presents
TERE O’CONNOR DANCE
First Lady Michelle Obama, 2014 Honorary Chair •
poem & Secret Mary—Tuesday, July 15 at 7:00pm & 9:30pm
BLEED —Wednesday, July 16 at 7:00pm & 9:30pm
Reynolds Industries Theater poem and Secret Mary performed on Tuesday, July 15, 2014
SECRET MARY (2012)
Choreography Tere O’Connor in collaboration with the performers
Performers Tess Dworman, devynn emory, Ryan Kelly, and Mary Read
Lighting Design Michael O’Connor
Secret Mary was commissioned by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and its River To River Festival, including a space residency donated by Savanna.
POEM (2012)
Choreographer Tere O’Connor
Performers Natalie Green, Michael Ingle, Oisin Monaghan, Heather Olson, and Silas Riener
Costume Design James Kidd
Sound Design/Composition James Baker, Chris Gross, cello; Scott Kuney, guitar; James Baker, all other instruments
Lighting Design Michael O’Connor
poem was commissioned by New York Live Arts and made possible, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support was provided by contributors to the Dance Theater Workshop Commissioning Fund at New York Live Arts. poem is also made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust; The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and Big Tree Productions. Inc.
BLEED performed on Wednesday, July 16, 2014
BLEED (2013)
Choreographer Tere O’Connor
Performers Tess Dworman, devynn emory, Natalie Green, Michael Ingle, Ryan Kelly, Oisín Monaghan, Cynthia Oliver, Heather Olson, Mary Read, Silas Riener, and David Thomson
Composition/Sound Design James Baker, Chris Gross, cello; Julia Read, voice; James Baker, all other instruments and vocals
Lighting Design Michael O’Connor
Costume Design Walter Dundervill
Portions of the movement material for this work were created in collaboration with the dancers. I thank them for their creativity, generosity, and rigor during this process. I am wholly indebted to these amazing people whose exquisite contributions make the work possible.
BLEED was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust; The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Campus Research Board and the Creative Research Board in the School of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University; and Big Tree Productions, Inc.
Tere O’Connor Dance is supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and individual donors.
Creation of the component works of BLEED was made possible thanks to:
Secret Mary was supported by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and presented at the River to River Festival 2012. poem was commissioned by New York Live Arts and made possible, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support was provided by contributors to the Dance Theater Workshop Commissioning Fund at New York Live Arts. Premiere November 2012.
Sister was commissioned by The Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the Open Studio series. Premiere September 2013.
ADF performances of Tere O’Connor Dance are funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and North Carolina Arts Council. ABOUT THE COMPANY
TERE O’CONNOR DANCE was founded in 1982 to support the work of Tere O’Connor in association with dancers and collaborators. The company aims to challenge the boundaries of dance by constructing a complex dance language, to present the works created to broad audiences, and to pass this creative information on through extensive teaching and dialogues. With more than 36 works, the company has performed throughout the US and in Europe, Canada, and South America.
BIOGRAPHIES
TERE O’CONNOR has been making dances for 30 years, creating more than 36 works for his company and touring natioanlly and internationally. He has created numerous commissioned works for other dance companies including the Lyon Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, and a solo for Mikhail Baryshnikov entitled Indoor Man. O’Connor received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, is a 2009 United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow, and a 1999 Guggenheim Fellow. He has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Arts International’s DNA Project, and Creative Capital. He has been honored with three New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards— one for Heaven Up North in 1988, another in 1999 for Sustained Achievement, and the third for Frozen Mommy (2005). His work has been supported over the years by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NEFA/National Dance Project, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The MAP Fund, Jerome Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the Mid Atlantic Fund for US Artists.
O’Connor was the 2013 chair of the Chime Without Borders mentorship program initiated by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco. A much sought after teacher, O’Connor has taught at Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, Colorado Dance Festival, The Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, Arizona State University, the School for New Dance Development (The Netherlands), and ImPulsTanz (Austria), among many others. He is currently a Center For Advanced Studies Professor in Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received a Faculty Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Fine and Applied Arts in the spring of 2013. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.
TESS DWORMAN (Dancer) is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer originally from Chicago, IL. She studied at the Laban Centre in London and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BFA in Dance. From 2008 to 2009, she was a LinkUP Residency artist at Links Hall in Chicago. In New York, her work has been presented at AUNTS, Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Roulette Intermedium. As a performer of her own works, Tess finds an interchangeable relationship between her choreographic research and the act of performing. In addition to working with Tere O’Connor, Tess has also had the pleasure of performing in the works of Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Moriah Evans, Marissa Perel, and Mariana Valencia.
devynn emory (Dancer) is a dancer/choreographer, healer, and teacher living in NY. In addition to running their company devynnemory/beastproductions that umbrellas choreography, sound and text, materials, music videos, drag, and curated themed shows, emory also dances for Headlong Dance Theater and is thrilled to be working with Tere O’Connor Dance. emory is currently an Artist in Residence at Issue Project Room and premiered an evening-length work in January 2014 at the Actors Fund. emory was a 2009 Fresh Tracks resident at DTW, a studio series resident at NYLA, and a BAX studio series resident. emory’s work has been commissioned and shown at Abrons Art Center with Third Bird, The Poetry Project, Movement Research Spring and Fall Festival, APAP, DraftWorks at Danspace, DNA, AUNTS, Rooftop Series, Roulette, and Dixon Place in NY. Their work has also shown at Philadelphia’s Live Arts Festival, Philadelphia Dance Boom’s Motion Pictures, Arts and Ideas Festival in New Haven, and The London International Film Festival at the Place. As a dancer they have worked with Faye Driscoll, Daria Fain, Jen Rosenblit, Vanessa Anspaugh, Jules Skloot, Yve Laris Cohen, and Carolee Schneeman in NY and previously with Jérome Bêl, White Oak Dance Project, Rennie Harris Pure Movement, anonymous bodies, and Paule Turner in Philadelphia. www.devynnemorybeastproductions.
