Celebrations!

press release: Friday 7:30pm, Saturday 5 & 8pm, Sunday 2:30pm

Get your Tickets Now for Celebrations!  

We kick off our season with Martha Graham’s uplifting masterwork Celebration. First premiered in 1934, to world acclaim, it is joyousness heightened by its minimalism. This signature piece is paired with Jacqulyn Buglisi’s hauntingly beautiful Sospiri, performed by NYC-based guest artists Virginie Mécène, Kevin Predmore. Kanopy’s Artistic Directors Lisa Thurrell and Robert E. Cleary join “Celebrations!” with darker muses in their original creations Miserere (have mercy), and Fear is the Enemy.  

October 19-21,2018  

Pre-Show Talk Opening Night: Friday, October 19 7:00-7:30pm, Promenade Hall, Overture Center. Show ticket or ticket stub to Celebrations for admittance. Meet the artists.  

Tickets: www.overturecenter.org, 608.258.4141

Ticket Prices: $29/general, $22/students, $14/children, youth

Celebrations! Program  

FEAR IS THE ENEMY

Choreography: Robert E. Cleary

Music: Kronos Quartet,Tom Waits

Lighting Design: Brad Toberman

Costume Design: Amy Panganiban

Dancers: Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez, Hannah King, Richard Oaxaca, Cryssanne Wittlief

Alternate: Fiona King

Premiere: 2008 at Overture Center for the Arts

SOSPIRI 

Choreography: Jacqulyn Buglisi 

Music: Edward Elgar 

Original Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor 

Adapted by Brad Toberman

Costume Design: A. Christina Giannini 

Dancers: Virginie Mécène and Kevin Predmore

In 1848, Camila O’Gorman (the Juliet of the pampas) and her lover, the Jesuit priest, Ladislav Gutierrez, were hunted down and executed by a firing squad for their illicit love. This timeless story has become legend among the peasants of Argentina. Premiere: 1989 by the Martha Graham Dance Company at New York City Center. Sospiri is performed courtesy of Buglisi Dance Theatre. Choreography © Jacqulyn Buglisi. Edward Elgar's Sospiri, courtesy of G. Schirmer Inc.   

CELEBRATION

Choreography: Martha Graham

Regisseur: Virginie Mécène

Assistants to the Regisseur: Robert E. Cleary, Lisa Thurrell

Music: Louie Horst

Original Lighting Design: Beverly Emmons

Adapted by Brad Toberman  

Dancers:  Roan Alexander, Gisela Baldwin, Maya Finman-Palmer, Alyssa Jendusa, Alaina Tae Keller, Hannah King, Catherine Maxwell, Mandy Milligan, Sarah Nathan, Emily Shelton, Brienna Tipler, Sarah Nessler Wolf

Alternates/Understudies: Fiona King, Lena Komar, Richard Oaxaca, Brad Orego, Cryssanne Wittlief  

Celebration is a minimalist study of joy. It is a classic example of the stark abstraction of Graham’s formative years and the vocabulary she was creating – clear, forceful gesture full of angularities and athleticism. Originally, danced by a cast of twelvewomen, Celebration is pure, austere, succinct expression. It has no story line but is exuberance itself.   

Premiere: February 25, 1934 Guild Theatre, New York. Celebration was reconstructed in 1987 by Yuriko Kikuchi. Performance of Celebration licensed through Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance.  

MISERERE (Have Mercy)  

Choreography: Lisa Thurrell

Music: Arvo Pärt

Costume Design: Lisa Thurrell

Costume Reconstruction: Renee Roeder Earley

Lighting Design: Mark Penisten  

Dancers:

Solo: Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez

Duet: Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez, Alyssa Jendusa

Ensemble: Gisela Baldwin, Maya Finman-Palmer, Fiona King, Hannah King, Catherine Maxwell, Mandy Milligan, Sarah Nathan, Sarah Nessler Wolf, Richard Oaxaca, Brad Orego, Emily Shelton, Alaina Tae Keller, Brienna Tipler, Cryssanne Wittlief  

Miserere (Have Mercy) is dedicated to the refugees of the world, inspired by the paintings and sculptures in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, revealing humankind’s struggle to reach the divine.   

Premiere: 1995 at Kanopy Dance Theatre. Nominated for the Bonnie Bird International Choreography Award in 1996.