Henning Rubsam's Sensedance
21st ANNIVERSARY SEASON
Henning Rübsam's SENSEDANCE
obsession | calm 21st ANNIVERSARY SEASON
OCTOBER 27 at 8:30pm & OCTOBER 28 at 6:00pm
At Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance
Henning Rübsam's SENSEDANCE will present two premieres celebrating his 21st year as founding artistic director of his ensemble on Saturday, October 27th at 8:30pm and Sunday, October 28th at 6:00 pm at Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance, 126 East 13th Street, NYC. The premieres will include, "obsession | calm" and "Brahms Dances". Also on the program will be a reprise of "Petit Pas” as a tribute to the late Neil Armstrong, whose voice is featured in the work; and “HALF-LIFE 102”. The Dancers for the season are: Cynthia Dragoni, Erin Ginn, Heidi Green, Temple Kemezis, Jacqueline Stewart, Nathan Bland, Uthman Ebrahim, Oisín Monaghan, Matt Van, and Henning Rübsam. Tickets are: General Admission: 0.00; Student w/ ID: 2.00. They are available by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 and on the web: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=SEN15
The premiere "obsession | calm" features the women of the company in two contrasting movements of composer Ernest Bloch's "Four Episodes." The short, colorful and fascinatingly scored miniatures by Bloch provide a perfect playground for the choreographer's imagination.
"Brahms Dances" is the beginning of an output of exploration that has lasted for more than twenty years. Rübsam collected songs of Brahms' oeuvre to create a short suite that ends with the memorable song set to the Goethe poem "Wechsellied zum Tanze." It will be Rübsam's third foray into the world of the German master composer after his ensemble work "Brahms Double Concerto" in 2001 and the solo (for former Nikolais dancer Christine Reisner) "Gesänge Op.6" in 2003.
"HALF-LIFE 102", premiered last year expressing some of the anxiety that Rübsam felt after the combined catastrophic events of earthquake, tsunami and reactor melt-down in Japan. Featuring a dynamic score by the Slovenian band LAIBACH, the quartet has now been reworked into a sextet for three male dancers and three female dancers on pointe. The title "HALF-LIFE" refers to a commonly used parameter to measure the radioactive decay of substances and elements. The addition of the number "102" for this new version of the dance evokes the "No" (the synthetic and highly radioactive element Nobelium) in the periodic table.
An homage to the late astronaut Neil Armstrong, "Petit Pas" opens the program. The two dancers comment on his small step with giant leaps in a combative duet. Set in Petipa's traditional outer form of a grand pas de deux, the dance breaks with every tradition and raises the question how far along humanism has come in a society that is still defined by sex and race.
Henning Rübsam is the artistic director of SENSEDANCE, a resident choreographer for Hartford City Ballet, on faculty at The Juilliard School and a visiting guest artist at Texas Academy of Ballet. He earned his BFA in dance from The Juilliard School, where mentors included Martha Hill and Elizabeth Keen. While there, he performed as the Faun in the Nijinsky/Debussy ballet, worked extensively with Anna Sokolow, and toured internationally with the Limón Dance Company. Upon graduation he founded his own ensemble SENSEDANCE and continued to dance with other choreographers, namely Duncan Macfarland, Murray Louis, and Alwin Nikolais. Rübsam appeared as a guest dancer with a myriad of contemporary choreographers, and in works of dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Doris Humphrey. Among Rübsam’s citations are a Jerome L. Greene Fellowship, a Lincoln Center Fellowship, a Manhattan Spirit Award as "best male dancer,” a choreography award from Stephens College, an award for his advocacy from Dancers Responding to AIDS, and the Distinguished Artist Award from Bergen College, the first time this award was given to a dance artist. Last year, he and his company represented the United States at the Danza Nueva Festival in Lima. Rübsam also works as choreographer and director for theatre and opera. He has been a guest choreographer and teacher for numerous companies and universities throughout the Americas as well as in Australasia and Europe. A writer, historian and advocate for his art form, he is a long-time board member of the Martha Hill Dance Fund, has implemented a dance appreciation program at Juilliard for the general public, taught dance history at SUNY Purchase, and has given lectures for the Young Patrons Program at Lincoln Center. He created a solo for his late mentor, Prima Ballerina Assoluta Eva Evdokimova. Rübsam, who has presented annual performances with SENSEDANCE and has toured internationally, appears in several television documentaries about his work - produced by Dancevista - and in the documentary feature Behind the Curtain. The documentary "Another Tour" (by director Greg Vander Veer) about the company’s tour through Peru is forthcoming. SENSEDANCE is represented in North America by River City Artists Management. http://rivercityartists.com/index.php/sensedance
