Hello there ladies and gentleman.
Last Saturday night i attended an limited run at a new downtown art gallery called NIETO FINE ART who was hosting the works of San Francisco Ballet principal Ruben Martin. Everyone came out to the event that night to show Ruben some love and it was great to see a lot of the local dance scene all in one place because the rarely happens with everyone schedules. Interestingly come to find out a couple days before i had learned that we had a works in progress showing for the new show INK that im choreographing for. I thought we were showing in October but already we have gotten offers for spaces to host us so i put on my thinking cap real fast!
We have been in the space all week hacking away at new material which is nerve racking because i get kinda worried about one of us(me) knocking a painting off the wall which i could not afford but the director of the space is a really cool dude and likes what i have come up with thus far which is good because if that happens ill be like “Well…..its part of the work!”. Lets see how well that would fly with him:) The showing on the 19th is gonna be really neat for the viewers to watch because not only is there gonna be some great dancing that never stops but there will also be live music and painting all working under the theme of “INK” and how it flows. Such a simple idea with infinite possibilities and not one show will ever be the same with a rotating cast of dancers and musicians from all over. Ohhhhhh, Alex is gonna be dancing a 10 min solo with 4 live percussionist so please wish her well because she was dead after the run yesterday.
Man of the hour Ruben Martin thumbs up at his showing.
view from the top
dancers working in the space trying not to hit anything.
Click here for some rehearsal footage of Chris Stuart from the Nashville Ballet and I working out some new movement.
Click here to “like” on FaceBook. Only if you “like” it though!
lator gators.
b
Gearing up for premiere next week!
Hi Wingers!!
It’s been a long time now! I promise it’s not because I have been lazy!! We have been SOOOOOOOOO busy making this new work that I became totally saturated! It is just about finished now after nearly a year (WOW!). The title of the piece is “Toward Home” and it involves the 8 dancers of SYREN, and 7 musicians of Steeplechase Arts & Productions who are playing a completely original score composed by Damon Ferrante. It’s been a wild journey to say the least, but I am thrilled, and a bit in awe, of how it’s all coming together!
Here is a little video about the process: click here!
The show goes up for it’s premiere on Wednesday August 18th at the beautiful Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY. It’s interesting to be performing in the Hamptons! We will be back to NYC very soon, but we are enjoying getting ready to share the work with the great, enthusiastic crowd out there!
Below are some pictures from an open rehearsal we did at Ballet Tech a couple months back when we were still in the thick of creating this baby. It was a fun day where we shared a bunch of the piece and had a Q&A after with the students and faculty.
Hope to see you all soon!
If you are near the Hamptons, come join us for the premiere!
“Toward Home”
Wednesday August 18th at 8pm
www.smarttix.com
And all about SYREN news and events here:
www.syrendance.org
Thanks so much! Hope you are all doing great during this busy summer season!
insight into ink
Hey Ya’ll. (I just got back from the south so pardon my language)
Heres a quick time lapse that I made with visual artist and collaborator Daniel Diaz-Tai using ink and water plus a digital camera.We are starting a new collabo together for a concert dance piece. The challenge for me is to use the movement of the Inks as a guide to movement vocabulary. As you watch this clip think about all of the numerous possibilities. With that said…. Not sucking would be the hugest concern for me because it would be too easy to go off the deep end on a project like this. Currently we are in the first phase of the project and I’m work shopping material with a couple dancers as a sort of “Blue Print” because this project will have me using the largest cast that i have ever worked with before. Im looking forward to rising up to the occasion and soooo stoked on this!
b
McQueen to present “Concerto Nuovo” in October!
Camille Workman in Jeremy McQueen's "Concerto Nuovo"
My choreographic work “Concerto Nuovo”, which premiered in May 2009, will be featured in the annual Dance Gallery Festival in New York City (Presented by Von Ussar danceworks). This year’s performances will take place on October 15th and 16th, 2010 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater in midtown New York City. Inspired by George Balanchine’s “Concerto Barocco” (1941),”Concerto Nuovo” is danced by nine accomplished female performers to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, B.W.V 1043. The nine minuet piece was orginally commissioned by the world-renowned, LaMama Experimental Theater Club for the 2009 LaMama Moves Festival.