NATALIE GREEN (Dancer) has danced for RoseAnne Spradlin, Anna Sperber, Levi Gonzalez, Juliette Mapp, and Daniel Linehan. Green’s own choreography has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project’s Food for Thought, CATCH, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Movement Research at the Judson Church “About Town.”
RYAN KELLY (Dancer) is an artist and dancer currently living and working between Los Angeles and New York City. He received his MFA from the Interdisciplinary Studio in the UCLA Department of Art and his BA in Comparative Literature from Fordham University. Kelly was a Van Lier Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program and a member of New York City Ballet from 1998 to 2002. Since then, he has worked as a dancer for numerous classical and contemporary choreographers and directors including Karole Armitage, Suzanne Farrell, and Sasha Waltz. For the past ten years, he has engaged in a collaborative art practice with Brennan Gerard. Gerard & Kelly’s work has been shown in visual and performing arts contexts in New York City, nationally, and abroad. Their first solo exhibition, Kiss Solo, was held at Kate Werble Gallery in New York in 2013. They recently presented Timelining at a solo exhibition at The Kitchen in spring 2014.
MICHAEL INGLE (Dancer) was born and raised in Topeka, KS. He began dancing at the University of Kansas while earning his BFA in Art History. Since moving to New York City in 2007, he has performed with Hilary Easton + Company, Tere O’Connor Dance, Laura Peterson Choreography, Deganit Shemy & Company, Megan Sprenger/mvworks, Makiko Tamura/small apple co., Christopher Williams Dances, and Miriam Wolf, among others. Michael is also a freelance lighting designer and stage-manager. Anytime he isn’t doing something else, he creates work with his own group Michael and the Go- Getters.
OISÍN MONAGHAN (Dancer) received his BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College. Trained in both classical ballet and modern, Oisín began studying movement at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Currently, he is dancing with Robin Becker Dance, John- Mark Owen, Sensedance, and Christopher Caines Dance. He performed in the summer of 2013 at Jacob’s Pillow in O’Connor’s Cover Boy and toured with his piece, poem, last fall. He has performed with Robin Becker Dance at FIAF and with Sensedance at the Salvatore Capezio Theatre. Oisín has been photographed by distinguished photographers Peter Lindbergh, Mario Testino, Terry Tsiolis, Ryan McGinley, Kenneth Willardt, and John Rusnak and has appeared in various fashion magazines and campaigns. Earlier last year, Oisín acted in the short film The White Roses and shot with fashion photographer Ali Mahdavi in France. Oisín is honored to be a part of Bleed and is grateful for the support and profound artistry of his fellow dancers.
CYNTHIA OLIVER (Dancer) grew up in the US Virgin Islands and came into art via a childhood filled with black bodies moving in Afro-Caribbean time, space, and form and the incongruous mixture of European dance dramas and site-specific improvisational performance via the tutelage of Atti van den Berg, a former Kurt Jooss dancer/performer. Moving in this way led her to a career in NYC and abroad in the world of performance art and experimental dancing. She has danced with many companies including the David Gordon/Pick Up Performance Company, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, and Bebe Miller. In the black avant- garde theater world, she has performed in numerous works including plays by Laurie Carlos and Ntozake Shange. Her own work, a mélange of dance, theater, and the spoken word, incorporates the textures of Caribbean performance with African and American sensibilities. Named “Outstanding Young Choreographer” by reviewer Frank Werner in the German magazine Ballet Tanz early in her career, Cynthia has since received numerous grants and awards including a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for her work Death’s Door, an Illinois Arts Council Choreography Fellowship, a Creative Capital award, a Rockefeller Multi- Arts Production grant, a CalArts Alpert Award nomination, and most recently a University Scholar Award from the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, where she is a Professor of Dance. Cynthia holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University and is the author of Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the Caribbean. She is thrilled and honored to be dancing with Tere.
HEATHER OLSON (Dancer) is a dancer and choreographer who has been based in New York City since 1997. Her choreography has been commissioned by The Chocolate Factory (Shy showoff, 2011), the Olga Zitluhina Dejas Kompanija in Riga, Latvia (Your Experience Here, 2010), Sugar Salon (in the river, 2009), and Dance Theater Workshop (Curious awake not possible, 2008). Her work has also been presented by Aunts, Danspace Project, Galapagos Art Space, La MaMa, Movement Research at Judson Church, CATCH, Solonova Arts Festival (at P.S. 122), the International Computer Music Conference, Gorillafest and LIT at 100 Grand, and Creature Feature in Berlin, Germany. She was the recipient of a 2011 BAX Space Grant and was one of three artists selected for the 2008/2009 Sugar Salon, a creative residency, performance, and mentoring program created by Wax in partnership with the Barnard College Dance Department of Colombia University. As a performer, Olson has worked with Tere O’Connor Dance since 1997 and has appeared in ten works with the company. She also served as rehearsal director for Day, a solo O’Connor created for Jean Butler. Olson worked closely with Yanira Castro + Company (renamed acanarytorsi) from 2000 to 2009, appearing in seven dance installations, and has also appeared in the work of Jennifer Allen, Ivy Baldwin, Faye Driscoll, Levi Gonzalez, Stacy Grossfield, Ashley Smith Steele (Red Dive), and Larissa Velez-Jackson. Olson has received two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies), one for her performance in Castro’s Dark Horse/Black Forest, and the other for her body of work with Tere O’Connor.
