REMEMBER ME, MORPHOSES, URBAN BUSH WOMEN, ET. AL.

 

If you’re in New York, don’t forget that David Parsons-choreographed rock opera, Remember Me, airs tonight at 7:30 on channel 21

 

Also upcoming in NYC, Morphoses takes Central Park’s SummerStage (photo above from that site) this Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm. Wheeldon’s company is performing a world premiere set to Martha Wainwright music (which I understand is to be performed by the songstress live) so this is a definite not-miss. The company also performs on Sunday at 4 pm at East River Park, where Wheeldon, according to New York magazine, is to give dance instruction to the audience.

Next Tuesday (8/18) begins the Broadway debuts of my friends (and So You Think You Can Dancers) Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis in Burn the Floor (!&*%^&@#$%!!!) — sorry for outburst, just a little excited for that one…

 

Next Thursday (8/20) Urban Bush Women  perform at Damrosch Park as part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival.

And all of next week (8/17-23) is the Downtown Dance Festival in the Financial District, which showcases a variety of  small companies from both the U.S. and abroad every weekday during lunchtime in front of Chase Manhattan Plaza and all day Saturday and Sunday in Battery Park.

All events except for Burn the Floor are free.

REPEAT OF VERONIKA PART ON LETTERMAN

tonight (Monday, August 3rd), late night on CBS.

via James Wolcott.

 

Here’s a nice, detailed overview of Part from those wonderful “Bag Ladies” across the pond.

Also on TV, showing on local public-access stations across the country now and in the near future, is the rock opera, Remember Me, a collaboration between the East Village Opera Company and choreographer David Parsons, with dance performed by Parsons Dance. I haven’t seen it but it’s been called “a high energy mix of contemporary dance, opera, and rock music” and was popular when it premiered live here back in January. Here are the broadcast times:

KQED, San Francisco, CA – 8/2 at 8pm (also on KTEH/San Jose and KQET/Monterey), 8/3 at 2pm
WGBH, Boston, MA (presenting station) – 8/2 at 8pm, 8/5 at 3am and 3pm, 8/6 at 7:30pm
KCET, Los Angeles, CA – 8/7 at 3:30pm
AETN, Conway, AR – 8/9 at 8pm
WUSF, Tampa, FL – 8/9 at 8pm and 8/15 at 3:30pm
KLRU, Austin, TX – 8/10 at 8pm
WMHT, Albany, NY – 8/10 at 8pm
WLIW, New York – 8/13 at 7:30 pm

 

Photo of Remember Me by Yi-Chun Wu, taken from Explore Dance.

REMINDER: DANCE TIMES SQUARE SHOWCASE COMING UP

Next Monday evening, May 11th.

 

See my earlier post for more info.

Ridiculously, I won’t be able to make it; I’m going out of town and won’t be back yet. But I met a very nice guy, DJ McDonald, in the Facebook Dance Bloggers group and he’s going to cover it for me!

I’m really interested to hear — of course what Pasha and Anya do, and Travis, and Twitch, and Sabra, and Eugene and Maria — but also how audiences like David Parsons’s Caught. I’m sure they’ll go absolutely wild over it. This may be a way to bring modern dance and ballet to a wider audience, integrating it with forms of dance that are more popular and accessible right now, like ballroom! So I’m really glad Tony and Melanie are exposing fans of ballroom and SYTYCD to something like this. Big huge kudos to them! And with Sabra now a part of Cedar Lake, who knows what future collaborations could happen…

Anyway, if anyone else is able to go (Shim?! — or any other fans of ballroom, SYTYCD, or Parsons — or modern dance — expose yourself to ballroom!, and it’s on a Monday night, so is not going to interfere with most other dance performances in the city), please please let me know what you think and I will post your thoughts!

Go here for tickets.

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Parsons: An Evening of Classics, Some of Which I Love, Some of Which I Still Have Issues With

January 8, 2009

Tuesday evening I went to the opening night of Parsons Dance at the Joyce Chelsea. The season opened with Program B, all classics by founder David Parsons; later in the week the company will premiere Program A, a new rock opera.

I like this modern / contemporary company and always find them to be a lot of fun. They’re smallish but have a diverse repertoire (some dances are more lyrical and set to more classical music, others more jazzy and disco-y, set to light rock or soul music, some focused more on lighting effects), and a kind of cult following.

Actually, my favorite dance of the night was a short duet called Ebben, which is going to be part of the larger work premiering later in the week. It was just oozing with sexiness and passion, and I can’t wait to see the whole! Abby Silva, probably the most stand-out dancer in the troupe stood on high releve and kind of tip toed around Kevin Ferguson, standing with his back toward the audience, as if she was just kind of discovering him, then searching, maybe trying to understand him, to breathe in his essence.

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