DANCENOWNYC Presents Parker & Bang Group's Nut/Cracked at SteelStacks

David Parker and The Bang Group of New York City bring their contemporary dance interpretation of "The Nutcracker" to the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, when they present their holiday classic, "Nut/Cracked," Dec. 7, 7:30 p.m., in the Musikfest Café presented by Yuengling. Tickets for the performance are $20-$25 and are on sale now at www.artsquest.org and 610-332-3378; special guests for the performance will be the dance students from Muhlenberg College.

With Nut/Cracked, The Bang Group has taken every little girl's favorite Christmas show and torn it limb from limb. Mixing Tchaikovsky's original score with music by Duke Ellington, Glen Miller and others, the company turns the sugar coated ballet into a percussive piece of dance theater. Expect tap dancing, singing and some unusual pointe shoe activity. Nothing is sacred as Nut/Cracked twists and melds various dance traditions into an ode to American eclecticism that honors the power of the human urge to dance while riding Tchaikovsky's voluptuous waves of rhythm.

"You never know what'll happen next, but when it's over you find a passionate declaration of naïveté in the best sense: innocence regained," says Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times.

Nut/Cracked is presented as part of the DANCENOW STEELSTACKS Series, a partnership between DANCENOWNYC and ArtsQuest to bring New York City's most exciting dance innovators to the Lehigh Valley. The performance at the ArtsQuest Center marks the premiere of Nut/Cracked at the new center, with The Bang Group returning to New York City Dec. 21-23 to perform a four-show engagement of the production at the Bessie Shoenberg Theater.

"As a dance producer in New York City for 25-plus years, and a resident of Bucks County since 1999, I am thrilled to be able to bring my worlds together at the new ArtsQuest Center," says DANCENOW Founding Artistic Director and Producer Robin Staff. "I have always looked for unconventional ways to make dance tangible for audiences - creating ‘go-to' destination events that incite awareness of dance through the nontraditional, joining artist and audience in an inspirational experience for both.

"SteelStacks provides the perfect setting for this, and the vision that ArtsQuest has created works hand-in-hand with the DANCENOW vision. This is a great opportunity and I am very excited to help develop the DANCENOW STEELSTACKS Series and introduce the community to the vast, highly talented and passionate roster of dance innovators that I work with in New York City."

About David Parker and The Bang Group
David Parker began his career tap dancing on the sidewalks of Boston while still a teenager. Shortly thereafter he attended Bard College, where he was introduced to modern, post-modern and classical forms and began, through his dancing, to generate a free exchange between all three. He danced in New York City with a wide variety of companies and choreographers performing everything from classical to experimental tap. He founded The Bang Group in 1995 with his muse and dancing partner Jeffrey Kazin to pursue his fascination with the rhythmic potential of the dancing body.

The Bang Group has appeared extensively throughout North America and Europe and has had seven full-evening programs presented by Dance Theater Workshop and two by Danspace Project in New York. Parker has also created a repertory of sophisticated, comic duets for himself and Kazin, one of which, "Slapstuck," for two Velcro-clad men, won a 2002 New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award for Design. The company has also been touring "ShowDown," Parker's choreographic reinvention of "Annie Get Your Gun" that was commissioned by DANCENOWNYC and played two seasons at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater and on tour in Boston, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, Chicago and other locations. Parker also curates a series of choreographic mini-festivals which take place thrice-yearly at Manhattan's West End Theater.

Parker is a regular contributor to Dance Magazine and sits on the boards of directors of Danspace Project and The Field. He has also served extensively on curatorial and grant panels at Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Pew Charitable Trust, Green Street Studio in Cambridge, American College Dance Festival and has been a member of Pentacle's Help Desk, The Bessie Awards Committee and Pentacle's Advancement, Reinvention and Creativity (ARC) Program. He is a member of the faculties of Princeton University, The Juilliard School, Barnard College and The Alvin Ailey School, where he teaches Dance Composition.

ARTSQUEST CENTER OFFERS FREE DANCE PERFORMANCES NOV. 18 & DEC. 2

As part of the DANCENOW STEELSTACKS Series at SteelStacks, the community is invited to enjoy free contemporary dance performances during "Free Fridays" in the ArtsQuest Center's Capital BlueCross Creativity Commons. Upcoming performances include shows by choreographer Nicholas Leichter Nov. 18 and choreographer Ellis Wood on Dec. 2.

Nov. 18, 7 p.m.
Informal Showing by Choreographer Nicholas Leichter
"One of The Best New York Has to Offer" - The New York Times

Nicholas Leichter Dance creates cultural narratives where movement tells the story. Leichter's hybrid approach draws from many sources, including traditional, contemporary, folk and popular dance, as well as musical theater and musical categories. Nicholas Leichter Dance mixes and mashes up styles and substance into rhythmic displays of bodies, fashion and lights in motion. Whether dancing to Stevie Wonder or Stravinsky, these vibrant dances celebrate human equality, and invite audiences to join the celebration. This show includes excerpts from Leichter's new work, "Twenty," which deals with issues of age, race, sexuality and performance personae.

Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m.
Informal Showing by Choreographer Ellis Wood - Excerpts from ‘MOM' and Other Repertory
"I Was Moved from Beginning to End" - Dance Editor of Dance Magazine

Ellis Wood's newest work, "MOM," is an evening-length solo with a diverse mix of music, multi-media and 45 years of life as a female woven in. The solo explores issues ranging from realization and sense of worth to blankets and labor pains. In MOM, Wood juxtaposes music, video and dance embodying a deeply felt experience that relates in some way to every woman - and man.

Raw, revealing, vulnerable and at the same time triumphant, Wood experiences a myriad of emotions as she journeys through stages of a woman's life. Weddings, funerals, births and sweatshirts are all impetus that springboard Wood down a path of no return and into a state of undeniable realization of what it is to be a mom.

Other DANCENOW STEELSTACKS 2011 performances have included David Parker and The Bang Group's "ShowDown at SteelStacks" at the Musikfest Café presented by Yuengling in June, a Free Fridays performance by CLeo Mack Dances in October and screenings this week (Nov. 1-4) of Deborah Lohse's "Daughter" in the ArtsQuest Center's Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas. For more information on Nut/Cracked, Free Fridays and the DANCENOW STEELSTACKS Series, please visit www.artsquest.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.