MARY READ (Dancer) received her early training with Arlene Begelman, Robert Maiorano, and Barbara Braverman at the School of Performing Arts in New Milford, CT. Later, at Hampshire College, she studied dance and choreography with Cathy Nicoli, masked theater with Davor Dicklich, and psychoanalysis with Annie G. Rogers. Since moving to New York in 2009, Mary has been a dancer for Vanessa Anspaugh, Hilary Clark, Lily Gold, Molly Poerstel, Katy Pyle, Jen Rosenblit, Jacob Slominski, Larissa Velez, and Enrico Wey. She has also been an insurance claims associate, a caseworker for the Institute of Community Living, an afterschool teacher, a graduate student at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, and a babysitter. Mary began dancing with Tere O’Connor in May 2012. She is honored to be a part of his work.
SILAS RIENER (Dancer) grew up in Washington, DC. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Comparative Literature and certificates in Creative Writing and Dance, with a focus on linguistics. As a dancer, he has worked with Chantal Yzermans, Takehiro Ueyama, Christopher Williams, Jonah Bokaer, and Rebecca Lazier. He was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from November 2007 until its closure at the end of 2011, and received a 2012 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for his performance in Cunningham’s Split Sides. While performing with MCDC, Riener completed his MFA in Dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (2008). Since 2010, he has collaborated with poet Anne Carson and choreographer Rashaun Mitchell, with whom he continues to develop new projects. He has taught workshops and technique classes at Concord Academy SummerStages and throughout Turkey at several universities; he is currently on faculty in the Dance Program at Princeton University. He was the movement designer for the architecture and design firm the Harrison Atelier in 2012 and choreographed the site-specific performance/installations Pharmacophore: Architectural Placebo at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and VEAL at The Invisible Dog Art Center. His own work has also been seen at CATCH and as part of LMCC’s River to River Festival. Along with Rashaun Mitchell he was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” for 2013 and is a member of LMCC’s Extended Life Dance Development Program.
DAVID THOMSON (Dancer) has worked as a collaborative artist in the fields of music, dance, theater, and performance with such artists as Mel Wong, Jane Comfort, Bebe Miller (’83 to’86, ’03 to ’06), Remy Charlip, Trisha Brown (‘87 to ‘93), Susan Rethorst, David Roussève, Ralph Lemon (‘99 to present), Muna Tseng, Sekou Sundiata, Meg Stuart, Dean Moss/Layla Ali, Alain Buffard, Deborah Hay, and Marina Abramovic,́ among many others. He was a founding member of the Drama Desk-nominated a capella performance group, Hot Mouth. His own work has been presented by The Kitchen, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dance Theater Workshop, Roulette, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Thomson has been Artist-in-Residence at Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Gibney Dance Center, and at LMCC Governors Island. Thomson was honored with a Bessie for Sustained Achievement (2001) and as part of the creative team for Bebe Miller’s Landing/Place (2006). He is a 2012 USA Ford Fellow, a 2013 NYFA Fellow in Choreography, and a 2014 MacDowell Fellow. Thomson has served on the faculties of NYU/Experimental Theater Wing, Sarah Lawrence, The New School, and Movement Research. He has worked as an arts administrator and database consultant for several organizations including New York Foundation for the Arts, Merce Cunningham Foundation, Dieu Donné Papermill, National Performance Network, Movement Research, and Trisha Brown Company. An ongoing advocate for dance and the empowerment of artists, he was one of the founding members of Dancer’s Forum and has served on the boards of Bebe Miller/Gotham Dance, Dance Theater Workshop, and currently, New York Live Arts. He holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from SUNY Purchase. Thank you Tere for this beautiful opportunity!
JAMES BAKER (Composer) is Principal Percussionist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He is Music Director and Conductor of the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and Director of the Percussion Ensemble at the Mannes College of Music. Mr. Baker is the Conductor of the New York New Music Ensemble and Conductor of the Talea Ensemble. He is Guest Conductor of the Slee Sinfonietta at the Institute for 21st Century Music in Buffalo. He has led the Orchestra of the League of Composers and Speculum Musicae in concerts in NY and around the US; he has conducted concerts with Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall, with the Cygnus Ensemble at the Library of Congress, and in NY, the Tactus Ensemble at the Manhattan School of Music, Ensemble 21, and the DaCapo Chamber Players, among many others. He has conducted at the Darmstadt, Wien Modern, and Monadnok Music Festivals. He has both played and conducted at the Bang on a Can Marathon and has conducted at the Monday Night Concerts in Los Angeles and the contemporary music festival in Sant Cruz. He has conducted a number of Composers Portrait concerts at Miller Theater including those of Pierre Boulez (leading the US premiere of Derive II), Toru Takemitsu and Jason Eckhardt, and John Zorn. Mr. Baker was for many years a conductor of Broadway shows including The King and I, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Oklahoma, An Inspector Calls, and La Boheme. An active composer of electro-acoustic music, Mr. Baker received a Bessie award for composition for dance. He has written extensively for the theater and for various ensembles with electronics and has written a number of pieces for long-time collaborator Tere O’Connor. As a percussionist he appears often with Orpheus, was a member of the American Composers Orchestra and the Eos Orchestra, and has played with the New York Philharmonic, the Paris Opera Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Danish Orchestra, among others. He has appeared as a soloist at the Carnegie Hall Making Music series (with Hans Werner Henze), Lincoln Center Festival, Prague Spring Festival, NY City Ballet, and the Santa Fe and Moab chamber music festivals. He has played on many sound tracks for film and television and has appeared with Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Webb, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Michel LeGrand, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Branford Marsalis, Pablo Ziegler, and many other jazz and pop performers.
