Dance Faculty Activities, Spring 2009

Patricia Beaman's solos from Goddess, Siren, Monster, her neo-baroque project featuring iconic female figures from Greco-Roman mythology, have recently been performed at the Mark Morris Dance Theater, the Soaking WET festival and at the new Dixon Place. The project will be realized as a whole at Wesleyan University on April 17th and 18th when, in tandem with Bharata Natyam artist Hari Krishan, Goddess, Siren, Monster and Liquid Shakti will receive its debut. This collaborative work of a suite of solo dances juxtaposes traditional forms and mythological subject matter of Baroque dance (Beaman) and Bharata Natyam (Krishnan) with modern movement and contemporary issues, propelling the classic stories of Venus, Armide, Scylla, and Shakti into the present.

Gerald Casel was an Artist-In-Residence at Dance New Amsterdam in the fall of 2008 where he created and premiered an evening-length work "Save The Robots!" based on emotional and physical responses to urban gentrification. He created "Nearing Tangents" for his students at NYU for the Faculty Performance Workshop. Casel reconstructed Stephen Petronio's "Lareigne" on Barnard College Dance Department. His company, GERALDCASELDANCE was in residence in Edinburgh, Scotland's DanceBase with X Factor Dance Company creating and touring "Query" throughout Scotland and in New York at Merce Cunningham Studio. The company also performed "Eventual (after Merce)" and "Seep" at Long Island University's Afternoons at LIU and the company revisited "Border" played with live music by Robert Poss at 92nd Street Y's Sundays at 3. His commissioned work "Exit Skeleton" was performed by Da Da Dance Project in Mexico City, Oaxaca and Guadalajara, Mexico. GERALDCASELDANCE will be part of PS 122's Avant-Garde-a-rama on May 16. This summer, Casel will teach a Choreography/Performance Workshop at Steps (June 8-27) and will be teaching and creating a new work at Dance New Amsterdam's New York Summer Dance Intensive (June 28-July 26). Casel continues to serve as a dance panelist for the New York State Council for the Arts.

Kay Cummings restaged her piece, "The Nutcracker According to Mother Goose," in Minneapolis in December. She served as the Joyce Mentor Editing Advisor for Tiffany Mills whose evening length work, "Tomorrow's Legs" premiered at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church in February, 2009. In March, "Betrayal," a piece she created for SADC students was performed. She is presently creating a new solo for Gus Solomons Jr which will be performed during Paradigm's DTW season in July. In July she will also be be a guest artist and teacher at Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company's Move It Summer Workshop in Utah. She continues to serve as Dance Curator for Symphony Space.

Cherylyn Lavagnino was invited to Seoul this past December to teach at the Korea National University of the Arts.

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance performed for the first Tisch Dance Alumni Concert at Skirball Center, January 31st – co – produced by Kay Cummings and Lavagnino.

Cherylyn was funded for the 2009 grant cycle for the American Music Center’s Live Music for Dance and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Manhattan Community Arts Fund.

Surrender My Soul to Rest premiered Feb 18th at Berlind Theatre – a commission by Princeton University’s Dance Department.

Upcoming Calendar of Events for Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance:

Fridays at Noon – 92nd Street Y on May 15th.

Teaching Residency at the Lyndon Institute in Vermont, May 18 -22.

Presenting, Snap Shots, June 18 – 20 at Danspace Project in the Tisch – Danspace Project performance collaboration NYU/ Academy Dances.

2009 New York Season at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, June 25 – 28. New work will be premiered in collaboration with violinist Jane Chung.

Creative Residency at the Silo Project July 27 – August 9, 2009.

2010 New York Season at Symphony Space May 3 – 8, sharing the program with Francis Patrelle Dance.

For more information about Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance please go to:

Website: www.cherylynlavagnino-dance.com or www.pentacle.org

During winter break January 11-18, James Martin created a new piece titled "Luminous Youths" for the dance department at James Madison University. This piece will be performed April 2-4. He was an adjudicator and taught master classes for the ACDAF festival at Texas A&M University March 12-15. Mr. Martin will be creating a new piece for the Tisch faculty show at Danspace June 18-20. He will be teaching ballet for the Paul Taylor Summer intensive held at the La Guardia High School of the Performing Arts, NYC from July 6-17. July 20 - August 7th, he will be teaching ballet and choreographing a new piece for the White Mountain Summer Dance Festival at Sarah Lawrence College. He is planning a new evening of dances titled "The Enchanted Piano" with the pianist Eliza Garth who has achieved international distinction as a performer of contemporary music. This new evening will feature music for Piano and Electronics, Piano Strings and Amplified Piano from composers Henry Cowell, Mario Davidovsky, Maurice Wright and George Crumb. For more information about James Martin and James Martin Music/Dance go to his website jamesmartindance.org

Lynn Martin will be teaching Breathing Coodination Workshops in Lausanne, Switzerland, during June and July this summer.

