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Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company offers ​"An Evening of Love Dances" (FREE) on Valentine's Day

Company:
Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company

This Valentine’s Day the NYC-based​ ​Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company offers ​An Evening of Love Dances​, a free live Zoom event celebrating the duet form in the DGDC repertory, the push and pull of relationships, and the lauded dancers in the Company.

The Company screens four brief dances from ​Intersections​, the acclaimed 20th Anniversary season performed two Februarys ago at The 92nd Street Y, sharing this footage for the first time. Choreographer Daniel Gwirtzman, dancers Derek Crescenti and Vanessa Martínez de Baños, and moderator Daisy Rudin will provide commentary discussing the critical, public, and personal conversations surrounding these favorites from the rep.

The title refers to a program held exactly twenty-one years ago when DGDC premiered ​An Evening of Love Dances​, two back-to-back sold-out performances of ten dances for a cast of eleven, at Joyce SoHo the evening of February 14, 2000. Reviewing the program in ​Attitude: The Dancers’ Magazine,​ dance writer Madeleine L. Dale wrote:

"For love of dance, audience and performers were romanced at Joyce SoHo...it was nice to just sit back and be nuzzled by Mr. Gwirtzman’s gift and to enjoy the satisfying feeling of love at first sight, with hope in your heart that you will meet again soon.​" ​(published Summer 2000 issue)

The event will screen ​Coupling,​ ​Museum​, ​Together​, and the duet from ​Timebomb​, ​as captured in the 2008 live dance film, ​Timebomb 360°​ w​ hich was produced at Manhattan's Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Regarding ​Intersections​, whose dances form the bulk of the Love Dances event, OnStageBlog’s Natalie Rine writes:

Reviewing ​Timebomb​ at the time of its premiere, Brian Seibert wrote in ​The New Yorker:​ “Timebomb” doesn’t explode all at once. Instead, eyeing each other warily as they work in the round, negotiating handholds and counterbalances in fraught encounters, the dancers suggest participants in the kind of complex schoolyard game that can turn brutal in an instant. A drum-heavy score helps sustain the tension, but it’s mostly Gwirtzman’s choreographic craft and invention—setting the free swing of limbs and bodies against forces of suspension and hesitation—that keep the work taut and surprising."​ (December 2008)

An Evening of Love Dances​ features the work of Daniel Gwirtzman (Director, Choreographer), Jeff Story (Composer), and Company members Oren Barnoy, Derek Crescenti, Jason Garcia Ignacio, Lauren Kravitz, Vanessa Martínez de Baños, Stacy Martorana, Simon Phillips, Ryan Pliss, Frances Samson, Simone Stevens, and Christian von Howard.

HOW TO JOIN

Register for a free ticket at our Eventbrite site: ​https://dgdc-love.eventbrite.com 

CREDITS

An Evening of Love Dances features the work of Daniel Gwirtzman (​Director, Choreographer​), Jeff Story (​Composer​), and Company members Oren Barnoy, Derek Crescenti, Jason Garcia Ignacio, Lauren Kravitz, Vanessa Martínez de Baños, Stacy Martorana, Simon Phillips, Ryan Pliss, Frances Samson, Simone Stevens, and Christian von Howard.

THOUGHTS FROM THE CHOREOGRAPHER

What fortune drives the juncture of two people, the coordinates of two intersecting lines? The repertory’s long-time fascination with relationships is captured by these dances. The intersections of people is at the work’s heart, the yin and yang of relationships, the shifting lines of attraction and repulsion, of volatility versus balance. When does healthy behavior intersect with addiction? On one extreme are the unforeseen and dangerous intersections, on the other are the unforeseen and glorious intersections: chance encounters, lucky breaks, moments of beauty, love, and romance. What role does chance play in the pivotal intersections in our lives, when our lives are changed?