WALTER DUNDERVILL (Costume Designer) has had his choreography presented at Dance Theater Workshop, The Chocolate Factory, Movement Research at Judson Church, Participant Inc., NADA via Cafe Dancer, and The Solo in Azione Festival in Milan, Italy. He has received Bessie Awards as a performer in RoseAnne Spradlin’s under/world, for the costume design of Luicana Achugar’s Puro Deseo, and for the visual design of his own choreography Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain. He worked with O’Connor as set designer for Wrought Iron Fog in 2010. Walter is a member of the Artist Advisory Council at Movement Research. He was a 2012/13 Studio Series resident at New York Live Arts and a 2010/11 Movement Research Artist in Residence. He was a co- curator of Hardcorps, the Movement Research Spring Festival 2010. He has taught and performed as a guest artist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Frostburg State Univeristy, the Staadtstheater in Magdeburg, Germany, and for ClassClassClass in NYC. Dundervill received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Georgia.
MICHAEL O’CONNOR (Lighting Designer) is proud and honored to have been working with Tere since 1998. Recent designs for Tere O’Connor and others include Hurry (Project Arts Centre, Dublin), Who’s Your Daddy? (Irish Rep), Next to Normal (CAP 21), Secret Mary and poem (NYLA), A Celebration of Harold Pinter (Irish Rep), In and Out (Danspace Project), American Clock (AADA), Cover Boy (Danspace Project), Noctu (Irish Rep), Jimmy Titanic (Drilling Company), Lend Me A Tenor (Gallery Players), New Works Studio (LAByrinth Theatre), Moonfleece (45th Street Theater), Oliver (David F. Clune Center), Snapshot Plays (Theatre 54), and Spring Awakening (AADA). Michael is also the resident Lighting Designer for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts NYC.
CHRISTOPHER GROSS (Cellist) Following his performance of Brian Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II for solo cello at the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Times wrote “...for 20 minutes this skinny young cellist with a punkish hair cut seemed like a musical master of the universe...” As an active freelance performer of contemporary music in New York City, Mr. Gross has premiered works by composers as diverse as Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, Olga Neuwirth, and Anthony Cheung. He is a founding member of the Talea Ensemble. The ensemble was featured at the 2012 Darmstadt International Festival, the 2012 Harvard Summer Composition Institute, and the 2013 Kingston Chamber Music Festival. He was also a founding member of the iO Quartet, the Quartet-in- Residence at SUNY Purchase from 2006 to 2008, recipients of the 2008 Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant, and prize-winners at Chamber Music Yellow Springs. In 2006 he premiered Milton Babbitt’s More Melismata for solo cello. In his work as an educator, Mr. Gross teaches at Lehigh University and is on the Teaching Artist faculty of The New York Philharmonic. He is also a certified Suzuki Instructor and has had articles published in the Journal of the Suzuki Association of America. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Oberlin College and is currently a CV Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School in New York.
JULIA READ (Vocals) is a fiddlist, singer, and songwriter who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She enjoys collaborating with artists in different media. When she is not touring she teaches ESL to adults. Her music can be found at juliaread.bandcamp.com
THANK YOUS
Thank you to Michael O’Connor and Walter Dundervill for their excellent work. And special thanks to composer James Baker whose precise and beautiful voice is so closely woven into my dances, delicately shaping them over all these years.
Thanks to my longtime friend and colleague Laurie Uprichard who is project manager for this work. Her expertise and calm demeanor have been indispensable. She is magic.
My thanks to Jenn Joy who has been my partner in developing the blog and feedback sessions during this period. Our efforts are available at bleedtereoconnor.org.
Thanks to the Vapnek Family Fund, Brian MacDevitt Diana Perron, and all of our patrons and funders. You are the most crucial link and we are very grateful.
Thank you as well to Michael Ingle, Julia Read, Chris Cameron, Chris Gross, Jennifer Calienes, Sara Nash, Jan Erkert, Karen Graham, Lucien Zayan, Carla Peterson, Sam Miller, Kathleen Harleman, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Janet Stapleton, Roger Hubeli & Julie Larson, Joe Melillo, Amy Cassello, and everyone at BAM.
We would like to offer our greatest thanks to Jodee Nimerichter and the whole team at ADF for supporting these performances and offering such warm hospitality. We are delighted to be here in North Carolina!
• presents
Paul Taylor Dance Company
First Lady Michelle Obama, 2014 Honorary Chair •
Friday, July 18 & Saturday, July 19 at 8:00pm Durham Performing Arts Center
MICHAEL TRUSNOVEC ROBERT KLEINENDORST JAMES SAMSON MICHELLE FLEET PARISA KHOBDEH SEAN MAHONEY ERAN BUGGE FRANCISCO GRACIANO LAURA HALZACK JAMIE RAE WALKER MICHAEL APUZZO AILEEN ROEHL MICHAEL NOVAK HEATHER MCGINLEY GEORGE SMALLWOOD CHRISTINA LYNCH MARKHAM
Artistic Director PAUL TAYLOR
Rehearsal Director BETTIE DE JONG
Executive Director JOHN TOMLINSON
Principal Lighting Designer JENNIFER TIPTON
Principal Set & Costume Designer SANTO LOQUASTO
DIGGITY (1978)
Music specially composed by Donald York
Choreography by Paul Taylor
Set and Costumes by Alex Katz
Lighting by Jennifer Tipton
PERFORMERS Robert Kleinendorst, Michelle Fleet, Eran Bugge Francisco Graciano, Laura Halzack, Aileen Roehl Heather McGinley, George Smallwood
Original production made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellow Foundation.
