Philadelphia Dance Projects (PDP) is kicking off 2012 with a series of performances, an informance and a variety of classes and workshops, which will feature local, national and international, contemporary dance artists. Featured choreographers and artists will include, LEVYdance (San Francisco), Faye Driscoll (New York), Leah Stein Dance Company (Philadelphia), Sean Feldman (UK) and Holly Johnston’s Ledges & Bones Dance Project (San Francisco).
The season kicks off with Faye Driscoll on Saturday, February 18th. This will be an informance, performance, video, and conversation, curated by choreographer, Meg Foley at 7:30PM at the Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine Street, Philadelphia.
Faye Driscoll originally from Venice Beach, CA, was hailed as “1 of 25 to watch out for in ‘08,” by Dance Magazine. Her second evening length work 837 VENICE BOULEVARD was named “one of the top five dance shows of the year” by the New York Times and received a 2009 NY Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award. In 2009 Driscoll’s dance video LONELINESS was on display at the New Museum’s ‘Younger Than Jesus‘ Triennial Exhibit, featuring 25 international artists under the age of 33. In 2010 she made THERE IS SO MUCH MAD IN ME, commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop where it premiered, sold-out, and got brought back later in the season for a second run. Her newest work NOT…NOT is being commissioned by The Kitchen where it will premier in April 2012. Her work has also been presented by; the Joyce Theater, Wexner Center for the Arts, Chicago Dancing Festival at MCA, American Dance Festival, Fusebox Festival, Dance New Amsterdam and HERE Arts Center. Driscoll is a 2011 choreographic fellow at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography and an Artist-In-Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts and will be an Artist-in-Residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2012.
March 8th through 11th will feature the 10th Anniversary in performance of Leah Stein Dance Company, with choreographer Sean Feldman, Poet Josie Foos, musicians Toshi Makihara and Sarah Cunningham among other special guests. Performances Thursday through Saturday will be at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2pm, all at the Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine Street, Philadelphia.
Dancer/Choreographer Leah Stein has directed her company for 10 years and been performing in the Philadelphia region, nationally and internationally since the late-80’s. Stein will celebrate this milestone in PDP Presents 2012 by reprising solos, duets and small group works featuring present and past company members and other artistic collaborators. Leah Stein Dance Company (LSDC) creates dance works for the stage and for outdoor and architectural sites that engage the interaction between people, their culture, and the physical environment. LSDC creates nontraditional dances with a focus on juxtapositions and interrelationships between movement, sound, object, and place and involving musicians, artists and the local community.
Leah Stein has been creating dance work and putting it before the public for over 20 years. She has performed and taught in Java, Indonesia, Canada, Poland, Romania, Japan, and Scotland. Locally, her work has been commissioned by the Painted Bride Art Center, Live Arts Festival and Hidden Cities among others. She has received recognition through grants awarded by the Leeway Foundation, Dance Advance and the PA Arts Council, Independence Foundation Fellowship. She has been artist-in-residence at Yellow Springs Art Institute, the American Dance Festival, The Winter Pillow and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Stein was awarded a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland for “In Situ” created for the DanceBase building in Edinburgh. Stein has collaborated with dancer/choreographers Sean Feldman and Gus Solomons Jr, sculptors Jeanne Jaffe and Ed Dormer and composers/musicians Robert Maggio, Mark Weber, David Forlano, and Dave Burrell. She has been collaborating with percussionist Toshi Makihara for over 15 years.
Philadelphia Dance Projects has also expanded its partnership with the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University for 2012. This partnership is providing not only access to contemporary dance for the Temple University community and the public at large, but it aims to create opportunities for student interaction with creative artists and to deepen engagement with the next generation of dance concert-goers.
The two will partner to host a guest artist in residency with San Francisco based choreographer Benjamin Levy. Levy will teach technique classes and dance students will be selected to perform repertory as part of the company’s presentation of a new work “ROMP” which seats dancers and audience members together at banquet tables creating an increasingly surreal and hyper expressive world.
Look for a performance by LEVYdance on Friday, February 10 at 7:30PM at the Conwell Dance Theater, NE corner of Broad & Montgomery Streets, Philadelphia.
LEVYdance Artistic Director, Benjamin Levy has been awarded the honors of “Top 25 Choreographers to Watch in 2004” by Dance Magazine and a Goldie Award by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Levy’s choreography has been presented at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Zellerbach Playhouse, ODC Theater, The Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Cowell Theater, Dance Place, Joyce SoHo, and internationally at VDU University in Kaunas, Lithuania and the Internationale Tanzmesse Festival in Dusseldorf, Germany. He has taught master classes and been in residence at the Juilliard School, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet BFA and Training Programs, the University of Utah, University of California Santa Barbara, SUNY Purchase, San Jose State University, University of California Berkeley, George Washington University, and DeSales University. Levy has also been commissioned to create new work for companies including Scottish Dance Theatre and Santa Barbara Dance Theater.
