Gotham Arts Exchange Presents 2nd Annual FOCUS DANCE, Now thru 1/13

FOCUS DANCE is a part of FOCUS 2013, the National Platform to promote American dance both abroad and nationally. The week-long platform presents performances of U.S.-based dance companies during the annual Arts Presenters Conference in New York City, and one of the largest gatherings of artists, dancers and dance professionals in the U.S. From tonight, January 8-14, 2013, four venues partner with Gotham Arts Exchange to present the artistic visions of five curators gathered to shape this year's edition:

This year's curator for FOCUS DANCE, Jodee Nimerichter of the American Dance Festival has assembled four programs featuring some of the most captivating companies performing today. FOCUS DANCE is comprised of four programs featuring eight U.S.-based choreographers/companies: Jodi Melnick, Stephen Petronio Company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Brian Brooks Moving Company, Rosie Hererra Dance Theater, Doug Varone & Dancers, Eiko & Koma, and John Jasperse. FOCUS DANCE will run from tonight, January 8-13, 2013 at The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, NYC. Tickets are $10-$39 and are available at 212-242-0800 or www.joyce.org.

Program A - Tuesday, January 8 at 7:30pm; Sunday, January 13 at 2pm
Jodi Melnick - Solo, Deluxe Version
Stephen Petronio Company - excerpts from The Architecture of Loss and Underland

Program B - Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30pm; Sunday, January 13 at 7:30pm
Camille A. Brown & Dancers - Tol E. Rance; Been There, Done That; and City of Rain
Brian Brooks Moving Company - I'm Going to Explode, DESCENT, and FALL FALLS

Program C- Thursday, January 10 at 8pm; Saturday, January 12 at 8pm
Rosie Hererra Dance Theater - Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret
Doug Varone and Dancers - -to-be-announced

Program D - Friday, January 11 at 8pm; Saturday, January 12 at 2pm
Eiko & Koma - White Dance and Flower Dance
John Jasperse - Fort Blossom Revisited 2000-2012

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jodi Melnick is a NYC based choreographer, dancer, and teacher. She graduated from S.U.N.Y Purchase with a BFA in Dance. Melnick is the recipient of the Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant (2010-2011); a Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2011 Award; and has been honored with two Bessie Awards for sustained achievement in dance (2001 and 2008). Her work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, La Mama, and commissioned for OtherShore Dance Company, and Barnard College. Additional commissions include: Dance Box, Kansai, Japan, Rex Levitates, Dublin, Ireland, Jenny Roche, for the Dublin Dance Festival, Maiden Voyage Productions, Belfast, throughout Russia, Estonia, for George Washington University, Bates College, and Monmouth College. Melnick danced with the Twyla Tharp Dance Company (1990-1994), and again in 2009. She continues to perform with choreographers: Sara Rudner, Susan Rethorst, John Jasperse (creating 'Becky, Jodi, and John'), Jonathon Kinzel, Vicky Shick, and Liz Roche. In 2005, she revisited working with Donna Uchizono, creating and performing in a trio with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Melnick performed as a guest artist with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and since 2002 has been an assistant director to Ms. Brown - creating and restaging two operas. She has collaborated with artist Burt Barr (Fanfare, 2009) and performed in the video/film works of Barr, and Charles Atlas. As a teacher, Melnick has taught master classes and workshops throughout the US, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Currently, she teaches at Barnard College in NYC, as a guest teacher at The Trevor Day School and at NYU.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY was founded in 1984, and has performed in 26 countries throughout the world, including over 35 New York City engagements with 15 seasons at The Joyce Theater. The company has been commissioned by Dance Umbrella Festival/London, Hebbel Theater/Berlin, Theater Scene National de Sceaux/France, Festival d'Automne a Paris, CNDC Angers/France, The Holland Festival, Festival International Montpellier-Danse, Danceworks UK Ltd, International Cannes Danse Festival, and in the US by San Francisco Performances, The Joyce Theater, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Wexner Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, and White Bird, among others. Over the past year The company performed at the Barbican Centre in London, England; the Milano Oltre Festival in Milan, Italy; Pittsburgh, PA, San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles ,CA; Albuquerque, NM; and Reno, NV. www.stephenpetronio.com

CAMILLE A. Brown & DANCERS are known for high theatricality, gutsy moves and musicality. Making a personal claim on history through the lens of a modern female perspective, Camille A. Brown leads her dancers through dazzling excavations of ancestral stories, both timeless and traditional, as well as immediate contemporary issues. The company's repertory explores real life situations ranging from literal to more complex themes with an eye on the past and present. The work is character based, expressing topics by building from little moments, and modeling a filmic sensibility. Theater, poetry, visual art and music, all merge to inject each performance with energy. Camille A. Brown & Dancers seek to connect with people, entertain, provoke, engage, and inspire. Let's begin. www.camilleabrown.org

