FREE SPRING EVENTS
Choreographers, dancers, dance-makers and enthusiasts are invited
to attend this series of intimate conversations with choreographers
from around the country. Discover and discuss the innovative models
and career choices that some of today’s leading artists have developed
to endure and flourish in the ever-changing climate of dance-making
in our culture. All events are free and will be followed by a reception.
All events are held at the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab
at 301 8th Street, (at Folsom) #200, San Francisco, CA 94103.
For more information on this event, please e-mail info@mjdc.org
or call (415) 861-3940.
Excerpts from past Leaders events are now available online on YouTube!
To view each video, click on the thumbnail near their profile below.
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| Thursday, May 19 - 7:00 pm
A Conversation with Doug Varone |
 Doug
Varone works in dance, theater,
opera, film, television and fashion. He is a passionate educator
and articulate advocate for dance. By any measure, his work is extraordinary
for its emotional range, kinetic breadth and the many arenas in
which he works. His company, Doug Varone and Dancers, has been commissioned
and presented to critical acclaim by leading international venues
for more than two decades. In opera, Varone is in demand as a director
and choreographer. He has staged multiple productions for The Met,
Minnesota Opera, and New York City Opera, among others. Varone has
also created works for dance companies internationally, and his
dances have been staged on many university programs. Varone received
his BFA from Purchase College and was awarded the Presidential Distinguished
Alumni Award in 2007. Honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two
ADF Doris Duke Awards for New Work, three from the National Dance
Project and two Bessies. Doug Varone and Dancers performs May 21
-22, 2011 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Novellus Theater
in San Francisco, as part of San Francisco Performances' James C.
Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Dance Series. For tickets and more
information on these performances, click
here. For more information on Doug Varone, please visit
www.dougvaroneanddancers.org. |
Tuesday, April 26
- 7:00 pm
A Conversation with Lucinda
Childs |
 Lucinda
Childs is one of America’s leading modern choreographers.
Of her work, which is often described as conceptual dance, she has
said, “My dances are an intense experience of intense looking
and listening.” Childs was born in New York City in 1940.
In her second year at Sarah Lawrence College, she took a class with
visiting professor Merce Cunningham. After she completed her
degree, she went on to study at the Cunningham Studio. There
she met Yvonne Rainer, who went on to co-found (with Steve Paxton)
the influential Judson Dance Theater and invited Childs to be one
of Judson’s original company members. After she formed her own
company in 1973, Childs collaborated with Robert Wilson and Philip
Glass on the opera Einstein on the Beach, participating as
leading performer and choreographer (she also took part in the opera’s
revivals in 1984 and 1992). It was during rehearsals for Einstein
that Childs and Glass came up with the original idea for Dance.
Along with Glass, LeWitt and Wilson, Childs has worked with such artists,
composers, and directors as John Adams, Frank Gehry, Henryk Górecki,
Robert Mapplethorpe, Terry Riley, and Iaanis Xenakis. Childs
received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979, the year she created Dance.
She is also the recipient of the NEA/NEFA American Masterpiece Award,
and in 2004 she was elevated from the rank of Officer to Commander
in France’s Order of Arts and Letters. Lucinda Childs’
Dance performs April 28 – 30, 2011 at the Yerba Buena Center
for the Arts Novellus Theater in San Francisco, as part of San Francisco
Performances' James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Dance Series.
For tickets and more information on these performances, click
here. For more information on Lucinda Childs, please
visit www.lucindachilds.com. |
Thursday, April
14 - 7:00 pm
A Conversation with Ralph
Lemon |
 Ralph
Lemon is Artistic Director of Cross Performance, a company
dedicated to the creation of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary
performance and presentation. His projects expand the definition of
choreography by crossing and stretching the boundaries between Western,
post-modern dance and other art forms and cultures. Mr. Lemon also
serves as the 2011 Chair of CHIME Across Borders, a cross-national
mentorship program administered by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.
CHIME Across Borders brings master choreographers from across the
country to San Francisco to work with three local choreographers.
For more information on Ralph Lemon, please visit www.ralphlemon.net.
For more information on CHIME Across Borders, please visit www.mjdc.org/chime. |
Monday, March 7 - 7:00 pm
A Conversation with Stephen Petronio |
|
 Stephen
Petronio is Artistic Director/Choreographer of the Stephen
Petronio Company. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received
a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he began dancing
in 1974. Initially inspired by the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and
Steve Paxton, Petronio was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown
Company (1979 to 1986). He founded Stephen Petronio Company
in 1984 and has gone on to build a unique and powerful language
of movement in collaboration with some of the finest contemporary
innovators in the fields of music, visual arts and fashion including
Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, Son Lux, Nico Muhly,
Cindy Sherman, Donald Baechler, Benjamin Cho, Imitation of Christ,
Tony Cohen and Rachel Roy. Stephen Petronio Company performs March
4 - 5, 2011 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Novellus Theater
in San Francisco, as part of San Francisco Perfromances' James C.
Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Dance Series. For tickets and more
information on these performances, click
here. For more information on Stephen Petronio, please
visit www.stephenpetronio.com.
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Leaders at the Lab is a project of the Margaret Jenkins Dance
Company (MJDC.) The activities of the MJDC are funded by Center
for Cultural Innovation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel
Tax Fund, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis
C. Wattis Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Bernard
Osher Foundation, The Hellman Family Foundation, The James Irvine
Foundation, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The San Francisco Arts
Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous
individuals.
Photos: Stephen Petronio Dance Company (photo by Sarah Silver);
Stephen Petronio (Michael Slobodian); Ralph Lemon (Frank Oudeman);
Lucinda Childs; Doug Varone (Phil Knott); Margaret Jenkins (Paul
Trapani); Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in Light Moves
(Rapt Productions); Stephen Petronio Company (Sarah Silver); Ralph
Lemon's Come home Charley Patton (Don Merlo); Lucinda
Childs' Dance (Sally Cohn); and Doug Varone and Dancers
(Phil Knot).
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