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Dorrance Dance's 2017-18 Season Includes Performances Across the U.S., Germany, France & More
By: BWW News Desk Sep. 08, 2017
Tap dance company Dorrance Dance, founded by Artistic Director and 2015 MacArthur Fellow Michelle Dorrance, announces New York City performance dates, new works, and tour schedule for the 2017-2018 season.
The season will include performances at renowned venues across the United States and in Canada, Germany, and France.
Highlights of the season include:
- The World Premiere of Myelination at New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival as the second half of Program 1 on October 2-3, 2017. Myelination will be seen again in New York for an extended run during the Company's
- Joyce Theater season from December 19- 31, 2017, where it will be accompanied by to-be-announced repertory highlighting Dorrance Dance's range and versatility;
- Myelination will also be seen on tour stops this fall in Beverly Hills, Berkeley, and Davis, CA; next winter in Lake Worth, FL, Greenville, NC, Richmond, VA; and followed by spring performances in Seattle, WA and Vancouver, BC, with additional dates to be announced. Among the tour repertory accompanying the new work are revivals of Dorrance's Jungle Blues (2012) and Three to One(2011);
- Dorrance Dance will make its company debut in France with ETM: Double Down(2016) in March 2018 on tour stops at Maison de la Danse in Lyon and at La Comedie de Clermont-Ferrand in Clermont-Ferrand; and
- Michelle Dorrance's seminal work, SOUNDspace (2013), will be revived in its full-length form in Cologne, Germany at Oper Koln in March for the first time since spring of 2014.
Ms. Dorrance says, "We couldn't be more excited to share the power and the importance of tap dance, its history, its possibility, and the tremendous value it has in our culture with new audiences throughout the world."
2017-2018 Season:
October 2-3, 2017 - New York, NY
Myelination (World Premiere)
Fall For Dance, New York City Center
An expansion of a piece with the same name that originally premiered at New York City Center's 2015 Fall for Dance Festival, Myelination (2017) has been extended into a new, full-length work with original live music composed by Prawn til Dante (Gregory Richardson and Donovan Dorrance) featuring vocals by Aaron Marcellus. The piece, in which each dancer is both an ensemble member and an improvisational soloist, challenges the performers to take risks and achieve new heights of technical and musical execution inside of the form of tap dance.
October 12-14, 2017 - Beverly Hills, CA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Wallis Annenburg Center for the Performing Arts
Accompanying the West-coast premiere of Myelination (2017), is a revival of the whimsical Jungle Blues (2012) and the rarely seen, Bessie-Award-winning Three to One (2011), described as"an odd, seemingly impossible marriage of tap and modern dance that came off edgy, seductive, and smart" by Sid Smith of The Chicago Tribune.
October 27, 2017 - Berkeley, CA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
October 29, 2017 - Davis, CA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis
November 15, 2017 - Storrs, CT
ETM: Double Down
Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, UCONN
The company will also continue touring its work ETM: Double Down(2016), which Brian Siebert of The New York Times called "a fresh and innovative show... when ETM: Double Down is rocking, Dorrance Dance is one big band." Choreographed by Ms. Dorrance and longtime collaborator Nicholas Van Young, the work features tap "instruments" of Young's original design, through which the score is not simply danced to - but danced BY the company.
December 19-31, 2017 - New York, NY
Myelination, Additional Repertory TBA
January 19-20, 2018 - Lake Worth, FL
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Duncan Theatre, Palm Beach State College
January 28, 2018 - Greenville, NC
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Wright Auditorium, East Carolina University
February 2, 2018 - Richmond, VA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond
February 23, 2018 - Blacksburg, VA
ETM: Double Down
February 27, 2018 - University Park, PA
ETM: Double Down
Center for the Performing arts at Penn State
March 2, 2018 - North Bethesda, MD
ETM: Double Down
Music Center at Strathmore
March 7-11, 2018 - Lyon, France
ETM: Double Down
March 13-14, 2018 - Clermont-Ferrand, France
ETM: Double Down
La Comedie de Clermont-Ferrand
March 16, 2018 - Cologne, Germany
SOUNDspace
Originally a site-specific work that explored the unique acoustics of New York City's St. Mark's Church through the myriad sounds and textures of the feet, Dorrance's SOUNDspace has been adapted and continues to explore what is most beautiful and exceptional about tap dancing - movement as music. Brian Siebert of The New York Times said of SOUNDspace that "Ms. Dorrance makes full use of tone, timbre, volume, tempo and, of course, rhythm, constructing patterns that lock together thrillingly."
