Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Returns in a Special 25th Anniversary Program

Special Program Designed Just for the Barclay's 25th Anniversary Season! 

Irvine Barclay Theatre4242 Campus Drive, Irvine CAwww.thebarclay.org | 949.854.4646

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 8pmTickets: $100, $55, $45

Part of the 2016 Contemporary Dance Series

View Hubbard Street Trailer

First presented by the Barclay nearly 25 years ago under the auspices of its founding artistic director, Lou Conte, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has become one of America’s most influential contemporary dance companies. The company is known now for its eclectic, international repertory and for its impeccable dancers.

Hubbard Street has been a friend of the Barclay’s founding president, Douglas Rankin, since before the opening of the theatre in 1990. Glenn Edgerton, the current artistic director and company visionary, will curate a special program in honor of the Barclay’s 25th anniversary season.

REVIEWS

New York Times review | Splash Magazine | SeedanceChicago

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PROGRAMOut of KeepingChoreographyPenny Saunders

MusicÓlafur Arnalds, Volker Bertelmann, Hilary Hahn, Danny Norbury, Domenico Scarlatti

INTERMISSIONN.N.N.N. Choreography, Stage Design, Lighting and Costume DesignWilliam Forsythe

MusicThom Willems  

N.N.N.N. appears as a mind in four parts, four dancers in a state of constant, tacit connection. Underscored by the sudden murmured flashes of Thom Willems’ music, these dancers enter into a complex, intense inscription. Their arms, heads, bodies and legs become singular voices, each tuned and in counterpoint to the other. These performers write out a text of the voice of the body, slowly, then more and more rapidly, coalescing over and over into a linked entity of flinging arms, folding joints and a sharp, high sense of time. Hubbard Street is honored to be the first U.S. dance company to perform William Forsythe’s N.N.N.N., restaged at the Hubbard Street Dance Center in Chicago by Forsythe with original cast members Cyril Baldy and Amancio González.

SHORT PAUSE

 A Picture of You Falling Choreography and TextCrystal Pite

MusicOwen Belton 

A Picture of You Falling marked Hubbard Street’s debut in choreography by acclaimed artist Crystal Pite. The work exists in two versions, both of which premiered in 2008: a duet for dancers Peter Chu and Anne Plamondon, and this solo, first performed by Pite herself for the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award Gala in Ottawa.

“I am fascinated by the shared narratives that live in our bodies — the familiar, repetitive storylines that move across cultures and generations — and the body’s role as their illustrator,” says Pite. “I’m curious about the ways in which the body can convey profound meaning through the simplest of gestures, and how distortion, iteration and analysis of familiar human action provide opportunities to recognize and re-frame ourselves in one another.” 

INTERMISSION

Solo EchoChoreographyCrystal Pite 

MusicJohannes Brahms 

Lines for WinterBy Mark Strand

Tell yourselfas it gets cold and gray falls from the airthat you will go onwalking, hearingthe same tune no matter whereyou find yourself —inside the dome of darkor under the cracking whiteof the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.Tonight as it gets coldtell yourselfwhat you know which is nothingbut the tune your bones playas you keep going. And you will be ablefor once to lie down under the small fireof winter stars.And if it happens that you cannotgo on or turn backand you find yourselfwhere you will be at the end,tell yourselfin that final flowing of cold through your limbsthat you love what you are. 

Crystal Pite discusses setting her work Solo Echo on Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

ABOUT HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s core purpose is to bring artists, art and audiences together to enrich, engage, educate, transform and change lives through the experience of dance. Celebrating Season 38 in 2015–16, under the artistic leadership of Glenn Edgerton, Hubbard Street continues to innovate, supporting its creative talent while presenting repertory by the field’s internationally recognized living artists. Hubbard Street has grown through the establishment of multiple platforms alongside the Lou Conte Dance Studio, entering its fifth decade of providing a wide range of public classes and pre-professional training under the direction of founding company member Claire Bataille. Extensive Youth, Education, Community, Adaptive Dance and Family Programs, led by Kathryn Humphreys, keep the organization deeply connected to its hometown. Hubbard Street 2, led by Terence Marling, stewards early-career artists, while the main company performs all year long, domestically and around the world. Visit hubbardstreetdance.com for artist profiles, touring schedules and much more.

CHOREOGRAPHERS

Raised in New York and initially trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, William Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed resident choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and ballet companies throughout Europe and the United States. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of Ballett Frankfurt, where he created works such as Artifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb’s Theorem (1990), The Loss of Small Detail (1991, in collaboration with composer Thom Willems and designer Issey Miyake), Eidos: Telos (1995), Endless House (1999), Kammer/Kammer (2000) and Decreation (2003). After the closure of Ballett Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble, The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the German states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors. His works are prominently featured in the repertoires of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including the Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, London’s Royal Ballet and the Paris Opéra Ballet. Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include four New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards and three Laurence Olivier Awards in the U.K.; he has been conveyed the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres by the government of France; and he has received the German Distinguished Service Cross, the Wexner Prize, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, the Samuel H. Scripps / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Swedish Carina Ari Medal. As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. He is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London, and holds an Honorary Doctorate from The Juilliard School in New York City. Forsythe is currently Professor of Dance and Artistic Advisor for the Choreographic Institute at the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Visit williamforsythe.de to learn more.

Born in Terrace, British Columbia and raised on the Canadian west coast, choreographer and performer Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. Pite’s professional choreographic debut was in 1990, at Ballet British Columbia; since then, she has created more than 40 works for companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, the National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, and Louise Lecavalier / Fou Glorieux, plus collaborations with the Electric Company Theatre and acclaimed director Robert Lepage. In 2002, Pite formed the company Kidd Pivot, which tours nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of the Banff Centre’s Clifford E. Lee Award (1995), the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award (2004), the Isadora Award (2005), two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (2009 and 2012), a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award (2006), and the Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program (2008). Pite also received the 2011 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, the inaugural Lola Award in 2012, the Canada Council’s 2012 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, and a 2015 National Dance Award. Visit kiddpivot.org to learn more.

Penny Saunders graduated from the Harid Conservatory in 1995. She then began her professional career with the American Repertory Ballet under the direction of Septime Webre, danced with Ballet Arizona and MOMIX, and was a founding member of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (then Cedar Lake Ensemble). In 2004, Saunders joined Hubbard Street, where she began to pursue her choreographic interests, creating for Hubbard Street 2 in 2011 through its International Commissioning Project, and premiering her first work for Hubbard Street’s main company in 2013. She has since choreographed for the Nexus Project, Owen/Cox Dance Group, SFDanceworks, Whim W’Him, Grand Rapids Ballet, and Neos Dance Theatre as a choreographer in residence at the University of Akron. In 2015 Saunders returned to Hubbard Street’s main company and began a three-year choreographic residency with Grand Rapids Ballet. She thanks her lovely husband and beautiful son for all of their support.

ARTISTIC DIRECTORGlenn Edgerton (Artistic Director) joined Hubbard Street after an international career as a dancer and director. At the Joffrey Ballet, he performed leading roles, contemporary and classical, for 11 years under the mentorship of Robert Joffrey. In 1989, Edgerton joined the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), where he danced for five years and was artistic director for a decade, after which he directed the Colburn Dance Institute at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. Edgerton joined Hubbard Street as associate artistic director in 2008; since 2009 as artistic director, he has built upon more than three decades of leadership in dance performance, education and appreciation established by founder Lou Conte and continued by Conte’s successor, Jim Vincent.