Doug Varone And Dancers Awarded The National Dance Project Touring Award

Doug Varone and Dancers proudlyreceived a National Dance Project (NDP) Touring Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) which will support the company's United States tours of in the shelter of the fold during the eighteen-month tour period of June 1, 2017 - November 30, 2018. Doug Varone and Dancers was one of eight companies selected from a highly competitive pool of 55 U.S. and international applicants. A publication of the winning Touring Award projects will be available in January 2017, each with its own tour coordinator. NEFA's National Dance Project is widely recognized as one of the country's major sources of funding for the creation and touring of dance.

"This group of projects has unique breadth. Artists are working in forms including vertical dance, Kathak, contemporary dance theater, Maya dance, and more, and these grants will enable presenters to bring high caliber dance to their communities with NDP support," - Cathy Edwards, NEFA executive director.

PREMIERE: IN THE SHELTER OF THE FOLD

Choreography by Doug Varone

Music by Julia Wolfe, Lesley Flanigan, Geoff Gersh, Raz Mesinai, Kevin Keller, Glenn Kotche

Faith and belief take many forms, as do the acts of coping, questioning, and the expectations attached to it. Within this intensely intimate work, we explore the physicality of fulfillment and disappointment, and the tension between the comfort one finds in community and the stifling pressure to conform. in the shelter of the fold is comprised of a cycle of six imagistic dances that can be shown as stand-alone works or as an interrelated episodic event. The dance's score comprises works by six of the most innovative 21st century composers working today.

ABOUT NDP
NEFA's National Dance Project (NDP) supports the creation and touring of new dance works in the United States. Since 1996, the program has distributed more than $33 million in funding to support the dance field in ways that enhance partnerships between artists and presenters with the equally important goals of engaging and expanding audiences for dance. To date, NDP has supported 351 artists to create and tour 646 dance works at 787 cultural organizations across all 50 states, Washington, DC, reaching over 2.7 million audience members.

NEFA's National Dance Project is supported with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and funding for special initiatives from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French American Cultural Exchange, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

ABOUT NEFA
The New England Foundation for the Arts invests in the arts to enrich communities in New England and beyond. NEFA accomplishes this by granting fund to artists and cultural organizations, connecting them to each other and their audiences, and analyzing their economic contributions. NEFA serves as a regional partner for the National Endowment for the Arts, New England's state arts agencies and private foundations. For more information, please visit nefa.org.

Doug Varone, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Award-winning choreographer and director Doug Varone works in dance, theatre, opera, film, and fashion. He is a passionate educator and articulate advocate for dance. His work is known for its emotional range, kinetic breadth and the diversity of genres in which he works. His New York City-based Doug Varone and Dancers has been commissioned and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues for three decades. In the concert dance world, Varone has created a body of works globally. Commissions include the Limón Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Rambert Dance Company (London), Martha Graham Dance Company, Dancemakers (Canada), Batsheva Dance Company (Israel), Bern Ballet (Switzerland) and An Creative (Japan), among others. In addition, his dances have been staged on more than 75 college and university programs around the country. In opera, Doug Varone is in demand as both a director and choreographer. Among his four productions at The Metropolitan Opera are Salome with its Dance of the Seven Veils for Karita Mattila, the world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, designed by David Hockney. His Met Opera production of Hector Berloiz's Les Troyens was broadcast worldwide in HD. He has directed multiple premieres for Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. His numerous theatre credits include choreography for Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatres across the country. His choreography for 2012's musical Murder Ballad at Manhattan Theatre Club earned him a Lortel Award nomination. Film credits include choreography for the Patrick Swayze film, One Last Dance. In 2008, Varone's Bottomland, set in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, was the subject of PBS's Dance in America: Wolf Trap's Face of America. Most recently, he directed and choreographed MasterVoices' production of Dido and Aeneas at New York City Center, starring Tony Award winners Kelli O'Hara and Victoria Clark, alongside the Company. Varone received his BFA from Purchase College where he was awarded the President's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007. Numerous honors and awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, an OBIE Award (for Lincoln Center's Orpheus and Euridice), the Jerome Robbins Fellowship at the Boglaisco Institute in Italy, two individual Bessie Awards, two American Dance Festival Doris Duke Awards for New Work, and four National Dance Project Awards. In 2015, Varone was awarded both a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Guild. Varone teaches workshops and master classes around the world for dancers, musicians and actors. He is currently on the faculty at Purchase College, teaching composition and choreography.

Doug Varone AND DANCERS

The recipient of 11 Bessie Awards, Doug Varone and Dancers has toured to more than 125 cities in 45 states across the US and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. Stages include The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, New York City Center, San Francisco Performances, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto's Harbourfront, Moscow's Stanislavsky Theatre, Buenos Aires' Teatro San Martin, the Venice Biennale, and the Tokyo, Bates, Jacob's Pillow and American Dance Festivals. In opera and theatre, the Company regularly collaborates on the many Varone-directed or choreographed productions that have been produced around the world. Doug Varone and Dancers continues to be among the most sought-after ambassadors and educators in the field. The Company's multidisciplinary residency programs take audiences deeper into the work, with a hands-on approach that moves beyond the studio to speak directly to people of all ages and backgrounds, both dancers and non-dancers alike. Our annual intensive workshops at leading universities have attracted students and professionals from around the country, and through our innovative DEVICES choreographic mentorship program, we are training the next generation of artists and dance-makers. Whether on the concert stage, in opera or theatre or on the screen, choreographer Doug Varone creates kinetically thrilling dances with rich musicality and emotional depth. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone's work can take your breath away with both its athleticism and its passion.