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Catherine Tharin Dance Presents a Series of Solos, Duets and Film

Company:
Catherine Tharin Dance

Catherine Tharin Dance Presents a Series of Solos, Duets and Film

November 3 and 4, 2023, at Douglas Dunn Studio

 

New York, NY, September 28, 2023 – On November 3 and 4, choreographer Catherine Tharin will premiere a new work alongside three recent dances and two films. Performances will take place at 7:30pm at the Douglas Dunn Studio, 541 Broadway, Third floor, in Manhattan. Tickets are $25 (general), $15 (artists, seniors, and attendees under 30), and are available HERE. A Q&A with the artists moderated by Douglas Dunn will be held on November 3, following the performance.

Tharin explores the intimacy and emotional content of relationships, and the heightened beauty of the natural environment. Her movement vocabulary is a sensuous centering of the pelvis and spine, tasseling of the arms and legs, tossing the body in patterns of undercurves and overcurves and fleet changes of direction.

The premiere, currently untitled, with an original score by choreographer and sound designer Jon Kinzel, features dancers Amelia Attleberry and Hannah Kearney costumed by fashion designer Colleen Howland. The dance explores quick rhythms, close partnering, and floor work that imparts a sense of immediacy.

The solo When you open this letter, created in 2021, will be danced by a longtime friend of Tharin, choreographer, dancer, and collaborator David Parker. Set to music by J.S. Bach (Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prelude), Parker brings his distinctive performative clarity and emotional depth to the reductive phrase work.

Of You From Here (2020), a duet loosely based on the poetry of Karen Enns, is inspired by the delicacy of a bird taking flight and the poignancy of time fleeting. It is danced by Amelia Attleberry and Dylan Baker to Enns’s text that is both spoken live by the dancers and recorded by the originators of the dance, Esmé Julien Boyce and Jenny Levy. The original music composed by Sam Crawford weaves text and melody; the shimmering silver dresses are designed by painter Sue Julien. 

Created in Central Park during the pandemic, Animal Rights explores ideas of predator and prey, of falling and recuperating, and attentive, watchful silences. Danced by Amelia Attleberry, who embodies an exquisite feral quality, the work features music by Sam Crawford and costume design by Colleen Howland.

Esmé Julien Boyce, a longtime dancer with Catherine Tharin Dance, will perform a new solo she is creating during her current residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

The program also includes The Bells of St. Genevieve, a film by Liz Schneider-Cohen shot in an open Spanish Harlem warehouse elevator and on a New York City roof in the snow. Choreography is by Tharin and features the lush movement of dancer Sarah Bauer and music, “The Bells of St. Genevieve,” by the Baroque composer Marin Marais.

Lora Robertson’s film A Natural History, concept and choreography by Tharin, moves between frozen scenes of winter and the watery lassitude of summer by situating the dancers—Esmé Julien Boyce, Susan Rainey, and Racy Brand—in the mirrored River Club of New York ballroom with hand-painted tropical scenes from the 1920s, to the brilliant blue water of the River Club pool, to Hudson Valley meadows, a waterfall, and a fast-moving stream that carries the sky-facing dancers.

 

About the Artists

Catherine Tharin, a dancer in the Erick Hawkins Dance Company from 1988 to 1994, has taught nationally and internationally at colleges, universities, studios, dance conferences and in the NYC public schools. She was the Dance and Performance Curator at 92NY from 2005 to 2020, where she developed several programs, a senior adjunct professor at Iona College for 20 years, and is currently a reviewer and editor of dance for The Dance Enthusiast. She writes on dance topics for Side of Culture, is a dance correspondent for The Boston Globe, as well as reports on dance for WAMC, an NPR station that broadcasts in seven states. Her dances have been seen at West End Theatre, Arts on Site, Henry Street Settlement, WestBeth, BAC, among other NYC venues, as well as recently in Korea and Mexico.  

 

Amelia Atteberry is a freelance contemporary dancer based in Brooklyn. Originally from North Carolina, Atteberry began their formal dance training in the high school contemporary dance program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). After continuing into the college program, they graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in 2019. While at UNCSA, they performed pieces by Robyn Mineko Williams, Larry Keigwin, Shen Wei, and Martha Graham. Atteberry has continued their dance training by attending international dance workshops including the One Body, One Career CounterTechnique intensive, the B12 summer dance workshop, the ImPulsTanz international dance festival  and the Kyoto International Dance Workshop Festival. Since moving to New York City, they have performed works with JKing Dance Company, Dance Visions NY, and Catherine Tharin Dance.

 

Dylan Baker is a New York City-based dancer, choreographer, producer, and teaching artist originally from the boondocks of Wisconsin where he acquired a BFA in dance at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Baker can be found dancing with Boink Dance & Film, Matthew Westerby Company, and The Bang Group. He is an associate producer and curator for the WestFest dance festival. When he is not performing or producing, Baker wears his teaching hat as the tap teacher at the Steffi Nossen School of Dance in White Plains, NY.

