Matjash Mrozewski & Kevin O'Day Premieres Set for ProArteDanza's Season 2017

ProArteDanza, who has been dazzling Canadian audiences with its signature full-throttle physicality and emotionally resonant contemporary ballet performances since 2004, will present Season 2017, featuring a thrilling triple bill of world premieres from two world-class choreographers: Canada's multi-award-winning choreographer Matjash Mrozewski in a collaboration with playwright Anna Chatterton, and internationally renowned dancer and choreographer Kevin O'Day, former Artistic Director of Ballet Manheim who uses the music of Toronto's Lemon Bucket Orkestra in one of the two works he is creating.

ProArteDanza brings Season 2017 to Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre in Toronto as part of NextSteps from Wednesday November 1 - Saturday November 4.

In these three new works, ProArteDanza continues to push boundaries, smashing artistic silos with engaging new collaborators as it continues to break down barriers between ballet and modern dance.

The three new works featured are outlined below:

Future Perfect Continuous - choreography by Matjash Mrozewski in collaboration with playwright Anna Chatterton

This exciting multi-disciplinary collaboration between playwright Anna Chatterton and Matjash Mrozewski presents a thrilling opportunity for ProArteDanza to explore the intersection of theatre and dance vocabularies, fusing movement and text.

Says Mrozewski, "The ProArte dancers' incredible physical virtuosity will be matched by verbal dramatism. My aim is to create a moving and thoughtful work in which the audience sees themselves reflected. I want the dancers to be seen for their vulnerability and humanity. The development of text is in process. Anna and I are inspired by our collective inability to be clear and articulate in relation to the magnitude of problems facing us, especially climate catastrophe."

Op Sha! - choreography by Kevin O'Day; music by The Lemon Bucket Orkestra

Kevin O'Day brings his signature kinetic movement style and humour to create a spirited new work about celebrations of life: birthdays, funerals, marriages, and the pleasure of movement to the ethnic sounds of the music of the Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Toronto's only Balkan-Klezmer-Gypsy-Party-Punk Super-Band. Op Sha! is one of the tracks on the Orkestra's album Moorka, released in 2015; all music in the piece is from that album.

Says O'Day, "I envision a thoroughly entertaining work, theatrical in nature, raucous, perhaps a little rough around the edges, and infused with the great, dynamic dancing for which ProArte is so highly regarded."

adjusted surrender - choreography by Kevin O'Day

Kevin O'Day creates a duet for lauded senior dance artists Johanna Bergfelt and ProArteDanza Artistic Associate Robert Glumbek.

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The ProArteDanza Season 2017 ensemble features some of the best dancers in the country: Taylor Bojanowski (intern), Caryn Chappell, Benjamin Landsberg, Ryan Lee, Sasha Ludavicius, Daniel McArthur, Victoria Mehaffey, Kelly Shaw, Anisa Tejpar and Christopher Valentini, along with featured artists Johanna Bergfelt and Robert Glumbek in their duet.

Matjash Mrozewski is a Toronto-based choreographer and director who graduated from Canada's National Ballet School in 1993. He danced with the National Ballet of Canada, Le Ballet du Grand Theatre de Genève and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. Matjash's breakout choreographic debut wasA Delicate Battle, choreographed for the National Ballet of Canada in 2001. Since then, he has created works internationally for companies such as The National Ballet of Canada, The Australian Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, San Francisco Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre and Tanz Luzerner Theater.

In 2016, he directed the Dora Award-winning Botticelli in the Fire for Canadian Stage. Later in 2017 Matjash choreographs a solo for ballet legend Evelyn Hart, who performs for Moonhorse Dance Theatre in its 40th instalment of Older & Reckless. He will also direct the fifth instalment ofSecret Shakespeare at the Berkeley Street Theatre on November 17.

Kevin O'Day was trained at the Joffrey Ballet, danced in that company, the American Ballet Theatre and, beginning in 1984, had long association with choreographer Twyla Tharp. In 2002 he was appointed artistic director of the Nationaltheater Mannheim Ballett, renamed Kevin O'Day Ballett NTM; he departed there in 2016. As a choreographer, O'Day has produced more than sixty original ballets for the New York City Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Stuttgarter Ballett, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet, Ballet Argentino, The Royal Danish Ballet, ProArteDanza, BalletX, Ballett im Revier, and Ballett Augsburg, among others.

ProArteDanza was founded in 2004 by former National Ballet of Canada (NBOC) soloist Roberto Campanella with former NBOC dancer Joanna Ivey as a unique and visionary dance company to create and present work where neo-classical ballet, modern dance and urban dance influences are deconstructed, resized and reimagined to become a powerful, innovative, hybrid of contemporary dance. With Artistic Associate Robert Glumbek,ProArteDanza creates and commissions original work and presents existing work that adheres to its signature fiercely physical and emotionally resonant style using the guiding principle of "passion in performance." ProArteDanza runs a summer training program for dancers aged 15-22 (The Summer Intensive Program ~ SIP), developing dancers deeply fluent in a wide variety of dance vocabularies. Called "the best small-scale contemporary ballet company in Canada" by the Globe and Mail, Campanella and Glumbek won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography for 2010's "Š in betweenŠ,". NOW Magazine described Season 2016 as "dynamic choreography delivered with attack and flair... dancers are superb... exhilarating." Visit proartedanza.com for more.

ProArteDanza presents Season 2017 with Three World Premieres from Superstar Choreographers Matjash Mrozewski and Kevin O'Day, Wednesday November 1 - Saturday, November 4 at 8pm nightly at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre as part of NextSteps, 207 Queens Quay West, 3rd floor, Toronto, ON. Tickets are available by calling the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at 416-973-4000 or visit ProArteDanza's website at proartedanza.com. Tickets: $22 - $50 (discounts for students, seniors, artsworkers and groups).

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