Periapsis Music and Dance presents IMMINENCE at GK Artscenter 4/1-2

Periapsis Music and Dance presents Imminence, a new work by choreographer Erin Dillon and composer Jonathan Howard Katz, on April 1 at 8:00 pm and April 2 and 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm at GK ArtsCenter (aka Gelsey Kirkland Academy), 29 Jay Street, Brooklyn. Tickets are $24 advance, $30 at the door, with special pricing for students and artists of $15 advance and $20 at the door, available at http://periapsismusicanddance.org/calendar/.

Imminence, for five dancers and three musicians (violin, clarinet, and percussion), was inspired by outer-space images and time-warping properties of black holes. Artistic director and composer Jonathan Howard Katz said, "I saw Neil deGrasse Tyson describe in a lecture how, to an outside observer, an object moving closer and closer to a black hole would appear to be getting slower and slower. And you'd never actually see it go in; it would just appear to freeze on the edge. This seemed like a really interesting image for dance, and so I suggested it to Erin [Dillon] with the conceit that the percussion would 'be' the black hole, getting closer and more threatening as the piece went on. So there's an insidiousness to it as well, and that became our starting point."

Also on the program are two works from last year's The Portrait Project, which involved six guest choreographers in collaboration with composers, exploring ways to combine one dancer and one musician on stage. The company will present Reflection, by choreographer Katarzyna Skarpetowska working with Katz, for dancer and pianist; and Separate Rooms, by choreographer Joshua Beamish and composer Shawn Jaeger, for dancer and bass clarinetist.

The music for Reflection and Separate Rooms was commissioned by the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.

Rounding off the event will be guest artists from the Periapsis Open Series. The Periapsis Open Series is a performance opportunity, curated by Katz and open to application, for New York City-area choreographers working with composers and/or performing with live music. For the 2017-2018 season, some of these artists are invited to perform as guests on company shows.

The Open Series guests performing on these programs are Giorgia Bovo with composer Francesco Beccaro (Sunday shows); Madison Hicks with composer Tom Morrison (Saturday evening and Sunday evening shows); and Zara Lawler: The Flute on its Feet (Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon shows).

The Periapsis Open Series is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

"This program really brings together the different threads of what we're about," said Katz. "We have Imminence, which is a New Group work by our resident artists. We have some pieces from The Portrait Project, which speaks to our interest in commissioning guest artists as we build repertoire. And we have the Periapsis Open Series, which is one of our service programs that support other artists working at the intersection of dance and music performance."

Periapsis Music and Dance will present a full Periapsis Open Series program on April 30 (part of the inaugural Brooklyn Bridge Dance Festival) and further company shows on June 3-4, all at GK ArtsCenter. Later in June, they will hold a two-week residency program for emerging pairs of choreographers and composers to create new work on the company within a workshop setting.

ABOUT PERIAPSIS MUSIC AND DANCE

Periapsis Music and Dance is a Brooklyn-based organization dedicated to cultivating a new collaborative repertoire between choreographers and composers, and bringing dancers and musicians together in live performance. We create and perform new work with our resident artistic ensemble, commission guests, and develop resources to facilitate collaborations in the artistic community (such as free information on our website to help connect composers and choreographers, plus performance and workshop opportunities). We've performed at Symphony Space, Roulette, GK ArtsCenter, Kumble Theater, Spectrum, Peridance Capezio Center, Steps on Broadway, Dixon Place, and other venues, and we've developed a wide range of work, from one dancer and one musician to twelve dancers and eight musicians. The current ensemble includes seven dancers and six musicians, with resident choreographers Erin Dillon and Hannah Weber, and composer-in-residence (and artistic director) Jonathan Howard Katz.

ABOUT CHOREOGRAPHER Erin DillON

Erin Dillon is a NYC based choreographer, dancer, 500 hr Registered Yoga Instructor, and Pilates instructor. She graduated magna cum laude from The Hartt School/University of Hartford, where she performed classical works by Limon, Balanchine, Tudor, and Martha Graham, as well as current choreographers such as Emery LeCrone, Manuel Vignoulle, and Charlotte Griffin. Miss Dillon was a guest choreographer for the Periapsis Music and Dance spring 2013 concerts and is now a resident choreographer and dancer with the ensemble. She's presented her work in Emotions Physical Theater's 2016 Spring Performance, the American Dance Guild Festival, Steps Performance Lab Series, the Moving Beauty Series, the Provincetown Dance Festival, Sans Limites Dance, the 2013 Composers Now Festival's Music in Motion concert (with the American Modern Ensemble), and other venues. She has attended summer intensives in the US and abroad and was part of Northwest Dance Project's Launch 8 intensive. She has performed at many venues including the In/Out Festival at Jacob's Pillow as a company member of Abarukas.

ABOUT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JONATHAN Howard Katz

Composer and pianist Jonathan Howard Katz is building a unique body of work that combines an intuitive grasp of communication with a rigorous technical command. Current commissions include a new piano 4-hand work for Ursula Oppens and Jerome Lowenthal, and a new string quartet for Sarah Berges Dance and the Mivos Quartet. As artistic director and co-founder of Periapsis Music and Dance, he's worked with numerous choreographers, including Seán Curran, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, and Manuel Vignoulle, and he continues to develop close collaborations in the dance world. His music has been performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players, Cygnus Ensemble, Ensemble Pi, pianists Daria Rabotkina and Winston Choi, violinist Ari Streisfeld, soprano Mary MacKenzie, and many others. He's received commissions from the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation, New Music USA, and Concert Artists Guild, and is a recipient of the Robert Helps Prize and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. He holds degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University, New England Conservatory, and Indiana University, and studied composition with Jason Eckardt and Tania León.

For more information on GK ARTSCENTER, please visit: http://gkartscenter.org/