Tom Gold Dance Announces 2023 Fall Programming

In its return to the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on Wednesday, November 1, New York City-based Tom Gold Dance will give the World Premiere of Tom Gold Dance Founder and Director Tom Gold's Sandman and The Golem as part of a new program entitled Uncanny to music of Czech composer and pianist Gideon Klein.

Prior to its performance at the JCC Manhattan, the Company will conduct a week-long residency in the Berkshires, culminating in a work-in-process showcase at the Tina Packer Playhouse on the campus of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, Saturday, October 28. General admission tickets to both programs are available at tomgolddance.org.

 

Currently scheduled to perform in both programs are dancers Lauren Collett, Savannah Durham, Jules Mabie, and Anna Snellgrove, all active members of New York City Ballet; as well as Brian Gephart and David Hochberg. Cellist Clara Abel, violist Marta Lambert, and violinist Katherine Liccardo will provide live accompaniment on November 1. Tom Gold Dance previously appeared at the JCC Manhattan in October 2022, an engagement also preceded by a work-in-process showcase in the Berkshires. As they did last year, both programs will encompass a discussion with Gold and the participating artists.

 

Uncanny is drawn from Unheimliche: Longing and the Floor Rag, an exhibit from Nahed Abo Alhega Hamza currently on view in The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery at the JCC Manhattan. Abo Alhega Hamza's Unheimliche explores the concept of “the uncanny,” defined in Sigmund Freud's 1919 essay as “an unfamiliar terrifying feeling that is familiar at the same time to an individual,”[1] for example a pleasant childhood memory or—as represented in Abo Alhega Hamza's exhibit—a specific place that, in adulthood, may become frightening. In this vein, the mythological Sandman and Golem, both characters in children's literature, have the capacity to create and delight, but also to destroy and terrify.

 

Gold's Sandman, for two dancers, is set to Klein's Duo for Violin and Viola. The Golem, for four dancers, is set to Klein's Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello and his Duo for Violin and Cello.

 

One of the many Jewish artists interned at the Terezín concentration camp during World War II, Gideon Klein produced a small, but significant body of work. The violin and viola duo was published in 1939–40. Klein composed the first movement of his unfinished violin and cello duo in November 1941 and only 40 bars of the second movement before being deported to Terezín in December of that year. He completed his trio in 1944 just 10 days before being transported to Auschwitz, where he ultimately perished in the winter of 1945, shortly after his 25th birthday.

 

Saturday, October 28, at 2:00PM. The Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA, 01240. General admission tickets, $20, are available at tomgolddance.org/fall-2023-showcase.

 

Wednesday, November 1, at 7:30PM. The Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Family Auditorium at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is located at 334 Amsterdam Ave at 76th Street, New York, NY 10023. General admission tickets, $30, are available at tomgolddance.org/mmjcc-2023.

Online purchase of general admission tickets for both programs strongly preferred, however if the online form is inaccessible for any reason, please write to info@tomgolddance.org for alternative ticket purchase arrangements. Arrangements for discounted $10 tickets, available to fulltime students, as well as to frontline workers (including, but not limited to workers in healthcare, protective services, grocery and general merchandise stores, and maintenance services) can be made, also by writing to info@tomgolddance.org.

 

Please visit www.shakespeare.org and www.mmjccm.org for any Covid-19 related policies.

 

Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2023, Tom Gold Dance was founded by former New York City Ballet soloist Tom Gold to bring the past, present, and future of classical dance to audiences in New York and around the world. Through annual self-produced programs in New York City and other engagements, Tom Gold Dance aspires to the highest level of artistry expressed through a traditional classical dance vocabulary, including in more than two dozen original works by Gold, envisioned for and set directly on Company dancers, among the world's most accomplished. Tom Gold Dance has developed unique and site-specific programs with, among others, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan; Fondazione Burri in Città di Castello, Italy; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; TurnPark Art Space in West Stockbridge, MA; and Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers. Besides Italy, Tom Gold Dance has also performed internationally in Bermuda, Bulgaria, Cuba, Israel, France, and Spain. The Company has conducted several residencies in the Berkshires, and has been awarded two CUNY Dance Initiative residencies through the Gerald W. Lynch Theater and On Stage at Kingsborough. Tom Gold Dance participated in the 39th Annual Battery Dance Festival in 2020, appeared at Little Island in Hudson River Park in 2022, and, most recently in 2023, made its debut at the Newport Dance Festival in Newport, RI. In 2021, the Company created a series of dance-based promotional videos with Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Learn more at tomgolddance.org.

 

Internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, and instructor Tom Gold is the Founder and Artistic Director of Tom Gold Dance. A 2016 National Choreographers Initiative participant, Gold has created original works for his eponymous company, as well as for Vassar College, the Bermuda Arts Festival, Oregon Ballet Theater, the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, St. Louis Ballet, and many other dance academies, companies, festivals, television, and special events, including the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Bravo series Odd Mom Out starring Jill Kargman, and the New York City Fringe Festival for which he won the 2016 award for Overall Excellence for his work in The Joey Variations: A Play With Dance. A 21-year member (1987– 2008) of New York City Ballet where he rose to the rank of soloist, Gold is the choreographer and performer of the 2wice Arts Foundation's DOT DOT DOT, an interactive iPad application by Abbott Miller of Pentagram.

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