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ZviDance Presents World Premiere of "THE FIELD"

Company:
ZviDance

ZviDance presents THE FIELD, an original dance piece from acclaimed choreographer and artistic director, Zvi Gotheiner, with longtime collaborators Scott Killian (composer), and Mark London (lighting designer), from March 14 - 16, 2024 at 7:30pm, and March 16 at 2pm, presented at New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th Street, NYC. 

THE FIELD is a continuation and deepening of Gotheiner’s thematic exploration of the collisions between humanity and nature. Tickets start at $20 for students and seniors, and $25 for general admission. For ticketing, visit https://newyorklivearts.org/event/independent-works-the-field/.

In March 2021, Artistic Director/Choreographer Zvi Gotheiner experienced a life-changing event — a stroke that paralyzed his left side. Since then he has been on a journey of exploring new ways to continue his creative practice of making dance and working with his dancers, while managing movement limitations in his own physical body.

THE FIELD utilizes group work, duets, solos and trios to explore a sense of space that is potent with the possibility of growth, and a deep connection to it, but also a space that is possibly infected with conflicts of ownership and possession. Drawing from his roots growing up in a kibbutz in Israel, where Gotheiner used to work in the field, the piece explores relationships to other kinds of fields, including magnetic fields, battlefields, agricultural fields and other ways of defining borders and identities.

Through movement, Gotheiner explores imagery of tilling the soil, planting and harvesting to explore the rituals of man in relation to the fertile land, to create perhaps a new ritual that is contemporary and relevant for our current culture — a culture in which former rituals have been supplanted by convenience buying, purchasing our food in the supermarket, and seemingly no connection or appreciation to how food is grown or the way nature provides for us.

 

Dancers:

Piper Dye, Madison Elliott, Colin Heininger, Caitlin Javech, Kaylin Maggard, Leslie Merced, Joe Tennis

 

“One does not just watch a dance by Zvi Gotheiner. One enters a world with its own internal logic, a sensual, organic world of movement, language, and images where one is pulled along by currents unseen and inevitable.”
— Dance Magazine

 

About the Artists

Scott Killian (Composer) has composed scores for Zvi Gotheiner (over 30 works), Shapiro & Smith Dance, Cherylyn Lavagnino, David Dorfman, Susan Marshall, Ralph Lemon, Bebe Miller, Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis. His works have been performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Limón Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, PACT Dance (South Africa), et al. As a composer and sound designer for theater, Scott has created works for over 120 professional productions in NYC and at many regional theaters. NYC theatrical venues include Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, MCC, Red Bull Theatre, Primary Stages and Rattlestick Theatre. Regional theatres include George Street Playhouse (over 25 productions); Berkshire Theatre Festival (Resident Composer--over 40 productions), Alley Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Shakespeare and Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Huntington Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival.

 

Newly retired from 24 years in broadcast lighting, Mark London (Lighting Designer) happily continues his even longer collaboration with ZviDance which started in 1989. Some of his international lighting credits include Noche Flamenca de Madrid, Stars of the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet and the Chinese Opera of Taipei. NY based companies include Jeanette Stoner, Muna Tseng and ISO Dance as well as theatre productions at the Public Theater and the Brooklyn Academy of Music along with many other intimate downtown venues. Mark credits his wife Gail and children Rachel and Ian as a constant source of inspiration.

 

Piper Makenzie Dye is a dancer, yoga instructor and arts administrator. Originally from San Diego, CA, she holds a BFA in Dance from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase. Previously a dancer/soloist with Eveoke Dance Theater, Ballet Nepantla, A-Y Dancers, Hard/Femme Dances, and TORRENT, Piper will be dancing in new creations by ZviDance, Twyla Tharp and Skyla Schreter throughout 2024. She has performed works by inspiring choreographers including Crystal Pite, Doug Varone, Shannon Gillen, Mark Morris, Christopher Huggins, Jennifer Archibald, José Limón, and Donald McKayle, and has presented her own choreography in NYC and Lancaster, PA. She is constantly seeking new opportunities to expand her artistry and create meaningful connections both within and outside of the dance community, and is thrilled to be a part of this season with ZviDance. 

 

Madison Elliott is a freelance professional dancer, choreographer, certified Countertechnique teacher and entrepreneur currently based in NYC. She attended high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and went on to receive her BFA in Dance with a Minor in Arts Management at SUNY Purchase College. Madison is currently a company member with ZviDance, and Adjunct Professor at Adelphi University teaching Countertechnique. She has worked with MJ Willis Project, DanceLabNYC, TU Dance Company, HIVEWILD, and MeenMoves, and has performed works by Doug Varone, Trisha Brown, Roderick George, Michelle Thompson, and others. Madison also directs and choreographs dance films, including Empty Vessel, which was mentioned in Dance Magazine, featured in seven Film Festivals and won two awards. In addition, Madison is the Executive and Artistic Director of an award winning nonprofit, Headlights Theater, which she founded in 2020 (www.headlightstheater.com).

 

Colin Heininger is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher based in New York City. He has danced with Peridance Contemporary Dance Company since 2016, where he has also served as company coordinator and rehearsal director, and is currently rehearsing for an upcoming project with Twyla Tharp. Originally from Hollidaysburg, PA, Colin graduated as an Honors Scholar with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Musical Theater from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he was named the Valedictorian of the School of Dance and received a full tuition scholarship. As a dancer they have performed works by Sharon Eyal, Ohad Naharin, johannes wieland, Robert Battle, Netta Yerushalmy, Andrea Miller, Helen Simoneau, Beth Gill, Sidra Bell, Norbert de la Cruz III, Adam Barruch, Yue Yin, Yoshito Sakuraba, Alice Klock, Jae Man Joo, Tommie Waheed-Evans, and Igal Perry. Colin is also an active choreographer and has set work on Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, on the Youth Ensemble at Peridance, for the Lila Dance Festival, and for the Brick Theater. In addition, Colin teaches on faculty at the School of Peridance and is a professional math tutor. This is Colin’s first collaboration with ZviDance.

