WHAT’S INSIDE Dear Patrons | 5 Stephen Petronio Company | 11 Aspen Santa Fe Ballet: An Evening With Pianist Joyce Yang | 22 Complexions | 30 TITAS Presents: Donors | 38 Board of Trustees/ Staff | 41 ATTPAC Staff | 43 Cover photo Andrew Eccles: Alvin Ailey® American Dance Theater’s Jamar Roberts ADVERTISING Onstage Publications 937-424-0529 | 866-503-1966 e-mail: [email protected] www.onstagepublications.com This program is published in association with Onstage Publications, 1612 Prosser Avenue, Kettering, OH 45409. This program may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. JBI Publishing is a division of Onstage Publications, Inc. Contents © 2018. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. DEAR PATRONS © Carter Rose DIVERSE | CAPTIVATING | GROUNDBREAKING – Words that speak to what sets TITAS Presents apart. Forward-thinking, surprising, intriguing and relevant are all precepts that guide the curation of the annual seasons we put together. Dance is such a special art form. Athletic, difficult, luscious, inspiring and surprising— Time and time again, these are the descriptions I hear from audience members. For more than 35 years, TITAS Presents continues to present the coolest, the most innovative, the most remarkable dance artists touring the world today. First-time audience members say they had no idea dance was so cool, something our longtime subscribers have always known. The 2018/2019 season won’t disappoint. Creative, soulful, gymnastic and breathtaking imagery makes this a very special set of international companies. Funny, stunning, inspiring and exciting, we proudly present a season of ten extraordinary companies from the United States and China. It is a season rich in creativity and soul-stirring performances. Success is rooted in collaboration. Together, TITAS Presents and the AT&T Performing Arts Center are dedicated to cultivating talent, new work, and advancing the Arts in our ever-expanding cultural landscape. We are committed, both individually and jointly, to supporting a collaborative community that fosters the creative process. Tonight’s presentation exemplifies our commitment to that process, and to innovative programming. We bring the world to Dallas. Thank you for actively engaging in the Arts, and for being a part of the TITAS Presents and AT&T Performing Arts Center families. What we do together, truly does make a difference. Sincerely, Charles Santos Executive Director/Artistic Director TITAS TITAS PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 5 6 TITAS PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Did You Know? Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full year are: • 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement • 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools • 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair • 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance • 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem TITAS PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 9 FRIDAY . SATURDAY | OCTOBER 19 . 20 2018 | MOODY PERFORMANCE HALL STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY Artistic Director, Choreographer STEPHEN PETRONIO Dancers BRIA BACON ERNESTO BRETON JAQLIN MEDLOCK TESS MONTOYA RYAN PLISS NICHOLAS SCISCIONE MAC TWINING MEGAN WRIGHT Assistant to the Artistic Director Resident Lighting Designer NICHOLAS SCISCIONE KEN TABACHNICK Technical Director Lighting Supervisor JOE DORAN GILLIAN WOLPERT Production Stage Manager Education Directors ROBERT MCINTYRE TESS MONTOYA MEGAN WRIGHT Executive Director YVAN GREENBERG For North American booking inquiries: Cathy Pruzan, Artist Representative, [email protected] TITAS PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 11 FRIDAY . SATURDAY | OCTOBER 19 . 20 2018 | MOODY PERFORMANCE HALL Program bud (2005) Choreography: Stephen Petronio Music: Rufus Wainwright, “Oh What a World”; Published by Put Tit On Music/ WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) Costumes: H. Petal and Tara Subkoff Lighting: Ken Tabachnick Performed by: Ernesto Breton and Mac Twining - PAUSE - Hardness 10 (2018) Choreography: Stephen Petronio Music: Nico Muhly; Music by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. publisher and copyright owner. Costumes: Patricia Field ARTFASHION, hand-painted by Iris Bonner/These Pink Lips Lighting: Ken Tabachnick Performed by: Bria Bacon, Ernesto Breton, Jaqlin Medlock, Tess Montoya, Nicholas Sciscione, Mac Twining, Megan Wright INTERMISSION Excerpt from Goldberg Variations (1986) Choreography: Steve Paxton Music: Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, performed by Glenn Gould, Courtesy of Sony Classical, By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing Lighting: Ken Tabachnick Performed by: Nicholas