Brian Brooks MOVING COMPANY Brian Brooks (Artistic Director and Choreographer) has been living and working in New York City since 1994. His interest in choreography emerged at a young age while growing up in Hingham, MA. At eighteen, he attended the American Dance Festival, where he was exposed to the scope of contemporary dance with guidance from dean and mentor Martha Myers. He continued to refine his technique while studying in Boston with James Viera, Diane Arvanites and Adrienne Hawkins and in New York with Jaclyn Vilamil and Risa Steinberg. As a dancer, he has performed in the work of Christopher Williams, Eun-Me Ahn, Sean Curran, Carolyn Dorfman, Neta Pulvermacher, and Hilary Easton, among others. He dedicated three years to performing with daredevil choreographer Elizabeth Streb, allowing him to profoundly test the limits of the body and its positioning in space. The Brian Brooks Moving Company, the main vehicle for his choreography, has been presented by world-renowned venues throughout New York, the US, South Korea, and Europe. www.brianbrooksmovingcompany.com

ROSIE HERERRA DANCE THEATER Rosie Herrera is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts with a BFA in Dance Performance. She has danced with Freddick Bratcher and Co, Animate Objects Physical Theater, Bill Doolin and Camposition Hybrid Theater Project. As a rehearsal director, co-choreographer and performer Rosie was in residency at the Chat Noir Cabaret at Dream Night Club in South Beach with the interdisciplinary performance ensemble CircX. Rosie is a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano and performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble as well as choreographs and stages operas independently throughout Miami. Her choreography has been presented by the Florida Dance Festival, Dot Fifty One Gallery, The Emerging Choreography Series at Excelo Dance Space and internationally as part of the Digital World Institute. She has been commissioned by New World School of the Arts, The Good for Something Dancers, The Miami Light Project in association with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts as part of the 2009 and 2010 Here and Now Festivals and the American Dance Festival in 2010 and 2011. Rosie is a 2010 MANCC residency recipient and was recently seen in Liony Garcia's Clandestine and Michael McKeever's South Beach Babylon. www.rosieherrera.com

Doug Varone AND DANCERS marks its 25th anniversary during the 2012 season. Since its founding in 1986, The company has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess. On The Concert stage, in opera, theatre, film and fashion, Varone's kinetically thrilling dances make essential connections and mine the complexity of the human spirit. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone's work literally takes your breath away. As the New York Times says, "Varone's superb dancers are always worth seeing!" At home in New York City, Doug Varone and Dancers is the resident company at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. On tour, The company has performed in more than 100 cities across the US and in Canada, Europe, Asia and South America, including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto's Harbourfront, Moscow's Stanislavsky Theater, 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 and -choreographed productions produced around the country. www.dougvaroneanddancers.org

EIKO & KOMA recently premiered Fragile, a four-hour event with Kronos Quartet. Other noted stage collaborations include Hunger (2008, with Cambodian painters-turned-performers Peace and Charian), Mourning (2007, with pianist Margaret Leng Tan), Cambodian Stories (2006, with the Reyum Painting Collective), Be With (2001, with Anna Halprin and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud), When Nights Were Dark (2000, with Joseph Jennings and a Praise Choir), the proscenium version of River (1997, also with Kronos Quartet), and Land (1991, with Robert Mirabal). They have created visual art installations in New York, Chicago and Minneapolis and have presented site works as free-admission events at dozens of locations for over 35,000 audience members. River takes place in a body of moving water. The Caravan Project, a "museum by delivery" installation, is performed in a specially modified trailer. Offering, a ritual in communal mourning, premiered in Battery Park near Ground Zero in 2002. Tree Song was presented in the St. Mark's Church graveyard in 2003. Water, another collaboration with Robert Mirabal, opened the 2011 Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival in the Hearst Plaza reflecting pool. www.eikoandkoma.org

JOHN JASPERSE presents live performances of contemporary dance and engages in a broad range of residency activities in the United States and abroad. Featuring the choreography of John Jasperse, The company continues to build a growing presence on the international contemporary dance scene. Through the development of new works and their presentation John Jasperse projects aims to challenge and engage its audiences in rich and innovative aesthetic and intellectual experiences, thereby expanding the form of contemporary concert dance and its relevance to the greater culture. www.johnjasperse.org

FOCUS 2013: FOCUS DANCE
The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), NYC
January 8 - 13, 2013
Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday at 7:30pm; Thursday - Saturday at 8pm;
Saturday and Sunday at 2pm
Tickets are $10-$39
JoyceCharge: 212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.focusdance.us

GOTHAM ARTS EXCHANGE, INC. is a non-profit arts organization set-up to provide administrative, management, booking, fundraising, insurance, and fiscal sponsorship services to the artists that make up the roster of Zia Artists. The idea behind Gotham Arts Exchange is to "pool" the resources of many companies together to be able to afford the many aspects of running a non-profit corporation that is vital to the infrastructure of a dance company. By doing this, each dance company that is not an incorporated non-profit becomes a sponsored project of the organization. Gotham Arts Exchange began producing at The Joyce Theater in 2006, presenting Battleworks and Paradigm, followed by Keigwin+Company and Battleworks (2008), Nicholas Leichter and Keigwin+Company (2009), Gotham Dance Festival (2010, 2011, 2012), and Camille A. Brown & Dancers (2012). The most recent venture is FOCUS (2012, 2013), a new initiative that promotes American dance during APAP.

The Joyce Theater FOUNDATION, INC., a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since 1982. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New York home for more than 290 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through pre-engagement Dance Talks and post-performance Humanities discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

Photo courtesy Stephen Petronio Company/Sarah Silver.