 

A native of Miami, FL, Caitlin Javech holds a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School and an MFA in Choreography from California Institute of the Arts. As a choreographer, Javech's artistic work has been recognized with a Juilliard Career Advancement Award and an honorable mention in Orlando Ballet Dance Accelerator. Javech has most recently worked as a dancer and company manager for Tabula Rasa Dance Theater and currently dances with ZviDance while producing and performing her own choreography. Javech is also a fully-certified Pilates instructor who runs her own business JavechMovement Pilates training, and is special faculty at CalArts teaching Pilates for dancers and expanding the department’s health and wellness offerings. Javech is currently based in Los Angeles, where she is the artistic director of her own project-based company T O R R E N T, creating multidisciplinary choreographic and performance work for stage, film, and installation. Most recently, Javech’s choreographic work has been commissioned by Heidi Duckler’s ‘Ebb & Flow Festival’ at Baldwin Scenic Overlook, Stomping Ground LA’s VOICES: Latinx & Indigenous Artists showcase, CalArts Happenings 50th Anniversary Performances, and Emotions Physical Theater ‘Evening of Contemporary Dance’. In 2023, Javech was awarded a Creative Residency Fellowship at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences and was an artist-in-residence at the Yaddo Corporation in Saratoga Springs, NY. 

 

Kaylin Maggard is a New York-based movement artist, originally from Columbia, Missouri. She is a 2021 graduate from The Juilliard School, where she received a BFA in Dance. Both in school and upon completion, Kaylin has embarked on several freelance endeavors and completed four seasons as a company dancer with Peridance Contemporary Dance Company. While in school, Kaylin was the recipient of the Joseph W. Polisi Artist as Citizen Award. In 2017, she was a YoungArts winner in modern dance and a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts semifinalist. Well-versed in both traditional and contemporary styles, Kaylin has performed works by choreographers such as Ohad Naharin, johannes wieland, Jonathan Bond, Andrea Miller, and Bill T. Jones. Alongside performing and teaching, Kaylin is passionate about choreographing and exploring movement through improvisation. With great interest in psychology, Kaylin enjoys integrating the ways in which the mind can directly affect our physical being as movers.

 

Leslie Merced  is a native of Plainfield, New Jersey where she studied at the Union County Academy for Performing Arts in Scotch Plains, NJ. She graduated magna cum laude in 2020 with her BFA from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase, where she was a nominee for the Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence. While at Purchase, she performed works by Shannon Gillen, Joseph Hernandez, Sidra Bell with Roderick George, and Andrea Kramer, and performed the masterwork Psalm by José Limón. In the summer of 2023, Leslie was a Creative Rehearsal Assistant, Assistant Rehearsal Director and performer for a contemporary ballet of Black Beauty, reimagined by directors Andrea Kramer and Anna Morgan, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells in London. Leslie is currently a freelance dance artist and choreographer in the NJ/NYC area, and in her second season with ZviDance. 

 

A leading practitioner of experiential mechanics, Joe Tennis is an improviser and moment maker. His movement expression and choice making is rooted in abundant curiosity. Engined by discovery, he is viscerally compelled to movement through experiencing it. He has been described as “unapologetically youthful” and been told he has a “cinematic sensibility.” Tennis has done a load of dancing in the past and intends on doing loads more in the future, but he’s mainly interested in the dancing that happens in the moment. He’s been deep in research of improvisation in service to attunement, the mechanics of intuition through floorwork and the prolonged effects of subtle integration. Tennis dances to find, not to show.

 

About Zvi Gotheiner

Internationally acclaimed choreographer Zvi Gotheiner is the Artistic Director of ZviDance. Praised for a signature innovative style and fascinating melding of artistic mediums, his work is recognized as radical, contemporary dance theater, ground-breaking, thoughtful yet passionate, with lush movement. Zvi is also a renowned ballet teacher with a devoted following throughout the world, hailed by the New York Times as The Zen Dance Master of New York.

His work frequently touches upon relevant issues and themes around relationships and community. He has been described “as much sociologist as dance-maker” (Alastair Macaulay, New York Times),

A prolific choreographer with over 35 works in the last 30 years, Zvi integrates exciting original musical scores, and evocative lighting designs, with edgy multi-media and video projections. The ZviDance renowned creative team includes composers Scott Killian and Jukka Rintamak; visual designers Josh Higgason and Herzog Nadler; and lighting designer Mark London. His collaborative approach extends to the dancers and is infused with deep regard for the individual and their creative, aesthetic role within the ensemble. His company is admired for its elasticity, athleticism, and emotional expressivity.

Zvi has created numerous commissioned works for prestigious companies, institutions and universities around the world, including Repertory Dance Theatre Utah, GroundWorks Dance Theatre, Juilliard Dance New Dances, Princeton, NYU, Ohio State University, University of Washington, Bard College, Vassar College.

Born in Israel, the musically gifted young Zvi encountered a performance of the Batsheva Dance Company that forever changed his life, inviting him “into a world of fantasy and self-definition”. As a young dancer/choreographer, he was discovered by the legendary Gertrud Kraus, who took him under her wing. Following a dance scholarship with the America-Israeli Cultural Foundation, he began dancing throughout the world with Batsheva Dance Company, Joyce Trisler, Eliot Feld, among others.

He founded the Tamar Ramle Dance Company, a herald of the Israel dance fringe movement, and later directed the Tamar Jerusalem Dance Company. Increasingly drawn to New York City, he moved in 1988, and in 1989 founded ZviDance.