The Joyce to Present DANCING WITH GLASS: THE PIANO ETUDES

The Joyce Theater Foundation will celebrate the start of the holiday season with a momentous event that is sure to delight both dance and music aficionados alike. Dancing with Glass: The Piano Etudes, a new exploration of Philip Glass's works for solo piano The Etudes by five choreographic visionaries in their own styles, will play The Joyce Theater from November 28-December 10. Tickets, ranging in price from $12-$82 (including fees), can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org. 

 

Inspiring artists of many genres for decades and long celebrated for his collaborations across artistic mediums, Philip Glass is an icon not just in the world of music, but in dance as well. Dancing with Glass: The Piano Etudes is the latest choreographic interpretation of one of his most popular and enduring collections, The Etudes—a set of twenty works for solo piano originally composed to expand the composer's own piano technique. Conceived and produced by Pomegranate Arts and presented as part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in New York, Dancing with Glass: The Piano Etudes will see six titans of dance present five interpretations of Glass's iconic work in a way that only each of them can. Accompanied by featured pianist Maki Namekawa, one of the world's foremost interpreters of Glass's music, audiences will be treated to works by post-modern innovator Lucinda Childs, Chanon Judson of Urban Bush Women, Justin Peck of New York City Ballet, Brazilian tap artist Leonardo Sandoval of Music From the Sole, and Los Angeles-based choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber. This extended two-week engagement of this intimate work explores what can be created when eight masters at the top of their forms converge for one spellbinding evening of music and dance. Costumes are created by the noted fashion designer Josie Natori and provided by the Natori company. Lighting is designed by John Torres. 

 

Dancing with Glass celebrates the release of a new special edition “Philip Glass Piano Etudes” (Artisan Books, November 7, 2023; $150.00), a boxed set that includes the Complete Etudes 1-20 and a hardcover book Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass.

 

*     *     *

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lucinda Childs began her career as choreographer in the early 1960s, as a member of the seminal Judson Dance Theater. She formed her own company in 1973 and three years later was featured in the landmark avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, for which she won an Obie Award. In 1979, Childs choreographed one of her most enduring works, Dance, with music by Philip Glass and film décor by Sol LeWitt, for which she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. Dancetoured internationally and has been added to the repertory of the Lyon Opera Ballet. In addition to work for her own group, Childs has choreographed over thirty works for major ballet companies. She has also directed and choreographed a number of contemporary and eighteenth-century operas, most recently, Philip Glass's Akhnaten for l'Opéra de Nice Côte d'Azur with Childs's role as the narrator on film. Her additional opera productions include Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice for the Los Angeles Opera; Mozart's Zaide, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol and Oedipus Rex, Vivaldi's Farnace, and John Adams's Dr. Atomic for the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, among many others. In 2016, in an exhibit titled Nothing Personal, Childs's choreographic scores were shown at the Thaddeus Ropac Gallery in collaboration with the Centre Nationale de la Danse, to which she has donated her archive. Childs holds the rank of Commandeur in France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2017 she received the Golden Lion award from the Venice Biennale and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival award for lifetime achievement. She has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York, and received an honorary doctorate from the Université Côte d'Azur in 2021.

 

Chanon Judson has been growing with the acclaimed Urban Bush Women since 2001, as a performer and now Co-Artistic Director. She's a Director's Fellow with New Perspective Theatre Women's Work Lab, Chicago Director's Lab, and APAP's Leadership Fellowship Program. Choreographic credits include Times Up! (commissioned by Flea Theatre), The Hang (Taylor Mac, HERE Arts), Cannabis: A Viper Vaudeville (Collaborator/Performer - Baba Israel/Grace Galu/ Talvin Wilks), Orlando (Barnard College), Chronicle X (Nia Witherspoon), Prometheus Bound (Tank Theatre), The Invention of Tragedy (Flea Theatre), and Nurturing the Nurturer, her original performance-ritual/gathering for mothers. Judson has worked with Mickie Davidson, Talvin Wilks, Kwame Ross, Barak adé Soleil, Sita Frederick, Sandra Burton, and Allyne Gartrell. Performance credits include A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, God's Trombone (Craig Harris), Cotton Club Parade, Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Concert, and the Tony Award-winning musical Fela! Judson is an avid arts educator and has served as faculty with AileyCamp (Site Director), Alvin Ailey Arts in Education, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Earl Mosley's Institute of the Arts. Judson is the founder of Cumbe Center for Diasporic Arts' Dance Drum and Imagination Camp for Children and co-founder of Family Arts (FAM). Alongside her husband, they offer spaces for families to learn, explore, and create. Judson is a newly appointed Visiting Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo where she is investigating jazz embodiment, education, and organizing aesthetics as well as leading a charge to redesign the jazz curriculum to better reflect the rich contributions of the African Diaspora.