To view a sample of the ballet, click on the YouTube link below!
For more information about the festival, log onto www.dancegalleryfestival.com
5 Question Survey Sale=Your input is needed!
Dear Wingers,
I need your help! I am in the process of reinventing LOLAstretch (it’s mission, products and community) and you your input is integral to developing the new direction. My goal is for it to become more of a DIY resource, sales outlet and hub for dancers as they explore fashion, art and handmade crafts.
Please take five minutes to answer these questions and I will be forever grateful to you and of course, send you an awesome sale code in return for $10 legwarmers or $15.00 off dancewear. Click on link below:
http://lolastretch.tumblr.com/post/738680554/we-want-you-survey-sale
Thanks in advance for your time and valuable input!
xo
Candice
(Pictured Eran Bugge and Francisco Graciano of Paul Taylor Dance Company. Photo by Steven Schreiber.)
Currently Chronos
Hello Wingers,
I just wanted to update you on what I am currently working on… CHRONOS PROJECT. This is my first time ever producing an evening of dance. I’m very nervous of how it will turn out but I’m really thrilled that it is happening! A lot of my wonderful friends from many walks of (dance) life are involved in its realization and I’ve been really proud of all the work that has been put into it! The evening will feature choreography by fellow-Winger-contributor Brian Gibbs. It’s been an exciting journey for me to meet this very interesting artist. Last Friday, he presented his work at DTW entitled “Burrowed Brow”. I didn’t get to see it because I was in rehearsal but it looks very intriguing. My show will also feature choreography by Nilas Martins and Monique Meunier.
Nilas is such an amazing choreographer to work with. He’s filled with ideas. He’s quick to create movement. And he has a very relaxed working attitude. I’m learning so much from him! I’m not dancing in Monique’s work for this project. But she was our ballet mistress & rehearsal director at Armitage Gone! Dance. Eloquence is the word to described this woman’s realm of movement! For those of you who were lucky enough to watch her dance, you know what I’m talking about.
This whole project has been a challenging and long process, but it’s all going to be worth it!
Please come support us by attending the performances next week. It runs from April 22 through 24, 7:30pm, at Speyer Hall, University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street, NY. For more information just go to my website.
New Works in New York this April!
Hello everyone!
I hope that everyone is doing well and that the New Years is working out for you.
This month im gonna be back in NYC with a couple different projects that i would love for you to come out to. I can promise you a fun filled evening with some new innovative work.
April 16th will be the world premiere of a new dance film titled “Burrowed Brow” otherwise known as the “Squirrel Dance” at Dance Theater Workshop. The process of the film is pretty awesome if i would say so myself. And here we go:
Alex before getting into costume
The film was a Twitter collaboration with myself Dance Theater Workshop and @common_squirrel. A little background info for you is that Dance Theater does something called “community choreography” on twitter where they ask they’re followers to tweet them any dance move like “right elbow up” and then they have a dancer make sense of all of the replies and film it. Super cool concept, I always thought as it being very inclusive for the followers to be part of the creative process. I was too busy during the time with Sketch comedy shows ghost choreographing and other projects but always kept a close tab on Twitter. One day Dance Theater posted another challenge where they wanted someone to take the tweets of @common_squirrel and make a dance out of that. My scheduled had freed so I decided to take on the task. After looking at the tweets of “run run scratch scratch sniff sniff TREE acorn”, I had to ask myself what did I get myself into? I contacted my dancer Alex Jenkins whom was born for the part and we started to work on the movement in Studio G. I knew that it would be tres easy to make it cheesy ( ahh that rhymes) so I added some meat to the bones and gave the movement a back story or a reason to exist. However working in my studio I was constantly laughing at what we were coming up with because C’mon, how seriously can you make a squirrel dance? After finishing the choreography I contacted my new fantabolous costume designer to get involved. I sketched her out a drawing that was inspired by Where The Wild Things Are meets Japanime and slapped with punk. From that point I contacted my