Intermission • •
MARATHON CADENZAS (Premiere Season)
Music by Raymond Scott
Choreography by Paul Taylor
Set and Costumes by Santo Loquasto
Lighting by James F. Ingalls
PERFORMERS Michael Trusnovec, Robert Kleinendorst, James Samson Michelle Fleet, Sean Mahoney, Francisco Graciano Laura Halzack, Jamie Rae Walker, Aileen Roehl Michael Novak, Heather McGinley, Christina Lynch Markham
Commissioned in loving memory of Mary Ann Kinkead.
Commissioned by Marjorie S. Isaac.
Made possible by ADF with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Dance.
Creation and preservation made possible with contributions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Commissioning Friends of the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
Additional support made possible by participants in Create with Taylor.
Intermission • •
CLOVEN KINGDOM (1976)
Man is a social animal. — Spinoza
Music by Arcangelo Corelli, Henry Cowell, and Malloy Miller Combined by John Herbert McDowell
Choreography by Paul Taylor
Women’s Costumes by Scott Barrie
Headpieces by John Rawlings
Lighting by Jennifer Tipton PERFORMERS Laura Halzack, Aileen Roehl, Heather McGinley Christina Lynch Markham, Michael Trusnovec, Michael Apuzzo, Michael Novak, George Smallwood Michelle Fleet, Parisa Khobdeh, Eran Bugge, Jamie Rae Walker
Original production supported by a contribution from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Revival supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
The American spirit soars whenever Taylor’s dancers dance. – San Francisco Chronicle
The PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY is one of the world’s most highly respected and sought-after ensembles.
Dance maker Paul Taylor first presented his choreography with five other dancers in Manhattan on May 30, 1954. That modest performance marked the beginning of a half- century of unrivaled creativity, and in the decades that followed, Mr. Taylor became a cultural icon and one of history’s most celebrated artists, hailed as part of the pantheon that created American modern dance.
The Paul Taylor Dance Company has traveled the globe many times over, bringing Mr. Taylor’s ever-burgeoning repertoire to theaters and venues of every size and description in cultural capitals, on college campuses, and in rural communities—and often to places modern dance has never been before. The Taylor Company has performed in more than 520 cities in 62 countries, representing the United States at arts festivals in more than 40 countries and touring extensively under the aegis of the US Department of State. In 1997, the company toured throughout India in celebration of that nation’s 50th anniversary. Its 1999 engagement in Chile was named the Best International Dance Event of 1999 by the country’s Art Critics’ Circle. In the summer of 2001, the company toured in the People’s Republic of China and performed in six cities, four of which had never seen American modern dance before. In the spring of 2003, the company mounted an award-winning four-week, seven- city tour of the United Kingdom. The company’s performances in China in November 2007 marked its fourth tour there.
While continuing to garner international acclaim, the Paul Taylor Dance Company performs more than half of each touring season in cities throughout the United States. The company’s season in 2005, marking its 50th anniversary, was attended by more than 25,000 people. In celebration of the anniversary and 50 years of creativity by one of the most extraordinary artists the world has ever known, the Taylor Foundation presented Mr. Taylor’s works in all 50 States between March 2004 and November 2005. That tour underscored the Taylor company’s historic role as one of the early touring companies of American modern dance. The 50th Anniversary celebration also featured a quartet of new dances.
Beginning with its first television appearance for the Dance in America series in 1978, the Paul Taylor Dance Company has appeared on PBS in ten different programs, including the 1992 Emmy Award-winning Speaking in Tongues and The Wrecker’s Ball—including Company B, Funny Papers, and A Field of Grass—which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1997. In 1999, the PBS American Masters series aired Dancemaker, the Academy Award nominated documentary about Mr. Taylor and his company. In 2013, PBS aired Paul Taylor Dance Company in Paris, featuring Brandenburgs and Beloved Renegade. Dancemaker and Paul Taylor Dance Company in Paris are available on DVD.
To learn more about the Paul Taylor Dance Company, please visit www.ptdc.org.
BIOGRAPHIES
Choreographer PAUL TAYLOR is the greatest living pioneer of America’s indigenous art of modern dance. At an age when most artists’ best work is behind them, Mr. Taylor continues to win public and critical acclaim for the vibrancy, relevance, and power of his creations. As he has since his origins as a dance maker in 1954, he offers cogent observations on life’s complexities while tackling some of society’s thorniest issues. While he may propel his dancers through space for the sheer beauty of it, he more frequently uses them to illuminate such profound issues as war, piety, spirituality, sexuality, morality, and mortality. If, as George Balanchine said, there are no mothers-in-law in ballet, there certainly are dysfunctional families, disillusioned idealists, imperfect religious leaders, angels, and insects in Mr. Taylor’s dances. Paul Taylor was born on July 29, 1930—exactly nine months after the stock market crash that led into the Great Depression—and grew up in and around Washington, DC. He attended Syracuse University on a swimming scholarship in the late 1940s until he discovered dance through books at the university library, and then transferred to The Juilliard School. In 1954, he assembled a small company of dancers and began to choreograph. A commanding performer despite his late start in dance, he joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1955 for the first of seven seasons as soloist while continuing to choreograph on his own troupe. In 1959, he was invited to be a guest artist with New York City Ballet, where Balanchine created the Episodes solo for him.