 

Maki Namekawa is a leading figure among today's pianists, bringing to audiences' attention to contemporary music by international composers. As a soloist and a chamber musician equally at home in classical and repertoire of our time, she performs regularly at international venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, Musikverein Vienna, Barbican Center and Cadogan Hall London, Citè de la musique Paris, Philharmonie de Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, BOZAR Bruxelles, Suntory Hall and Sumida Toriphony Hall Tokyo, Salzburg Festival, Ars Electronica Festival, Musik-Biennale Berlin, Rheingau Musik Festival and Piano-Festival Ruhr. Namekawa records and performs frequently for major radio networks in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and USA. In 2013, she performed the world premiere of the entire cycle of Philip Glass's 20 etudes for solo piano at Perth International Arts Festival, an evening featuring Glass himself, followed by concerts around the world. A double-CD of the complete Glass etudes has been released in 2014 by Orange Mountain Music, reaching number 1 of the iTunes Classical charts. In 2018, Namekawa released the piano version of Philip Glass's soundtrack MISHIMA – A Life in Four Chapters that depicts the life and death of the japanese writer and political activist Yukio Mishima. The arrangement was especially crafted for her by Glass's longterm musical director Michael Riesman. The recording was awarded the prestigious “Pasticcio Prize” by ORF – Austrian National Radio Broadcast. In 2019 Philip Glass composed his first Piano Sonata especially for Namekawa, which premiered on July 4th, 2019 at Piano-Festival Ruhr in Germany in the presence of the composer. Namekawa studied piano at Kunitachi Conservatory in Tokyo with Mikio Ikezawa and Henriette Puig-Roget. In 1994 she won the Leonid Kreutzer Prize. In 1995 she continued her studies with Werner Genuit and Kaya Han at Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, where she completed her diploma as a soloist with special distinction. She went on to perfect her artistry in Classical-Romantic repertoire with Edith Picht-Axenfeld, in contemporary music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Musikhochschule Köln, György Kurtág, Stefan Litwin and Florent Boffard.

 

Justin Peck is a Tony Award-winning choreographer, director, filmmaker, and dancer based in New York City. He is currently the acting Resident Choreographer of New York City Ballet. Peck began choreographing in 2009 at the New York Choreographic Institute. In 2014, after the creation of his acclaimed ballet Everywhere We Go, he was appointed as Resident Choreographer of New York City Ballet. He is the second person in the institution's history to hold this title. After attending the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center from 2003-2006, Peck was invited to join the New York City Ballet as a dancer in 2006. As a performer, Peck has danced a vast repertoire of works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, and many others. In 2013, Peck was promoted to the rank of Soloist, performing full-time through 2019 with the company. Peck has created over 50 dance works—more than 20 for NYCB. In 2014, Peck was the subject of the documentary Ballet 422, which presents Peck's craft and creative process as a choreographer in great detail, as he creates New York City Ballet's 422nd commissioned dance. Peck has worked extensively as a filmmaker, with a focus on exploring innovative ways of presenting dance on film. Peck choreographed the feature films Red Sparrow (2016) starring Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Francis Lawrence; West Side Story (2021) in collaboration with director Steven Spielberg; and Maestro (2022) in collaboration with director/actor/writer Bradley Cooper. Peck choreographed the 2018 Broadway revival of Carousel, directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Jessie Meuller, Joshua Henry, & Renée Fleming. Peck's honors include: the National Arts Award (2018), the Golden Plate Honor from the Academy of Achievement (2019), the Bessie Award for his ballet Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes (2015), the Gross Family Prize for his ballet Everywhere We Go (2014), the World Choreography Award for West Side Story (2022), and the Tony Award for his work on Broadway's Carousel (2018).

 

Leonardo Sandoval, a Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer, is renowned for blending America's tap tradition with Brazil's rich musical and rhythmic heritage. A true dancer-musician, he helped bring tap to a wider audience in Brazil via numerous TV and stage appearances, and by co-founding the Companhia Carioca de Sapateado in Rio de Janeiro. In 2012, he won global recognition when he was a finalist in pop superstars Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's talent show Q'Viva - The Chosen. One of Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch for 2021, he is the recipient of a 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise in Dance and a 2022 NYSCA/ NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography. Based in New York, Sandoval is a core member of Michelle Dorrance's acclaimed company, Dorrance Dance, performing across the world. Together with composer Gregory Richardson, he directs Music From The Sole, an NYC-based tap dance and live music company that explores tap dance's Afro-diasporic roots and lineage to a wide range of Black dance and music from jazz to samba, house, and passinho (Brazilian funk). His work has been performed at Lincoln Center, the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Guggenheim, The Yard, Chicago Human Rhythm Project, and Battery Dance Festival, among others. Sandoval has received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts (National Dance Project), New York State Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Dance/ NYC, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and the 92Y. He has held residencies at Jacob's Pillow, The Yard, Kaatsbaan, American Tap Dance Foundation, Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, and Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, and in 2019-20, he was the National Dance Institute's inaugural artist in residence.