Sciscione - PAUSE - Untitled Touch (2017) Choreography: Stephen Petronio Music: Original score by Son Lux Costumes: H. Petal Lighting: Ken Tabachnick Performed by: Bria Bacon, Ernesto Breton, Jaqlin Medlock, Tess Montoya, Ryan Pliss, Nicholas Sciscione, Mac Twining, Megan Wright The creation of Untitled Touch and Hardness 10 was made possible by a commissioning grant from The O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation and by support from New Music USA. PROGRAM NOTES The bud duet, from 2005, is the seed that Of the many dance interpretations of Bach’s Goldberg grew into Bud Suite (2006). Made to some of Variations, Steve Paxton’s work is, perhaps, the most Rufus Wainwright’s most beloved love songs based invested in variety. Beginning in 1986, Paxton’s on desire and longing, this group of short dances Goldberg Variations project extended over six years, was built on these ideas along with physical contact rooted in his commitment to never perform the and gender fluidity.Bud Suite escalates from those work identically. Inspired by Glenn Gould’s 1982 explorations to transcendence through physicality, recording, and intrigued by the juxtaposition of an an elevation from the body to a less tangible plane. ever-changing dance set to a fixed audio reproduction, Paxton did not commit to recording any of his My experience through Bloodlines, particularly in performances until the project’s end in 19921. A staging Yvonne Rainer’s work last season, has offered quarter of a century later, the video serves as a lush the possibility of a new kind of space to experiment portrait of who Paxton was as a mover during this with pedestrian movement in my newest work, time, though that was never his intent. Widely Hardness 10—simple walking patterns, alongside the revered as the shepherd of contact improvisation, virtuosic athleticism for which I’m best known for. history texts often fail to mention the exquisite This work began as a meditation on the nature of nature of Paxton as a performer of his own repertory. the diamond, a dense stone, forged under pressure Yvonne Rainer once commented that Paxton into an object of brilliance and clarity. Once the developed his aesthetic as a means to avoid the idea formed, there was no question in my mind inherent technical brilliance of his dancing body2. that this was the perfect opportunity for a third This excerpt from Paxton’s work highlights the collaboration with Nico Muhly, whose music holds magic that results from mating a highly-evolved an emotional depth and formal mastery that is rare. mover with a masterful improviser. Shifting from And what an amazingly bold pairing with Patricia isolation and fine motor movements to athletic gross Field’s graphic costumes. Always, the lighting of motor movement, existing in all dimensions in space, Ken Tabachnick is essential to how you see my contrasting strong, quick effort with undulations work. His title does no service to his ongoing of the spine, the dance, and Nicholas Sciscione’s contribution to the art we continue to make. performance, are facile… curious… alluring. —Stephen Petronio Petronio’s [2017] work, Untitled Touch, is a mix of purposeful propulsion and dexterous motion. The dancers often act upon another, rather than work Bloodlines is the project of a lifetime. Literally. in tandem, orbiting around each other while Initiated in 2014, on the heels of Stephen Petronio transitions and groupings dissolve. The movement Company’s 30th anniversary, Bloodlines simultaneously allows varied aesthetics to rub together, as classical looks forward and back on the legacy of Stephen lines collide with the deliberate release of effort. Petronio, while making space for the vision and As noted in the title, it is a tactile work, but is lineage of his most influential predecessors. With neither sensitive nor indulgent. Instead, it employs specific focus on Petronio’s post-modern heroes surprisingly percussive movement vocabulary. and mentors (Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, The accompanying score, composed by frequent Anna Halprin, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer), collaborator Son Lux, suggests an ongoingness in Bloodlines endeavors to shift dance history from the opposition to the decisive irregularity of the staging. books into the body, and, in doing so, encourages In these moments of juxtaposition, Petronio makes audiences to reframe the narratives assigned to these his own dance history transparent, referencing his dances within history. Part homage, part investigation, influences without mimicry or portraiture. The non- through Bloodlines, Petronio draws a serpentine line discerning eye might miss the elements upon first from post-modernism to his own signature elegance glance, but…we see clear nods