Laura Pawel Dance Co. Comes to Chen Dance Center

Laura Pawel Dance Company returns to the Chen Dance Center with the premiere of Cloudy with a chance of rain along with company repertory, all performed to original music played live by The Cecilia Coleman Quartet, Barebones, and Phil Stone. Friday & Saturday, March 15 & 16 at 7 PM at the Chen Dance Center, 70 Mulberry Street (at the corner of Mulberry & Bayard in Chinatown).

The Company remains true to its style and aesthetic, described by Gia Kourlas: "there is a good deal of talking while moving, and the dancing...isn't strenuous but deftly composed. Ms. Pawel experiments with improvisation within set choreographic structures." (The New York Times) Pawel formed her company in 1968, following her graduation from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied dance composition with Bessie Schonberg and poetry with Jane Cooper. Most of Pawel's colleagues have been with her for decades, both her dancers and musical collaborators.

Pawel will premiere Cloudy with a chance of rain, set to music by Phil Stone. Now a resident of Davis, California, Stone studied experimental music at Wesleyan University, where he met and learned composition for dance from Laura Pawel and Pamela Finney.

In addition to his many enjoyable years with the dance company, he is a member of The Hub, a San Francisco-based computer network ensemble.
Repertory works on the program are Tete-a-Tete, an idiosyncratic, complex conversation in motion for Stacey and Laura, set to music composed by Gene Caprioglio and performed by the duet Barebones (Caprioglio on guitar and Dr. 88 on harmonica).

Barebones also provides the music for the 2018 Sunset Beach, named after a section of Vancouver's waterside park where locals and tourists gather at sunset to enjoy the beautiful scenery of mountains, sea and sculpture.
The 2017 Plain and Fancy is danced to the cool jazz sounds of The Cecilia Coleman Quartet, on piano, bass, trumpet and saxophone.

The Quartet also accompanies Comfortable Silence, a 2016 duet for two longtime friends.

LAURA PAWEL began dancing with Betty Jones and continued with Merce Cunningham, Nancy Meehan, Elaine Summers, and Christine Wright. Pawel founded her company in 1968 after graduating from Sarah Lawrence. Her works are performed by a "family" that has remained constant for years, and combine improvisational structures with sound and text. In one of her New York Times reviews, Jennifer Dunning remarked that "Ms. Pawel and her charmingly oddball dancers of all ages are not afraid to follow their own drummers, not just into the future but also into a comfortable, friendlier past."
www.laurapaweldance.org