Ellen Robbins, ZviDance and More to Headline New York Live Arts' 2014 THEATER ACCESS PROGRAM, 6/6-29

New York Live Arts announces the 2014 Theater Access Program - a comprehensive rental program that provides performance space and resources to a diverse group of self-producing artists of all disciplines. This year's artists include (in order of appearance) Ellen Robbins; ZviDance; Elisa Monte Dance, Bulglisi Dance Theatre and Jennifer Muller/The Works; and 10 Hairy Legs.

Performances take place at New York Live Arts' Theater. Tickets are available online at newyorklivearts.org/tickets, by phone at 212-924-0077 and in person at the box office. Box office hours are Monday to Friday from 1 to 9pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 8pm.

The 2014 Theater Access Program Schedule follows:

Ellen Robbins
Annual Student Concerts
June 6 & 7 at 7:30pm; June 7 at 3:00pm; June 8 at 12pm and 4pm
$15/$10 Students

Culminating a year's work with world-renowned dance educator Ellen Robbins, each student creates her/his own solo, steeped in the unmistakable individualism that resides in every child. Their works span a variety of theater experiences, including those that are humorous, dramatic, lyrical, minimal and abstract. Music selections range from Hayden to Bartok, Cage, T. Monk, and Ratatat.

Each of the five unique concerts include one or two of the following group pieces: Garden Party, Space Fantasy, Towel Dance, Piecework, Secret Service, Carnival of the Animals and Unzipped, as well as two new works created by the older students. For specific program information, visitwww.ellenrobbinsdance.com.

ZviDance
Surveillance
June 11-14 at 7:30pm, June 14 at 2pm
$25/$18 Live Arts Members, Associate Artists, students, and seniors

ZviDance presents its newest work, Surveillance. Experience the groundbreaking collaboration of contemporary dance, video technology and animation as the lines between performer and spectator blur when each take turns using cams to create video streams that will be recorded, projected and resampled on screens set up throughout the building. From the moment the audience enters the venue, they will feel the presence of these devices and participate in the evening's narrative. Scott Killian's provocative sound design will use real-time recordings of audience footsteps, conversations between audience members, and the sound of performer's breath to add an aural architecture of inhabitance and domination. Surveillance is an immersive-intrusive-inescapable-environmental dance piece that will leave you wondering how and why as a society we consent to this invasion into our private lives?

Elisa Monte Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, and Jennifer Muller/The Works
Monte / Buglisi / Muller LIVE!
June 17 The Works Gala, 7:00pm (For tickets call 212.691.3803)
June 18 - 21 at 7:30pm
$40/ $20
Early Bird Tickets $32 if purchased before May 16

Monte/Buglisi/Muller LIVE! offers the opportunity to experience three acclaimed dance companies together on one stage, in four shared programs featuring five pieces: three world premieres; 35 dancers; and four noted designers.

These three experienced and distinguished choreographers create work with powerful and highly original voices. Now at the height of their creative careers, they are presenting a diverse selection of work, including recent premieres and brand-new pieces. As choreographers, they are distinctly different but share the sensibility of creating work that combines virtuosic movement with an expressive edge that touches the heart - work that dances full out yet speaks of both individual experiences and shared humanity.

Butterflies and Demons (Buglisi) grew out of Buglisi's ardent concern for social justice and a collaboration with the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and FBI agent Julian Sher's story "Somebody's Daughter."

Lonely Planet (Monte) explores the growing isolation that proliferates in contemporary society, which seems to grow, not diminish, despite global inter-connectivity through technology and the ever-expanding communications options available.

Miserere Nobis (Muller/World Premiere), set to the music of the Allegeri: Miserere: Agnus Dei Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi, is an entreaty for mercy and grace. In an age of unspeakable conflict and cruelty, each of us asks forgiveness for all of us.

Untitled (Buglisi/World Premiere) The young composer Justin Dello Joio approached Buglisi with a proposal to explore a composition by Joio as well as one by his father (Norman Dello Joio), who composed music for Martha Graham's Seraphic Dialogue and Diversion of Angels.

Whew! (Muller/World Premiere) looks at the value and vagaries of industrious effort. With upbeat humor, unexpected shifting moods and awkward relationships, the piece comments on the disassociated lifestyle that stems from the non-stop activity of 70 hour work weeks.

10 Hairy Legs
10 Men/20 Legs in New York City
June 26-28 at 7:30pm; June 29 at 2:00pm
$20/$15 Live Arts members, Associate Artists, students, seniors
FREE Music and Dance Workshop: Saturday, June 28, 6:00-6:30 pm, Jerome Robbins Studio

10 Hairy Legs' return engagement at New York Live Arts showcases the company in works of diverse aesthetics by Julie Bour, David Dorfman, Doug Elkins, Dan Froot, Tiffany Mills, David Parker, Claire Porter and Randy James. All shows have live musical accompaniment, and the program features the New York City Premieres of new works by Bour, Elkins, Mills and James. Bour's work is set to a newly commissioned score by Kyle Olson, with scenic design by Benjamin Heller and costumes by Olivier Theyskens.

10 Hairy Legs is an all-male repertory dance company of Randy James' work as well as existing and new works, not meant to reflect a specific point of view about the male experience, but rather to celebrate and explore the tremendous technical and emotional range of the male dancer. 10 Hairy Legsadvances the understanding of the male role in dance through the creation, acquisition and performance of exceptional work.

In the free Music and Dance Workshop, Mr. James, members of the company and guest musicians Sarah Biber (Cello) and Jane Chung (Violin), discuss and demonstrate the nuances of the relationship between live music and dance. Participants should be prepared to move, but no dance training required.

