[NEohioPAL] PRESS RELEASE: Verb Ballets Celebrates 80 Years of Contemporary Dance!

[Dan Kilbane]

For Immediate Release

Contact:  Dan
Kilbane kilbanedan at yahoo.com

www.verbballets.org

       

Verb Ballets Celebrates 80 Years
of Contemporary Dance

October 10, 2009

At the new Breen Center for the
Performing Arts

Special Benefit/Performance
Packages Available


September
22, 2009 -- Cleveland, OH -- Verb Ballets, Cleveland’s National Repertory
Dance Company, continues the company’s eighth season at St. Ignatius High
School’s beautiful new Breen Center for the Performing Arts.  The evening of works by great
contemporary dance choreographers highlights nearly 80 years of contemporary
dance.  This Verb Ballets
performance is one night only, on Saturday, October 10, 2009, at 8:00 p.m.  The Board of Trustees and Chief Executive
and Artistic Officer Dr. Margaret Carlson are pleased to announce one world
premiere, two company premieres, and the return of an audience favorite.  There is also a special show/dinner
package available.

 

Dance
Magazine, in 2004,
named Verb 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 Plain Dealer calls the company’s work “Compelling....Sweeping
and chic artistry."  In 2008, Scene named Verb Ballets in their “Best
of Cleveland” awards in the yearly roundup of the arts.  

 

Advanced reserved
seats are $25 and $20, with a $10 student rate, and are available by calling
the Breen Center for the Performing Arts at 216.961.2560.  Discounted tickets for seniors are
available.  The theatre is located
in the historic Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland (Lorain Ave. at W. 30th
St., 44113), one block away from such popular restaurants as The Flying Fig,
Heck’s, Great Lakes Brewing Company, and Bar Cento.  Free parking is available.

 

Verb
Ballets has a great deal in store for patrons, too, and it helps a good
cause:  enjoy dinner prior to the
performance at the nearby, critically lauded Flying Fig Restaurant, receive a
ticket to the show, and then meet the dancers and get a tour of the Breen in a
post-show champagne reception. 
Tickets are $100 each, and all proceeds benefit Verb Ballets operations
and educational outreach programs. 
Call 216.397.3757 to reserve tickets to this benefit/show package, which
begins at The Flying Fig at 5:30 p.m. on October 10.

 

The
repertory includes two company premieres by giants of 20th century
dance:  Merce Cunningham’s “Cross
Currents,” and Martha Graham’s “Lamentation.”  The world premiere on the bill is by local favorite Terence
Greene, who is known for his work with the dance students at the Cleveland
School of the Arts (a group of those students will be featured in the piece
along with Verb Ballets dancers).  

 

Additional
repertory includes George Balanchine’s “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux” (in
partnership with NEOS Dance Theatre), Alfred Dove’s “Vespers,” and “Bolero,”
Ohio Ballet Founder Heinz Poll’s mesmerizing audience favorite.

 

On display
for the audience is a survey of great works in the newest performing arts venue
in Northeast Ohio:

 

Merce
Cunningham’s Cross Currents.  (1964) 2009 - 2010 Company
Premiere.  This contemporary piece for a trio
of dancers was originally created for Cunningham and two female members of his
company, Merce Cunningham Dance Co. 
Rehearsed without sound, the music for the performance is recorded piano
player by Conlon Nancarrow, called “Rhythm Studies for Player Piano,” and
arranged by Cunningham’s longtime collaborator, John Cage.  The premiere was on July 31, 1964, at
the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, UK. 
Jennifer Goggans, a member of the Cunningham company, restages the piece
for Verb Ballets.

 

Martha
Graham’s Lamentation.  2009 - 2010 Company
Premiere.  This solo for female dancer, from
1930, first danced by Graham, focuses on a woman’s grief, visualized by a long
tube of clothing worn by the dancer, indicating grief overcoming the body.  The work, classical dance scholar
Elizabeth Kendall states, is also a visual homage to the new skyscrapers in New
York at the time.  She describes
the figure in the piece as a “skyscraper reeling.”  

 

The
Gathering.  World Premiere.  Choreographed by Terence Greene, a former company member of
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and known for his exceptional work as the
head of the Dance Department at the Cleveland School of the Arts, this piece is
a big collaboration between Greene’s CSA students and the Verb Ballets company
of dancers.  

 

Tschaikovsky
Pas de Deux.  (1960)  2009
– 2010 Company
Premiere.  Presented in partnership with Neos
Dance Theatre by permission of The George Balanchine Trust, this Balanchine
duet will bring an elegant detail to the evening at the Breen.  The restaging of this work is by Judith
Fugate. 

