Before Week Seven’s focus on “Diplomacy” comes to an end, Chautauqua Dance associate artistic director Mark Diamond will relate diplomacy to Chautauquans in a way no speaker would have attempted.
NCDT dancers will perform Diamond’s “The Decision Maker” to open their final show of the season, which begins at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater. Dancers will be accompanied by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductor Grant Cooper.
Just as Chautauqua has brought together different art forms this season for The Romeo & Juliet Project, one year ago, Chautauqua brought together North Carolina Dance Theatre dancers Anna Gerberich and Frederick (Pete) Leo Walker II.
Wedding season in Chautauqua may be over, but everyone is invited as a young couple ties the knot on the Amphitheater stage this evening.
The North Carolina Dance Theatre in residence and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will perform together at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.
They say those who can’t do, teach. Having successfully done both, Sasha Janes, North Carolina Dance Theatre’s associate artistic director, has proven that theory to be absolutely wrong.
Imagine dancing in front of a sold-out crowd after losing both your ability to hear and to see.
Anna Gerberich, a North Carolina Dance Theatre dancer, is attempting to channel such a performance.
While Gerberich possesses all of her own senses, she will take on the role of Helen Keller in a new piece choreographed by Mark Diamond, Chautauqua Dance’s associate artistic director. The soft-shoe piece, titled “See No Evil, Hear No Evil,” is one of six works to be performed at the annual Chautauqua Dance Salon at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.
Three of the four selections for Saturday night’s ballet performance with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra are not traditional ballet repertoire, which begs the question: If not expressly written for dance, what makes a piece of music appeal to choreographers and dancers?
Guest conductor Grant Cooper collaborated with North Carolina Dance Theatre Artistic Director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux for the concert’s program, sending him music that might stimulate movement. When Bonnefoux was considering Haydn, Cooper guessed that the minuet sections of his symphonies — traditional dance movements — would work well. But of the five movements that Bonnefoux chose from three separate Haydn symphonies, not one was a minuet.
Under Cooper’s baton, the CSO will accompany NCDT at 8:15 p.m. Saturday night in the Amphitheater.
When Sasha Janes couldn’t think of a title for his new ballet, he did what any stumped choreographer would do: He left it up to a bunch of 5-year-olds.
The North Carolina Dance Theatre associate artistic director put the naming of his new work into the tiny hands of a Children’s School class of 5-year-olds. As a father of three young children, Janes was excited to involve kids in his production.
“They have great imaginations,” he said.
The quirky, comedic ballet, danced to a jubilant score by Haydn, is part of NCDT’s performance with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Grant Cooper at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater.
Click here for an interactive timeline of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s 30-year dance through Chautauqua. Timeline by Rabab Al-Sharif.
There was plenty of pickin’ and strummin’ amid the pirouettes Wednesday night as North Carolina Dance Theatre and Greasy Beans tickled each other’s fancy for some “Dance Innovations” at the Amphitheater.
But before the company served up Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s party-hearty “Shindig,” members of NCDT’s resident stable of choreographers took their turn with a pair of ballets that opened the program on a more solemn note.
Mark Diamond’s “How Do I Love Thee” held the promise of romance, built on the enduringly famous relationships between two 19th-century couples: Robert and Clara Schumann, and Elizabeth (Barrett) and Robert Browning.
Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, as author John Gray once suggested in his 1992 book. But the eternal interplay between the sexes has been a constant source of fascination to society throughout the centuries.
But nowhere is it more fascinating than in dance, as shown during North Carolina Dance Theatre’s journey Wednesday night in its latest edition of “An Evening of Pas de Deux.”
Lately there have been rare occasions when duets have been choreographed for men and, on rarer occasions, two women might take the stage. But the traditional pas de deux form evolved from full-length classical ballets, using a slow, supported opening called an adagio, followed by solo variations for the male and female. It culminated in a coda, where the dancers could unleash their technical brilliance in alternating dance passages filled with high-flying jump combinations for the man, succeeded by scintillating pointe work for the woman and dazzling turns for both.
The Chautauquan Daily 