Media contact: Camille LeFevre

Email: camillelefevre@comcast.net

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Zenon Dance Companys

32nd Spring Season

May 8-17, 2015; The Cowles Center

World premieres by Twin Cities choreographers

Wynn Fricke, Chris Schlichting

Live music by Mila Vocal Ensemble and J.T. Bates

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTAThe maverick Zenon Dance Company, the nations leading modern- and jazz-dance repertory company, invites you to experience exceptional dance during its 32^nd Spring Season, May 8-17 at The Cowles Center in Minneapolis.

The program includes two world premieres by Twin Cities choreographers: audience-favorite Wynn Fricke and post-modern wunderkind Chris Schlichting. Also on the program are Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgados wildly popular 2014 Coming Home (the sweet spot where sport and artistry meetStar Tribune); and New York choreographer luciana achugars 2013 Molten Substance (a politically charged and wildly funny commentary about women on the vergeStar Tribune) with live percussion score performed by composer J.T. Bates.

Zenon Dance Companys 32^nd Spring Season

What: Zenon Dance Companys 32^nd Spring Season

When: Fridays and Saturdays, May 8-9, 15-16 8 p.m.

Sunday, May 17 2 p.m.

Where: The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts

Tickets: $34 (includes fees)

Frickes new work, The Mourning Tree, is danced to traditional Bulgarian folk songs sung live by Mila Vocal Ensemble, an a cappella womens choir based in St. Paul. These songs, which startle with their arresting rhythms and harmonies, tell age-old stories of love and sorrow. The choreography captures their themes in a powerfully ritualistic and contemporary expression, Fricke explains.

Schlichtings new work, Inside Wrinkles, is a collaborative dance exploring and exposing human expectation and understanding. It negotiates a dialogue about democratic yearnings within relationships and abstracts them to create highly personal constellations, Schlichting says.

About Our Choreographers:

Wynn Fricke: Twin Cities choreographer Wynn Fricke has created eight works for Zenon, many with live musicmost recently Wine Dark Sea. Her ninth work, which will premiere during Zenons 32^nd Spring Season program, is set to music by Mila Vocal Ensemble, which will perform live. Fricke has been called a choreographic shaman who creates timeless works that comment on the human condition with muscular choreography and primordial power (Star Tribune). Shes collaborated with Zenon over the decades, creating works of tremendous soul, integrity and physical prowess (Star Tribune). Wynn was also a company member with Zenon for 10 years.

Chris Schlichting: Minneapolis choreographer Chris Schlichting was named Best Choreographer in 2013 by City Pages for his work Matching Drapes, which also received two Sage Awards, one for Best Performance and one for Best Design. He is the first recipient of American Dance Institutes Solanage MacArthur Award for New Choreography. His work has been commissioned by Danspace Project at St. Marks, James Sewell Ballet, the Walker Art Center, Southern Theater and Young Dance.

Osnel Delgado: Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado is a McKnight International Artist. The McKnight International Artist Fellowship, administered by Northrop, invites one international choreographer each year to spend time in residence in Minnesota, collaborating with Minnesota dance artists and showcasing new work. International Artist Fellowships are offered by invitation only. In 2014, the McKnight Fellowship Program selected Zenon Dance Company to work with Delgado, who will create his first U.S. work on the companyComing Home.

Osnel Delgado has received major Cuban awards including the Premio a Mejor Coreografia del Concurso Solamente Solos (Award for Best Solo Choreography), and a Special Mention award at the VII Iberomerican Alicia Alonso Choreography competition in Madrid. He was a member of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba from 2003 to 2011 and founded MalPaso Dance Company in 2012, where he currently serves as choreographer and artistic director.

luciana achugar: luciana achugar is an Uruguayan choreographer based in Brooklyn. Shes choreographed two works for Zenon: Molten Substance and Structures of Feeling. She moved to New York in 1995 after graduating from Cal Arts. In New York, she worked as a dancer with Jeremy Nelson, Wil Swanson, Maria Hassabi, Chameckilerner and John Jasperse. From 1999 to 2003, she worked in a close collaborative relationship with choreographer Levi Gonzalez. Since 2002 she has been doing her own independent work. achugar received a BESSIE Award as Creator/choreographer for her first full evening-length piece Exhausting Love at Danspace Project which premiered in November 2006.

Zenons 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, Andrea Miller and Kyle Abraham. International choreographers whove worked with Zenon include Susanna Tambutti, Johannes Wieland and Osnel Delgado.

From post-modern choreographers, Zenon has repertory works by Tere OConnor, Morgan Thorson, luciana achugar, Netta Yerushalmy, Jeanine Durning and Faye Driscoll, Vanessa Anspaugh, Chris Schlichting, Joanna Kotze, Colleen Thomas, Daniel Charron and Stefanie Batten Bland.

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, Myron Johnson, Mariusz Olszewski and Chris Schlichting.

For more information on Zenons 32^nd Spring Season, contact Camille LeFevre at 651-646-2098; camillelefevre@comcast.net.