February 01, 2017
DANCECleveland Presents Jessica Lang Dance at Playhouse Square March 4
"As a successful female choreographer with a focused and careful vision, Lang continues to push boundaries in dance, crafting subtle art that occasionally verges on "masterpiece.""- Huffington Post
DANCECleveland Presents Jessica Lang Dance at Playhouse Square March 4
A jubilant return in an evening of dance that will include a world premiere
CLEVELAND (February 1, 2017) New York City-based Jessica Lang Dance will return to the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square on Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. for one performance that is sure to be one of the audience favorites of DANCECleveland's 2017 dance series, which continues to highlight female choreographers and artistic directors this winter. Since the company burst onto the dance scene five years ago, Jessica Lang Dance has been thrilling audiences across the world with powerful dancing, beautiful sets and costumes, and expressive choreography in lush contemporary ballet works.
Tickets, starting at $25, are available at www.DANCECleveland.org or by calling Playhouse Square at 216-241-6000. Groups of five or more can call DANCECleveland at 216-991-9000 for more information about discounted group tickets.
The March performance will feature six pieces of Lang's choreography. The highlight of the evening will be the world premiere of Lang's newest piece, "Her Road", a creation honoring the art work of Georgia O'Keefe and set to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. In addition, to end the evening, the company will perform "Thousand Yard Stare" a powerful and emotional piece created by Lang in 2015 based on the lives of war veterans from across the country and set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven. Veterans created artwork that is displayed on the backs of the costumes of each dancer. The performance will begin with "Solo Bach", a solo choreographed by Lang in 2008 to music set by Johann Sebastian Bach and will continue with a beautiful duet titled, "Among The Stars". After an intermission, the second half of the performance will include "Sweet Silent Thought", a work inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets and featuring readings from sonnets 30, 64, 40, 105, and 71. A crowd favorite, and powerful solo, "The Calling" (excerpt from Splendid Isolation II), created in 2006, and set to music by Trio Mediaeval will follow.
Jessica Lang's choreography is much in demand, having created more than 75 works for such companies as New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet, among others. She is known for her artfully crafted, emotionally engaging contemporary ballet works and has "established a reputation for concocting ingenious choreographic interactions between dancing bodies and the movements of striking set and costume pieces." (Kansas City Star) Since the company's inception, marked by Lang's receipt of a Joyce Theater Artist Residency supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, JLD has made rapid success performing at world renowned venues and festivals including Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Joyce Theater, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Northrop Auditorium, Winspear Opera House and Palacio de Bellas Artes, among others. The company's performances have been named among the best dance events of the year by major publications in Dallas, Chicago, Kansas City and Boston. JLD has received numerous grants and funding from organizations including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Lang is a former member of Twyla Tharp's company, THARP!
The Cleveland performance will be surrounded by educational activities for dancers and non-dancers alike including dance master classes at Cleveland State Univerity's Middough Building as well as a weeklong residency where Lang will be working on new choreography. More information regarding the master class can be obtained by emailing Alison@dancecleveland.org. There will be a pre-performance chat at 6:45 pm and post-performance Q&A with the dancers on stage, designed to provide an opportunity for audience members to learn more about the visiting company.
For more information about the company visit www.jessicalangdance.com
ELECTRONIC PHOTOS AVAILABLE FROM SARAH HRICKO AT 216-991-9000 OR EMAIL: sarah@dancecleveland.org.
DANCECleveland, a Cleveland, Ohio based non-profit, is one of a handful of presenters in the nation that is dedicated solely to the presentation of modern and contemporary dance. The centerpiece of the organization's programming is its annual performance series. The performances are surrounded by an array of educational outreach events including artist-run master classes, residency programs, student matinees, pre-performance lectures and post-performance Q&A sessions, designed both to break artistic boundaries and provide community access to the dance aesthetic and dance luminaries that DANCECleveland brings to OH.
Learn more about DANCECleveland at www.DANCEClevland.org.
This engagement is generously supported by:
DANCECleveland also thanks their generous season funders:
The Char & Chuck Fowler Family Foundation The George Gund Foundation George W. Codrington Foundation
