Chamber Dance To Screen New Contemporary Ballets

This summer, Chamber Dance Project (CDP), Washington's premier contemporary ballet company, is presenting New Works 2020 (& beyond). The free screenings of new works will take place online on July 31 and September 24. CDP will be working in virtual indoor and outdoor rehearsals and performances in four cities with its nine dancers, three choreographers and a commissioned music score for a dance film. Three guest videographers will be working with dancers in LA, Columbus, Ohio and Milwaukee to film the new ballets that will be screened July 31 at 7:00 pm EDT. Additional cities involved in the production of a new dance film to be shown online September 24 at 7:00 pm EDT include Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. The July and September screening will be presented nationally with free links available at https://chamberdance.org/beyond Call 202-499-2297 for more information.

The ballets are being staged remotely for online streaming and to build new repertoire for CDP's June 2021 theatre season while ensuring the health of both audience members and performers. In addition to the outdoor shoots with professional videographers, the dancers will be filming themselves in their homes in their home cities.

For example, for the July screening the outdoor performance will be a public site in Los Angeles and in Milwaukee at an art museum.

"Embracing the new realities of a world living under pandemic, CDP's New Works 2020 (& beyond) looks to offer audience members a unique and memorable virtual performance experience that they can take to heart every bit as much as if they were seated in a theater. Perhaps even more so, as they will be part of a global audience sharing in the creativity of CDP's fabulous artists together," says international arts writer/critic Steve Sucato.

On July 31, world premiere screenings of contemporary ballets Berceuse with Luz San Miguel and Davit Hovhannisyan (Milwaukee), Sarabande featuring dancer and choreographer Christian Denice (Los Angeles) and In the Silence with Emmy Award-winner Grace-Anne Powers and Austin Powers (Columbus) will be presented. Preceding the ballets will be a live red carpet pre-show with the dancers and filmmakers.

The September 24 world premiere of the new film will incorporate seven of the company's dancers and be a collaboration by the creators of last seasons acclaimed Prufrock: choreographer Diane Coburn Burning, director Matt Torney and composer James Bigbee Garver in consultation with filmmaker David Hamlin. The evening will also include the first public screening of a film made of Exit Wounds with the original cast. In keeping with the positive and creative outlook of CDP founder, Diane Coburn Bruning, there will be another "red carpet" pre-show before the film.

About Chamber Dance Project: Award-winning choreographer and Artistic Director Diane Coburn Bruning founded Chamber Dance Project upon her conviction that dance should be a collaboration between dancers and musicians, and that when artists' share the creative process with audiences, it deepens the audience's experience. The company commissions and performs new and contemporary works by outstanding choreographers and composers in collaboration with dancers and musicians (who appear together onstage). In past years, CDP performers shared their creative process with open rehearsals; this year's virtual season aims to provide the same connection between audience and artist. Most ballet companies in the U.S. offer only a 35-38 week contract. Chamber Dance Project hires it dancers during the January and June-July lay-off periods common with other companies, bringing dancers virtually from all over the country to work in Washington DC.

Chamber Dance Project is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, KPMG, The Share Fund, Nora Roberts Foundation, and Macy's.

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