presents STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY Friday, June 15 & Saturday, June 16, 2012 at 8 pm Durham Performing Arts Center UNDERLAND Concept and Choreography Stephen Petronio Music Nick Cave Courtesy of EMI Music, Film & TV and Mute Song Ltd. Music Producer Tony Cohen Soundscape Paul Healy Costumes Tara Subkoff Visual Design Ken Tabachnick Video Mike Daly Assistant to the Artistic Director Gino Grenek Lighting Supervisor Joe Doran Production Stage Manager Veronica Falborn Performed by Stephen Petronio Company with Guest Artists Brandon Collwes & Reed Luplau Descent into Underland Stephen Petronio Mah Sanctum Davalois Fearon & Reed Luplau Mercy Strings Gino Grenek Wild World The Company Wild Wild World The Company The Carny Davalois Fearon, Joshua Green, Gino Grenek, Barrington Hinds, Natalie Mackessy, Jaqlin Medlock, Nicholas Sciscione, Emily Stone, Joshua Tuason Prelude to Weep Emily Stone The Weeping Song Davalois Fearon, Joshua Green, Barrington Hinds, Reed Luplau, Natalie Mackessy, Jaqlin Medlock, Nicholas Sciscione, Joshua Tuason The Ship Song: Davalois Fearon, Gino Grenek, Emily Stone, Joshua Tuason Stagger Lee: Duet: Barrington Hinds & Natalie Mackessy Quartet: Gino Grenek, Reed Luplau, Nicholas Sciscione, Joshua Tuason After Lee Solo: Joshua Green; The Company The Mercy Seat The Company Prelude to Death Davalois Fearon Death is Not the End The Company Running time: 60 minutes, performed without an intermission Casting subject to change UNDERLAND was commissioned by the Sydney Dance Company and had its world premiere at the Sydney Opera House on May 27, 2003. UNDERLAND has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius. This presentation of Underland is 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. PROGRAM NOTES In 2003, Sydney Dance Company approached me about creating a work for the Sydney Opera House. Without hesitation I responded, “I’ll do anything with Nick Cave.” The dark beauty of his music, its rawness, pain and redemption speak directly to my artistic motor. I knew it would be a dream project for me. UNDERLAND is built as a “place,” a kind of subconscious world “beneath the surface,” that locates the heart of Cave’s music. It is a non-narrative, non-linear look at the emotional tones of his work, rather than a literal depiction of them. To collaborate on UNDERLAND, I called together a talented mix of artists from New York and Sydney: visual/lighting designer Ken Tabachnick and fashion designer Tara Subkoff, Tony Cohen, Paul Healy, video artist Mike Daly, and, of course, the talented dancers of Sydney Dance Company. The result was UNDERLAND, and it had an exciting life throughout Australia. But I longed for it to be transferred to the dancers of Stephen Petronio Company. Here it is at last. I am proud to present UNDERLAND and I look forward to its new life throughout the United States and Europe. –Stephen Petronio ABOUT THE COMPANY Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Stephen Petronio is widely regarded as one of the leading dance-makers of his generation. New music, visual art and fashion collide in his dances, producing powerfully modern landscapes for the senses. He has built a body of work with some of the most talented and provocative artists in the world including, composers Nico Muhly, Fischerspooner, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Son Lux, James Lavelle, Michael Nyman, Sheila Chandra, Diamanda Galás, Andy Teirstein, Wire, Peter Gordon, Lenny Pickett and David Linton; visual artists Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Donald Baechler, Stephen Hannock, Tal Yarden, Arnaldo Ferrara, and Justin Terzi III; fashion designers Jillian Lewis, Adam Kimmel, Benjamin Cho, Michael Angel, Tony Cohen, Rachel Roy, Tara Subkoff /Imitation of Christ, Tanya Sarne/Ghost, Leigh Bowery, Paul Compitus, Manolo, Yonson Pak and H. Petal; and Resident Lighting Designer Ken Tabachnick. Founded in 1984, Stephen Petronio Company has been presented at prestigious venues on six continents and Petronio has been commissioned by premiere modern and ballet companies throughout the world. ABOUT THE ARTISTS STEPHEN PETRONIO (Artistic Director/Choreographer) was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he began dancing in 1974. Initially inspired by the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and Steve Paxton, Petronio was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979–1986). He has gone on to build a unique and powerful language of movement in a career that spans over 25 years. He has received numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as 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. Petronio has created over 35 works for his company, and has been commissioned by some of the world’s most prestigious modern and ballet companies, including William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet (1987), Deutsche Oper Berlin (1992), Lyon Opera Ballet (1994), Maggio Danza Florence (1996), Sydney Dance Company (2003, full evening), Norrdans (2006), the Washington Ballet (2007), and The Scottish Ballet (2007). His company repertory works have been set on The Scottish Ballet, Norrdans in Sweden, Dance Works Rotterdam, National Dance Company Wales, X Factor Dance Company in Edinburgh, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet de Lorraine, and London Contemporary Dance Theater. In spring 2009, Petronio completed an evening-length work, Tragic Love for 30 dancers in collaboration with composer Ryan Lott (aka Son Lux) for Ballet de Lorraine. The dance premiered in Montpellier, France on June 27, 2009. He completed another new work with Ryan Lott, titled By Singing Light, for the National Dance Company Wales that premiered in Cardiff in October 2010. Recent projects include The Social Band, a commission for Other Shore Dance Company in New York that premiered on February 10, 2011 at the Historic Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida and Prometheus Bound, a musical for the American Repertory Theater, in collaboration with director Diane Paulus (HAIR), writer and lyricist Steven Sater (Tony award, Spring Awakening) and composer Serj Tankian, which had its premiere on March 4, 2011. Petronio recently performed at the TEDMED-2012 conference at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC. He is currently planning a new evening length work with Ryan Lott called Like Lazarus Did, based on the mythology of resurrection, and continues to work on his memoir-in- progress, “Slippery Grace: Notes from a Life in Motion.” BRANDON COLLWES (Guest Artist) received his early dance training at the Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, PA. He attended The Juilliard School and SUNY Purchase. Collwes studied as a scholarship student at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance and twice at the ADF. He became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in October 2003 and joined The Merce Cunningham Dance Company in January 2006 where he danced up until the close of the Company in December 2011. Most recently he has worked with Michael Clark and also performed Doubletoss, a Cunningham piece restaged by Robert Swinston at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Collwes is thrilled to be performing as a guest artist with the Stephen Petronio Dance Company. DAVALOIS FEARON (Dancer) is a graduate of the SUNY Purchase BFA program. She was born in Jamaica and raised in New York City. She began her dance training in the Professional Performing Arts/ Alvin Ailey High School dance program. Fearon also received training from Alvin Ailey Professional Division, Merce Cunningham Studio, and the Martha Graham School on scholarship. She has worked with Troy Powell, Kevin Wynn, Nankama International, and Forces of Nature. JOSHUA GREEN (Dancer) was born in Minnesota, where he also received his early dance training. He earned his BFA in Dance with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2010. After graduation, Green performed with Lucinda Childs. GINO GRENEK (Dancer, Assistant to the Artistic Director) is originally from Rochester, New York. He is a graduate of both Dartmouth College (Engineering Sciences and Studio Art, 1994) and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (MFA in Dance, 1996). As a member of the original Broadway cast, Grenek performed in Matthew Bourne’s award-winning reinterpretation of Swan Lake (1998-1999). For eight years, he toured with the Stephen Petronio Company across five continents (1999-2007). He has assisted Mr. Petronio with the creation of new works for NorrDans (Sweden, 2004), Washington Ballet (US, 2007), Ballet de Lorraine (France, 2009), and National Dance Company Wales (United Kingdom, 2010). In 2007, Grenek was honored with a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for his body of work with Stephen Petronio. He returned to the company in 2009. BARRINGTON HINDS (Dancer) is from West Palm Beach, where he began his training at the School of Ballet Florida under the direction of Marie Hale. He holds a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase College and has also trained a semester abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan. Hinds has worked professionally with VERB Ballets, North West Professional Dance Project, and has performed in the national tour of Twyla Tharp’s Broadway show, Movin’ Out. This year, Hinds was honored as a finalist for the Clive Barnes Award in young talent for dance. He joined the company in 2008. REED LUPLAU (Guest Artist) is from Perth, Australia where he trained at his mother’s studio, Jody Marshall Dance Company. At the age of 15, Luplau was accepted into the Australian Ballet School, where he continued his training.