Norte Maar Celebrates Fifth Anniversary Season of COUNTERPOINTE

Norte Maar, a committed international think-tank dedicated to the creation, promotion, and presentation of collaborations in the disciplines of the visual, literary, and the performing arts, together with Brooklyn Ballet, present CounterPointe, April 7-9, 2017 in downtown Brooklyn's The Actors Fund Arts Center. This annual curated performance series features new work by women choreographers for pointe. For this, its fifth anniversary season, 7 women choreographers have been paired with 7 female visual artists to collaborate and create both a new physical and visual work by each--investigating the process of creation, inspiration and development.

CounterPointe5 will present collaborations by series curator Julia K. Gleich (Gleich Dances) with artist Elana Herzog, konverjdans with artist Nancy Baker, Brandi Marsh with artist Emily Noelle Lambert, Lynn Parkerson (Brooklyn Ballet) with artist Cornelia Thomsen, Ursula Verduzco with artist Lizzie Scott, Margaret Wiss with artist Noël Hennelly, and Eryn Renee Young (XAOC Contemporary Ballet) with artist Leslie Kerby.

Inaugurated in 2012 CounterPointe is focused on the presentation of new works by women choreographers for the pointe shoe. The series has been celebrated for breaking new ground expanding the ballet concert vocabulary, investigating new and historic territory, encouraging discussion and creating a forum for women, young or old, emerging or established, to take artistic risks.

"CounterPointe has become the mainstay series featuring new work by women choreographers who continue to push the limits and tradition of ballet," explains Julia Gleich, Co-Founder of Norte Maar and the originator CounterPointe. "The series continues to be one of the only in New York City to feature new work by established and emerging women choreographers. The collaborative element, pairing each choreographer with an artist, brings an added inspiring layer to the series offering a fresh new look at the ballet idiom and furthering the collaborative spirit while normalizing the role of women as creative leaders."

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department for Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

SCHEDULE
Friday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 9 at 4:00 p.m.

Post-Performance discussion with the choreographers led by an invited guest will be held Saturday, April 8.

TICKET INFO
General admission tickets are $25, Students and seniors, $20. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/counterpointe5-tickets-31237520264.

VENUE INFORMATION
The Actors Fund Arts Center is located at 160 Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn and accessible by A, C, or G trains to Hoyt-Schermerhorn. 2, 3 to Hoyt Street. F, R to Jay St./Metrotech. 4, 5 to Borough Hall.

PERFORMANCE NOTES

Pas de Deux|Premiere
Presenting company: Brooklyn Ballet
Choreographer: Lynn Parkerson
Visual artist: Cornelia Thomsen
Music: Jean-Phillippe Rameau
Piano: Julius Abrahams
Length: 9.5 minutes

Pas de Deux is a mixed-movement duet performed by a ballerina and a gliding hip-hop dancer. The piece explores intimate connections between the two bodies and the two dance vocabularies as well as virtuosity and bravura as implied in the dance's title "Pas de Deux". Artist Cornelia Thomsen provides the scenic backdrop, projecting a mélange of stripe paintings underlining the sharp contrast between the dancers but also bind the dancers to each other through stark but vibrant formalism.

Bi-Polaris|Premiere
Presenting company: Benjamin Briones Ballet
Choreographer: Ursula Verduzco
Visual artist: Lizzie Scott
Music: Philip Glass
Costumes: UBCostumesandDancewear.com
Length: 7minutes

With fear as the driving force, Bi-Polaris d, responds to growing anxiety in uncertain times, and the effect is has on brain and behaviour. With tangible obstacles placed by Visual Artist Lizzie Scott, a new normalcy becomes like a new language- a constant visual struggle, and a palpable hope against falling prey to desperation.

Martha Edwards|Premiere
Presenting company: Gleich Dances
Choreographer: Julia K. Gleich
Visual artist: Elana Herzog
Music credit: Country Western selections

Old Western movies, remnants, and movement motifs from classic ballet death scenes merge in a collage combining feminine and masculine traits from classic characters, weaving the movement we expect to see in a ballet performance with ideas we hate to love.