Konverjdans To Perform KONVERJDANS: III At The Mark O'Donnell Theater

konverjdans, the Brooklyn-based contemporary ballet company founded and directed by Tiffany Mangulabnan (former principal dancer with the Philippine Ballet Theatre), Jordan Miller (formerly of the New York City Ballet), and Amy Saunder (formerly of Suzanne Farrell Ballet), three female dancers/choreographers, launches its third spring season with 'konverjdans: III', presenting three world premieres:

'Rosé then Red', choreographed by BalletX's Caili Quan over two of konverjdans's annual choreographic residencies at Silo Kirkland Farms Pennsylvania, is a lively narrative ballet for five dancers told through live music, sprinklings of romance and humor, and energetic dancing that is a mix of technical pointe work for the three women and the quirky, quick, and fluid contemporary vocabulary that Quan is so adept at. The piece is set to the live jazz-and-blues music of Likho Duo, an acoustic group comprised of contrabassist Cliff Schmitt and Italian guitar-and-harmonica virtuoso Noé Socha.

'Nobody Knows Our Names', for six dancers, is the third piece artistic director Tiffany Mangulabnan has choreographed for konverjdans, this time drawing inspiration from literary giant James Baldwin and the recording of his speech "The Artist's Struggle for Integrity", given in New York City in 1962, which lends its cadence, rhythm, and underlying meaning to the piece. She collaborates with Brooklyn-based African-American "conscious emcee" and music engineer The Real Mike Wilson and percussionist Christian Lee to weave music through and around Baldwin's words and her choreography.

Closing the evening will be 'Quantum Entanglement', artistic director Amy Saunder's visual brain-child of light and dance - a world in which dance, light, and shadows, with the help of Conor Mulligan's lighting design, collide with the intense percussive music of electronic musician and drummer Ian Chang, who is known and acclaimed for the use of his technologically-rigged drum kit to create and manipulate the worlds of sound and light around him.

'konverjdans: III' runs from May 31 to June 1, 2019, 7:30pm, The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center (160 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY 11201). $20 general admission. Tickets: bit.ly/konverj3