Greetings,
We're sorry to have missed you in May, but I hope this finds you well, and you can be sure we have been hard at work since you last heard from us!
Artistic Director Samar Haddad King made a trip to the International Dance Festival of Amman in Jordan (read more about the trip in her blog!), dancer Kathryn Baer Schetlick graduated with a Masters Degree in Performance Studies from NYU (congrats Katie!) and dancer Kristin Osler accepted a position this summer at the Santa Fe Opera, where we wish her the best of luck (as long as she comes back soon).
There is more exciting company news below, including a recent review and upcoming performances both in NYC and elsewhere, so mark your calendars, and we hope to see you soon!
All the best,
Zoe Rabinowitz
Associate Artistic Director
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| REVIEW: E-MOVES, April 23rd
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009 By: Caroline Banks
 Harlem
Stage Gatehouse, a circular gem hidden in West Harlem, hosted an
evening of e-merging and e-volving choreographers. Just one of the ten
evenings devoted to exposing the works of new comers and legacies,
April 23, was the night for Daniel Fetecua-Soto, Malcolm Low, Ja'Malik,
Francine Ott, Sidra Bell, Samar Haddad King, Johari Mayfield, Richard
Rivera, and Hattie Mae Williams to shine...
...Samar
Haddad King (choreographer) and Josiah Guitian with Al-Bikr were the
next to perform. The two dressed as young lovers straight from the
sound of music brought smiles to the audience. Samar pranced through
her luscious choreography with moments of quirky hand and foot gestures
that made you relate to her even more. Josiah was a wonderful partner
and the many lifts looked effortless. The choreography clearly
portrayed the struggle between the two lovers. Though she fought to be
independent, Samar always came back to lean on Josiah; telling us that
though things will never be the same they will always rely on one
another.
iDANZ Critix Corner: www.iDANZOnline.com |
BORDERS PROJECT: June 14-20
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Artistic Director Samar Haddad King has been invited to participate in The Borders Project Residency at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA, this month, organized by Adam McKinney (Co-Director of DNAWorks and former dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Switzerland's Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and Alonzo King's LINES Ballet). McKinney has invited King and six other multimedia artists from NYC, Vancouver, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. to take advantage of Fort Worden's amazing natural landscape to explore the struggle between the man-made and the natural, while moving towards a transformatuion through dance and film.
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The result of this week-long residency will be the creation of a film discussing themes such as home and space, the communal body and conflict, and how performance can fuel a continuing dialogue about borders, liberation and healing.
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| Upcoming Performances |
Jacob's Pillow:
Thursday, August 20th 6:30pm
 Catch YSDT for free at this year's Inside/Out Festival in Becket, MA where we will be performing a mixed program including Al-Bikr, Frozen Belief, Ramblings of a Young Girl and Skirt Dance. Just a three hour trip from NYC.
For directions and for more information, visit:
www.jacobspillow.org
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center:
September 25th & 26th 8pm
YSDT will open the 2009/10 performance season at LPAC alongside contemporary dance companies MAD About Dance and Dance Entropy.
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Best,
Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre
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BLOG: Middle East
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I have been traveling to the Middle East for as long as I can remember. This year I had the pleasure of traveling to Amman, Jordan during the 3rd Annual International Dance Festival of Amman, a festival which I was proud to perform in as the first American Dance Company in 2007. I had not been back since our Middle East tour and was excited to see the festival expanding in its artistic scope and in audience support. For eight nights in a row, the Al-Hussein Theater was completely full with people of all ages largely new to contemporary dance, but interested in the work that companies from Tunisia, France, Germany, Serbia, Spain, Jordan, Belgium and the United States had to offer. And offer they did! I saw some of the most briilliant work I've seen in a long time. (And I even ran into an old acquaintance, Julie Ana Dobo, who was lighting the American company in the festival. Julie designed our lighting when YSDT performed a season at Joyce SoHo back in 2006. It truly is a small world.)
The audiences were so diverse and unbelievably engagedI It was delightful to see such a large group of people opening themselves up to new experiences and wanting to be aesthetically and thematically challenged. It was also fun to see the development of the dancers who took my Master Class three years ago, and with whom I had the opportunity to work again this year, in an informal improvisation and repertory workshop.
I had many fruitful meetings
and conversations with the head of the festival, Dina Abu Hamdan. She is by far one of the most determined women I've ever met, and what she has developed in the past three years is beyond remarkable and inspirational. I also met people at the US Embassy who are equally committed to bringing dance to local audiences. I am optimistic about our future role in the Middle East
region, an area where we hope to expand our presence in the years to
come, with your support.
All told, this trip was a wonderful reminder of why I do the work that I do, and who I am doing it for. Communities around the world that are underexposed to the arts deserve an outlet for self-expression, both personal and political. The region is wrought with conflict and it's necessary to give these communities something else to think about...perhaps to dream about.
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