Music, Dance And Nature Intersect In Outdoor Site-Specific Collaboration At Kaatsbaan Cultural Park

Garen Scribner, a pioneering professional dancer committed to cultivating multi-disciplinary artistic experiences through performance and production, collaborates with celebrated classical pianist Hunter Noack and his outdoor music series IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild,for the world premiere of American Lyric, May 27 and May 28, as part of Kaatsbaan Cultural Park's 2021 Spring Festival.

The new work will be created during a Kaatsbaan residency made possible in part by a grant from the Howard Gilman Foundation. As Kaatsbaan's first solo commission in its 30-year history, the immersive experience convenes an ensemble of diverse and multi-disciplinary dance artists to perform site-specific, self-choreographed dances, performed as part of the IN A LANDSCAPE experience where live classical music is transmitted to audience members via wireless headphones. Audiences will experience both music and dance while wandering - safely distanced - through lush meadows that abut Kaatsbaan's old-growth forests.

American Lyric brings together world-renowned dance artists to perform alongside Noack's IN A LANDSCAPE, which brings a 9-foot Steinway grand piano on a flatbed trailer to America's National Parks, urban greenspaces, working ranches, and historical sites for classical music concerts that connect people with each landscape. At Kaatsbaan, Steinway & Sons will provide a Spirio R Model D piano for the special event. The work's title, American Lyric is a nod to Amanda Gorman's inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb, and celebrates a renewed American patriotism, holding with it the promise that new stories of hope, love, kindness and resilience have yet to be written.

Garen Scribner (Nederlands Dans Theater 1, San Francisco Ballet, An American in Paris on Broadway) has curated a diverse group of dancers who, with himself, will create their own lyric verses, autobiographical dance poems in response to Hunter's music amidst the beautiful American landscape of meadows, hills, and mountains of the Hudson River Valley: Coral Dolphin (Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Ballet Hispanico, Madonna world tour, Oklahoma on Broadway), Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber (Batsheva Dance Company, subjects of the Netflix documentary Bobbi Jene), ShanDien 'Sonwai' LaRance (Native American Hoop dancer, Cirque de Soleil's Totem), and Taylor Stanley (Principal Dancer, New York City Ballet).

"Like so many who've experienced extreme hardship during the pandemic, dancers have suffered tremendous losses and have faced their own unique and extraordinary reckoning, locked out of our sacred performance spaces and unable to earn a living," explains Garen. "As American Lyric so firmly demonstrates, however, artists are alchemists. This new dance work, set to live classical music and performed outdoors in the shadow of the Catskill mountains, represents the resilience of creativity against existential challenge," he continues. "By collaborating with IN A LANDSCAPE we are able to displace the traditional setting - a theater or concert hall - and we decentralize the notion of what it is to 'see' or 'hear' a show. It's 'choose your own adventure,' so join us and sit, wander, or dance along!"

"For the last six years we have pulled a custom trailer carrying a 9' Steinway down America's back roads to create site-specific performances with poets, dancers, visual artists and musicians of all walks," says Hunter. "Looking out from the stage, I see the city's matrons, cowboys on horseback, and adventurists settling in the grass after a long day's bike ride, all listening to some of the greatest works written for piano through wireless headphones. In this moment I see the democracy of our open spaces, the magic of technology, and the power of music to bring people together to have a shared experience. At this confluence of nature and the performing arts, Kaatsbaan has visioned a festival truly of its time. I could not be more excited to create American Lyric with Garen who has deftly assembled the most magnificent cohort of dance artists imaginable."

"The mission of Kaatsbaan is to provide an extraordinary environment for cultural innovation and excellence - of which this project, American Lyric, wonderfully embodies," adds Sonja Kostich, Executive Director of Kaatsbaan. "I am thrilled that Kaatsbaan's first solo commission will have its premiere at our inaugural Spring Festival, utilizing the 153-acres of landscape unique to Kaatsbaan."

In addition, in collaboration with Kaatsbaan, Garen will produce an original film about the work, directed by Jeremy Jacob with his production company GarenMedia, capturing the spirit of the collaboration and its impact on the community, available at a later date.

American Lyric will take place May 27 and May 28 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $35 and are available at https://kaatsbaan.org. Kaatsbaan Cultural Park is located at 120 Broadway in Tivoli New York.