April 7, 2018 - Seattle, WA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
April 13-14,2018 - Vancouver, CA
Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One
Dorrance Dance is a tap dance company based out of New York City. The company's workaims to honor tap dance's uniquely beautiful history in a new, dynamic, and compelling context; not by stripping the form of its tradition, but by pushing it - rhythmically, technically, and conceptually. The company's inaugural performance garnered a Bessie Award for "blasting open our notions of tap" and the company continues its passionate commitment to expanding the audience of tap dance, America's original art form.
Founded in 2011 by artistic director and 2015 MacArthur Fellow, Michelle Dorrance, the company has received countless accolades, rave reviews and performed for packed houses at venues including The Joyce Theater (New York, NY), The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), New York City Center (New York, NY), Lincoln Center Out of Doors (New York, NY), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (Beckett, MA), Vail International Dance Festival (Vail, CO), National Arts Centre of Canada (Ontario, Canada), Fira Tarrega (Tarrega, Spain), Staatstheater Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany), Danse Danse Montreal (Montreal, Canada), Hong Kong Arts Festival (Hong Kong), among others and including many colleges and universities across the United States.
The company is currently touring its repertory nationally and internationally while rehearsing and creating new works in its NYC home and through additional creative residency opportunities. As Dorrance Dance continues to expand its programs to help shape and educate the next generation of tap dancers, the company will partner with Nicholas Van Young's Institute For The Rhythmic Arts among other educational initiatives for the 2017-2018 season.
Michelle Dorrance is a New York City based tap dancer, choreographer, director, teacher, performer, and is the founder and Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance. Mentored by Gene Medler, she grew up performing with his North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble and has since performed with: STOMP, Savion Glover's ti dii, Manhattan Tap, Barbara Duffy & Co, JazzTap Ensemble, Rumba Tap, Ayodele Casel's Diary of a Tap Dancer, Mable Lee's Dancing Ladies, Harold Cromer's original Opus One, Derick Grant's Imagine Tap, Jason Samuels Smith's Charlie's Angels/Chasing the Bird, Jon Batiste and Stay Human on CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and toured the US, Europe, and Australia playing the bass for indie-pop sensation, Darwin Deez.
Most recently Michelle served as Vail Dance Festival's 2017 Artist-In-Residence, curated Tireless: A Tap Dance Experience at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival while co-directing its tap education program with Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and collaborated with Nicholas Van Young on Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum's first site-specific commission for the Guggenheim Rotunda. Michelle's choreography is performed throughout the world and has been featured at countless theaters, clubs, and festivals, including a choreographic commission for The Martha Graham Dance Company as a part of their Lamentation Variations and a high-fashion short film for Tabitha Simmons.
Michelle is a 2016-17 New York City Center Choreography Fellow, 2016 United States Artists Award Recipient, 2015 MacArthur Fellow, 2014 Alpert Award winner, 2013 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award winner, 2012 Princess Grace Award winner, 2012 Field Dance Fund recipient, 2011/2015 Bessie Award winner. She is an Artist-In-Residence at the American Tap Dance Foundation, has been featured on the cover of Dance Magazine and Dance Teacher Magazine, is a Capezio Athlete, is a Virgo (Aquarius rising, Gemini moon), and her favorite colors are various shades of green and grey. A passionate educator, Michelle holds a Bachelor of Arts from New York University, teaches on faculty at IFTRA, taught on faculty at Broadway Dance Center for over a decade, and teaches as a guest artist at universities, festivals, and arts organizations through the world. Michelle wishes to credit the master hoofers from whom she studied with in her youth for constant inspiration and influence.
Myelination (2017) has been commissioned, in part, by Cal Performances, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California and by New York City Center for the Fall for Dance Festival with generous support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Music for Myelination (2015) commissioned by the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.Myelination (2017) was also made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The 2017-2018 creation and presentation of an evening-length version of Myelination is also supported, in part, by a New Music USA Project Grant.
ETM: Double Down was created in part during a Creative Development Residency at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, in part at The Yard during a 2015 Yard Offshore Creation Residency, and during a residency provided by The Joyce Theater Foundation with major funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The creation of Three to One was made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project 2010-2011 Commissioning Initiative with support from the Jerome Foundation. Danspace's Commissioning Initiative is a core component of the Choreographic Center Without Walls (CW²).
The creation of SOUNDspace was made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project 2012-2013 Commissioning Initiative, with support from The New York State Council on the Arts. As part of Danspace Project's Choreographic Center Without Walls, Dorrance received a production residency supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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