Juilliard's Dance Division Announces Its 2010-2011 Season
The Juilliard Dance Division, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, opens with its 2010-2011 season with Composers and Choreographers...PLUS, featuring six pairs of students from the Composition Department and Dance Division. For each piece, a third-year dancer choreographs a work by a graduate-level composer. Performances take place on Friday, December 10 at 8 PM and Saturday, December 11 at 2 and 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Last season, Juilliard welcomed dancers from the Paris Conservatory on this program in their first visit to the School. The Composers and Choreographers performances are the culmination of the long-running Juilliard classroom/studio course of the same name, which gives Juilliard dance and composition students techniques to explore collaborative art. The course introduces each discipline to the needs, vocabulary and work methods of the other and finds common ground on which both can flourish.
New Dances: Edition 2010 takes place December 15 - 19, 2010 in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard, and features four world premiere commissions created for each of the classes of Juilliard's Dance Division. Next season's innovative choreographers includes Matthew Neenan (1st year class), Raewyn Hill (2nd year class), Luca Veggetti (3rd year class), and Stijn Celis (4th year class). Performances take place on Wednesday, December 15, Thursday, December 16, Friday, December 17, and Saturday, December 18, at 8 PM, with a matinee performance on Sunday, December 19 at 3 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
Matthew Neenan's choreography has been featured by the Pennsylvania Ballet, The Washington Ballet, New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, Indiana University, and others. He has received numerous awards and grants for his choreography from the National Endowment for the Arts, Dance Advance funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Choo San Goh Foundation, and the Independence Foundation. Mr. Neenan began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School with noted teachers Nan C. Keating and Jacqueline Cronsberg. He later attended the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet in New York. From 1994-2007, Mr. Neenan danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, where he danced numerous principal roles in works by George Balanchine, John Cranko, Paul Taylor, Peter Martins,, Val Caniparoli, Jorma Elo, Lila York, Meredith Rainey, Jeffrey Gribler, Christopher Wheeldon, and Jerome Robbins. In October 2007, he was named choreographer-in-residence at Pennsylvania Ballet.
New Zealander Raewyn Hill is artistic director for
Dancenorth in Queensland, Australia. Born
and trained in New Zealand,
Ms. Hill is highly regarded for her flair in balancing a strong physicality with
a precise technical vocabulary and has managed her own professional dance
company for many years. She currently is artist-in-residence at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts; she has
created eight full-length works including Angels
with Dirty Feet, A Dance for the
Forgotten, We Are Gathered Here Today,
When Love Comes Calling, and most
recently, Finders Keepers. Ms. Hill
was artist-in-residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from August to October 2009. She was
born in 1972 in Oamaru and spent her childhood in a number of small towns of
the south island of New
Zealand. She graduated from the
New Zealand School of Dance. Ms. Hill has become one of New Zealand's foremost contemporary
dance-theater practitioners, having received numerous awards and accolades from
critics and audiences throughout Australasia.
Luca Veggetti was born in Bologna, Italy in 1963 and trained at La Scala Milan under I. Glowacka and G. Popescu. After a career as a dancer at London Festival Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Ballet Chicago, he started an on-going collaboration with stage director and design Pier Luigi Pizzi. Working with Pier Luigi Pizzi as a choreographer and assistant, Mr. Veggetti's work was seen in Europe's most important theaters and with prestigious musical ensembles, such as Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Capriccio Stravagante, Musikfabrik Köln. In 1999, he became the first Italian choreographer in the 20th-century to be invited to work with the legendary Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg. Future engagements include new pieces for Cedar Lake, Rome Opera, and Purchase, New York, as well as a new staging of Toshio Hosokawa's opera, Hanjo, at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and a new theater piece for the Milamoltre Festival.
Belgian
choreographer and set designer Stijn
Celis was born in 1964. Until 1997 he danced in companies such as the Royal
Ballet of Flanders, the Zürich Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva and the Cullberg
Ballet. In 1996 he created L'odeur de
l'ombre for L'Association de Danse Contemporaine and in 1997, UBILOZ Vanilla for the Cullberg Ballet.
In 2002-2003 he created various works for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet
Gulbenkian, Bern Ballet, and he created Noces
for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. In addition to creating the
full-length ballet The Lost Shoe (Cinderella) for Les Grands Ballets
Canadiens de Montréal, Mr. Celis staged works for the Cullberg Ballet, Iceland
Dance Company and IT Dansa. Mr. Celis is the former artistic director of Bern
Ballet. He has created ballets for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Bern
Ballet, Ballet Mainz, Ballet Wiesbaden and Ballet Nürnberg. Mr. Celis has
worked as a set-designer for Didy Veldman and has assisted Jan Verzweyveld in
many opera and theater productions.
