BECKET, MA: Doug Varone and Dancers To Perform at 2017 Jacob's Pillow
Company:
Doug Varone and Dancers
Doug Varone and Dancers
To Perform at
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
August 2 - 6, 2017
New York City's famed Doug Varone and Dancers will perform at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival at the Ted Shawn Theater, 358 George Carter Road, Becket, MA 01223, from August 2-6, 2017 with performances Wednesday-Saturday at 8pm; Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $39-69 and are available at www.jacobspillow.org/events/doug-varone-dancers/.
"We are delighted to be celebrating the 30th Anniversary of this important American contemporary dance company at the Pillow! Varone's work has extended beyond dance into opera and theatre worlds, and he has influenced the work of countless choreographers over the past three decades. We will have the chance to see Doug Varone himself present a new Nocturne to go alongside one that he performed at the Pillow in 2001, and we will experience his newest work, ReComposed, with a visual and movement palate that simply explodes onstage," says Jacob's Pillow Director Pamela Tatge.
Praised for its "sheer kinetic force and profound emotional insight" (The Washington Post), modern dance company Doug Varone & Dancers delivers expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess to the Ted Shawn Theatre.
The program begins with Varone himself in the World Premiere solo performance of Nocturne(s). Thirty years ago, he created a solo for himself set to Chopin's Nocturne #8 in D Flat Major, Opus 27, #2, a seminal work that explored the blur between pedestrian movement and pure dance that set in motion a signature vocabulary and style that Varone has mined ever since. Now, he has created another solo as a companion piece to the original, set to Chopin's Nocturne (E Minor, Opus 71, #1). Varone will dance both of these solos side by side, as he celebrates thirty years of dance making.
The evening also includes Varone's Boats Leaving, which premiered in 2006 and garnered two Bessie Awards, for Doug Varone's choreography and lighting design by Jane Cox, and is set to Te Deum by Arvo Pärt. Bloomberg News called the piece "a masterpiece. Varone's genius here consists of using tactics that are strictly formal, utterly devoid of sentiment, to arouse the spectators' deepest feelings."
The company brings ReComposed, inspired by expressionist painter Joan Mitchell's swirling pastels, set to co-founder/co-artistic director of Bang on a Can and acclaimed composerMichael Gordon's tremendous orchestral score Dystopia.
DOUG VARONE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Award-winning choreographer and director Doug Varone works in dance, theatre, opera, film, and fashion. He is a passionate educator and articulate advocate for dance. His work is known for its emotional range, kinetic breadth and the diversity of genres in which he works. His New York City-based Doug Varone and Dancers has been commissioned and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues for three decades. In the concert dance world, Varone has created a body of works globally. Commissions include the Limón Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Rambert Dance Company (London), Martha Graham Dance Company, Dancemakers (Canada), Batsheva Dance Company (Israel), Bern Ballet (Switzerland) and An Creative (Japan), among others. In addition, his dances have been staged on more than 75 college and university programs around the country. In opera, Doug Varone is in demand as both a director and choreographer. Among his four productions at The Metropolitan Opera are Salome, the world premiere of Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, designed by David Hockney. His Met Opera production of Hector Berloiz's Les Troyens was broadcast worldwide in HD. He has directed multiple premieres for Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. His numerous theatre credits include choreography for Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatres across the country. His choreography for 2012's musical Murder Ballad at Manhattan Theatre Club earned him a Lortel Award nomination. Film credits include choreography for the Patrick Swayze film, One Last Dance. In 2008, Varone's Bottomland, set in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, was the subject of PBS's Dance in America: Wolf Trap's Face of America. Last season, he directed and choreographed MasterVoices' production of Dido and Aeneas at New York City Center, starring Tony Award winners Kelli O'Hara and Victoria Clark, alongside the Company. Most recently, he directed the staging of Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields for the Westminster Choir and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Varone received his BFA from Purchase College where he was awarded the President's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007. Numerous honors and awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, an OBIE Award (for Lincoln Center's Orpheus and Eurydice), the Jerome Robbins Fellowship at the Boglaisco Institute in Italy, two individual Bessie Awards, two American Dance Festival Doris Duke Awards for New Work, and four National Dance Project Awards. In 2015, Varone was awarded both a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Guild. Varone teaches workshops and master classes around the world for dancers, musicians and actors. He is currently on the faculty at Purchase College, teaching composition and choreography.
"Doug Varone and Dancers command attention as soon as the curtain goes up. Rarely do you find a choreographer so dedicated to the full and generous complexity of the human spirit. Many choreographers can create interesting movement; few can make it mean so much."
- CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Varone has an unquenchable instinct for expressing the vagaries of the human heart."
- ARTS JOURNAL
"This is a company of master dancers, performing masterly choreography." - NEWSDAY
DOUG VARONE AND DANCERS
The recipient of 11 Bessie Awards, Doug Varone and Dancers has toured to more than 125 cities in 45 states across the US and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. Stages include The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City Center, San Francisco Performances, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto's Harbourfront, Moscow's Stanislavsky Theatre, Buenos Aires' Teatro San Martin, the Venice Biennale, and the Tokyo, Bates, Jacob's Pillow and American Dance Festivals. In opera and theatre, the Company regularly collaborates on the many Varone-directed or choreographed productions that have been produced around the world. Doug Varone and Dancers continues to be among the most sought-after ambassadors and educators in the field. The Company's multidisciplinary residency programs take audiences deeper into the work, with a hands-on approach that moves beyond the studio to speak directly to people of all ages and backgrounds, both dancers and non-dancers alike. Our annual intensive workshops at leading universities have attracted students and professionals from around the country, and through our innovative DEVICES choreographic mentorship program, we are training the next generation of artists and dance-makers. Whether on the concert stage, in opera or theatre or on the screen, choreographer Doug Varone creates kinetically thrilling dances with rich musicality and emotional depth. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone's work can take your breath away with both its athleticism and its passion. www.dougvaroneanddancers.org
ABOUT JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE FESTIVAL
Celebrating their 85th Anniversary Festival Season, Jacob's Pillow Dance is lauded worldwide as a "hub and mecca of dancing" (TIME Magazine), "one of America's most precious cultural assets" (Mikhail Baryshnikov), and "the dance center of the nation" (The New York Times).
"The Pillow" is a treasured 220-acre National Historic Landmark, a recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, and home to America's longest-running international dance festival.
Each year thousands of people from across the U.S. and around the globe visit the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts to experience the Festival with more than 50 dance companies and 200 free performances, talks, and events; train at The School at Jacob's Pillow, one of the most prestigious professional dance training centers in the U.S.; explore the Pillow's rare and extensive dance Archives; and take part in numerous Community Programs designed to educate and engage dance audiences of all ages.
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