KWENTO To Be Showcasing Three World Premieres In Brooklyn

The Brooklyn-based contemporary ballet company konverjdans, founded and directed by women dancers and choreographers Amy Saunder, Jordan Miller and Tiffany Mangulabnan, launches its sixth season in New York City with "Kwento," presenting three world premieres by the artistic directors.

'Kwento' is the Tagalog/Filipino word for 'story'; after two years of separation and with many stories to tell, co-directors and best friends Mangulabnan, Miller, and Saunder return to the stage with three new works that tell different kinds of 'kwento' through narratives, abstractions, and vignettes.

Amy Saunder's high-energy and quirky ballet for five dancers is set to the music of Brooklyn-based indie-folk-pop-Americana band Bandits on the Run, a whimsical and lively trio who will perform with the company and transport their Greenpoint audience to "the deserts of New Mexico."

'Don't Get Comfy / Nowhere' is a ballet for seven dancers choreographed by Tiffany Mangulabnan and set to the music album of the same name by New York-based composer, upright bassist and vocalist Carmen Q. Rothwell, who will also perform with the company. The new work, which Mangulabnan began at her fall 2021 "Female Choreographers of Color in Ballet" Lab Week at Dance Lab NY, expresses the turmoil of our various relationships as well as the love, loss, and acceptance that comes with them.

'We just seem to be here,' Jordan Miller's new work for five dancers, is a cinematic work-for-stage featuring an original score by Sergio Carrasco and Jake Handelman. A study of characters and their interconnectedness, the piece is "a sort of Petri dish of life" seen through the lens of dance, music, set design and video projection. Miller builds an idyllic world, both absurd and relatable, that allows its characters the space to unleash their emotions.

All of the work on the program will feature original costume design by Reshma Patel-Cline, lighting design by Conor Mulligan, and performances from dancers James Anthony, Antuan Byers, Peter Cheng, and JoVonna Parks, who will be joined by Mangulabnan, Miller and Saunder.

'Kwento' runs from August 26 to August 27, 2022, 7:30pm, Triskelion Arts (106 Calyer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222). $30 General Admission; $25 Artists. Tickets: konverjdans.com

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