PARADIGM presents a program including two World Premieres on May 26 and 27, 2010 at 7:30pm at the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, 111 Second Avenue, Fifth Floor Theater. Tickets are $20 (students $15) and are available by phone at 212-998-1982.
The program features seven works, performed by Carmen deLavallade, Gus Solomons jr, Karen Brown,
Valda Setterfield, and
Michael Blake. The World Premiere of Montauk,choreographed by Gus Solomons jr and danced by
Valda Setterfield to music by Omara Portuondo, is inspired by a quote from Christine Gelineau's Inheritance: "I am the woman they give dead women's clothes to." The World Premiere of Idyll is choreographed by Kate Weare and danced by Carmen deLavallade, Karen Brown,
Michael Blake and Gus Solomons jr, to music by Anouar Brahem with costumes by
Sarah Cubbage. The dance interweaves two duets that explore trust and authority. Gray Study (1998), a revival with original music by Judith Ren-Lay and costumes by
Nancy L. Johnson, danced by guest artist
Hope Clarke, was inspired by overcoats - military, 18th century, and trench. A touching meditation on mortality, Lamps (2009), based on a monologue by
Jane Martin, is choreographed and performed by Carmen deLavallade. Karen Brown,
Valda Setterfield, and
Michael Blake dance Solomons's A Thin Frost (1994). The dancers' own sounds accompany this piece, as three uneasystrangers find consensus. being (2009) is a colorful discussion about identity - real and perceived - written and directed by
Kay Cummings and danced by Solomons. It All (2000) is danced by Karen Brown and
Michael Blake to music by Bjork, with choreography by Dwight Roden and costumes by Epperson. The piece tells of a couple traveling down life's road together.
PARADIGM, founded by Carmen deLavallade, Gus Solomons jr, and
Dudley Williams, vividly illustrates the eloquence that years of experience bring to dance expression. PARADIGM promotes and celebrates the talents of mature artists on stage, with a dance repertory created specifically for seasoned professional dancers. PARADIGM began in 1996 with the trio A Thin Frost and has since performed in numerous venues in New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, California and Canada to critical and audience acclaim. Performance venues have included:
Symphony Space, Cooper Union, Aaron
Davis Hall, Hudson Theatre, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Summer Stages, New York
City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
GUS SOLOMONS JR (artistic director/dancer/choreographer) dances, makes dances, teaches dance, and writes about dance. He loves pockets, puzzles, and structures (architecture degree from M.I.T.); danced in companies of
Pearl Lang,
Donald McKayle,
Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham; bicycles everywhere. He created the leading role in
Donald Byrd/The Group's nationally acclaimed The Harlem Nutcracker. He also created a movement role in
Martha Clarke's The Magic Flute at Glimmerglass Opera and Canadian Opera, and appears in Boris Charmatz's "50 ans de danse," a Merce Cunningham tribute, which toured Europe last fall and will again this summer. Solomons received a 1999-2000 New York Dance and Performance Award (a.k.a. "Bessie") for Sustained Achievement in Choreography. In 2001, Solomons was the first recipient of the annual Robert A. Muh Award for a distinguished artist/alumnus of M.I.T. In 2004, he was honored by receiving the American Dance Festival's Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching. During the 2006-7 season, he was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
KATE WEARE earned her BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts, and founded her company in 2005. Since then Kate Weare Company has performed at venues such as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Fall for Dance Festival, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop,
Symphony Space, and Bates Dance Festival. Weare received a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2009, was nominated for The Alpert Award in the Arts in 2008, and won NYC's The A.W.A.R.D. Show in 2007. Weare routinely collaborates with contemporary composers with an eye toward re-imagining the ways in which movement and sound interact. Recent opportunities, such as a 2007 MANCC Fellowship Residency based on improvisation with live musicians, and a 2009 premiere that featured a 6-member chamber ensemble playing live in
St. Mark's Church, have intensified Weare's commitment to working with composers and live music as an integral part of her development as a choreographer. In 2010, Weare will create commissions for PARADIGM, Scottish Dance Theatre and Australia's Buzz Dance Theatre, and the company will perform at St. Louis's Spring To Dance Festival, American Dance Festival and make their Joyce Theater debut. www.kateweare.com
For more information, visit
www.paradigm-nyc.org.
