FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 19, 2013 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected] A DANCER’S DREAM: TWO WORKS BY STRAVINSKY TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO CINEMAS WORLDWIDE BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 2013 BY SPECTICAST Screening To Feature Behind-the-Scenes Footage and Intermission Feature Alan Gilbert Conducts the New York Philharmonic in a Theatrical Reimagining of The Fairy’s Kiss and Petrushka A Collaboration with Giants Are Small Starring New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Sara Mearns Directed/Designed by Doug Fitch Choreographed by Karole Armitage Produced by Edouard Getaz The New York Philharmonic’s season-finale program, A Dancer’s Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky — conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert and starring New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns in a production created by Giants Are Small — will be distributed to cinemas worldwide by SpectiCast beginning September 2013. This unique cinema event, produced by the New York Philharmonic, will feature a complete concert broadcast, behind-the- scenes footage, as well as a brief intermission feature on Stravinsky’s history with the New York Philharmonic, featuring video and other exclusive material from the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives. A Dancer’s Dream will be screened in movie theaters, performing arts centers, senior living communities, libraries, and schools across the United States, including theaters in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and many other markets, as well as in the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and other countries to be announced. This will be the second New York Philharmonic concert broadcast in movie theaters, following the heralded 2011 production of Sondheim’s Company. For more information about the screening locations for A Dancer’s Dream, visit dreamonscreen.com. (more) A Dancer’s Dream Screening / 2 A Dancer’s Dream is a multidisciplinary, theatrical reimagining of Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss and Petrushka, created by Giants Are Small. Sara Mearns, New York City Ballet principal dancer, will star in the production, which will be conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, directed and designed by Doug Fitch, choreographed by Karole Armitage, and produced by Edouard Getaz. The performances take place June 27–29, 2013. Blending music with dance, live animation, pre-recorded video, puppetry, and circus arts, A Dancer’s Dream will blur the lines between reality and imagination, audience and performer. Using Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss and Petruskha as the foundation for a new narrative, the production chronicles the story of a young woman, played by Ms. Mearns, and her dream of becoming a dancer. Entranced by the music, she is “kissed” by the passion to become an artist and drawn into the performance, dancing to the complete score of The Fairy’s Kiss. By the second act, she has completed her transformation into an artist, becoming Columbine in Petrushka. The production will turn Avery Fisher hall into a dream world through costumes, sets, staging, and live filmmaking, Giants Are Small’s signature technique in which a real-time feed of musicians, puppets, and miniatures is projected above the Orchestra. The production will feature lighting design by Clifton Taylor, costume design by Irina Kruzhilina, and make-up by Margie Durand. Emmy Award winner Habib Azar, whose previous work on filming Philharmonic concerts includes Chinese New Year Celebration — The Year of the Snake (2013), will direct the film production. The Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert last collaborated with Doug Fitch, Edouard Getaz, and their production company Giants Are Small in June 2011 for the acclaimed production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, which was also choreographed by Karole Armitage. In June 2010 the New York Philharmonic and Giants Are Small staged Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, a critical success that was named the number one cultural event of the year by several news outlets. About the New York Philharmonic Founded in 1842, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world; on May 5, 2010, it performed its 15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world. The Orchestra has always played a leading role in American musical life, championing the music of its time, and is renowned around the globe, having appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries — including its October 2009 debut in Vietnam and its February 2008 historic visit to Pyongyang, DPRK, earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. The Philharmonic’s concerts are broadcast on the weekly syndicated radio program The New York Philharmonic This Week, streamed on nyphil.org, and have been telecast annually on Live From Lincoln Center on U.S. public television since the series’ premiere in 1976. The Philharmonic has made almost 2,000 recordings since 1917, with more than 500 currently available. The first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, the Philharmonic released the first-ever classical iTunes Pass in 2009–10; the self-produced recordings continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2012–13 Season. The Orchestra has built on the long-running (more) A Dancer’s Dream Screening / 3 Young People’s Concerts to develop a wide range of education programs, including the School Partnership Program, enriching music education in New York City, and Learning Overtures, fostering international exchange. Alan Gilbert became Music Director in September 2009, succeeding Lorin Maazel in a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that goes back to Gustav Mahler and Arturo Toscanini. Credit Suisse is the New York Philharmonic’s exclusive Global Sponsor. About Giants Are Small Since its founding in 2007 by American director and visual artist Doug Fitch, Swiss filmmaker and producer Edouard Getaz, and multimedia entrepreneur Frederic Gumy, Giants Are Small has risen to become one of the most out-of-the-box and celebrated production companies in New York. Collaborating with top orchestras and exceptional contemporary talents, Giants Are Small is known for its extraordinary range of genre-bending productions, which capitalize on its signature fusion of theater, live filmmaking, music, and visual art. The 2010 Giants Are Small production of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre for the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert, was cited as the top opera of 2010 by The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Time Out New York. Giants Are Small collaborated with the Philharmonic again on the 2011 production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, which was called “Best Classical Event of the Year” by New York Magazine. Both received superlative reviews and are consistently cited as benchmarks of contemporary opera production in New York. A Dancer’s Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky, based on two works by Stravinsky, The Fairy’s Kiss and Petrushka, marks the third installment in a trilogy collaboration with Alan Gibert and the Orchestra. The Giants Are Small production of Petrushka was originally developed with the University of Maryland in 2008. The creative partnership of Doug Fitch and Edouard Getaz began with Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat, with the New York Philharmonic, in 2005, and was the first production in which their idea of “live filmmaking” was brought to a wide audience. Giants Are Small is currently developing Peter + Wolf in Hollywood — an immersive event incorporating theater, music, on-stage filmmaking, and puppetry — based on the great Prokofiev classic. Additional projects in development include theatrical amalgams of media, technology, music, and visual art. Follow Giants Are Small on Facebook: Facebook.com/giantsaresmall. About SpectiCast SpectiCast is the fastest growing all-digital distribution company in the world, distributing film, cultural arts events, and alternative-content programs to both theatrical and non-theatrical venues around the globe. SpectiCast markets and distributes the finest 2D and 3D programs using the industry’s most advanced technologies for some of the world’s most prestigious cultural arts organizations including Opéra de Paris, Salzburg Festival, Paris Opéra Ballet, Mariinsky Theatre, the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and others. SpectiCast’s fast- growing slate of alternative content and “event cinema” includes classic and contemporary music (more) A Dancer’s Dream Screening / 4 events from best-selling artists including Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pat Metheny, André Rieu, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as world-class theater events like Great Expectations from London’s Vaudeville Theatre, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, and Phantom of the Opera from The Royal Albert Hall. SpectiCast also distributes some of the best specialty film programs including The Women’s Edge Film Series, the Laugh Out Loud Film Festival, and other similar programs. SpectiCast distributes hundreds of programs to more than 1,400 theaters in 24 countries on six continents. SpectiCast is a privately owned and operated firm based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information visit specticast.com * * * Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic. * * * Filming and Digital Media Distribution of this project is made possible by the generosity of The Mary and James G. Wallach Foundation and The Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser Recording Fund. These concerts are sponsored by Yoko Nagae Ceschina. Generous support