In the spring semester, Juilliard Dances Repertory presents works by acclaimed choreographers Bronislava Nijinska, Eliot Feld, and Mark Morris. Juilliard dancers perform Les Noces (The Wedding), set to music by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by the legendary Bronislava Nijinska. The ballet was premiered on June 13, 1923 by the Ballets Russe. The work, which hasn't been seen in New York City in a long time, is staged by former Ballet Russe dancer Howard Sayette, with the original set and costumes by Nathalie Goncharova. It features 34 Juilliard dancers. Skara Brae, set to traditional Irish, Scottish, and Breton music, is choreographed by Eliot Feld. It was premiered on October 11, 1986 by the Feld Ballet at the Joyce Theater in New York City. Skara Brae is staged by Patrice Hemsworth with costume design by Willa Kim and original lighting design by Allan Lee Hughes. It features 19 Juilliard dancers. Mark Morris' Grand Duo, set to Lou Harrison's Grand Duo for Violin and Piano (performed live by Juilliard musicians), is staged by Joe Bowie and features 12 Juilliard dancers. Juilliard Dances Repertory performances take place on Wednesday, March 23, Thursday, March 24, Friday, March 25, and Saturday, March 26, all at 8 PM, and Sunday, March 27 at 3 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
The Senior Dance Production is an honors program showcasing the
choreography of Juilliard Dance seniors, the works chosen by faculty and
performed by students of all levels, freshman to senior. Mentored by Juilliard
faculty member Risa Steinberg, these
performances are produced by senior class members, with third-year dancers
handling administration and stagecraft. Next season's performances take place
on Thursday, April 21 (8 PM), Friday,
April 22 (8 PM), Saturday, April 23 (2 and 8 PM), and Sunday, April 24
(2 and 8 PM) in the Rosemary and Meredith Willson
Theater at Juilliard.
The Senior Dance Showcase presents senior class dancers in a night of diverse student choreography, performing solos and duets by graduating dancers, alumni, and faculty, as well as selections from the major repertory. The Senior Dance Showcase takes place on Monday, May 16 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater and features the Juilliard Dance Class of 2011.
More details and Box Office information to follow.
The Juilliard Dance Division, entering its 59th season in 2010-2011, is a groundbreaking conservatory dance program whose faculty and alumni have changed the face of dance around the world. The program was established in 1951 by William Schuman during his tenure as president of Juilliard with the guidance of founding director Martha Hill. It became the first major teaching institution to combine equal dance instruction in both contemporary and ballet techniques. Among the early faculty members were Alfred Corvino, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Antony Tudor, and Hector Zaraspe.
Ballet master and master teacher Lawrence Rhodes was appointed the
director of the Juilliard Dance Division in July 2002. In his eight years as
director, he has reordered the curriculum and elevated requirements for the
diploma and degree programs at Juilliard. He has increased the number of
performances and brought in many prominent choreographers to work with the
students. Graduates of the program have gone on to perform with virtually every
established contemporary and ballet company in the United States and abroad, and they
also are among the directors and administrators of respected companies
worldwide. Alumni of Juilliard's Dance Division include: Robert Battle, Pina
Bausch, Martha Clarke, Mercedes Ellington, Robert Garland, Charlotte Griffin, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Adam
Hougland,
Saeko Ichinohe, Jessica Lange, Lar Lubovitch, Bruce Marks, Susan Marshall, Ohad
Naharin, and Paul Taylor.
2010-2011 JUILLIARD DANCE SEASON
Composers and Choreographers...PLUS
Friday, December 10, 8 PM
Saturday, December 11, 2 and 8 PM
Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard, 155 West 65th Street
New Dances: Edition 2010
Four world premieres choreographed by Matthew Neenan, Raewyn Hill, Luca Veggetti, Stijn Celis
Wednesday, December 15, 8 PM
Thursday, December 16, 8 PM
Friday, December 17, 8 PM
Saturday, December 18, 8 PM
Sunday, December 19, 3 PM
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Juilliard Dances Repertory
Program features Les Noces by Bronislava Nijinska, Skara Brae by Eliot Feld, and Grand Duo by
Mark Morris
Wednesday, March 23, 8 PM
Thursday, March 24, 8 PM
Friday, March 25, 8 PM
Saturday, March 26, 8 PM
Sunday, March 27, 3 PM
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Senior Dance Production
Thursday, April 21, 8 PM
Friday, April 22, 8 PM
Saturday, April 23, 2 and 8 PM
Sunday, April 24, 2 and 8 PM
Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater, 155 West 65th Street, 3rd Floor
Senior Dance Showcase
Monday, May 16, 8 PM
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
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