Company C Contemporary Ballet Opens its 12th Season With its Winter Program, 1/30-2/16

Walnut Creek, CA, November 5, 2013 - Company C Contemporary Ballet opens its 12th season with a program featuring two premieres by Susan Jaffe and Charles Anderson, as well as works by Yuri Zhukov and Charles Moulton in six performances January 30 through February 16, 2014, in Walnut Creek and San Francisco. In addition, a gala performance, cocktail party, dinner and auction to benefit Company C will be given Saturday, February 15. For more information about the performance, gala and season, visit www.companycballet.org

WINTER PROGRAM

Weather One (World Premiere) by Susan Jaffe
Railroad Joint (2013) by Yuri Zhukov
Nine Person Precision Ball Passing (1980) by Charles Moulton
Between the Machine (World Premiere) by Charles Anderson
A Night in Tunisia (2002) by Charles Anderson

Former American Ballet Theatre star Susan Jaffe has emerged as a choreographic talent to watch who is taking exhilarating classical technique beyond its boundaries to make decidedly edgy and finely crafted dances. Yuri Zhukov's Railroad Joint was a hit of Company C's 2013 Gala performance, and this expanded version will now take its place on the main stage season set to a trance-like score that combines electronic music with train sounds and superbly athletic dancing. Nine Person Precision Ball Passingis a taut and riveting exploration of the finer points of movement as nine dancers circulate colorful balls in a witty, rapid-fire stream that is part dance and part living puzzle. Completing the program are the world premiere of a new ballet by Charles Anderson plus his delightful A Night in Tunisia, a dynamic contemporary ballet inspired by Turtle Island String Quartet's arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie's jazz classic.

Venues, Dates, Times:

LESHER CENTER FOR THE ARTS

1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94596

Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 8 p.m.
Friday, January 31, 2014 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 1 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Box Office: Lesher Center for the Arts

1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94596

www.lesherartscenter.org

925.943.SHOW (7469)

Tickets: $25, $38, $48

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

LAM Research Center Theater

701 Mission Street

San Francisco, CA

Thursday, February 13 at 8 p.m.

Friday, February 14 at 8 p.m.

Saturday, February 15 at 6 p.m. (special gala performance)

Sunday, February 16 at 3 p.m.

Box Office: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103

www.ybca.org or 415.978.ARTS(2787)

Tickets: $25, $38 and $48

Benefit Gala
Saturday, February 15, at 6 p.m.
LAM Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Repertoire to be announced.

A special performance, cocktail party, dinner and auction fill this evening to benefit Company C Contemporary Ballet.

About Company C Contemporary Ballet

Beauty, passion, wit, and drama converge in the stunning performances of California's Company C Contemporary Ballet. Dynamic, adventurous, contemporary choreography is the hallmark of the Company led by founder and Artistic Director Charles Anderson, a former member of the New York City Ballet. The fourteen-member ensemble of classically trained dancers from across the country performs a diverse repertoire of moving, provocative, sensual, and entertaining contemporary choreography. This repertoire includes master works by some of the most accomplished contemporary choreographers of today, including Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Antony Tudor, David Parsons, Lar Lubovitch and Daniel Ezralow as well as new works commissioned from talented choreographers such as former New York City Ballet Soloist Alexandre Proia, former Paul Taylor Dancer Patrick Corbin, former Frankfurt Ballet principal dancer Maurice Causey and Gregory Dawson, formerly of Alonzo King LINES Ballet. The Company's work has been nominated for seven Isadora Duncan Awards and has been named Best in the East Bay by Diablo Magazine five times. In 2010, the Company was named one of "25 to Watch" by Dance Magazine and will return to New York for its third season there at the Joyce Theater August 9 and 10, 2013.

Charles Anderson founded Company C Contemporary Ballet in 2001 after dancing with the New York City Ballet from 1985-93, performing works of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins and many other notable choreographers. Anderson began choreographing ballets while still a dancer with the New York City Ballet, and he co-founded and acted as artistic director for Ballet, Inc. in New York, where he choreographed many of his early works. He later founded Company C Contemporary Ballet in 2002, where he currently serves as Artistic Director. In addition to his work as a dancer, choreographer and teacher, Anderson has served on the board of governors for the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), created costumes for the New York City Ballet's Diamond Project, been an adjudicator and instructor for the Bob Fosse Scholarship Program and served as a panelist for the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Grant.

About the Artists

Susan Jaffe was born in Washington, D.C., and began her dance training at the Maryland School of Ballet. She joined American Ballet Theatre II in 1978 and in 1980, at the invita­tion of Mikhail Baryshnikov, she joined American Ballet Theatre and became well known in the dance world at an extremely young age. Her debut in Washington D.C. at the Kenne­dy Center was made when she was plucked from the corps for the 1980 opening night to dance opposite recently defected Alexander Godunov in the pas de deux, "Pas d'Esclave," from Le Corsaire. She has received critical praise for her interpretations of such roles as: Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Kitri (Don Quixote), Nikiya & Gamzatti (La Bayadere), Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Swanhilda (Coppelia), Tatiana (John Cranko's Eugene Onegin), Kate (Taming of the Shrew), and the title roles in Giselle, La Sylphide, and Kenneth MacMillan's Anastasia and Manon. Ms. Jaffe has also worked with and performed the repertoire of many of the 20th century's most prominent chore­ographers, including George Balanchine, Anthony Tudor, Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Roland Petit, Twyla Tharp, Nacho Duato, Jiri Kilyan and James Kudelka. Ms. Jaffe's European engagements have included performances with The Royal Ballet, The Kirov Ballet, The Stuttgart Ballet, The Munich State Opera Ballet, La Scala Ballet in Milan, The Vienna State Opera Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Swedish Bal­let, and The English National Ballet. Since July of 2012, Jaffe has served as Dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina's School of the Arts.

Charles Moulton began his profes­sional career as a dancer in 1972 with Contemporary Dancers Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Moving to New York in 1973, he joined the Merce Cunningham Company, remaining three years, 1973-76. An outstanding athlete in high school, Moulton looked to sports and games as the inspiration for his first work. Premiered in 1979, Three Person Precision Ball Passing immediately established him as a leader of the post-modern movement.

Moulton founded his own company in 1978 and for the next ten years performed in New York and toured extensively in the US and Europe. Moulton has also created and set works on Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Project, The Joffrey Ballet, The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, The Ohio Ballet, Bat Sheva (Israel), North Carolina Dance Theater, Concert Dance Company (Bos­ton), The Path Dance Company, Le Ballet Theatre du Silence (La Rochelle), The Joyce Trisler Dance Company, The Cloud Gate Dance Theater (Taiwan), Ballet Omaha, The Milwaukee Ballet and The Oregon Ballet Theater.

Moulton has directed several works for television and film, including the choreography for the movie Matrix II Reloaded. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a 1983 Guggenheim Award and a Los Angeles Film Festival Blue Ribbon for his col­laboration with John Sanborn and Mary Perillo, Visual Shuffle/Fractured Variations.

Yuri Zhukov studied at the famed Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Rus­sia, before dancing with several world class ballet companies: The Kirov Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Birmingham Royal Ballet. Mr. Zhukov has taught at San Fran­cisco Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Monte-Carlo Bal­let, Gothenberg Ballet, and Birmingham Royal Ballet. He has furthered his connection to the arts by undertaking set designs, having recently created the sets of both San Francisco Ballet's and Oregon Ballet Theatre's produc­tions of Firebird. In 2008, Mr. Zhukov started his own dance company Zhukov Dance Theatre. He is a proud winner of Company C's 10th Anniversary Celebration choreography competition.

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