Ishida Dance Company Announces World Premiere of NO SPEAKING LEFT IN ME

ISHIDA Dance Company will present an evening of world premieres in contemporary dance based on original poetic narratives that invite existential questions: no speaking left in me featuring works choreographed by ISHIDA and award-winning British Finnish choreographer Kristian Lever. no speaking left in me will play Austin August 5-6, 2022 at Dell Fine Arts Center at St. Andrew's and Houston August 12-13, 2022 at MATCH. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 1 at IshidaDance.org.

Choreographed by ISHIDA - "sirens" explores victim-rescuer archetypes and how one might step out of that pattern; "I want to hold, darling" derives from the historical context when families in Spain thousands of years ago buried the dead within their homes and ancestors tenderly watched over them to guide and comfort.

The program will also include a new creation by award-winning British Finnish choreographer Kristian Lever, who has choreographed on Hamburg Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) among others.

Performance Details:

World Premiere of no speaking left in me | AUSTIN, TX

August 5-6, 2022 | Friday and Saturday at 8 pm

Dell Fine Arts Center at St. Andrew's | 5901 Southwest Pkwy, Austin, TX 78735

Tickets: $25-$60/VIP $100 | Tickets available at IshidaDance.org

World Premiere of no speaking left in me | HOUSTON, TX

August 12-13, 2022 | Friday and Saturday at 8 pm

MATCH - Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston | 3400 Main Street, Houston TX 77002

Tickets: $30-$70/VIP $110 | Tickets available at IshidaDance.org

About ISHIDA Dance Company

ISHIDA is a new world-class contemporary dance company based in Austin and Houston, Texas, featuring venerated dancers from many of the top companies in the world (Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Juilliard, Ballet BC, Netherlands Dance Theater, Royal Ballet of Flanders). ISHIDA blends contemporary dance with theatrical elements while retaining the physicality and beauty of the human form from traditional ballet. ISHIDA presents unique narratives relevant to a modern audience that explore archetypal themes and invite existential questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Such works enable audiences to gather meaning and emotional connection. ISHIDA's poetic narratives intuitively prompt introspection to lead to greater kindness towards oneself and otherness.

About Brett Ishida - Artistic Director

Brett Ishida is Japanese American and grew up on a citrus farm in California's Central Valley. Brett's love for dance inspired her to move away from home at age fifteen when she received a full scholarship to the Kirov Academy and later to the School of American Ballet in NYC. She then danced with Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, where she first choreographed on the company, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montréal where she toured around the world. At Les Grands Ballets, she collaborated in new creations with choreographers and performed principal and soloist roles in repertoire by Nacho Duato, George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Jirí Kylián, and Ohad Naharin, among others.

She later graduated from UCLA earning a BA in Literature with emphasis in Creative Writing (Poetry), and MA in Montessori Education. She felt by combining those two worlds from her past, she could be a new voice in contemporary dance and started ISHIDA in 2019.

Brett Ishida's work intertwines reflections of ancient timeless themes of Greek philosophy and poetry with subconscious memories which shape who we are and where we are going. Her company, ISHIDA, creates 'memory houses' for audiences where themes and characters build relationships and familiarity that might pull at our heartstrings in imitation of Life's enigma.

About Kristian Lever - Guest Choreographer

Kristian Lever is a British-Finnish award-winning choreographer. Born in London, UK but raised in Helsinki, Finland, he started his dance education at the Helsinki Dance Institute and later with the Finnish National Ballet School. His passion and ambition to dance led him to continue his training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, as well as later on at the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden. Kristian's performance repertoire includes works by Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Natalia Horencna, John Neumeier, and many others.

Under the direction of Mr. John Neumeier and Kevin Haigen in Hamburg, Kristian was offered his first professional engagement as a choreographer at the young age of 20. He has created several works for The National Youth Ballet of Germany, Croatian National Ballet of Rijeka, Croatian National Ballet of Split, Ballet Theatre Tivoli in Copenhagen, festivals of the Royal Danish Ballet, Ballett Vorpommern, the Hamburg Ballet, the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Salzburger Landestheater Ballet Company, as well as for dancers with Nederlands Dans Theater, Hessisches Staatsballett and The Royal Ballet.

Kristian founded his own production-based dance company, Klever Dance, creating a platform which allows him complete artistic freedom and to collaborate with world renowned dancers, actors, designers and composers. The company is constantly striving to create art that speaks to a larger demographic than the regular theatre goers. Enjoying creating multi-disciplinary dance theatre performances, Klever Dance recently premiered Kristian's latest full evening production Framework, in November 2019, a show crossing borders between theatre and dance. The production was co-written by Kristian and Kellen McDaniel.

He was awarded the prestigious Erik Bruhn Prize representing Hamburg Ballet for his choreography An Intimate Distance, hosted by the National Ballet of Canada on March 23, 2019 in Toronto. ISHIDA premiered An Intimate Distance in the US in Houston in March 2022.

Germany's TANZ Magazine's yearbook of 2019 honored Kristian Lever as "Promising Talent 2019". In 2020, Kristian premiered new works for the Hamburg Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada. In July 2020, Klever Dance premiered a new creation based on Kristian's latest script Connecting doors, in collaboration with the Origen Cultural Festival 2020 in Switzerland. Alongside choreographing, Kristian has written and directed a film called The Stranger that debuted in 2021 and is currently working on a feature film.

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