 

Esmé Julien Boyce is a choreographer and dancer. Boyce holds a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and an MFA in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is currently a fall 2023 BAC Open artist-in-residence at Baryshnikov Arts. Boyce has presented her work at 92NY, Dixon Place, Lincoln Center, BAM, Judson Church, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and Center for Performance Research. Boyce’s work was curated for the Judson Church performances of MoMA’s fall 2018 exhibition, Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done. Boyce was a 2016–2017 New Direction Choreography Lab Fellow at The Ailey School and returned to The Ailey School to choreograph for the 2018 BFA Fall Concert. As a dancer, Boyce has worked with choreographers Janis Brenner & Dancers, Yara Travieso, JinJu Song-Begin, Aileen Passloff, Marta Renzi, Megan Williams Dance Projects, Amber Sloan, and Catherine Tharin.

 

Sam Crawford completed degrees in English and audio engineering at Indiana University in 2003. His compositions and sound designs have included works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), A.I.M by Kyle Abraham (Untitled Love, 2022), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, 2016), and David Dorfman Dance (Aroundtown, 2017). La Medea, a live film collaboration with director Yara Travieso for which he composed the music and wrote the libretto, premiered at P.S.122’s Coil Festival in 2017. Crawford is a lecturer in sound design at the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, as well as co-director of the Maya Brin Institute for New Performance.

 

Colleen Howland holds a BFA in fashion design, AAS in architectural technology, and certificate in horticulture-landscape design. She has worked for Seventh Avenue companies and had designs featured in Vogue magazine. Her couture commissions include pieces worn at inaugural balls and galas. She is committed to sustainable living, waste reduction, and the power of art in all forms. She is delighted to collaborate with Catherine Tharin and her talented team to bring expression of the highest order and shape in all dimensions to the stage through dance.

 

Sue Julien is a visual artist and costumer. She has created costumes for Esmé Boyce Dance, choreographer Yara Travieso, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Catherine Tharin Dance, Satellite Collective, Janis Brenner & Dancers and the singer Grace Weber. Julien received a BFA in painting from Carnegie Mellon University and a MFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries in Brooklyn and Chicago, as well as Brown University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for an Individual Artist, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for an Individual Artist.

 

Hannah Kearney is a dancer and Pilates teacher based in Brooklyn. She graduated summa cum laude from George Mason University with a BFA in dance and a minor in arts management. She also received her Accelerated Studies certificate from the Martha Graham School of Dance. Kearney has performed works by Francisco Gella, Robert Battle, Martha Graham, and Donald Byrd. She has danced with JKing Dance Company, the Philadanco Second Company, and Ballaro Dance Company. This is her first performance with Catherine Tharin Dance.

 

Jon Kinzel has presented his work, including numerous commissions and solo shows, in a variety of national and international venues. He has maintained a decades-long and deeply interrelated choreographic and visual art practice, served as a music and sound designer, and contributed to several publications. As a curator, he established a platform for Asian Cultural Council grantees to present their work. As a MacDowell Fellow he developed Queens Terminus (2022), presented at The Chocolate Factory in NYC. He has been named a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. He feels fortunate to have performed and collaborated with people across several disciplines—more recently with Jodi Melnick, Vicky Shick, Elena Demyanenko, Yvonne Rainer/Emily Coates, Nina Katan, Cathy Weis, Jennifer Miller, Cassim Shepard, and Kuldeep Singh—and to have taught in several university, liberal arts, and conservatory settings as well as Lincoln Center Education/New York City schools, Merce Cunningham Trust, New York Studio School, and Movement Research.

 

David Parker is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and teacher and, with Jeffrey Kazin, directs The Bang Group, a rhythm-driven, theatrical dance company exploring the percussive potential of the dancing body. The Bang Group was founded in New York City in 1995 and has toured widely throughout North America and Europe. Parker has also choreographed more than 60 commissioned works for dance companies, universities, festivals and soloists. One of The Bang Group’s best-loved productions, Nut/Cracked, a comic-subversive, neo-vaudevillian version of The Nutcracker, celebrates its 21st consecutive season this year. Parker has also danced for numerous choreographers and first danced with Catherine Tharin in 2008. He has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with her on many levels from presenting and co-curating to dancing, writing, and choreographing.

 

Lora Robertson is a photographer and filmmaker trained in the classic studio apprenticeship system. As executive director of Satellite Collective in New York, she is an advocate for women to stand in their own power and is committed to the retelling of classic story forms from the perspective of female characters, putting their voices forward as flawed heroes. Bringing the discipline of 15 years of commercial advertising experience into her fine art projects, she uses very little digital manipulation, but instead is devoted to studio lighting, set design, and the power of in-camera processes. Robertson also believes in taking technical and creative risks which might break these comfortable habits, always from a place of hard work and forward motion. She will take on a muse but only if bets are lost.

 

A lifelong New Yorker, Liz Schneider-Cohen holds a BFA in dance from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a fine art photographer, Schneider-Cohen creates conceptual projects using dancers as her primary subjects. Her background in dance contributes to her eye for capturing the body in motion. She often creates short dance videos to be viewed as companion pieces to her photographs at live showings. She was the official dance photographer at 92NY through March 2020.