Zenon Dance Company's "Otro Teatro" celebrates 31st spring season
Media contact:
Camille LeFevre
Office: 651-646-2098
Cell: 651-285-2287
Zenon Dance Companys
31st Spring Season
OTRO TEATRO
World premiere with luciana achugar and collaborators
February 27-March 1, Walker Art Center
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTAZenon Dance Company debuts its 31st Spring Season in a collaborative work by Uruguayan/New Yorkbased choreographer luciana achugar, OTRO TEATRO. The work will receive its world premiere at the Walker Art Center February 27-March 1. Zenon continues its spring season in May at The Cowles Center with world premieres by Minnesota-based Daniel Stark, and New York/Tel Aviv choreographer Netta Yerushalmy, whose last work for Zenon was Hello, My Name is Catherine.
Zenons 31st Fall Season
When: 8 p.m. February 27, 28, March 1
Where: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Tickets: $16-$25; 612-375-7600
https://tickets.walkerart.org/public/show_events_list.asp?shCode=2012\
When: 8 p.m. November 22-23, 29-30
7 p.m. November 24, December 1
Where: The Cowles Center, Minneapolis
Tickets: $34; 612-206-3600
http://www.thecowlescenter.org/calendar-tickets/zenon-dance-company-2
OTRO TEATRO is based on achugars critically acclaimed piece for Zenon Dance Company, Molten Substance, which the Star Tribune called an audacious, calculatingly inappropriate and consistently intelligent work about women taking back power. OTRO TEATRO places the dancers in a post-apocalyptic world, where feral physicality and unleashed passion upend traditional Western ideas of beauty and civility. The piece was commissioned by the Walker Art Center, and is co-presented with the National Performance Network (NPN) and in partnership with Zenon Dance Company.
During its 31st Spring Season in May, Zenon presents two world premieres, by Stark and Yerushalmy. Stark currently is an associate professor of dance at Minnesota State University in Mankato. His choreography was featured in Earth: Healing the Rift, a performance in Kenya involving collaborations between visual and performing artists from Africa, Russia, Italy, India, Greece, New Zealand, U.K. and the U.S. He has also set dances on the Beijing Dance Academy in China and dance companies throughout the U.S. Yerushalmy, a 2012 recipient of the Guggenheim Foundations Fellowship in Choreography, is also a long-time dancer with Doug Varone and Dancers. The Star Tribune called Yerushalmys first work for Zenon, Hello, My Name is Catherine, an oddly delightful amalgam of court and folk dancing all wrapped up in a singular postmodern sensibility. The Spring Season also includes a reprise of Kyle Abrahams 2011 work, My Quarreling Heart. Mnartists.org described the Zenon dancers as elegant and ferocious as they animate Abraham's stylized street fights and rapid-fire gestures with appropriately abrupt, unpredictable shifts of tone and direction.
History
Linda Z. Andrews, founding artistic director, studied at the Martha Graham School, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Julliard School, and with Alvin Nikolais, Lynn Simonson and Merce Cunningham before moving to Minneapolis. She formed Ozone Dance School in 1979, which today is the Zenon Dance School, a nationally recognized training center for vocational and professional dancers. In 1983, she formed the professional Zenon Dance Company from her two dance groups: Rezone Dancers (modern) and Just Jazz Dancers (jazz). Since its first performance in 1983, Zenon Dance Company has become one of the nations premier contemporary dance repertory companies.
Through the years, Zenon has performed a unique function in the region and throughout the United States: Andrews has created an extensive modern, jazz and post-modern dance repertory by commissioning new works from more than 60 of the worlds most intriguing emerging choreographers.
The repertory includes works by such now-iconic choreographers as Bill T. Jones, David Dorfman, Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, Joe Goode, Tere OConnor, Sean Curran, Wil Swanson, and Bill Young, as well as rising stars Andrea Miller and Kyle Abraham. International choreographers whove worked with Zenon include Susanna Tambutti and Johannes Wieland.
From post-modern choreographers, Zenon has repertory works by Tere OConnor, Morgan Thorson, luciana achugar, Jeanine Durning and Faye Driscoll. Zenon is also the repository of jazz choreographer Danny Buraczeskis works, which the company performs with regularity. In 1989, Buraczeski moved his New York company JAZZDANCE to Minneapolis to merge with Zenon, a fruitful relationship for many years. Andrews has also supported local choreographers throughout three decades, commissioning works from Wynn Fricke, Cathy Young, Robin Stiehm, Linda Shapiro, Uri Sands, Joe Chvala and Myron Johnson.
For more information on Zenons 31st Spring Season, contact Camille LeFevre at 651-646-2098; camillelefevre@comcast.net.
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