Mr. Taylor has made 140 dances since 1954, many of which have attained iconic status. He has covered a breathtaking range of topics, but recurring themes include life and death, the natural world and man’s place within it, love and sexuality in all gender combinations, and iconic moments in American history. His poignant looks at soldiers, those who send them into battle, and those they leave behind, prompted the New York Times to hail him as “among the great war poets” —high praise indeed for an artist in a wordless medium. While some of his dances have been termed “dark” and others “light,” the majority of his works are dualistic, mixing elements of both extremes. And while his work has largely been iconoclastic, he has also made some of the most purely romantic, most astonishingly athletic, and downright funniest dances ever put on stage.
Mr. Taylor first gained notoriety as a dance maker in 1957 with Seven New Dances; its study in non-movement famously earned it a blank newspaper review, and Graham subsequently dubbed him the “naughty boy” of dance. In 1962, with his first major success—the sunny Aureole—he set his trailblazing modern movement not to a contemporary score but to music composed 200 years earlier, and then went to the opposite extreme a year later with a view of purgatory in Scudorama. He inflamed the establishment in 1965 by lampooning some of America’s most treasured icons in From Sea To Shining Sea and created more controversy in 1970 by putting incest center stage in Big Bertha. After retiring as a performer in 1974, he created an instant classic, the exuberant Esplanade (1975), which remains his signature work. In Cloven Kingdom (1976) he examined the primitive nature that lurks just below man’s veneer of sophistication and gentility. He looked at intimacy among men at war in 1983— long before “Don’t ask, don’t tell” became official policy—in Sunset, pictured Armageddon in Last Look (1985), and peered unflinchingly at religious hypocrisy and marital rape in Speaking In Tongues (1988). In Company B (1991) he used popular songs of the Andrews Sisters to juxtapose the high spirits of Americans during the 1940s with the sacrifices so many of them made during World War II. In The Word (1998), he railed against religious zealotry and blind conformity to authority. In the first decade of the new millennium he condemned American imperialism in Banquet of Vultures, poked fun at feminism in Dream Girls and stared death square in the face in the Walt Whitman-inspired Beloved Renegade. Brief Encounters (2009) and The Uncommitted (2011) each examined the inability of many men and women in contemporary society to form meaningful, lasting relationships.
Hailed for uncommon musicality and catholic taste, Mr. Taylor has set movement to music so memorably that for many people it is impossible to hear certain orchestral works and popular songs and not think of his dances. He has set works to an eclectic mix that includes Medieval masses, Renaissance dances, baroque concertos, classical symphonies, and scores by Debussy, Cage, Feldman, Ligeti, and Pärt; Ragtime, Tango, Tin Pan Alley, Barbershop Quartets, and the Mamas and the Papas; and telephone time announcements, loon calls, and laughter.
Mr. Taylor has influenced dozens of men and women who have gone on to choreograph— many on their own troupes—including Pina Bausch, Patrick Corbin, Laura Dean, Senta Driver, Thomas Evert, Danny Ezralow, Danny Grossman, Amy Marshall, David Parsons, Twyla Tharp, Takehiro Ueyama, Doug Wright, and Lila York. Many others have gone on to become respected teachers at colleges and universities, including Carolyn Adams, Ruth Andrien, Mary Cochran, Connie Dinapoli, Orion Duckstein, David Grenke, Kate Johnson, Elizabeth Keen, Linda Kent, Renee Kimball, Sharon Kinney, Jane Kosminsky, Joao Mauricio, Susan McGuire, Sharon Stone, Kenneth Tosti, Dan Wagoner, Elizabeth Walton, Karla Wolfangle, and Raegan Wood. And he has worked closely with such outstanding artists as Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, William Ivey Long, Santo Loquasto, Gene Moore, Tharon Musser, Robert Rauschenberg, John Rawlings, Thomas Skelton, and Jennifer Tipton.
As the subject of Matthew Diamond’s documentary, Dancemaker, and author of the autobiography Private Domain and Wall Street Journal essay “Why I Make Dances,” Mr. Taylor has shed light on the mysteries of the creative process as few artists have. Dancemaker, which received an Oscar nomination, was hailed by Time as “perhaps the best dance documentary ever.” His autobiography, Private Domain, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf and re-released by North Point Press and later by the University of Pittsburgh Press, was nominated by the National Book Critics Circle as the most distinguished biography of 1987. A documentary on the making of Three Dubious Memories, entitled Creative Domain, has been made, and a new collection of his essays, Facts and Fancies, was published in February 2013.
Mr. Taylor has received nearly every important honor given to artists in the United States. In 1992, he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and received an Emmy Award for Speaking in Tongues, produced by WNET/New York the previous year. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 1993. In 1995, he received the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts and was named one of 50 prominent Americans honored in recognition of their outstanding achievement by the Library of Congress’s Office of Scholarly Programs. He is the recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from California Institute of the Arts, Connecticut College, Duke University, The Juilliard School, Skidmore College, the State University of New York at Purchase, Syracuse University, and Adelphi University. Awards for lifetime achievement include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—often called the “genius award”— and the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award. Other awards include the New York State Governor’s Arts Award and the New York City Mayor’s Award of Honor for Art and Culture. In 1989, Mr. Taylor was elected one of ten honorary members of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Having been elected to knighthood by the French government as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1969 and elevated to Officier in 1984 and Commandeur in 1990, Mr. Taylor was awarded France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur, in 2000 for exceptional contributions to French culture.
