[NEohioPAL] PRESS RELEASE: Verb Ballets at the Breen Ctr. Jan. 17, 2010

[Dan Kilbane]

For Immediate Release

Contacts:

At
Verb Ballets:                                                For
Media:  

Margaret Carlson                                             Dan
Kilbane

216.397.3757,
ext. 3                                       216.513.3654

margaret-carlson at sbcglobal.net                      kilbanedan at yahoo.com

www.verbballets.org

       

Verb Ballets Is
Home Grown

Sunday, January
17, 2010

At the new
Breen Center for the Performing Arts

Special
Benefit/Performance Packages Available

December
16, 2009 -- Cleveland, OH -- Verb Ballets, Cleveland’s National Repertory
Dance Company, continues the company’s eighth season with a return to St.
Ignatius High School’s beautiful new Breen Center for the Performing Arts.  The afternoon of works features
audience favorites from Verb Ballets in a family-friendly performance.  The company’s appearance at the Breen
is part of St. Ignatius’ “Home Grown” series, which features Northeast Ohio
professional arts groups across many disciplines.  The Verb Ballets performance is one show only, on Sunday,
January 17, 2010, at 3:00 p.m. 
The Board of Trustees and Chief Executive and Artistic Officer Dr.
Margaret Carlson are pleased to announce the return of four audience favorites,
to include Ulysses Dove’s “Vespers,” in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as
well as a world premiere to be announced. 
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."  Recently, Coolcleveland.com commented “Verb
Ballets has a way of upping the ante and hitting the jackpot…every time they
perform.” 

 

Advanced
reserved seats are $25, with a $10 student rate, and are available by calling
the Breen Center for the Performing Arts at 216.961.2560, or by ordering online
at www.ignatius.edu/breencenter.  A $5 ticket-processing
fee applies to each order. 
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 a champagne brunch
prior to the performance at the nearby, critically lauded Flying Fig
Restaurant, and receive a ticket to the show.  Tickets are $75 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 1:00 p.m. on January 17.

 

The
family-friendly program of Verb Ballets’ revivals includes the following (the
world premiere piece is to be announced): 


 

Peter
and the Wolf.  (2008)  One of the best-loved and entertaining
children’s classics in the orchestral literature, Verb Ballets’ take on Peter
and the Wolf
is choreographed by Pamela Pribisco of New York City.  This family-friendly work features the company with original
costume designs by Suzy Campbell. 
The Peter and the Wolf creation was commissioned by Millie L
Carlson.

 

Vespers.  (1987)  Choreographed by Ulysses Dove.  Restaged by Dawn Carter.  Verb Ballets is proud to have acquired this seminal
contemporary dance piece during the 2008 – 2009 season.  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.

 

Lady Be Good.  2009 – 2010 Company Premiere.  Choreographer and champion ballroom dancer Gary Piece set 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.  

 

Speed. (2003) Revival.  This family-favorite of the Verb Ballets
repertory drives up onto the Breen stage in this modern adaptation of
Icarus.  Set to music by Alpha Team
and DJ Keoki, and choreographed by Hernando Cortez.

 

Choreographer
Biographies

Born
in Ohio, Pamela Pribisco was a founding member and principal
dancer with the Cleveland Ballet. 
As a highly respected teacher of classical ballet
and pointe in New York City, she has been on the faculty of the Joffrey Ballet School, Ballet
Hispanico, the Alvin Ailey American Dance
Center, and teaches annually at the School at Jacob's Pillow.  Ms. Pribisco served as ballet mistress
for the Cleveland Ballet, American Ballroom Theatre, and Les Ballets Trockadero
de Monte Carlo for which she staged and choreographed numerous pieces in the
company's repertoire. She was profiled in the New York Times for her work with
the ‘Trocks’. Currently, Ms. Pribisco is company teacher for Alvin Ailey Dance Company and ballet mistress for
Complexions Contemporary Ballet Company. She also
writes for dance publications, advising young dancers on various aspects of
their careers, and is creator of 'Wigglewords™' a fitness literacy program for
children.

 

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.

 

Gary
Pierce A
former U.S. Ballroom Champion, Mr. Pierce co-founded and performed with the
American Ballroom Theatre Company, New York City. For over 10 years he served
as resident choreographer for the company. He has performed all over the world
in dance companies and as a guest artist in festivals and special arts events
for television and the stage. As a choreographer, Mr. Pierce has created over
three hundred shows, revues, and industrials. Artistically, his work has been
acclaimed by the New York Times, the Village Voice, and the New York Post, as
well as many other publications. Mr. Pierce has directed and choreographed
shows for many dance organizations from symphony orchestras to the New York Knicks
cheerleaders. From ballet to ballroom, tap to tango, salsa to swing, he is at
home in any dance medium. 

 

Hernando Cortez began his dance
training at Vancouver's Pacific Ballet Theatre. He graduated with Honors from
Purchase College Conservatory of Dance in 1985.  Soon after, he was invited to join Feld Ballets/NY. In 1987,
he joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, performing leading roles in such
renowned Taylor repertory as Arden Court, Cloven Kingdom and Company B through 1996. He
was featured in two PBS/WNET Dance in America specials (Speaking in Tongues and The
Wrecker's Ball),
and his own choreography is showcased in the Taylor Company's critically
acclaimed smash hit Funny Papers. He performed with Mikhail Baryshnikov's
White Oak Dance Project in their 1998 national tour.  Cortez was Artistic Director of Verb Ballets from 2002 –
2008.  Also a popular freelance
choreographer, he previously created dances for American Ballet Theatre (the
Studio Company), the Williamstown Theater Festival (Camino Real, 1999, starring
Ethan Hawke; Where's Charley?, directed by Nicholas Martin), the Sands
Hotel in Atlantic City (Latin Sol, a theatrical revue co-created with actor
Taylor Negron and director David Schweizer).  He has been on the faculties of Purchase College Conservatory
of Dance, The Boston Conservatory, the Joffrey School, and the school of the
Paul Taylor Dance Company.  Cortez
is Founding Director of Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA), a fundraising program
of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. 
Cortez was awarded a 1997 Dance Magazine Award and a 1996 New York Dance
and Performance Award (aka Bessie) for his work with DRA. 

 

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

http://www.ignatius.edu/s/237/cmsindex.aspx?sid=237&gid=1&pgid=1467

 

The
Verb Ballets company includes Danielle Brickman, Ashley Cohen, Megan Coleman*,
Erin Conway Lewis, Leisa DeCarlo*, Antwon Duncan, Katie Gnagy, Gary Lenington, Kevin
Marr II, Catherine Meredith Lambert (on dancer leave), Jennifer Moll, and Brian
Murphy. {* 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, Helen C.
Cole Charitable Trust Fund, 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;
Cleveland Scene; FITWORKS; 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 in 2008 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. 





      
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