A Festival of Dance

Women choreographers are the pioneers of contemporary dance and WOMEN / CREATE! – A Festival of Dance reconnects with those roots to present a season of strong works by seven visionary female choreographers. During this 8th season, Armitage Gone! Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, The Francesca Harper Project, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Helen Simoneau Danse and Katarzyna Skarpetowska (featuring The Richmond Ballet) come together for one week of distinguished programming that celebrates women creators and their unapologetic voices in the dance world.

Tuesday, June 11, 7:30 PM, Armitage! Gone Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Jennifer Muller/The Works

Wednesday, June 12, 7:30 PM, The Francesca Harper Project, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Helen Simoneau Danse, Katarzyna Skarpetowska ft. Richmond Ballet

Thursday, June 13, 7:30 PM, Armitage! Gone Dance, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Helen Simoneau Danse, Katarzyna Skarpetowska ft. Richmond Ballet

Friday, June 14, 7:30 PM, Katarzyna Skarpetowska ft. Richmond Ballet, Armitage! Gone Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Helen Simoneau Danse

Saturday, June 15, 2:00 PM, The Francesca Harper Project, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Helen Simoneau Danse, Katarzyna Skarpetowska ft. Richmond Ballet

Saturday, June 15, 7:30 PM,Buglisi Dance Theatre, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, The Francesca Harper Project

Sunday, June 16, 2:00 PM, Buglisi Dance Theatre, The Francesca Harper Project, Armitage! Gone Dance, Carolyn Dorfman Dance,

You Took a Part of Me (Excerpt, Work in Progress for Japan Society, NY 2019)
Armitage Gone! Dance
Choreographer: Karole Armitage
Composer: Reiko Yamada
Costume Design: Peter Speliopoulos
Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor

You Took a Part of Me, inspired by the 15th Century Noh play, Nonomiya, explores erotic entanglement, unresolved attachments and the search for harmony that are hallmarks of Ghost Noh Theater. It features commissioned music by Reiko Yamada and highlights sinuous, erotic movement executed with ferocious intensity in a dream-like state.  The world premiere was presented by Japan Society in New York in April 2019.

The Theory of Color (2019 World Premiere)
Jennifer Muller/The Works
Choreographer: Jennifer Muller
Composer: Matthew Schoening, Richard Cappadocia, Julia Kent
Lighting Design: Jeff Croiter

The Theory of Color creates its impact by an unusual treatment of the performing space where lighting generates a uniquely illuminated stage, saturating the space to such a degree that all action is immersed in an intense color field. Moving through a selected array of colors, the piece investigates the unique attributes and power of each color to affect the eye, psyche and mind. As each section unfolds, the flooded stage, drenched by the intensity of a single color, transforms motion and personality, producing oddly unusual and vastly different sets of movement characteristics. The action varies from harsh elongated spectral elegance to boneless kelp undulation, from twisting ivy-like growth to sun baked arid expansion.

Moss Anthology: Variation #5 (Excerpt , Work in Progress)
Buglisi Dance Theatre
Choreographer: Jacqulyn Buglisi
Commissioned Composer: Jeff Beal
Lighting Design: Jack Mehler

Dedicated to the preservation of the environment, Moss Anthology: Variation #5 brings the arts and science together to unite community in a shared experience for humanity. The dance is inspired by Potawatomi botanist and poet Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” and “Gathering Moss” which gives insight into indigenous ways of knowing. “Bless the Moss…the coral reefs of the forest, the bringer of oxygen to our planet forty million years ago. The tiny Moss builds soil, purifies water, teaches us how to cooperate, and awakens our Humanity to Reciprocity.” – jb

Snap Crackle Pop (2018, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, NJ)
Carolyn Dorfman Dance
Choreographer: Carolyn Dorfman, Renée Jaworski Co-Artistic Director of PILOBOLUS, and the dancers of Carolyn Dorfman Dance
Composer and Performance by: David Van Tieghem
Lighting Design: Thom Weaver

Snap Crackle Pop (SCP), co-commissioned by NJPAC (New Jersey Performing Arts Center), is a groundbreaking collaboration between Carolyn Dorfman, Renée Jaworski, Co-Artistic Director of PILOBOLUS, and the dancers of Carolyn Dorfman Dance. In SCP, Dorfman and Jaworski merged their signature styles to create a work about connection—past, present, and future. Delving into iconic American cultural experiences that create common bonds and shape us, they explored the phenomenon of commercial advertisements, the ever-changing socio-political events, the technological revolution and the evolution of human communication. The score, by virtuosic composer David Van Tiegham, is a montage of various textures, text,  jingles and musical sources, adeptly manipulated. Dorfman, Jaworski and Van Tieghem worked together, interviewing dancers, researching historical ideas and shifting norms, while formulating a structure and sound score that carries us through and across time. Snap Crackle Pop will tour exclusively with Carolyn Dorfman Dance through 2020 and become part of PILOBOLUS’ repertory in 2020. This is the first time that PILOBOLUS has co-created a work on another company that will also become a part of their repertory. Other talented collaborators on this project included costumes designed by Anna-Alisa Belous, and lighting designed by Thom Weaver.

Unapologetic Body (Excerpt from A Work in Progress – World Premiere, 2020)
The Francesca Harper Project
Choreographer: Francesca Harper
Composer: Nona Hendryx
Filmwork by Derrick Belcham and Francesca Harper
Lighting Design: Tuce Yasak

Unapologetic Body is due to be an evening length dance-theater work currently in development as a response to global events regarding diversity, inclusion, and empathy,(or lack thereof).  As an African American woman Harper realized that her own story needed to be told, but in its own way and on its own terms. The story of a black body in predominantly white spaces, the world of ballet, as a foreigner living in Europe, and on Broadway, while facing heartbreaks, and triumphs, she attempts to shatter the stereotypically classical, “traditional” mold and celebrates her evolution into an Unapologetic Body.

This work is supported by the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative.

Moonlight Parade (2015, NYC)
Helen Simoneau Danse
Choreographer: Helen Simoneau
Original Music: Andy Hasenpflug and Michael Wall
Costume Design: Kathryn Grillo

Moonlight Parade is a dance of separating and intertwining choreographic paths with a sense of calm bravado. The bold angular shapes and quick changes are a challenge eliciting camaraderie that is joyous and mysterious all at once.

Akwarium (2018, Richmond Ballet Studio Theater; Richmond, VA)
Katarzyna Skarpetowska ft. Richmond Ballet
Choreographer: Katarzyna Skarpetowska
Composer: Robert Henke and J.S. Bach
Lighting and Set Design: MK Stewart

Featuring Richmond Ballet, Akwarium is a work for 12 dancers set to the music of Robert Henke and J.S. Bach. MK Stewart’s scenic vision of 12 fluorescent light bars hung against the upstage scrim, and his cool aquatic lighting design, create an environment where various relationships can form and dissolve. There is an underwater deafness present in the sound of Henke’s score, which makes the space both intense and isolating. The viewer finds oneself in a magical but contained place, inspired by the atmosphere of an aquarium, where characters, going in and out of focus, have no choice but to rebound from one another and interact in various ways.