Mr. Taylor’s dances are performed by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the six-member Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company (begun in 1993), and companies throughout the world including the Royal Danish Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He remains among the most sought-after choreographers working today, commissioned by presenting organizations the world over. Continuing to embrace change and take risks as he has his entire career, in 2012 he moved his company to a new home at Lincoln Center. The 2013 Lincoln Center engagement was summed up this way in the New York Observer, in an article entitled, “It’s About Time Audiences Turned Out in Droves for Paul Taylor”:
“How gratifying that Taylor’s current season is packing them in... I’ve never seen such large and enthusiastic audiences for his work, and I go back with him almost 50 years... He’s not only startlingly original but, apart from Balanchine’s, his is the largest and most important—and most enjoyable— dance repertory we have.”
BETTIE DE JONG (Rehearsal Director) was born in Sumatra, Indonesia, and in 1946 moved to Holland, where she continued her early training in dance and mime. Her first professional engagement was with the Netherlands Pantomime Company. After coming to New York City to study at the Martha Graham School, she performed with the Graham Company, the Pearl Lang Company, John Butler, and Lucas Hoving and was seen on CBS-TV with Rudolf Nureyev in a duet choreographed by Paul Taylor. Ms. de Jong joined the Taylor Company in 1962. Noted for her strong stage presence and long line, she was Mr. Taylor’s favorite dancing partner and, as Rehearsal Director, has been his right arm for the past 38 years.
MICHAEL TRUSNOVEC hails from Yaphank, NY. He began dancing at age six and attended the Long Island High School for the Arts. In 1992, he was named a YoungArts Level I Awardee, and honored as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 1996, he received a BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Professionally, he danced with Taylor 2 from 1996 to 1998 and has appeared with Cortez & Co. Contemporary/Ballet and CorbinDances. Fall 1998 marked his debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Mr. Trusnovec received a 2006 New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for his Body of Work during the 2005-06 Taylor season.
ROBERT KLEINENDORST is originally from Roseville, MN. He graduated from Luther College in 1995 with a BA in voice and dance. After moving to New York, he danced with the Gail Gilbert Dance Ensemble and Cortez & Co. Mr. Kleinendorst also performed with Anna Sokolow’s Players Projects at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Having studied at the Taylor School since 1996, he joined Taylor 2 in August 1998. Mr. Kleinendorst joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Fall 2000.
JAMES SAMSON is a native of Jefferson City, MO where he began his dance training at age eight. He received a BFA in dance with a minor in business from Southwest Missouri State University. He then went on to study as a scholarship student with the David Parsons New Arts Festival, the Pilobolus Intensive Workshop, and the Alvin Ailey Summer Intensive, where he was selected to perform in Paul Taylor’s Airs set by Linda Kent. Mr. Samson danced for Charleston Ballet Theatre, Omaha Theatre Company Ballet, New England Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, and the Amy Marshall Dance Company. He joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in February 2001.
MICHELLE FLEET grew up in the Bronx and began her dance training at age four. She attended Ballet Hispanico of New York during her training at Talent Unlimited High School. There she was a member of the Ballet Hispanico Junior Company. Ms. Fleet earned her BFA in dance from Purchase College in 1999 and received her MBA in business management in 2006. She has performed in works by Bill T. Jones, Merce Cunningham, Kevin Wynn, and Carlo Menotti. Ms. Fleet joined the Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company in Summer 1999. She made her debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in September 2002.
PARISA KHOBDEH, born and raised in Plano, TX, trained with Kathy Chamberlain and Gilles Tanguay and earned a BFA from Southern Methodist University. She has worked with choreographers Robert Battle, Judith Jamison, Donald McKayle, and David Grenke. Ms. Khobdeh also studied at the Taylor and Graham schools and teaches master classes at schools and universities around the US. She made her debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the American Dance Festival in June 2003.
SEAN MAHONEY, born and raised in Bensalem, PA, began his life in dance at age 12 by attending Princeton Ballet School on scholarship; that year he also started training with Fred Knecht. In 1991, he began as an apprentice at American Repertory Ballet (ARB) and became a featured dancer with the company, which he rejoined in 2000 under the direction of Graham Lustig. Mr. Mahoney was chosen as one of the first members of Taylor 2 in 1993 just after completing high school. He has danced for David Parsons, Alex Tressor, and Geoffrey Doig-Marx and performed in Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular. He rejoined Taylor 2 in 2002. Mr. Mahoney is the son of a construction worker who provided him with the skills he uses to assist with set construction for the company. As a musician, he accompanies classes at the Taylor School and is a member of the band Heroes Die. He made his debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in January 2004.
ERAN BUGGE is from Oviedo, FL where she began her dance training at the Orlando Ballet School. She went on to study at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford under the direction of Peggy Lyman, graduating summa cum laude with a BFA in ballet pedagogy in 2005. She attended the Taylor School and the 2004 and 2005 Taylor Summer Intensives. Ms. Bugge has performed in works by Amy Marshall, Katie Stevinson-Nollet, and Jean Grand- Maître. She was also a member of Full Force Dance Theatre and the Adam Miller Dance Project. In 2012, Ms. Bugge was the recipient of the Hartt Alumni Award. She joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Fall 2005.
