Tonight and tomorrow night (Sunday, February 27th and Monday, February 28th), the Guggenheim will again be live-streaming their Works and Process event. This event consists of choreography by Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz set to music by John Zorn, and one of the dancers performing (probably the star dancer) will be Ashley Tuttle (of Movin’ Out and Come Fly Away fame; above photo by Allison Michael Orenstein from TONY). Again, you can watch live at the Guggenheim’s ustream channel, and you’ll be able to participate in the live chat there. You’ll also be able to participate in a chat via Twitter, under the hashtag, #JohnZorn or by following @worksandprocess.
It begins at 7:30 both nights, and will be archived for future viewings on the Guggenheim’s ustream channel.
I’m watching the Academy Awards tonight (with all the ballet peeps in the audience, who could miss it?!) but plan to watch the Guggenheim live-stream tomorrow night. I know nothing about Byrd, Tanowitz, or Zorn, so it’ll be educational for me. Join in the live chat if you can – they’re fun.
Click on the link below to read the Guggenheim’s whole press release with info on the program and bios of the dancers, choreographer, and musician.
For over 25 years and in over 300 productions, Works & Process has offered audiences unprecedented access to our generation’s leading creators and performers. Each 80-minute performance uniquely combines artistic creation and stimulating conversation and takes place in the Guggenheim’s intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. With performances often sold out, Works & Process on Sunday and Monday, February 27 and 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm, will livestream the sold out performances of John Zorn’s Music Interpreted – New Choreography by Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz. In this program choreographers Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz each create new works, commissioned by Works & Process, set to the music of composer John Zorn. Byrd, known for his beautiful yet volatile work, will choreograph a piece with his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater set to Zorn played by pianist Stephen Drury. Tanowitz, known for her unflinchingly postmodern treatment of classical dance, sets a work to Zorn’s Femina, written as a tribute to the rich legacy of women in the arts. Working with seasoned dancers, including Ashley Tuttle, Tanowitz draws from the sensuality, spontaneity, and fantastical imagination of the Romantic ballets for this new work. The performance will be interspersed with discussion by Byrd, Tanowitz, and Zorn, moderated by composer Charles Wuorinen.
The Winger’s Candice Thompson will moderate the real-time online chat on February 28. The video will be automatically archived and can be shared and viewed in social networks.
This past January 9, 2011 Works & Process livestreamed a program for the first time, the program featuring Pacific Northwest Ballet generated 728 unique live online viewers and subsequently the program has been viewed over 1,300 times. The livestreaming of sold-out performances allows audiences the chance to see a sold-out performance they otherwise would not have access to and enables artists to reach a broader audience.
Watch the livestream online at www.ustream.tv/channel/worksandprocess.
Follow the conversation on Twitter with @worksandprocess and #JohnZorn.
PROGRAM
New Choreography by Donald Byrd set to John Zorn’s cid:image001.gif@01CBC164.804113B0 WORLD PREMIERE
Music: John Zorn
Choreography: Donald Byrd
Pianist: Stephen Drury
Lighting: Philip Treviño
Dancers: Kelly Ann Barton, Ty Alexander Cheng, Kylie Lewallen, Vincent Lopez, and Tory Peil
Choreography by Donald Byrd, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim.
New Choreography by Pam Tanowitz set to John Zorn’s Femina WORLD PREMIERE
Music: John Zorn
Choreography: Pam Tanowitz
Lighting: Philip Treviño
Costumes: Karen Young
Dancers: Christina Amendolia, Jean Freebury, Ellie Kusner, Brian Lawson, Banu Ogan, Uta Takemura, Lucy Wilson and Ashley Tuttle
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim and created during a residency provided by The Joyce Theater Foundation, New York City, with major support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Performances will be interspersed a discussion with Donald Byrd, Pam Tanowitz, and John Zorn moderated by Charles Wuorinen.
DONALD BYRD
Donald Byrd became Artistic Director of Spectrum Dance Theater in December 2002. From 1978 – 2002, he was Artistic Director of Donald Byrd/The Group a critically acclaimed contemporary dance company, founded in Los Angeles and later based in New York, that toured extensively, both nationally and internationally. Byrd has created over 80 works for modern dance companies, for his own group, Spectrum, and the Ailey Company, and also for the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco). He has choreographed for classical companies, including Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, Aterballetto, MaggioDanza diFirenze, and Oregon Ballet Theater. Additionally, he has worked with some of the most prestigious theater and opera companies in the country, including New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, the Intiman Theater, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera and New York City Opera. Mr. Byrd has served on the faculty of the California Institute for the Arts and taught at Wesleyan University, the School of Visual Arts, Harvard Summer Dance Center, California State University Long Beach, and the University of California at Santa Cruz, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Dance Theater Workshop in New York. He was a fellow at The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard for three years. Byrd also served for three terms on the Seattle Arts Commission (Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs.) In 2006, Byrd received a TONY nomination for his choreography for The Color Purple.