 

Bobbi Jene Smith is a director, choreographer, and dancer who makes work for both live theater and film. Her work explores affect and apathy, domestic politics, and the rhythmic and formal connections between music and movement. She danced for the Batsheva Company from 2005-2014. Since then, she has choreographed original works for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Los Angeles Dance Project, VAIL Dance Festival, CORPUS of The Royal Danish Ballet, the Batsheva Dance Company, and others. Her dance and music theater works have been presented and supported by the American Repertory Theater, PS 122, La Mama, ODC Theater, Stanford Live, Carolina Performing Arts, Kaufman Hall at the 92Y, Luminato Festival, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and others. Additionally, Smith has starred in or choreographed films including Elvira Lind's Bobbi Jene, Georgia Parris's Mari, and Alex Garland's Annihilation. She has directed her own dance films, including Broken Theater and Gallop Apace. Smith is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts, and Royal Winnipeg School. She is a founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC). In 2019, she was awarded The Harkness Promise Award and was The Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Art Center. Smith is currently an Artist In Residence at LADP.

 

Or Schraiber is a dancer, actor, and choreographer. He danced with the Batsheva Dance Company from 2010 to 2017. In parallel to his time in the company, he served in the IDF for three years. After moving to NYC, Schraiber starred in or choreographed films such as Boaz Yakin's AVIVA and Terrence Malick's The Way of the Wind. He played the role of Zelger in the national Broadway tour of The Band's Visit. His choreography has been presented by numerous dance companies including Batsheva Dance Company, L.A. Dance Project, The Royal Danish Ballet, Corpus, and more. Schraiber has choreographed and performed in several commercials, short films, and music videos. He has also directed his own short dance films: Obsidian, Gallop Apace, Bloodroot, and Shivta. Schraiber is a founding member of AMOC (American Modern Opera Company). He is an alumnus of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Stella Adler Studio for Acting.

 

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is a program dedicated to dance launched in 2020 by the High Jewelry Maison. Its main goal is supporting artists and institutions in presenting choreographic heritage, while also promoting new productions. In addition, the initiative is complemented each year by major events, including a dance festival staged together with international partners: the first events took place in London in March 2022, and in Hong Kong in May 2023. For this first US edition, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is proud to be collaborating with prestigious New York institutions to showcase the wealth of choreographic creation. The festival's program is inspired by the three values which guide the initiative: creation, transmission, and education. Throughout several weeks, some 12 performances will offer a panorama of international choreographic creation, interspersed with recent works and pieces from the repertoire that have gone down in the history of contemporary dance. For more information, please visit https://www.dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com/en/new-york

 

Pomegranate Arts is an independent production company founded by Linda Brumbach in 1998 dedicated to the development of international performing arts projects. Realizing an artist's vision is the center of Pomegranate's practice to create ambitious provocative work that often falls outside of traditional genres and structures. Pomegranate Arts has produced the award-winning productions of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, Lucinda Childs' Dance and Available Light, Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music for stage and film, Robin Frohardt's The Plastic Bag Store, Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet's Landfall and many more. Their long association with Philip Glass has been one of Pomegranate's closest partnerships – and including the piano etudes, they have produced and toured over 1,000 Philip Glass performances in 50 countries. The special edition Philip Glass: The Complete Piano Etudes 1-20 (Artisan) is their first publication.

 

The Joyce Theater Foundation (“The Joyce,” Executive Director, Linda Shelton), a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community for more than four decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. Ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 475 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also expanded its reach beyond its Chelsea home through off-site presentations at venues ranging in scope from Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater, to Brooklyn's Invisible Dog Art Center, and outdoor programming in spaces such as Hudson River Park. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (1st–12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce's annual season of about 48 weeks of dance includes over 300 performances for audiences of over 100,000.

 

The Joyce Theater will be home to Dancing with Glass: The Piano Etudes, presented as part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in New York, from November 28-December 10. The performance schedule is as follows: Tue-Wed 7:30pm; Thu-Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm. Tickets, ranging in price from $12-$82 (including fees), can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.