FRANCISCO GRACIANO, a native of San Antonio, TX, began dancing and acting at an early age. He received a BFA in dance from Stephens College for Women (male scholarship) and scholarships from the Alvin Ailey School and the Taylor School. He has been a member of TAKE Dance Company, Connecticut Ballet, Ben Munisteri Dance Company, Cortez & Co. Contemporary/Ballet, Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre, and Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, among others. He also appeared in the operas Aida and White Raven directed by Robert Wilson. His backstage photography can be seen at www.franciscograciano.com. Mr. Graciano joined Taylor 2 in February 2004 and made his debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Granada, Spain in summer 2006. LAURA HALZACK grew up in Suffield, CT and began her dance training at the age of four with Brenda Barna. She furthered her training at the School of the Hartford Ballet and studied at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. Ms. Halzack graduated summa cum laude with a degree in history from the University of New Hampshire in 2003. She then studied at the Hartt School and at the Taylor School’s 2004 Summer Intensive. She has performed with the Amy Marshall Dance Company and Syren Modern Dance and has enjoyed teaching in her home state. Ms. Halzack studied at the Taylor School for two years before joining the Paul Taylor Dance Company in summer 2006.
JAMIE RAE WALKER began her ballet and Graham-based modern dance training at age eight in Levittown, PA and later performed with the Princeton Ballet, now American Repertory Ballet. In 1991, she began training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and in 1992 was awarded a scholarship by Violette Verdy at the Northeast Regional Dance Festival. Ms. Walker joined Miami City Ballet in 1994 and performed principal and soloist roles in Balanchine and Taylor dances until 2000. In 2001, she received a scholarship to attend the Taylor School and was a part of the original cast of Twyla Tharp’s Broadway show, Movin’ Out. Ms. Walker joined the Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company in fall 2003 and became a member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in summer 2008.
MICHAEL APUZZO grew up in North Haven, CT. He studied economics and theater at Yale University, graduating magna cum laude in 2005. Growing up in musical theater, he began his formal dance training in college, performing and choreographing in undergraduate companies. After being dance captain for an original production of Miss Julie choreographed by Peter Pucci, Mr. Apuzzo debuted professionally at the Yale Repertory Theater. He has since performed in numerous musicals at equity theaters across the country and in the national tour of Twyla Tharp’s Broadway show, Movin’ Out. He holds a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do and recently published his first book, Flying Through Yellow. Mr. Apuzzo joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Fall 2008.
AILEEN ROEHL is an American who grew up in Heidelberg, Germany, where she began her dance training at the Heidelberg School of the Arts with Isabel Christie and Carolyn Carattini. Under Mrs. Christie’s direction, she danced many roles including Puck, the Firebird, and Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and Nikiya in La Bayadere. She received her BFA from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School where she performed works by Martha Graham, Peggy Lyman, Katie Stevenson-Nollet, Jean Grand-Maitre, Kirk Peterson, Alla Nikitina, Ralph Perkins, and Adam Miller. Aileen was a member of the Amy Marshall Dance Company from September 2005 through May 2010 and was the company’s resident costume designer. She joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in June 2010.
MICHAEL NOVAK was raised in Rolling Meadows, IL, where he started dancing at age ten. He trained on full scholarship at the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet and, after moving to New York, went on to study with Joe Williams and Anna Lederfeind. In 2009, he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a BA in Dance and later performed with Gibney Dance, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, and Bonnie Scheibman. Mr. Novak started studying at the Taylor School in 2008 and participated in the Taylor Summer Intensive before joining the company in summer 2010. His debut season earned him a nomination for the 2011 Clive Barnes Foundation Dance Award.
HEATHER MCGINLEY grew up in St. Louis, MO. Through her early training with Lisbeth Brown, she attained a diploma in the Cecchetti Method of Classical Ballet. She graduated from Butler University with a BFA in dance performance in 2005. She was a member of Graham II for two seasons and went on to perform with the Martha Graham Dance Company from 2008 to 2011. Ms. McGinley toured Italy in the original cast of the theater piece Seeking Picasso, dancing lead roles including Graham’s Deep Song. She participated in the 2010 Intensives at the Taylor School and joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in spring 2011.
GEORGE SMALLWOOD is a native of New Orleans. He earned a BFA degree in dance performance and a Bachelor of Business Administration with an International Focus from Southern Methodist University. He has been a member of the Parsons Dance Company, where he performed the signature solo Caught, and the Martha Graham and Lar Lubovitch companies. As co-founder of Battleworks, he performed, taught master classes, and re-staged Robert Battle’s works across the country. He has been in regional productions of Spamalot, Chicago, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, Crazy for You, The Music Man, White Christmas, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and 42nd Street. He joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company temporarily in spring 2011 and rejoined in summer 2012.
CHRISTINA LYNCH MARKHAM grew up in Westbury, NY and began dancing with Lori Shaw, and continued dancing at Holy Trinity High School under the direction of Catherine Murphy. She attended Hofstra University on scholarship and performed works by Cathy McCann, Karla Wolfangle, Robin Becker, and Lance Westergard. During college, she also trained at the Taylor School and attended the company’s Summer Intensive. After graduating summa cum laude in 2004, she danced with the Amy Marshall Dance Company, Stacie Nelson, and the Dance Theater Company. She joined Taylor 2 in summer 2008 and made her debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in summer 2013. MetLife Foundation is Official Tour Sponsor of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company. Major funding provided by the SHS Foundation and the Board of Trustees and Friends of the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation. Support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Funding also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.