PEAK Richard Alston Dance Company Large Print.Indd
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Richard Alston Dance Company Photo by Chris Nash February 20 I 21 I 22 I 23, 2020 Alexander Kasser Theater Dr. Susan A. Cole, President Daniel Gurskis, Dean, College of the Arts Jedediah Wheeler, Executive Director, Arts + Cultural Programming Richard Alston Dance Company Artistic Director Sir Richard Alston CBE Executive Director Isabel Tamen Associate Choreographer /Rehearsal Director Martin Lawrance Touring Administrator Rebecca Staple Production Manager Kieran Enticknap Lighting Designer/Technical Manager Zeynep Kepekli Sound Engineer Mark Webber Wardrobe Supervisor Inca Jaakson Dancers Elly Braund, Joshua Harriette, Jennifer Hayes, Monique Jonas, Nahum McLean, Nicholas Shikkis, Jason Tucker, Ellen Yilma, Niall Egan, Alejandra Gissler Program Voices and Light Footsteps (US Premiere) Choreography Richard Alston Music Claudio Monteverdi Lighting Martin Lawrance Costumes Peter Todd Music and Dancers: Sinfonia (instrumental) Joshua Harriette Zefiro Torna (madrigal for two tenors) Joshua Harriette, Nicholas Shikkis, Nahum McLean, Jason Tucker, Ellen Yilma, Monique Jonas, Jennifer Hayes Dara La Notte Company Si Dolce e il Tormento (madrigal for solo soprano) Monique Jonas Sinfonia (instrumental from Orfeo) Elly Braund, Nicholas Shikkis Sinfonia (instrumental from Orfeo) Jennifer Hayes, Jason Tucker Ballo (instrumental) Company Tempro La Cetra (madrigal for solo tenor) Ellen Yilma, Joshua Harriette Sinfonia a sei (instrumental) Alejandra Gissler, Nahum McLean, Monique Jonas, Niall Egan Damigella Tutta Bella (madrigal for three voices) Company Voices and Light Footsteps is dedicated to the memory of Belinda Quirey, a formidable authority on historical dance and an utterly inspiring teacher. Credits: Under the title Arrived parts of this dance were originally commissioned by Virginia Arts Festival 2019 and, with extra material created for twenty students from the Governor’s School for the Arts, it was first presented on March 21, 2019, at Chrysler Hall, Norfolk, Virginia. Voices and Light Footsteps was first performed September 27, 2019, at Festival Theatre Edinburgh. Supported by Festival Theatre Edinburgh. Detour (US Premiere) Choreography Martin Lawrance Music Akira Miyoshi, Ripple for Solo Marimba, performed by Emiko Uchiyama; Michael Gordon, from the album Timber Remixed, performed by Mantra Percussion, remixed by Jóhann Jóhannsson Lighting Design Zeynep Kepekli Costumes Jeffrey Rogador Dancers Alejandra Gissler, Nicholas Shikkis Ellen Yilma, Jason Tucker Jennifer Hayes, Nahum McLean Monique Jonas, Joshua Harriette Credits: Music by arrangement with Classic Concert Records, Cantaloupe Music, and Chester Music LTD, trading as G. Schirmer on behalf of G. Schirmer Inc. First performed at Festival Theatre Edinburgh September 20, 2018. Supported by Festival Theatre Edinburgh. ~~Intermission~~ Shine On (US Premiere) Choreography Richard Alston Music Benjamin Britten, On this Island for high voice and piano, Op. 35, words by W. H. Auden Lighting Zeynep Kepekli Costumes Fotini Dimou Pianist Jason Ridgway Singer Gelsey Bell 1. Company Opening with a fanfare, extrovert and confident, “Let the florid music praise…Let the hot sun shine on.” 2. Ellen Yilma, Jennifer Hayes With rapid speed “Now the leaves are falling fast” travels inexorably towards images of death. “Cold, impossible, ahead, lifts the mountain’s lovely head, whose white waterfall could bless travellers in their last distress.” 3. Company “Seascape.” “Look, stranger on this island now…Stand stable here, and silent be” but the music is far from silent. Images of cliffs and waves, birds and ships create music and dance full of restless waves… 4. Niall Egan, Joshua Harriette The haunting “Nocturne” begins peacefully before turning darker, “Now the ragged vagrants creep, into crooked holes to sleep… Awkward lovers lie in fields, where disdainful beauty yields.” 5. Nicholas Shikkis, Ellen Yilma, Company “As it is, plenty” starts out as a wry picture of a seemingly prosperous man and his family “And the car, the car, that goes so far” before we notice that all is not well, that bankruptcy is looming. “Let him see in this, the profits larger… lest he see as it is, the loss as major, and final.” 6. Company Reprise of “Let the florid music praise.” Richard Alston Dance Company very much regrets that for copyright reasons we are unable to print the full W. H. Auden poems. Shine On is dedicated to Lizzie Fargher, whose marvellous enthusiasm for dance (and music) has sustained and encouraged me every time we’ve been to Snape and Dance East. Credits: Music by arrangement with Boosey and Hawkes. Commissioned by DanceEast and Snape Maltings. Generously supported by The Tezmae Charitable Trust. First performed at Snape Maltings on November 1, 2019. Supported by The London Community Foundation, Cockayne—Grants for the Arts. Brahms Hungarian Choreography Richard Alston Music Johannes Brahms, Hungarian Dances for solo piano Pianist Jason Ridgway Lighting Zeynep Kepekli Costumes Fotini Dimou Costume Maker Hilary Wili Dancers Alejandra Gissler, Nicholas Shikkis Ellen Yilma, Joshua