This preview has been provided by the American Dance Festival.
Since its founding in 1986, Doug Varone and Dancers has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility, and technical prowess. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone’s work can take your breath away. In ReComposed (2015), co-commissioned by ADF and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, he creates a dance inspired by American abstract artist Joan Mitchell’s pastel drawings. Mitchell used gestural, sometimes violent brush-work, and described her paintings as “an organism that turns in space.” With lighting design by Robert Wierzel, Varone’s work hauntingly echoes Mitchell’s explosions on canvas. “In each of us is a storyteller, creating tales filled with the memories of our lives,” said Varone of his solo, The Fabulist, commissioned by ADF and premiered to great acclaim in 2014. Additional work will round out the program.
More About Doug Varone and Dancers
The 2014/15 season marks the company’s 28th year. Since its founding in 1986, Doug Varone and Dancers has commanded attention for its expansive vision, versatility and technical prowess. On the concert stage, in opera, theater and on the screen, Varone’s kinetically thrilling dances make essential connections and mine the complexity of the human spirit. From the smallest gesture to full-throttle bursts of movement, Varone’s work can take your breath away.
At home in New York City, Doug Varone and Dancers is the resident company at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. On tour, the company has performed in more than 100 cities in 45 states across the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. Stages include The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, San Francisco Performances, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto’s Harbourfront, Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater, Buenos Aires’ Teatro San Martín, the Venice Biennale, and the Tokyo, Bates, Jacob’s Pillow and American Dance Festivals. In opera and theater, the company regularly collaborates on the many Varone-directed or choreographed productions that have been produced around the country.
In 2013, the company was selected to tour as part of DanceMotionUSA(SM), a joint project between BAM and the US Department of State, touring, performing and teaching in Argentina, Paraguay and Peru for a month. This project culminated in in the premiere of a new commissioned work for Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, in collaboration with the Argentina-based Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance.
Doug Varone and Dancers are among the most sought after ambassadors and educators in the field. For the past 15 years, annual summer intensive workshops at leading universities attract students and professionals from around the country. The company’s multi-discipline residency programs on tour capture their concepts, imagery and techniques across disciplines and for people of all ages and backgrounds, reaching out to audiences in unique ways that directly relate to their lives and interests.
Varone, his dancers and designers have been honored with 11 New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies). In celebration of their 28th year, the company will be touring and reconstructing major dances from past repertory, as well as recent new works and company premiers.
http://www.dougvaroneanddancers.org/
Articles
http://dancemagazine.com/reviews/October-2012/Doug-Varone-and-Dancers Dance Magazine
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/doug-varones-knowledge-of-humans The New Yorker