PAM TANOWITZ holds a BFA in Dance from the Ohio State University and an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. During her two years at Sarah Lawrence College, Tanowitz worked closely with her mentor Viola Farber-Slayton who has greatly influenced her work and life. She also studied at the American Dance Festival and Bates Dance Festival and has studied choreography with Martha Myers and Dan Hurlin. She has set works on dancers from American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet dancers Tom Gold and Elizabeth Walker, on Purchase Dance Corp, Oregon Ballet Theater, NYU’s Washington Square Repertory Dance Company, The Steffi Nosen Dance Company and The Greenwich Academy dance Corp, where she was an artist in residence in 2005. During the fall of 2006 her company Pam Tanowitz Dance was in residence at Ohio State University, where she set work on the dance majors and incorporated the students in the company’s final performance. Most recently Pam was invited by the Oregon Ballet’s Choreographic Institute to create a new ballet. She has taught composition at Hunter College, and Master Classes at American Dance Festival. She is the 2001 recipient of the Scripps/ADF Primus-Tamaris Fellowship in Choreography and an Astral Career Grant from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts. In 2010 Tanowitz was awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, NYFA BUILD grant and support from The Jerome Robbins Foundation.
JOHN ZORN
Drawing on his experience in a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore punk, classical, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular and improvised music, John Zorn has created an influential body of work that defies academic categories. A native of New York City, he has been a central figure in the downtown scene since 1975, incorporating a wide range of musicians in various compositional formats. He learned alchemical synthesis from Harry Smith, structural ontology with Richard Foreman, how to make art out of garbage with Jack Smith, cathartic expression at Sluggs and hermetic intuition from Joseph Cornell. Early inspirations include American innovators Ives, Varese, Cage, Carter and Partch, the European tradition of Berg, Stravinsky, Ligeti and Kagel, soundtrack composers Herrmann, Morricone and Stalling as well as avant-garde theater, film, art, literature, alchemy and mysticism. In addition to his composing, recording and performing Zorn is a firm believer in community and a tireless champion of experimental music, film, art, poetry and theatre, organizing festivals, recordings and concerts, and helping to establish venues and opportunities for performance. He founded the Tzadik label in 1995 (which has released over 700 recordings of new and adventurous music); runs the East Village performance space The Stone (which has presented over 3000 concerts and 60 musical workshops since 2005) and has edited and published five volumes of musician’s writings under the title ARCANA. Honors include the Cultural Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture and the William Schuman Prize for composition from Columbia University. He was inducted into the Long Island Hall of Fame by Lou Reed in 2010 and is a MacArthur Fellow. His latest project The Obsessions Collective is an online gallery introducing the work of cutting edge artists to the discerning collector: www.obsessionscollective.com
SPECTRUM DANCE THEATER
Established in 1982, Spectrum Dance Theater is the largest professional contemporary dance company in Washington, presenting work by Artistic Director Donald Byrd and guest artists, with a focus on Northwest choreographers. Its mission is to produce and present contemporary dance that challenges expectations and calls forth strong emotions, deep feelings and thoughtful responses. Three organizational components comprise Spectrum: the Professional Company, the School (serving over 500 students), and Outreach Programs. The school provides expert dance instruction in diverse dance forms to all. Through its outreach programs, Spectrum Dance Theater seeks to educate the community about dance as an art form and as a social/civic instrument. Under Donald Byrd’s visionary artistic leadership since 2002, Spectrum has embarked on an exhilarating transformation that has attracted world-class dancers, produced some of the most engaging works in contemporary dance, and generated acclaim in both local and national press. Spectrum’s educational programs offer 71 weekly classes to youth and adults at the Madrona Dance Studio, its home for over 25 years. The Academy Program, for dancers 14 to 21 years old, was launched in 2006 and has grown to become the only pre-professional contemporary dance training center in the region. In recent years, the company has performed at New York’s Dance Theater Workshop, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, Houston, Texas and Clearwater, Florida. In 2009, the company presented performances, workshops and residencies at major universities located in five states – from Pennsylvania to Utah.
PAM TANOWITZ DANCE, founded in 2000, and has enjoyed significant success. Tanowitz has received commissions and residencies at coveted New York theaters including Dance Theater Workshop (2009), Danspace Project (2002, 2004, 2010), Joyce SoHo (2005, 2007, 2009), the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process program (2001, 2005, 2008, 2011), Baryshnikov Arts Center (2010), and Central Park Summerstage (2002). In 2001 Pam Tanowitz Dance was one of only three companies in the United States invited to perform at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, as part of the Emerging Generations concert. The company has performed on the Inside/Out Festival at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2002, 2005 and 2009. In 2010 Pam Tanowitz Dance premiered Wanderer Fantasy at Danspace Project. The work was well received and was created in residence at Baryshnikov Arts Center. In 2009, the company received a Bessie Award for Be in the Gray With Me at Dance Theater Workshop.