Harriette Jennifer Hayes, Jason Tucker Monique Jonas, Nahum McLean Credits: The creation of Brahms Hungarian was made possible through the generous support of John Ellerman Foundation.We would like to thank the Hattori Foundation for their support towards Jason Ridgway. We would like to thank Janet Eager (Mop) for her generous contribution towards the costumes for Brahms Hungarian. First performed at Festival Theatre Edinburgh on September 20, 2018. Supported by Festival Theatre Edinburgh. Duration: Two hours, including one 20-minute intermission. In consideration of both audiences and performers, please turn off all electronic devices. The taking of photographs or videos and the use of recording equipment are not permitted. No food or drink is permitted in the theater. Acknowledgments I and my Company need to thank the truly remarkable Jed Wheeler and his team at the Alexander Kasser Theater. We have been fortunate enough to have performed at Montclair on four separate occasions, and each time PEAK Performances have been so good to us. We thank them from the heart. —Richard Alston First Impressions: Saturday, February 22, post-performance discussion Share your first impressions with Richard Alston; Janet Eilber, Artistic Director Martha Graham Dance Company; Emily Coates, director of Dance Studies and associate professor in Theater Studies at Yale University; and Arts + Cultural Programming’s executive director, Jedediah Wheeler. Program Notes Voices and Light Footsteps Monteverdi wrote not only sensually expressive madrigals for voices but also balli (dances) of marvellous light-footed rhythm. Some madrigals cross this divide—“Zefiro Torna” is a ciaccona (chaconne) and “Damigella Tutta Bella” an exhilarating folk-dance. With his opera Orfeo, Monteverdi more or less invented a new art form. Included in Voices are two sinfonias from Orfeo depicting the underworld, dark and dissonant. They accompany two duets, the first depicting Orpheus and Eurydice, a man and woman who are utterly forbidden to look at each other as they leave the underworld— if they do Eurydice will be lost forever. (Renaissance dances at court often took on mythological subjects). Detour Martin Lawrance started to make this piece with one destination in mind but on the way it changed—hence the title Detour. Shine On On this Island is early music by Britten and the piece was born of a close friendship with the poet W. H. Auden. The words of the poems are superb, searing in their stark clarity and pessimism, and Britten has set them to music of powerful simplicity. Shine On has been made at a hard time for me, losing my Company of twenty-five years. I’m resolutely proud of what the Company has achieved and know that the dancers will indeed shine on. I have a serious need to believe that my work might too—I don’t quite know how or where but I promise to do my damnedest to find a way.—R.A. Brahms Hungarian The young Brahms visited Hungary on a concert tour and gathered together folk melodies on his journey. He arranged them for piano duet, which proved widely popular because so many people could get to play them and they were tremendous fun to tackle. A later version (used here) was made for one pianist. Traditional Hungarian music, enlivened by a strong Gypsy influence, is full of racing bursts of acceleration and then sudden stops—catching one’s breath. The music is both raunchy and aristocratic, speedy bucolic gallops combined with haughty grandeur. About the Company Since its founding in 1994, Richard Alston Dance Company has become an avidly followed contemporary dance company, performing the work of its artistic director Richard Alston and associate choreographer Martin Lawrance. Richard Alston Dance Company made its US debut in 2004 with a week-long season at New York’s Joyce Theater. The Company returned to the US in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The Company has performed several times at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival in 2011, 2013, and 2016 and at Peak Performances at Montclair State University in 2012, 2014, 2017, and now 2020. They have been invited to the Virginia Arts Festival in 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019. Other overseas tours have included China, Southeast Asia, Holland, Greece, and Russia, where the Company represented Britain at Moscow’s first International Festival of Contemporary Dance in 1999. The Company have performed as part of the Schrittmacher Festival in Germany, Poland, Italy, and most recently in Switzerland. At the end of March 2020 Richard Alston Dance Company will cease activity in line with new priorities for touring, agreed between The Place and Arts Council England. About the Artists Sir Richard Alston CBE (Artistic Director) choreographed his first work in 1968, as one of the 12 students of the newly formed London Contemporary Dance School. On leaving in 1972, he formed the UK’s first independent dance group, Strider. In 1975 Alston went to New York to study at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio. On his return two years later, he worked throughout the UK and Europe as an independent choreographer and teacher.