videographer and long time collaborator Dr.Bacon about shooting the dance on location in DC. He was telling me about some new ideas that he had and all of the new tech equipment that he wanted to shoot it on so this dance was ago! Through the generosity of David Benaym co-founder of Movmnt Magazine (along with Danny Tidwell) we had our tickets to DC to film the thing! The shoot was crazy because my dancer and I both were not feeling well and we both had an 11 hour day of shooting other dances before Burrowed Brow. Needless to say after dancing in a super hot Squirrel costume being sick will make a person vomit off the side of the road like Alex did after the shoot. Now that pre-production was completed we flew back to San Francisco where I had my new award winning music producer David Molina score the film with my sound instructions. Dance Theater Workshop will be premiering the film at they’re space on the 16 along with other community choreographies and older dance films by us with artist such as Jacoby & Pronk dancers from SFB and others. Here is the NYT article on dancers using Twitter with Ashley Bouder on the cover. The Winger and Kristin Sloan got a shout out too:) More info about tickets which are limited click here. I will also be posting the film up somewhere on the web that day for one day only so id check my blog for more details.
April 22-24th will be my 1st ever 20min work titled “A Study Of Things Gone Wrong” being presented in New York as part of the Chronos Project with fellow Winger and show producer Benny Royce Royon. Costumes provided by the San Francisco based clothing brand HUF. Other choreographers include Nilas Martins and Monique Meunier. I’m very excited to be part of this project because its also marks the 1st time my work has been presented in NYC ever since I was a student so I have to be sure not to suck!!!! I was in NY last month setting the piece on the dancers whom were all great to work with and could handle my sound effects. In the evenings after my work day I would watch Bennys rehearsal. His work was soo inspiring. His movement vocab is exciting to watch along along with the choices that he makes its easy to see that this is something that he is meant for. His dancers are something to talk about as well. Not too mention him being one hell of a mover. I told him every time I watched his work I would go home and think to myself “damn! what am I doing? I need to step my game up”. Anywho, we will be having performance at the University Settlement and i would like to invite everyone whom is in town to come out and support some great work. more info here.
I posted this video years ago on the site. I finally got around to using the movement in one of the sections of my new dance. Try and see if you are able to recognize it:)
B
My New Design Website
My costume design website is up and running. There are a couple of shows from some years ago that I am missing photos for, but other than that, I think my professional work is all there. Enjoy!
http://candicethompsondesign.com
Laura Peterson Choreography in Forever.
Chronos Project
Photo by: Bennyroyce Royon, Dancer: Erik Wagner
Hello Wingers,
Just wanted to share with you something I have been working on for the past month. I am producing a show called “Chronos Project” which is a shared evening of choreographic works between me, Nilas Martins, Monique Meunier, and Brian Gibbs. There are THREE evening performances (7:30pm) in April (22, 23, 24) at the intimate Speyer Hall at University Settlement on the Lower East Side (184 Eldridge Street).
The project will serve the creative needs of the Lower East Side community (Manhattan) by providing a high caliber contemporary dance performances, offer a job & performance opportunity to a group of talented and wonderful freelance dance artists, and support the creative needs of four emerging choreographers to cultivate their artistic voices.
I will post more information as time comes along. But please do keep in touch on Twitter, Facebook, my YouTube page! You can search me on all of these networks by typing “Bennyroyce Royon.” Also, please go to my website: www.bennyroyce.com.
Watch this one minute teaser video: Chronos Project Teaser Video
Enjoy!
San Francisco Ballet is jumping into the world of new media
I’m very excited to share a new section of San Francisco Ballet’s website that is dedicated strictly to new media!
http://www.sfballet.org/interact/index.asp
I believe that new media is a wonderful way for the ballet world to connect and I’m very happy to be part of a company that is exploring everything new media has to offer. Within this new section you can find videos, pictures, blogs, podcasts, and more. I would definitely suggest you check it out!