Pamela Pietro performed her solo "theone" as part of Draftworks/ Dancespace Project at St. Marks Church. She performed the same solo "theone" at Dance New Amsterdam's Gene Pool series. She choreographed "Under the Radar" for the Faculty Performance Workshop at Tisch Dance and will re-stage that work in August 2009 in Singapore at the LaSalle Academy. She has been collaborating with Jennifer Nugent through the Movement Research Project on a trio that will be performed at Judson Church on May 11, 2009. She started working on an older work with Shani Collins to be performed at a later date. This will be Pietro's 14th summer on faculty at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC.

Gus Solomons jr recently wrapped the Columbia MFA student film "Chrysalis," written and directed by Khary Jones, playing Cliff Douglas, patriarch of a dysfunctional family. March 30-April 4, he was in Seattle, WA, setting his dance "Statements of Nameless Root II" on Spectrum Dance Company, which premieres April 25-6. Solomons will be performing in E-Moves at Aaron Davis Hall on April 17 with Kyle Abraham, sharing the stage as mentor and protege on a program with several other such generational pairings. On May 5, PARADIGM Solomons will perform on La MaMa Moves' gala tribute to Deborah Jowitt and Harvey Lichtenstein. June 18-20, PARADIGM (Michael Blake and Solomons) will dance a preview of "Dioscuri #2" by Donald Byrd on the Tisch faculty show at Danspace Project at Saint Mark's Church. May 22, deLavallade and Solomons will do "It All" by Dwight Rhoden on the Spring to Dance Festival in St. Louis, MO. July 13, 14 is PARADIGM's New York season as part of Ken Maldonado's SummerDanz at DTW. July 17-19, PARADIGM will perform this program at The Yard in Martha's Vineyard, MA.

James Sutton's production of The Sleeping Beauty, a new one-hour version conceived and choreographed for New York Theatre Ballet, premiered in New York at Florence Gould Hall on February 7, 2009, and is currently on a national tour. He is currently making a dance, "One Fine Day", for the Senior Class at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, to be premiered June 5, 2009. Sutton will be performing his solo piece, "Legwork", for the Tisch faculty show at Danspace June 18-20.

Linda Tarnay continues as Associate Artistic Director and choreographic mentor of The Yard, a colony, on Martha's Vineyard, for performing artists. In the Fall-Winter, 2008-09 she will serve on the Board of Trustees, Dance Theater Workshop and will be a member of the Curatorial Committee. This summer she will be taking a workshop with Claire Porter on "Writing and Moving."

Andy Teirstein received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Music Composition this year, and the ASCAP Concert Award. This past summer he worked in Eastern Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison, doing music for an Orson Welles play with the prisoners. A CD of Teirstein's music will be released by Naxos International this August, including performances by the Cassatt Quartet, The Alaria Ensemble, and The Ulkranian Philharmonic. He is playing the roles of Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Will Geer in "Woody Sez," at the Lyric Theater in Oklahoma, which is slated for London's West End this summer.

Upcoming performances: Teirstein's piece, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" will receive a world premiere next Fall at Carnegie Hall. A new piece, "Restless Nation," has been commissioned by Symphony Space for next year.

Hayk Arsenyan will be playing a recital in Steinway Hall, in New York then in June he will be going to Spain for three weeks performing solo recitals in Valladolid, Madrid, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Tenerife. He will also have a press conference and a Radio/TV show on June 25th in Las Palmas. After the last recital in Spain (July 6th) he will fly to Paris to play a recital there and return to Armenia where he will give two more recitals before coming back to the States. In August, before returning to NYC Arsenyan goes to Iowa City where he will be the guest pianist for a Radio/TV program-recital "Know the Score with Joan Kjare".