[NEohioPAL] Free outdoor show from Verb Ballets Aug. 28 & 29

[Dan Kilbane]

For
Immediate Release

Media
Contact: Dan Kilbane, 216.513.3654, kilbanedan at yahoo.com

 

Verb Ballets Returns
to Tremont for Arts in August

Free, Outdoor
Performances

Friday, August 28, and Saturday,
August 29, 2009 at 8:30 p.m.

 

August
18, 2009, Cleveland, OH  --
Verb Ballets, Cleveland’s National Repertory Dance Company, returns to Lincoln
Park in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood on Friday, August 28 and 29, 2009, at
8:30 p.m., for the neighborhood “Arts in August” programming.  The free, outdoor program features the
summer 2009 World Premieres “Lady Be Good” and “Scent”; the company premiere
“Urban Study”; the return of “Elegaic Song”; and a special surprise preview of a
fall 2009 work.  Admission is free
for this event; audience members are encouraged to arrive early and to bring
blankets or chairs.  Rain date is
Sunday, August 30 at 7:30 p.m. 
Lincoln Park is located between West 14th, West 11th,
Kenilworth and Starkweather Avenues in the Tremont neighborhood, Cleveland,
Ohio 44113.

 

Dance
Magazine,
in 2004, named Verb Ballets one of “25 to Watch,” and in February 2008 bestowed
more kudos on the company by naming Verb Ballets one of 5 “Great Tiny Troupes”
in America. 


 

The repertory for these performances
includes the following:

 

Lady Be Good.  World Premiere.  Choreographer and champion ballroom dancer Gary Piece sets a feisty ballroom piece on the Verb Ballets company set to the music of George Gershwin.  Ballroom dance popularity has soared in the last several years, thanks to the TV reality competition series “Dancing With the Stars,” and here Verb Ballets brings their special take on the phenomenon.  

 

Urban
Study.  Company
Premiere.  Choreographer Ginger Thatcher,
currently in charge of restaging the works of Lar Lubovitch and a former
company member of Cleveland San Jose Ballet, returns to Cleveland with her
classical ballet piece, which had its world premiere at Oregon Ballet Theatre
in 2002. 

 

Elegaic
Song.  Revival.  (1968) Ohio Ballet
Founder Heinz Poll’s timely piece for eight dancers is dedicated to the
innocent victims of war.  “Elegiac
Song,” restaged by former Ohio Ballet company member Jane Startzman, was the
first work Heinz Poll created in Northeast Ohio, and was rooted in the
choreographer’s memories of wartime Germany. The imagery of grieving women is
inspired by Käthe Kollwitz’s drawings. The haunting music by Shostakovich
evokes an aura of sorrow and fear. The movement vocabulary, indebted to Martha
Graham, is tailored to the abilities of eight teenage girls who took Poll’s
intensive ballet workshop at the University of Akron. The premiere performance
in 1968 marked the debut of the Chamber Ballet, the jewel-like little company
that was later renamed Ohio Ballet. The premiere was lighted by Thomas Skelton,
the world-renowned lighting designer who served as the associate director until
his death in 1994.  For this
performance, the lighting design is by Trad A Burns.

 

Scent.  World Premiere.  This new solo for one female dancer is
choreographed by Troy McCarty, who most recently choreographed for Verb Ballets
at our Cleveland Public Theatre DanceWorks show in the spring.

 

Verb’s
Tremont performances are presented by Tremont West Development Corporation,
ParkWorks and Cleveland City Councilperson Joe Cimperman. 

 

The
Verb Ballets company includes Danielle Brickman, Ashley Cohen, Erin Conway
Lewis, Antonio Deberry*, Leisa DeCarlo*, Antwon Duncan, Katie Gnagy, Sunita
Joshi*, Gary Lenington, Catherine Meredith Lambert, Jennifer Moll, Brian
Murphy, and Juriys Safonovs {* intern}

 

Major sponsors of Verb Ballets include AHS Foundation,
The Bascom Little Fund, Millie L. Carlson, Change For Charity, Cuyahoga Arts
and Culture, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Kulas
Foundation, The Laub Foundation, Lubrizol Foundation, The McGregor Foundation,
John P. Murphy Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Ohio Arts
Council. Additional individual sponsors include
Chuck
and Ann Ennis, Norma and Jeffrey Glazer, David R. Pierce, Alan Miles Ruben, and
Robert M. Shwab.

 

Additional
sponsors include Baumgarten & Company, LLP; Cedar Hill Communications;
FITWORKS; GlobeNewswire, Inc.; WCLV and WCPN, and Wireless Village, and Citadel
Communications.

Verb Ballets is now
beginning its eighth season under the leadership of Chief Executive and
Artistic Officer Dr. Margaret Carlson, an energetic staff and its dedicated
Board of Trustees, who have established Verb Ballets as Cleveland’s premiere
dance repertory company. Verb Ballets was named one of “25 to Watch in 2004” by
Dance Magazine,
the country’s leading news magazine covering dance, and recently the magazine
bestowed more kudos on the company by naming Verb one of 5 “Great Tiny Troupes”
in America. Verb Ballets discovers, collects, interprets and stages
choreography that matters to the region and to the world of dance.  As a curator of expressive movement
that is globally connected and nationally respected, Verb Ballets has a mandate
to support and foster emerging talent, present excellence in contemporary
choreographers and revive and honor modern dance classics.  Additional
information may be found at www.verbballets.org. 







      
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