Bill T. Jones, Martha Graham and More Set for The Joyce Theater's 2016-17 Fall & Winter Season

Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater, announced today the organization's programming for its 2016-2017 fall/winter season, which promises to be particularly spectacular, with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Lucinda Childs Dance Company, and Martha Graham Dance Company all returning to The Joyce for two-week engagements.

Dorrance Dance with Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely in The Blues Project, a hit of the 2015 season, returns as well, along with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, who takes the stage for a three-week holiday romp. Also on tap--Kate Weare Company, BODYTRAFFIC, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, an eclectic mix of companies whose work has previously captured the imagination of Joyce audiences.

NY Quadrille, which opens the season, and the second American Dance Platform series, which takes place in January, highlight talented young choreographers who point to the bright future of contemporary dance. The Joyce continues its commitment to presenting some of the most intriguing artists on the international dance scene by welcoming Danish Dance Theatre, Jérôme Bel, L-E-V Sharon Eyal | Gai Behar, and CCN-Ballet de Lorraine to our Chelsea home.

The following is a complete roster of companies who will be appearing at The Joyce Theater this fall and winter.

---

NY QUADRILLE:

Conceived and Directed by Lar Lubovitch

September 27 - October 9

Pam Tanowitz Dance

Tue, Sep 27 & Wed, Sep 28 at 7:30pm; Sat, Oct 1 at 2pm & 8pm

Curtain Chat: Sat, Oct 1 (following 2pm perf.)

RoseAnne Spradlin

Thu, Sep 29 and Fri, Sep 30 at 8pm; Sun, Oct 2 at 2pm & 7:30pm

Curtain Chat: Fri, Sep 30

Tere O'Connor Dance

Tue, Oct 4 and Wed, Oct 5 at 7:30pm; Sat, Oct 8 at 2pm & 8pm

Curtain Chat: Sat, Oct 8 (following 2pm perf.)

Loni Landon Dance Project

Thu, Oct 6 and Fri, Oct 7 at 8pm; Sun, Oct 9 at 2pm & 7:30pm

Curtain Chat: Fri, Oct 7

Tickets: $35 (General Admission)

A quadrille is an 18th century dance performed in a rectangular configuration and viewed from four sides. To kick off its 2016/17 season, The Joyce Theater will be transformed for the NY Quadrille, a sensational two-week engagement created by renowned choreographer Lar Lubovitch and commissioned by The Joyce featuring a specially constructed platform stage designed to create viewing from four sides. Following through with the spirit of "four," Lubovitch has selected four exciting choreographers-Pam Tanowitz, RoseAnne Spradlin, Tere O'Connor, and Loni Landon to create contemporary dance works on four sides. Each quadrille will be performed on its own program, with each program performed four times over the course of the two weeks. This transformation of The Joyce is sure to challenge audiences to embrace a new concept of the theater's physical space and to appreciate the artistry of the four choreographers chosen to participate in this exciting event.

DANISH DANCE THEATRE

Black Diamond

October 13 - October 16

Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Sat, Oct 15 (following 2pm perf.)

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

After its success in The Joyce's 2013 Ice Hot: A Nordic Dance Festival, Denmark's leading contemporary dance company returns with Artistic Director Tim Rushton's Black Diamond, a futuristic tale beginning with the company's dancers performing against a diamond-shaped black backdrop that, in the second act, transforms into shining silver. The piece is set to works by Philip Glass, contemporary Romanian composer Alexander Balansecu, and Danish electronic music composer Anders Trentemoller, with sounds ranging from tempo-filled electronic beats to lyrical tracks to the just plain noisy. All of this contributes to this startling exploration of the duality of experience and of hope making its way out of darkness as dancers move in light and shadows across the stage.

Program includes nudity.

JÉRÔME BEL

The show must go on

October 20 - October 22

Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm

Curtain Chat: Sat, Oct 22 (following the 2pm performance)

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

Described by The Guardian (London) as "a mischievously entertaining conceptualist who is less interested in movement than in messing with your head," Paris-based choreographer Jérôme Bel produces cerebral work that breaks the established barriers between performer and spectator. The show must go on, created in 2001 and recognized with a Bessie Award in 2005, is no exception. Constantly surprising and challenging audience expectations, the piece features twenty performers and a DJ who plays a selection of pop songs from the last thirty years.