10 Hairy Legs is a repertory company, founded in 2012 by Randy James, provides extensive educational and humanities programs throughout the state of New Jersey and at tour locations. Randy James has significantly impacted the field of dance for more than three decades locally, regionally, nationally and internationally as a highly regarded dancer, choreographer, teacher, guest lecturer, panelist and staunch advocate of the arts. In 2010 the The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation cited him as "The Patron Saint of New Jersey dance." As a choreographer, James has created more than 40 works on his own companies and on 16 other professional companies throughout the United States, garnering positive reviews from The New York Times and The Village Voice. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State honored him three times with Choreography Fellowships in 1995, 2002 and 2014 in recognition of his artistic excellence and named him "Distinguished Teaching Artist." As an Associate Professor of Dance, James has been a member of the dance faculty at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, since 1994.

Company members are Alex Biegelson, Tony Bordonaro, Robert Burke, Tyner Dumortier, Kyle Marshall, Aaron Ramos, Scott Schneider, Nick Sciscione, William Tomaskovic and Carlo Antonio Villanueva. They are all employed as performers and educators in the field, working with Stephen Petronio, Doug Elkins, The Bang Group, Tiffany Mills Company, ZviDance, off-Broadway in "Sleep No More," and the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, among others. 10 Hairy Legs appears throughout the Tri-State region, nationally and internationally.

Ellen Robbins has been teaching dance since 1966. She was the resident dance educator at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC for 34 years. Robbins is a recipient of the 1993 Arts in Education Roundtable Award and the 1986 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for her work with children. She has taught Dance Education at Sarah Lawrence College and has guest-lectured around the country and abroad. She has been on the faculties of the 92nd St. Y, Bennington College July Program, and with ArtsConnection, a performance arts project for public school children. She has directed the Young Dancers School at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. In the summer of 2001, Dances by Very Young Choreographerswas produced at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in the Doris Duke Theater. Robbins is known for her extensive repertoire of group dances choreographed in collaboration with children.

ZviDance brings its audiences a passionate vision of community in a modern age. A collaborative alliance among artists, the company's stirring work celebrates diversity by melding movement genres into the distinct dance vocabulary constantly evolving and refusing to succumb to dialectics of the medium. Led by Israeli-born Artistic Director Zvi Gotheiner, and Executive Director, Nikki Chalas, the company is shaped by a collaborative model of creation, involving the ensemble and designers from the initial research phase, so as to constantly push the methodology and ethics of a creation process within an inter-disciplinary format. In the last 20 years of existence, ZviDance has received critical praise and stable funding for its artistic projects, a work that fearlessly refuses to be bounded to specific thematic or aesthetic dogma. The company performs frequently at home in such New York venues as the Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. ZviDance has toured across North America to festivals such as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and The American Dance Festival, and abroad to Germany, Poland, Russia, Israel, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Japan.

Founded in 1981, Elisa Monte Dance (EMD) is hailed around the world for its visceral and sensual style and embodiment of diverse cultural influences. Based in New York City, the non-profit dance company actively tours nationally and internationally showcasing its distinctive cross-discipline style and bridging cultural barriers through dance. The company's eight dancers rise to the creative challenge in an ecstatic display of physical prowess that gives life to an intense array of emotions. At once true to its own distinctive style and eager to encompass diverse cultural influences, Monte's choreography takes a global view of movement that puts the world of dance within her audience's grasp. The company has toured throughout the United States and in more than 40 countries. EMD has been a featured performer at such prestigious festivals as Jacob's Pillow, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, BAM, Next Wave Festival and the Spoleto Festival (US and Italy).

Buglisi Dance Theatre (BDT) is acclaimed for its magnificent dancers, sublime theatricality and cutting-edge collaborations. Using literature, poetry, and heroic archetypes, Jacqulyn Buglisi crafts dances that explore human relationships revealing the visceral strengths, humor and exquisite vulnerabilities of the individual. Founded in 1993, BDT celebrated its 20th anniversary at The Joyce Theater. The company has toured worldwide from the Kennedy Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the River to River Festival to the Melbourne State Theater and Prague International Dance Festival. Its works are archived in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the NYPL. BDT inspires students through its arts-in-education programs in the NYC public schools, Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative, and university performances and residencies. Committed to changing lives through art, BDT embraces 100 + dancers in The Table of Silence Project 9/11, a multi-cultural tribute for peace presented at Lincoln Center, and seen by 25,000+ people via live streaming in 74 countries.

Jennifer Muller/The Works celebrates 39 years of presenting Muller's visionary approach to dance theater, creating pieces that illuminate the human spirit. The Works has electrified world audiences in 39 countries on four continents, 30 states in the US, and at 23 NYC Seasons. Venues include Jacob's Pillow, Lincoln and Kennedy Centers, The Joyce, City Center David H. Koch Theaters; Bryant and Central Parks and the United Nations. The Works' outreach programs reach 4,000 youth and mentor 50 choreographers annually. Muller has created over 110 pieces, working with 30 international dance, theater and opera companies and collaborating with such artists as Keith Haring, Keith Jarrett and Yoko Ono. Her prolific career has led to recent honors: Forteleza's Trophy of Cultural Responsibility, an American Masterpieces: Artistic Genius Grant and the publications: Tanz-Plan Berlin's Tanztechcik 2010 and Transformation & Continuance: Jennifer Muller and the Reshaping of American Modern Dance, 1959 to Present.

New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times. At the center of this identity is Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director, a world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer.

They commission, produce and present performances in their 20,000 square foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square foot studios that can be combined into one large studio. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, provides an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists. New York Live Arts' influence extends beyond NYC through their international cultural exchange program that currently places artists in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.