 

Vespers.  (1987)  2008 - 2009 Premiere. 
Choreographed by Ulysses Dove. 
Restaged by Dawn Carter. 
Verb Ballets is proud to have acquired this seminal contemporary dance
piece.  Alvin Ailey American Dance
Theater first performed Vespers in
1987.  “Ulysses Dove's bold
choreographic voice and daring athleticism are embodied…in Vespers, a dramatic work full of raw energy and profound
grace.  Mikel Rouse's percussive
score matches the dancers' insistent drive as they propel themselves across the
stage in this ballet that The Village Voice proclaimed “astonishing...an exemplary vehicle for
six…women, showing off their streamlined power and how coldly they can
burn.”—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater website.

 

Bolero.  (1996)  Revival.  Ohio Ballet
Founder Heinz Poll’s dramatic ballet is set to the legendary Maurice Ravel
score. “Bolero” blends Indian and modern dance styles in a propulsive, driving
and intensely rigorous mix. This Verb Ballets production was staged by former
Ohio Ballet dancer, Amy Miller, with the permission of Xochitl Tejeda de Cerda.
Costumes, by A. Christina Giannini, were reconstructed by Janet Bolick.
Original lighting design by Julie Duro, reconceived by Trad A Burns. 

 

Information
about the new Breen Center for the Performing Arts can be found at 

http://alumni.ignatius.edu/s/237/cmsindex.aspx?sid=237&gid=1&pgid=325&cid=3237&ecid=3237&crid=0&calpgid=347&calcid=3236

 

The Verb
Ballets company includes Danielle Brickman, Ashley Cohen, Erin Conway Lewis,
Leisa DeCarlo*, Antwon Duncan, Katie Gnagy, Gary Lenington, Catherine Meredith
Lambert (on dancer leave), Jennifer Moll, Brian Murphy, and Anna Roberts (on
leave).  Guest artist Robert Wesner
joins the company for this performance. {* 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, and The Ohio Arts Council. Additional
individual sponsors include Chuck and Ann Ennis, 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/Ideastream.

 

The Ohio
Arts Council helped fund this organization with state tax dollars to encourage
economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all
Ohioans.

 

Verb
Ballets is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts
and Culture.

 

Verb Ballets is now in 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. 

 

Choreographers
Biographies

George
Balanchine

http://www.balanchine.org/balanchine/01/index.html

 

Martha
Graham

http://marthagraham.org/resources/about_martha_graham.php

 

Merce
Cunningham 

http://www.merce.org/about.html

 

Heinz Poll was born in Oberhausen, Germany, in 1926, Poll was a
champion ice skater before he became a dancer. His experience on the rinks
imbued him with a love of speed that he expressed in his athletic baroque
ballet, Cascade (1985). After World War II, he studied dance at Joss’s Folkwang
School in Essen, began his professional career at the Municipal Theatre in
Goettingen and became a principal dancer with the Berlin State Opera Ballet.  In 1951, he joined the National Ballet
of Chile as a dancer, ballet master, and teacher. The company’s tradition of
bringing serious programs to indigenous people in remote mountain villages
served as the model for Ohio Ballet’s Summer Festival of free outdoor performances.
In 1962, Poll joined Ballet de Jeunesse Musicales de France as ballet master.
Two years later, he came to the United States as a guest artist with the
Chilean company. He performed in the American Dance Festival the following
summer and stayed in New York to teach at Thalia Mara’s National Academy of
Ballet. In Akron, he developed Ohio Ballet into one of America’s most polished,
respected, and widely traveled chamber dance troupes. Poll was awarded the
Association of Ohio Dance Companies Award in 1983, the Cleveland Arts Prize in
1995, and the Ohio Arts Council’s Governor’s Award in 1999. After his
retirement, he wrote his memoir and has conferred a number of his ballets to
former Ohio Ballet dancers.

 

Ulysses Dove was an independent choreographer
who worked in both the modern dance and ballet idioms. After attending a Graham
performance in 1967, Dove gave up his pre-med studies at Howard
University to dance professionally with Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, and Anna
Sokolow. His first choreography, I See the Moon...and the Moon Sees Me (1979), was commissioned by Ailey.   Although he never maintained a
company of his own, Dove worked closely with Jeraldyne Blunden's
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and created works for American Ballet
Theatre, Ballet France de Nancy, the Basel Ballet, Cullberg Ballet of Sweden,
Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, New York City Ballet, and the Swedish National
Ballet, for which he created the transcendent Dancing on the Front Porch of
Heaven (1993).  In 1980, he became the assistant
director of the experimental Choreographic Research Group of the Paris Opera. A
benefit titled For
the Love of Dove,
with proceeds dedicated to the Actor's Fund and its programs for dancers and
other needy professionals, was produced just days after his death from
complications of AIDS. Five major modern dance and ballet companies
performed Dove's works on that program.

 

Terence
Greene, a former
member of The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and performance instructor at
the Cleveland School of the Performing Arts, has choreographed for some of the
top dance companies in the country. 
He recently directed and choreographed Karamu Theatre’s annual holiday
piece, Black Nativity.







      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20090922/b5634669/attachment-0003.htm>