PDP’s 7th Annual presentation of SCUBA at Conwell Dance Theater on Temple’s campus includes corollary interactions between students and SCUBA artists, who will teach technique classes and be guest speakers about their work and their choreographic process. SCUBA provides precious touring opportunities for dance artists, and for everyone else it gives a fantastic view of the breadth of choreographic invention across the country.
March 16 & 17 SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance featuring Holly Johnston’s Ledges & Bones Dance Project (San Francisco) and Gabrielle Revlock (Philadelphia) , Friday 7:30Pm Sat. at 2:30PM at Conwell Dance Theater, NE corner of Broad & Montgomery Streets, Philadelphia.
Holly Johnstonis the artistic director of LEDGES AND BONES, a bi-city contemporary dance company working in both Los Angeles and San Francisco. LEDGES AND BONES promotes cultural consciousness, open dialog, and social justice through live performances, education, and other public forums. Her choreography has received critical acclaim for “turning the body into a dangerous machine” -Los Angeles Times. Johnston has received awards from The Maggie Alesse National Center for Choreography, The Zellerbach Foundation, The Joyce Theater A.W.A.R.D.S. Show Grant/Los Angeles, Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Performance for her solo “experiment one” and was named by Dance Magazine as one of their “25 to Watch” in 2007. Her work has been commissioned and she has been artist in resident at numerous colleges and universities around the United States including having been guest artist at Stanford University as a contributing choreographer to Stanford production of the Cinderella Principle by Robert Moses, UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, Dance New Amsterdam, San Jose State, Idyllwild Arts Academy, UC Irvine and several others . She has performed in corporate industrials for Mercedes, Union Pacific Railroad, Volkswagen, The Ritz-Carlton (Cayman Islands), String Theory CD Release (Singapore Tour) and The Grammy’s.
Gabrielle Revlock, director of Mano/Damno Projects, is a native Philadelphian. She has received support from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the nEW Festival, the New Edge Mix, the Joyce Theater Foundation A.W.A.R.D. Show! and is currently a 2nd year resident artist in the Susan Hess Choreographers Project. Gabrielle’s performance work has been shown at various venues including the Joyce SoHo (NYC) and the Korzo Theater (The Hague, Netherlands). In 2010 she was resident choreographer at Bryn Mawr College and in 2005 she was selected as Alumnae Choreographer for Vassar College. She is the recipient of a 2010 Rocky (peer dance) Award. As a dancer, she has received three professional development awards from Dance Advance, two which took her to the Netherlands to collaborate and tour with Isabelle Chaffaud and Jérôme Meyer, one which took her to London to dance for Sean Feldman. She has been a company member of Jeanne Ruddy Dance since 2003, performing the works of Mark Dendy, Jane Comfort, Suzanna Linke, and Robert Battle. Other Philadelphia artists Gabrielle has had the pleasure of dancing for include Lisa Kraus, Myra Bazell, Leah Stein, Jumatatu Poe/idiosynCrazy Productions, and Matthew Neenan for the Opera Company of Philadelphia.
Accompanying these programs is a variety of workshops and classes open to dance professionals and aspiring dance artists.
Intensive Workshop with Choreographer Faye Driscoll.
February 17 -19 Fri-Sun from 1-4PM
Fri. at Philadanco Studio, 9 N. Preston Street, Philadelphia
Sat & Sun at Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine Street, Philadelphia
Faye Driscoll, known for her disorientating and unpredictable work, will teach a workshop that reflects the creative process she is actively engaged in. Warming up deeply through both improvisations and formal modalities the class will be an investigation into the body as a container for a multiplicity of narratives and movement “as a vehicle for both creating and debunking meaning.” Local dancer and choreographer, Meg Foley was invited by PDP to select a dance artist whose work she found of interest, and with whom she would like to learn more.
Morning Technique Class with Sean Feldman
March 5-16, Mon-Fri 10AM-Noon at Philadanco Studios, 9 N. Preston Street, Philadelphia
A popular artist/teacher, first introduced to Philadelphia through Dance Advance, will return as part of the Leah Stein Dance Company’s 10th Anniversary. He will lead two weeks of PDP classes. After graduating from London Contemporary Dance School in 1986 Feldman performed with many companies including Janet Smith and Dancers, London Festival Ballet and Rambert Dance Company. From 1992 to 1998 Sean danced with Siobhan Davies Dance Company and then in 1992 joined Scottish Dance Theatre as Associate Artist and then later as Assistant Director. These classes are made possible with support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage’ s Dance Advance program.
For More Information on all these programs: www.philadanceprojects.org
For Class/Workshop information/reservations: 215.546.2552
