The artistry that has propelled Battery Dance into international prominence and its passionate social activism will merge as the Company unveils four new works in its 41st Annual New York Season at Schimmel Center for the Arts. With the presence of dancers from Iraq and Romania on stage and the joining of creative forces with an Armenian-Syrian visual artist and Syrian and Tunisian composers, the Company’s collaborative spirit is boosted to an all-time high.
41st New York Season – May 10 & 11, 2017
Location: The Schimmel Center at Pace University
Dates: May 10 – 11, 2017
Performance Times
Evening Performances: May 10th and 11th – 7:30pm
Opening Night Reception: May 10 – post-performance (Click Here for tickets)
School Matinee Performance: May 11 – 2:00 pm (Free for NYC Public Schools and Private School Groups. Email: Laura Mercer for tickets).
Pre-Performance Talk: May 11 – 6:30pm – “The Role of the Arts as a Vehicle for Public Diplomacy” by Cornell University Professor Dr. Penny von Eschen
| Evening Performance Ticket Prices | |
| General Public | $25 |
| Students/Seniors/Dancers | $15 |
| K-12 School Groups Please contact Battery Dance for free matinee tickets |
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Purchase Tickets
PRESENTING THE WORLD PREMIERS OF ON FOOT, RECONSTRUCTION, DOUBLE KNOT, AND ECHOES OF ERBIL
On Foot
Reflecting his company’s engagement with refugees and youth in conflict zones over the past decade, Jonathan Hollander has assembled artistic forces that pair the Company’s brilliant ensemble of dancers with Kevork Mourad and Kinan Azmeh, Syria-born visual artist and musician respectively; Tunisian composer Anouar Brahem; and Iraqi dancer Hussein Smko, first recipient of the Company’s Adel Euro Campaign for Dancers Seeking Refuge. This powerful collaboration yields choreography, visual imagery and music that pulsates with the life-force of refugees who overcome staggering odds to reach safety and promise in new lands, while mourning lost family and community members, perished dreams and destroyed homelands. Kevork Mourad will participate in the performances by making art that is projected onto the stage as the dance transpires, creating an immersive environment that is enhanced by the lighting design of Barry Steele.
Reconstruction
Following the pattern it established in 2011 with Autobiographica and continued in 2013 with Perceptual Motion, Battery Dance unleashes the choreographic talents of its dancers in the creation of a new ensemble work with segments spearheaded by each Company member. The group Matmos created an album sampled from reenactments of battles from The American Civil War and it is against this “musical” background that Company members express their responses to living in the current chaotic political environment. Each dancer has chosen a unique cut from the album and their movements are kinetic, athletic, fast-paced and visceral.
Double Knot
Channeling the talents of two young male dancers, Hussein Smko from Iraq and Razvan Stoian from Romania, Battery Dance’s own Sean Scantlebury crafts a propulsive duet evoking imagery of wrestlers, gladiators, compatriots, competitors and brothers. Recently, Scantlebury was honored to be included in Dance.com’s “15 Black Dancers Who Are Changing the World,” second only to Misty Copeland.
Echoes of Erbil
Spoken word, gesture and movement combine in this evocative solo that references the land, traditions and culture of the Kurdish region of Iraq, created and performed by Hussein Smko, the first recipient of Battery Dance’s Adel Euro Campaign for Dancers Seeking Refuge.
On Foot
Artistic Direction: Jonathan Hollander, Kevork Mourad, Barry Steele
Music: Kinan Azmeh, Anouar Brahem
Lighting: Barry Steele
Costumes: Tyler Holland
Run Time: 25 minutes
Reconstruction
Choreography: Sean Scantlebury, Robin Cantrell, Mira Cook, Bethany Mitchell, Clement Mensah, Razvan Stoian
Lighting: Barry Steele
Music: Matmos
Run Time: 25 minutes
Double Knot
Choreography: Sean Scantlebury
Lighting: Barry Steele
Run Time: 6 minutes
Echoes of Erbil
Choreography: Hussein Smko Khudhur
Lighting: Barry Steele
Run Time: 6 minutes
About the Guest Visual Artist
Kevork Mourad was born in 1970 in Kamechli, a town in the upper reaches of Syria. Of Armenian origin, he received his MFA from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia, and he now lives and works in New York.
With his technique of spontaneous painting, where he shares the stage with musicians—a collaboration in which art and music develop in counterpoint to each other—he has worked with many world class musicians. He now implements that same technique with dancers in Battery Dance's "On Foot".
He is a member, as a visual artist, of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. He has performed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Chelsea Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Chess Festival of Mexico City, The Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art in Yerevan, Le Festival du Monde Arabe in Montreal, the Stillwater Festival, the Nara Museum in Japan, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rubin Museum of Art, Harvard University, Lincoln Center Atrium, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, and Central Park’s Summerstage with the Silk Road Ensemble and Bobby McFerrin. Mourad’s most recent performance with Kinan Azmeh, "Home Within", has been touring Europe and North America for the past two years.
"On Foot" is Kevork's first collaboration with Battery Dance. For more information on Kevork Mourad, please visit his website.
The 2017 Season is supported by