Co-presented by Crossing the Line Festival. Crossing the Line Festival is produced by FIAF.

BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE COMPANY

October 25 - November 6

Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Wed, Oct 26

Tickets: $10-$60 (Joyce Members $34-$45)

Program A: Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist

Oct 25 at 7:30pm; Oct 26 at 7:30pm; Oct 29 at 8pm; Oct 30 at 2pm; Nov 3 at 8pm; Nov 4 at 8pm; Nov 5 at 2pm

Program B: Analogy/Dora Tramontane

Oct 27 at 8pm; Oct 28 at 8pm; Oct 29 at 2pm; Nov 1 at 7:30pm; Nov 2 at 7:30pm; Nov 5 at 8pm; Nov 6 at 2pm

The renowned company returns to The Joyce to perform two pieces from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company's Analogy Trilogy, a work based on oral histories that Jones conducted. Each part reveals Jones' ongoing exploration of how text, storytelling, and movement pull and push against each other as the performers move seamlessly between dancing, speaking, and singing. Analogy/Dora: Tramontane, recounts the story of 95-year old Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse, social worker and World War II survivor. A Joyce commission, Analogy/Lance: Pretty aka The Escape Artist divulges the story of Lance T. Briggs, whose battles with his own demons-drugs and excess-reveal another type of war.

KATE WEARE COMPANY

Marksman

November 9 - November 13

Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Thu, Nov 10

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

Kate Weare Company returns to the Joyce stage with the New York premiere of Marksman, featuring a fascinating original score from composer Curtis Macdonald. While collisions with others are what shape us cumulatively over time, Marksman acknowledges the beauty, and futility, of our own willfulness. Adopting the metaphor of "aim," Marksman looks at the precision we use to intuit one another with senses remote from modern consciousness yet imperative to survival. Through peripheral awareness, reflex, synchrony, magnetism, and repulsion we must reckon with the sheer forcefulness and fragility of our own formation. Weare draws inspiration from Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, "The [master] marksman aims at himself..."

DORRANCE DANCE with TOSHI REAGON & BIGLovely

The Blues Project

November 15 - November 27

Tues-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm (No performance Nov 24)

Curtain Chat: Wed, Nov 16

Joyce Family Matinee: Sat, Nov 26

Tickets: $10-$50 (Joyce Members $26-$38)

Since her Joyce debut in April 2015, Michelle Dorrance, founder and director of Dorrance Dance, has received a MacArthur Fellowship ("genius grant") for her part in "reinvigorating a uniquely American dance form in works that combines the musicality of tap with the choreographic intricacies of contemporary dance." In 2015, The Blues Project, co-created and co-choreographed by Dorrance, Toshi Reagon, Derick Grant, and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and set to music created and performed live by Reagon, sold out three performances quickly. This season, it will be brought back for two weeks, allowing even more audiences the chance to experience the brilliant combination of Reagon's music and Dorrance Dance's exceptional tap.

LUCINDA CHILDS DANCE COMPANY

November 29 - December 11

Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Wed, Nov 30

Tickets: $10-$65 (Joyce Members $34-$49)

Program A: Lucinda Childs: A Portrait (1963-2016)

Nov 29 at 7:30pm; Nov 30 at 7:30pm; Dec 1 at 8pm; Dec 2 at 8pm; Dec 3 at 2pm & 8pm; Dec 4 at 2pm

Program B: Lucinda Childs: Dance

Dec 6 at 7:30pm; Dec 7 at 7:30pm; Dec 8 at 8pm; Dec 9 at 8pm; Dec 10 at 2pm & 8pm; Dec 11 at 2pm

Over two weeks, The Joyce has the honor of presenting two programs of work by Lucinda Childs who, since performing with the historically significant Judson Dance Theater in 1963 and founding her company in 1973, has gone on to receive much-deserved recognition as one of America's greatest modern choreographers. During week one, her company will perform Lucinda Childs: A Portrait (1963-2016), a five-decade retrospective devoted to such seminal works as Pastime (1963), Radical Courses (1976), Interior Drama (1977), Concerto (1993), Canto Ostinato (2015), Lollapalooza (2010), and the NY Premiere of a new work commissioned by The Joyce, The Sun Roars Into View (2016), which features the music of Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld (Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre). The second week is devoted to the magnificent Dance, Childs' 1979 signature evening-length work that features a commissioned score by Philip Glass and the original film decor by Sol LeWitt in which the Company's original dancers are projected in perfect synchronization with the live dancers on stage. Both weeks promise to be remarkably "close to stage heaven." The Guardian (London)

LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO

December 13 - December 31

Tue 7:30pm; Wed 3pm (Dec. 28 ONLY) & 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 3pm & 8pm; Sun 3pm (No performance Dec 25)

Curtain Chat: Wed, Dec 14

Tickets: $10-$65 (Joyce Members $34-$49)

Program A: Le Lac Des Cygnes (Swan Lake, Act II), Pas de six from "Napoli," Raymonda's Wedding

Dec 13-14 at 7:30; Dec 15 at 8pm; Dec 21 at 3pm & 7:30pm; Dec 22-23 at 8pm; Dec 24 at 3pm; Dec 26-27 at 7:30pm; Dec 28 at 3pm & 7:30pm

Program B: Giselle (Act II), Paquita

Dec 16 at 8pm; Dec 17 at 3pm & 8pm; Dec 18 at 3pm; Dec 20 at 7:30pm; Dec 29-30 at 8pm: Dec 31 at 3pm

Spend the holidays with Ida Nevasayneva and Olga Supphozova! It's been twenty years since The Trocks, the internationally beloved male dancers who risk comfort for brilliant pointe work, first appeared on the Joyce stage, with each engagement confirming once more why audiences flock to see them year after year: they're witty, they're fun, and they're masterful at combining a real knowledge of ballet with the technical skill needed to perform it. This season, the Company returns with two programs featuring the New York premiere of the pas de six from the 1842 Bournonville classic Napoli and beloved re-enactments of Swan Lake, Paquita, and Giselle, as well as Petipa's Raymonda's Wedding, which made its world premiere in 1898 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater.

AMERICAN DANCE PLATFORM

Dedicated to the memory of Theodore S. Bartwink of The Harkness Foundation for Dance

January 3 - January 8

Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm & 7:30pm

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

Now in its second year, the American Dance Platform initiative continues to showcase some the most captivating American companies performing today. This year's festival, curated by Alicia B. Adams, VP of International Programming and Dance at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, features an eclectic roster of artists, including Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, Ragmala Dance Company, Company | E, Lucky Plush Productions, Davalois Fearon, Dallas Black Dance, CONTRA-TIEMPO, and The Manzari Brothers, with each of the eight companies performing twice throughout a week of double bills.

L-E-V Sharon eyal | Gai Behar

OCD LOVE

January 11 - January 15

Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Thu, Jan 12

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

In 2013, former Batsheva Dance Company member, associate artistic director, and house choreographer Sharon Eyal joined forces with long-time collaborator Gai Behar to create L-E-V. Together with DJ/musican Ori Lichtik, these artists have created one of the hottest dance organizations in Israel, setting work both on its own and other acclaimed international companies. L-E-V makes its Joyce debut with OCD LOVE, an evening length piece inspired by Neil Hilborn's poem entitled OCD, an obsessive-compulsive take on love, which has been watched by over 11 million viewers since Hilborn read it at a poetry slam in 2013. A pulsating fusion of fashion, electronic music, and technology, OCD LOVE, as described by Eyal, "comes from a place that I need to take out of myself, like a dark stone I have in my chest."

BODYTRAFFIC

January 18 - January 22

Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Thu, Jan 19

Joyce Family Matinee: Sat, Jan 21 at 2pm

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

Following its 2015 acclaimed Joyce run, the Los Angeles-based contemporary dance company lauded by the Los Angeles Times for being "one of the most talked about young companies" in the U.S., returns for a full-week engagement. On tap will be new works by acclaimed choreographers Anton Lachky, Arthur Pita, and Gustavo Ramirez Sansano -- in a program capturing the high energy and marvelous technique of this talented company who is blazing onto the international dance scene.

COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET

January 24 - February 5

Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Wed, Jan 25

Family Matinee: Sat, Jan 28 at 2pm

Tickets: $10-$60 (Joyce Members $34-$45)

Overflowing with virtuosity, technique and cutting-edge choreography, Complexions, "a matchless American dance company" (The Philadelphia Enquirer), is the future of contemporary ballet. Embracing diversity with 15 dancers of different ethnic and dance backgrounds and founded by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, two former stars with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, this company is pure dance, pure excitement. The engagement features repertory classics and new works with stunning, complex, and rich choreography.

CENTRE CHORÉGRAPHIQUE NATIONAL - BALLET DE LORRAINE

February 7 - February 12

Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm

Curtain Chat: Thu, Feb 9

Tickets: $10-$40 (Joyce Members $23-$30)

Under the artistic direction of former Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet principal dancer Petter Jacobsson, the Company, making its debut U.S. tour in 2017, arrives at The Joyce with two exceptional programs focusing on contemporary French choreographers. Program A combines the twirling of Devoted by choreographic duo Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud with Alban Richard's HOK solo pour ensemble, a piece driven by ferocious energy. The program closes with Sounddance, Merce Cunningham's 1974 masterpiece of organized chaos. Program B, entitled Unknown Pleasures, was created by five anonymous international choreographers and offers audiences the chance to experience dance unencumbered by preconceptions.

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY

February 14 - February 26

Tue 7:30pm; Wed, Feb 15 7pm (Gala Performance); Wed, Feb 22 7:30pm; Thu-Fri 8pm;

Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun 2pm & 7:30pm

Curtain Chat: Wed, Feb 15

Tickets: $10-$60 (Joyce Members $34-$45)

The Company presents Sacred/Profane, exploring the psychological, mystical and humorous aspects of magical thinking. Masterworks include selections from Graham's Dark Meadow, absent from the Graham stage for over ten years; Primitive Mysteries, reflecting the purity found in the virgin myths of the Southwest; and Death and Entrances, influenced by the Gothic vision of the Brontë sisters. The engagement features a new work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who draws on Sufi mysticism to create a piece set to traditional Middle Eastern music; and I Used to Love You by Annie-B Parson, who has been inspired by Graham's Punch and the Judy and will explore the domestic rough-and-tumble of that street theater classic.

CURTAIN CHATS

The Joyce Theater holds free post-performance dialogues with artistic directors and/or company members following the performance on the first Wednesday of each company's engagement unless otherwise noted. These dialogues are open to all audience members attending that evening's performance.

FAMILY MATINEES

Created to help build dance audiences for the future, The Joyce's popular family-oriented performance series will return this fall with three family-friendly matinees, each followed by a special chance to meet the artists. Kids' tickets are only $10. Children who see both of the family matinees automatically become Joyce Junior Members and save 40% on the price of their tickets ($10 reduced to $6). Children, ages 6-14, must be accompanied by an adult (maximum four kids to one grownup). Joyce Junior Members get a special "Backstage-at-the-Joyce" tour, a T-shirt and gift coupons.

This fall/winter season's Family Matinee series is as follows (Kids (ages 6-14) must be accompanied by an adult):

Dorrance Dance with Toshi Reagon & BIGLovely in The Blues Project

Saturday, November 26 at 2pm

BODYTRAFFIC

Saturday, January 21 at 2pm

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Saturday, January 28 at 2pm

---

The Joyce Theater Foundation (The Joyce), a nonprofit organization, has proudly served the dance community for over three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and The Joyce renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. With the leadership of Linda Shelton as the executive director since 1993, ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 400 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also presented dance at Lincoln Center since 2012, and launched Joyce Unleashed in 2014 to feature emerging and experimental artists. The Joyce operates Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios, making its nine studios available at subsidized rates for nonprofit dance companies. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (K-12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce's annual season of about 48 weeks of dance now includes over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 150,000.

To become a Joyce Member, ticket buyers simply purchase tickets to four different companies at the same time and they automatically save 25% on tickets (not applicable for $10 or $19 tickets). Joyce Members are entitled to the 25% discount on additional tickets purchased throughout the season - until August 2017. For more information on becoming a Joyce Member, visit www.Joyce.org or call JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Single ticket prices range from $10-$65. Tickets can be purchased by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800, in person at the Box Office (Monday - Friday 12-6pm), or online by visiting www.Joyce.org. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street).