Buglisi Dance Theatre To Take The Stage At Ailey Citigroup Theater

Buglisi Dance Theatre celebrates its 26th Anniversary Season with a program of works by artistic director Jacqulyn Buglisi, company principal dancer Virginie Mécène, Kristine Bendul and Abdiel Jacobsen, and Meagan King. The program will feature two world premieres by Ms. Buglisi, and a NYC premiere by Ms. Mécène, presented with a commissioning award from the New York State Council on the Arts, and performed by the brilliant of company dancers known for their power and passion. The Tuesday December 10 performance, an early Performance of Premieres running one hour, will begin at 6 PM and consist of The Moss Anthology: Variation#5, UNUM, In the name of the fire, and the flame, and grace, and Sand. The full program will be performed Wednesday and Thursday, with curtain time at 7:30 PM.

Added to the season are two works: I Love You, an exquisite gender-neutral ballroom dance performed by Kristine Bendul and Abdiel Jacobsen (Wednesday and Thursday). A dedicated educator for more than 40 years, and Chair of the Modern Department Ailey/Fordham BFA program, Ms. Buglisi has mentored scores of young dancers and choreographers, and each year invites gifted young dancemakers to present works on BDT's NYC seasons. This year she has invited emerging choreographer Meagan King to present her KINGS, a dance with narration on the Central Park 5 at the Wednesday performance.

Artistic Director Jacqulyn Buglisi will present the World Premiere of The Moss Anthology: Variation#5, which she has created to a commissioned score by Emmy Award winning composer Jeff Beal, famed for his compositions for film, television, concert halls, and environmental documentaries. Following preview performances, the work was called "A paean to the natural world and a plea to protect and preserve the plant" (Danceviewtimes). The ballet unites arts and science in a shared experience for humanity: "Reconstruction using geological evidence, ancient fossils and spores have revealed the crucial role of moss in creating the conditions for life as we know it " impressing the importance, in the global climate crises, of appreciating and giving back to the beauty and survival of all life on our planet. Variation#5 is a further investigation of the choreographer's two-year Moss project, inspired by the writings of Potawatomi botanist and poet Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, who draws on the wisdom of indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the need for reciprocity for the sustainability of humanity. Co-projection design of ancient trees, frothing cascades, and other natural scenes is by Obie Award winner Wendall K. Harrington and Yana Birÿkova. "A gift beyond measure, this dance demands both effortless strength and unaffected delicacy of its dancers, who convey a world in which intuition and respect for something greater than themselves underlies their being." (Eye on Dance).

The program's second World Premiere is Ms. Buglisi's In the name of the fire, and the flame, and grace...jb. The solo, performed by renowned principal dancer Blakeley White-McGuire, is dedicated to all people suffering from the global refugee crises.

Receiving its New York City Premiere is Virginie Mécène's UNUM, commissioned by Buglisi Dance Theatre and performed by Ben Schultz, Ricardo Barrett, and Alessio Crognale. UNUM, One in Latin, explores the idea that mankind comes from the same force of energy. No matter where we are from, when we were born, what gender we are, or what religion we belong to - Unconsciously, we are one. The trio was described in Dance Enthusiast as "an image of unity within diversity." The music concept for UNUM is a collaboration between the choreographer and Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi that uses groundbreaking medical technology conceived to measure the breath based on technology developed by David Kuller. The expansions and compressions of the dancers' rib cages as they breathe while dancing are collected into data that is translated into sounds, thus allowing interactive composer Baboni-Schilingi to create a musical support that echoes the present moment.

The season will also celebrate the 2001 Sand, one of Ms. Buglisi's major environmental works. Set to Philip Glass' brilliant String Quartet #5, the work is a tribute to the beauty of the desert and the soil of the earth we so cherish for our existence. Reviewing in Dance Magazine, Lynn Garafola found that "The partnering is complex and charged with eroticism....(Buglisi) works in images that seduce the eye as much as the imagination, with shapes, luminous textures, and stilted moments in time that offer an adventure in perception."

PROGRAMS (subject to change):

December 10 at 6 PM:

The Moss Anthology: Variation#5 (World Premiere)

UNUM (New York Premiere)

In the name of the fire, and the flame, and grace...jb (World Premiere)

Sand

December 11 at 7:30 PM

The Moss Anthology: Variation#5 (World Premiere)

UNUM (New York Premiere)

In the name of the fire, and the flame, and grace...jb (World Premiere)

I Love You

KINGS

Sand

Post-performance Talk-back

December 12 at 7:30 PM

The Moss Anthology: Variation#5 (World Premiere)

UNUM (New York Premiere)

In the name of the fire, and the flame, and grace...jb (World Premiere)

I Love You

Sand

Post-performance Talk-back

Tuesday-Thursday, December 10-12 (Tuesday performance at 6 PM; Wednesday & Thursday at 7:30 PM)

Pre-Performance Patron Reception December 11 at 6:30 PM

Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55 Street

Tickets: $25; Priority seating $35; $15 for students/seniors

Reservations: buglisidance.org / 212.719.3301

The award-winning Buglisi Dance Theatre is acclaimed for poignant, theatrical dances and multi-disciplinary collaborations on the human condition, promoting awareness of the critical issues and emotions of our time, from social justice to climate change. Based in New York City, the Company was founded in 1993 by Jacqulyn Buglisi, Terese Capucilli, Christine Dakin and Donlin Foreman, who performed together as Principal Dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company. BDT performs worldwide including, in NYC, at The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, the River to River Festival, and the Battery Dance Festival. On tour they have appeared at the Kennedy Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Vail Int'l Dance Festival, Dance St. Louis Spring to Dance Festival, the Kravis Center, and abroad in festivals in Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Israel and Italy. The Company's 100+ works are archived in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library and have been set on the companies of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Richmond Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Ice Theatre of New York, and others. BDT inspires students through its programs in the NYC public schools, as well as university residencies and performances including the U of California/Santa Barbara, George Mason U, Syracuse U, SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, and Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. Committed to empowering community through art, BDT embraces 150+ dancers in The Table of Silence Project 9/11, now in its tenth year, a free performance ritual for peace performed annually on the Josie Robertson Plaza of Lincoln Center and seen via livestream by nearly 1 million people across all 50 states and 129 countries.