performance season, offering a program that extends the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Amplifying his plans for the company, Mr. Battle also announced the inauguration of a major new program of the Ailey organization, the New Directions Choreography Lab, designed to serve the entire field of dance. Assisting choreographers in developing their work, the program will grant resident fellowships to four emerging and mid-career artists each year, offering a stipend, the use of gifted dancers from The Ailey School, creative mentorships and rehearsal time at The Joan Weill Center for Dance. Unlike other programs that require the production and presentation of a final performance or commission, Ailey's new lab will enable choreographers to focus solely on the process of choreography as a creative experience, free from all restricting expectations or deadlines.
"This is the beginning of a new adventure-for the company, for me and for our audiences around the world," stated Mr. Battle, who will succeed the legendary Judith Jamison as Artistic Director on July 1, 2011. "We are going to reach back and try to touch some of the vital sources of Alvin Ailey's creativity, but also stretch forward into new possibilities that develop his legacy. For the millions of people who love Alvin Ailey's work and have been inspired by the great achievements of Judith Jamison and our unsurpassed dancers, I hope this season will be just what the company has always promised: revelatory."The 2011/12 Season Program: Highlights
For his first season as Artistic Director, Mr. Battle has chosen to add to the repertory a rich array of premieres and new productions that express his vision for the company while honoring some of his most significant artistic influences. The new season celebrates an American modern dance master, addresses an important social issue through hip hop and spotlights an influential female choreographer. The programming includes the revival of an iconic Alvin Ailey masterpiece, presents a signature work by the company's new leader and takes the company in new directions through improvisation and audience participation.
World PremiereNew Work choreographed by Rennie Harris (2011)
Takademe (1999) choreographed by Robert Battle
For his first season as Artistic Director, Mr. Battle is bringing his fiery Takademe to the Ailey company. The complex, tightly woven rhythms of Indian Kathak dance are deconstructed and abstracted in this percussive, fast-paced work, where clear shapes and propulsive jumps mimic the vocalized rhythmic syllables of Sheila Chandra's jazzy score. Robert Battle comments: "Takademe is near and dear to me as one of my first creations. It's a work I made in the tiny living room of my old apartment in Queens. As I begin as Artistic Director, I want to acknowledge my journey, look back on what I did with so little and recognize having so very much now. Also, the work has a sense of humor, and some of my other works that have been done at Ailey were in a more serious vein. I wanted to share another aspect of myself with the Ailey audience."
The New Directions Choreography Lab, which has received leadership support from the Ford Foundation, will benefit the field of dance by creating an unparalleled home for the choreographic process, offering vital assistance each year to four emerging or mid-level choreographers working in a wide variety of dance techniques. The Lab will give these artists the opportunity to focus on the creative process by providing:
· Versatile Ailey-trained dancers· Rehearsal space and time
· Monetary stipends
· Creative mentorship
· An opportunity for editing
· Freedom to create without the constraints of a commission or final performance
The choreographers and creative advisors selected for seven-week residencies at The Joan Weill Center for Dance during the inaugural year of the New Directions Choreography Lab are:
Choreographer Creative Advisor
Adam Barruch.........................................Elizabeth Keen
Camille Brown.........................................Carmen de Lavallade
Joanna Kotze...........................................Gus Solomons jr
Malcolm Low...........................................Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Adam Barruch trained as an actor and studied dance at The Ailey School's Junior Division and La Guardia High School of the Performing Arts, as well as The Juilliard School. His work has been presented at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Cunningham Studio and Dance Theater Workshop. His company, Adam Barruch Dance, will be presenting this summer at the Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out stage and at the Chicago Dancing Festival. www.adambarruch.com
Elizabeth Keen will be advising Adam Barruch. After beginning her concert dance career in the companies of Paul Taylor and Helen Tamiris-Daniel Nagrin, she was involved with the Judson Church movement, became a founding member of Dance Theater Workshop and from 1966 to 1981 choreographed for her own company, which toured nationally. Since then she has choreographed primarily for opera and theater, including the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, the Royal National Theater, American Shakespeare Theater and the Kennedy Center. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University and The Juilliard School, where she co-developed the Composers and Choreographers Workshop and was among Adam Barruch's first teachers.Camille Brown trained at La Guardia High School of the Performing Arts, The Ailey School and The North Carolina School of the Arts, among others. She is a former member of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence and was the first woman to be awarded The Princess Grace Award for Choreography. She has received commissions from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and many other organizations and has showcased her work at Sadler's Wells (London), The Apollo, The Joyce Theater, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Central Park's SummerStage, Dance Theater Workshop, Symphony Space, Dancenow Festival and New York Fall for Dance Festival (City Center). She has served as Adjunct Professor of Dance at Long Island University and Barnard College and has created works for other major colleges and universities. www.camillebrown.orgCarmen de Lavallade will be advising Camille Brown. She was a member of the celebrated Lester Horton Dance Theater and made her Broadway debut in 1954 in House of Flowers, where she partnered with Alvin Ailey. She appeared in numerous television, film and off-Broadway productions and was a prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera, where she returned later as a choreographer. She appeared in Agnes deMille's American Ballet Theater production of The Four Marys with Judith Jamison and was a performer and a choreographer at the Yale School of Drama and later became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater. In the early 1960s she was a principal guest performer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and her work Sweet Bitter Love was choreographed for the Ailey company in 2000. She is a founding member of the dance company PARADIGM and received Bessie Awards in 2000 and 2010.Joanna Kotze, originally from South Africa and now based in New York, began choreographing in 2004. She has shown work at Danspace Project's Food for Thought, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, the 92nd Street Y, WAXworks and as part of Soho20 Gallery's Savior Faire Fall 2010 Performance Series with artist Asuka Goto. She is on faculty at Movement Research and has studied Klein technique with Barbara Mahler. Her work will be presented at Dixon Place this spring, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out this summer and Dance New Amsterdam this fall. She currently performs with Kimberly Bartosik/daela, Netta Yerushalmy and Daniel Charon and has danced extensively with the Metropolitan Opera. She also holds a BA in architecture from Miami University and is a freelance architectural model builder. www.joannakotze.comGus Solomons jr will be advising Joanna Kotze. He danced in the companies of Pearl Lang, Donald McKayle, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. He is a founding member of PARADIGM, a repertory dance company for veteran performers, and received a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement in Choreography in 2000 and a second Bessie in 2010. He is also an arts professor at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts as well as a freelance dance writer.Malcolm Low trained with Joseph Holmes Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Homer Bryant and the Ruther Page Foundation. He has performed with Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Stephen Petronio, Complexions, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, among many others. His work has been shown at the River to River Festival, Dance Theater Workshop's DanceNOW, Harlem Stage, White Wave's Wave Rising Series, Dixon Place and SummerStage and he works with Crystal Pite and her company KIDD PIVOT.Jawole Willa Jo Zollar will be advising Malcolm Low. She founded Urban Bush Woman (UBW) in 1984 as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. In addition to the 33 works created for UBW, her choreography is part of the repertory of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and Ballet Arizona. She was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and was invited to participate in a White House convening on using creative and collaborative approaches to community-building and civic engagement. Zollar is a Bessie Award recipient and was selected by the Kennedy Center as a Master of African American Choreography. She is also on the faculty of Florida State University, where she received her M.F.A. in dance.The Prudential Foundation and Wells Fargo are the
co-sponsors of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's New York season.
Toyota is Ailey's Official Vehicle Partner.
www.alvinailey.org
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), recognized by U.S. Congressional resolution as a vital American "Cultural Ambassador to the World," grew from a now-fabled March 1958 performance in New York that changed forever the perception of American dance. Today, led by Judith Jamison, AAADT has performed for an estimated 23 million people in 48 states and in 71 countries on 6 continents, including two historic residencies in South Africa, promoting the uniqueness of the African-American cultural experience and the preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance tradition. Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Inc. is the umbrella organization that includes Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Ailey II (1974), a second performing company of emerging young dancers and innovative choreographers; The Ailey School (1969), one of the most extensive dance training programs in the world; Ailey Arts in Education & Community Programs, which brings dance into the classrooms, communities and lives of people of all ages; and The Ailey Extension (2005), a program offering dance and fitness classes to the general public, which began with the opening of Ailey's permanent home-the largest building dedicated to dance in New York City, the dance capital of the world-named The Joan Weill Center for Dance, at 55th Street at 9th Avenue in New York City.
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