presents ON THEIR BODIES Shen Wei Doug Varone Stephen Petronio Ronald K. Brown Please join us for a discussion following the performance. First Lady Michelle Obama, 2014 Honorary Chair • Tuesday, July 22 & Wednesday, July 23 at 8:00pm Durham Performing Arts Center VARIATIONS (2014) Choreography and Performance Shen Wei Music Arvo Pärt, Variations for the Healing of Arinushka Lighting Design David Ferri Original lighting design by Scott Bolman Variations is commissioned by Celia and Silas Chou and American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Dance. Additional support provided by the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University. THE FABULIST (World Premiere) Choreography and Performance Doug Varone Music David Lang, Death Speaks Costume Design Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung Lighting Design Ben Stanton Lighting Assistant Ken Wills The Fabulist is commissioned by the American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Dance and was created in residence at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center and SUNY Brockport. Additional funding support provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the AEV Foundation. Death Speaks by David Lang used by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. on behalf of Red Poppy Music and Canteloupe Records. Pause • • BIG DADDY (World Premiere) Choreography, Text, and Performance Stephen Petronio Music Son Lux* Costume H. Petal Assistant to the Choreographer Gino Grenek Lighting Design David Ferri *Music from the pre-performance score for Like Lazarus Did. BIG DADDY is a work that combines movement and talking. Improvisational movement studies based on memories of Stephen Petronio’s father, Thomas J. Petronio, unravel each performance alongside a verbal portrait culled from Petronio’s recently published memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict. Petronio will be signing copies of the book in the lobby after the performance and discussion. BIG DADDY is commissioned by American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Dance. THROUGH TIME AND CULTURE (World Premiere) Choreography and Performance Ronald K. Brown Music Meshell N’degeocello, Susana Baca, and Professor, mixed by RKB Costume Design Keiko Voltaire Lighting Design David Ferri Set to the music of Meshell N’degeocello, Susana Baca, and Professor, mixed by RKB, Through Time and Culture is a dance about transition and perspective. The movement slices thru the space and descends to the ground. There is hope in the hovering above the ground, and the exit from the stage is one with arms outstretched and offering. Through Time and Culture is commissioned by American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Dance. BIOGRAPHIES SHEN WEI Hailed as “one of the great artists of our time” (The Washington Times), choreographer, director, dancer, painter, and designer Shen Wei is internationally renowned for his boldly visual dance works. Admiration for his talent has earned Shen Wei numerous awards, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2007), the US Artists Fellow award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Other accolades include Australia’s Helpmann Award, the Nijinsky Emerging Choreographer Award, the Algur H. Meadows Prize, and a 2012 New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. The impact of Shen Wei Dance Arts’ premiere performances on the Chinese mainland in Beijing led to a host of awards for Shen Wei: the Audi- China 2012 Artist of the Year Award, the Artist of the Year at the GQ- China magazine’s 2013 Man of the Year Awards, and most recently, the 2013 Chinese Innovator Award from the Wall Street Journal-China. Born in China’s Hunan province in 1968, the son of Chinese opera professionals, he was trained from youth in the rigorous practice of Chinese opera performance, traditional Chinese ink painting and calligraphy, and was a performer with the Hunan State Xian Opera Company from 1984 to 1989. During his student years, he studied Western visual art, which propelled an interest in modern dance. Beginning in 1987, he participated in the ADF- Guangdong, China program, which led to the founding, in 1991, of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first modern dance company in China. At the age of 23, he became a founding member. In 1995, upon receipt of a fellowship, he moved to NYC to study with the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab and was invited to present his work at the American Dance Festival (ADF). In July 2000, he founded Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) at ADF, and his company quickly entered the international touring circuit. Since foming his company, he has received numerous commissions to support his creative works for Shen Wei Dance Arts, including multiple commissions from the American Dance Festival, Het Muziektheater, the Lincoln Center Festival, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Park Avenue Armory, Hon Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival, and the Edinburgh International Festival. Shen Wei, who was the lead choreographer for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, also created dances for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, and choreographed the Rome Opera’s production of Rossini’s Moise et Paraon, conducted by Ricardo Muti. Last spring, Shen Wei was commissioned to create a new work for the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam, and he choreographed, directed, and designed a new production of Carmina Burana for the chorus, orchestra, and ballet of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy. The production, which included Shen Wei Dance Arts’ dancers, premiered in July 2013 and toured to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia in September 2013. Recently, his work as a visual artist and choreographer has entered into a new dialogue with a series of performative installations and site-specific works, which have been presented at a number of museums and galleries including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Collezione Maramotti in Italy, Mana Contemporary, and the Forum at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. DOUG VARONE Award-winning choreographer and director Doug Varone works in dance, theater, opera, film, television, and fashion. He is a passionate educator and articulate advocate for dance. By any measure, his work is extraordinary for its emotional range, kinetic breadth, and the many arenas in which he works. Since its founding in 1986, his New York City-based Doug Varone and Dancers has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess. On the concert stage, in opera, theater, and on the screen, Varone’s kinetically thrilling dances make essential connections and mine the complexity of the human spirit. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone’s work can take your breath away. Doug Varone and Dancers has been commissioned and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues for nearly three decades. In 2008, Varone’s Bottomland, set in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, was the subject of the PBS program Dance in America: Wolf Trap’s Face of America. In opera, Varone is in demand as a director and choreographer. Among his four productions at The Metropolitan Opera are Salome, with its sensational Dance of the Seven Veils for Karita Mattila, and the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy. His Met Opera production of Hector Berloiz’s Les Troyens was recently broadcast worldwide in HD. He has staged multiple premieres and new productions for Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Boston Lyric Opera, Washington Opera, and New York City Opera, among others. His numerous theater credits include choreography for Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theaters across the country. His choreography for Manhattan Theater Club’s recent musical hit Murder Ballad earned him a Lucille Lortel nomination for choreography. Film credits include choreography for the Patrick Swayze film, One Last Dance. In the concert dance world, Varone has created a body of works globally. Commissions include the Limón Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Rambert Dance Company (London), Martha Graham Dance Company, Dancemakers (Canada), Batsheva Dance Company (Israel), Bern Ballet (Switzerland), and An Creative (Japan), among others. In addition, his dances have been staged on more than 75 college and university programs. Varone received his BFA from Purchase College where he was awarded the President’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007. He has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, an OBIE Award, two individual Bessie Awards, two American Dance Festival Doris Duke Awards for New Work, and four National Dance Project Awards. As an educator, Varone teaches workshops and master classes around the world for dancers, musicians, and actors. He is currently on the faculty at Purchase College, teaching composition and choreography. STEPHEN PETRONIO For 30 years, Stephen Petronio has honed a unique language of movement that speaks to the intuitive and complex possibilities of the body informed by its shifting cultural context. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists in many disciplines over his career and holds the integration of multiple forms as fundamental to his creative drive and vision. He continues to create a haven for dancers with a keen interest in the history of contemporary movement and an appetite for the unknown. Petronio was born in Newark, NJ, and received a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he began his early training in improvisation and dance technique. He was greatly influenced by working with Steve Paxton as well as the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979 to 1986). He has gone on to build a unique career, receiving numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an American Choreographer Award, and a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award.