FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 8, 2009
Washington, DC—On the heels of CityDance Ensemble’s recent tours to the Middle East and Chile, the company brings choreographers from around the world to the DC stage for its season-opening concert Latitude. Presented October 29 and 30 at the Terrace Theater, the concert features works by up-and-coming choreographers Rachel Erdos of Israel and Alex Neoral of Brazil. Also on the program are audience favorites by Larry Keigwin and Kate Weare, plus a selection by CityDance’s Rehearsal Director and Choreographer-in-Residence Christopher K. Morgan.
The concert takes place Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30 at 7:30pm in the Terrace Theater at The Kennedy Center, 2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets are priced at $55, $34, and $20 and are available in person at The Kennedy Center Box Office, by phone at 202.467.4600, or online at www.kennedy-center.org.
“This concert builds upon the remarkable, and in some ways startling, success of the 2008-2009 season,” comments CityDance Artistic Director Paul Gordon Emerson. “The work that we did last season both in DC and around the world had career- and life-changing impact on the artists of CityDance. This impact is reflected in the international nature of our choreography by artists from the Middle East and South America and the focus we have on speaking to social and environmental issues in a way that is challenging, inspiring, and entertaining.”
Both Erdos and Neoral are winners of CityDance’s 2009 Next Choreography Commission for emerging choreographers. In the first year of this competition, CityDance received more than 100 submissions from 10 countries.
Erdos grew up in England and now lives in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she works as an independent choreographer. She obtained a first class honors in dance from Roehampton Institute (London) and a Master’s in Choreography from The Laban Centre (London). CityDance will perform Erdos’ piece Alma, which took first prize in Denmark’s Aarhus International Choreography Competition. A dark and provocative duet, Alma is filled with subtle sensuality as the dancers learn to negotiate their relationship in both peace and conflict. With movement styles ranging from fluid to almost brutal, the dancers discover increasingly intricate and innovative ways to communicate.
Neoral lives and works in Brazil where he serves as the director and choreographer of the contemporary dance company Focus Cia De Dança. He has previously worked with CityDance as a choreographer for CityDance Select, the company’s pre-professional program at CityDance Center at Strathmore. For his first engagement with the professional company, Neoral set his dance Pathways. A piece for two couples, Pathways explores spatial relationships as paired with the careful repetition of detailed, acute movements. Pathways premiered in Germany in 2007 and was named among the Best Top 10 Works by the Journal of Brazil News in Rio de Janeiro.
Larry Keigwin, an acclaimed New York City-based choreographer known for mixing physicality with theatricality, brings his witty and amorous Mattress Suite to Washington, DC for this concert. A compilation of small dances, Mattress Suite transforms a simple mattress into a bed, trampoline, platform, and wall, mixing a dose of humor with more than a few surprises. Keigwin is Artistic Director of New York based Keigwin + Company whose recent choreography commissions include The New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute and The Martha Graham Dance Company, among others.
Also on the program is Kate Weare’s Scorched, a sexy snapshot of choreography steaming with tango influences. Questioning our logic about coupling, the dancers accept unexpected partners even while caught in familiar patterns. Weare, a 1994 graduate of Cal Arts and director of her own company in New York City, was CityDance’s 2008-2009 Artist-In-Residence. She choreographed Scorched specifically for CityDance Ensemble.
Christopher K. Morgan’s Thirst completes the program after receiving rave reviews from its many appearances during CityDance’s recent international tours. Centered on themes of greed and overconsumption, Thirst challenges the viewer to consider his wants and desires and the effect those have on others. A skilled choreographer, teacher, and facilitator, Morgan has had works presented all over the world and also directs the Omi International Dance Collective.
About CityDance Ensemble, Inc.
CityDance Ensemble, Inc. is the parent organization to CityDance Ensemble, a professional contemporary dance company that performs locally and around the world; CityDance Early Arts, an outreach program that provides free dance classes and performances to children in underserved neighborhoods; CityDance Center at Strathmore, a dance school for youth and adults with a pre-professional training program for teens; and CityDance FilmWORKS, a creator of original dance-on-camera productions. The mission of CityDance Ensemble, Inc. is to advance the appreciation for and participation in the art of dance through excellence in performance, education, film, and artistic innovation.
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