Doug Varone Presents Stripped At 92nd Street Y, Continues 1/7

Doug Varone and Dancers' popular series of intimate studio showings entitled Stripped continues with its third installment on Friday, January 7 at 8pm at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. Presented without theatrical lighting and costumes, these pared-down, informal showcases provide a first-hand look at the company's artistic process, drawing them viscerally into Varone's choreographic world.

Mezzo-soprano star Theodora Hanslowe will join the company for excerpts from Varone's acclaimed production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridce. The original production premiered at Opera Colorado in 2001 and is being reprised in January at Palm Beach Opera. Hanslowe will also perform the rapturous Belle Epoque songs of Reynaldo Hahn in an excerpt from Tomorrow, Varone's searching exploration of intimate relationships. Within a series of intertwined duets and solos, the dancers' soaring gestures and eddying movement powerfully echo the music's quiet poetry.

The program also includes a showing of small dance sketches being used for Carrugi, a work-in-progress that is being developed over the course of the 2010-11 Stripped series. The title of the work is taken from the Italian word for the narrow and often steep lanes that penetrate the heart of Italy's Liguria region. Inspired by the patterns and energy of these labyrinths, the dance will visually and architecturally rise and fall against the beauty of selected Italian arias and operatic choral selections.

Another highlight of the program will be a major excerpt from Chapters From a Broken Novel, a continuously unfolding sequence of 22 intimate portraits in which Varone reveals human nature at its most naked and vulnerable, expressive and poignant. Using Varone's random collection of quotes from books, films and people on the street as a jumping off point, Chapters From a Broken Novel applies the choreographer's palette of intensely physical, visceral movement to bring to life the seemingly abstract thoughts of humans caught in everyday life. The company will present the New York premiere of Chapters from a Broken Novel at The Joyce Theater from March 15-20. 2011.

Doug Varone and Dancers
Stripped
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 8pm
92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center
1395 Lexington Ave.
Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 cash at the door.
A cash bar will be available.
Please note that the program is subject to change.
For more information or to order tickets, go to www.dougvaroneanddancers.org/stripped.php or call 212-279-3344.

Doug Varone and Dancers receives major support from the Alphawood Foundation, the Lila Wallace Theater Fund, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Shubert Foundation, the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Harkness Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.