Ivy Baldwin, ADI Incubator
Thursday, October 16th, 2014
By Ellen Chenoweth The title of Ivy Baldwin’s latest work, set to premiere at ADI this weekend, is Oxbow, springing from oxbow lakes. Oxbow lakes are formed when there is a river with deep and dramatic S curves and the water decides to form a more direct path. The resulting cut-off lake is an oxbow, creating a rich and fertile ecosystem that often later becomes farmland. Baldwin drew a parallel with the world created by a dance: “there’s this fertile land that exists on its own and then dissipates and disappears.” Baldwin describes her work as interested in “the tragedies…
[ Read More → ]Jodi Melnick, ADI Incubator
Thursday, September 4th, 2014
By Ellen Chenoweth If you didn’t know better, you might call Moment Marigold a trio. Instead, Melnick explains that her new work is for three women doing three separate solos. The choreographer brings this level of precision to her dance work as well, both as a performer and a maker. While watching her dance, you get the sense that if you stopped her at any given second, she would be able to tell you the exact degree of the crook of her arm, or the precise measure of her facing on stage. Moment Marigold will have its official world premiere…
[ Read More → ]John Jasperse at ADI
Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
John Jasperse has stated “if I give an audience an experience they’ve already imagined, then I’m not doing my job.” Jasperse brings his latest work, currently titled Within between, to ADI this weekend (May 9-10, 2014), and the experience promises to be outside of the previously imagined. Jasperse grew up in Rockville, and so his weekend run at ADI is a kind of homecoming for the choreographer. One of the principal collaborators for the work is renowned composer Jonathan Bepler. Perhaps best known for his work with artist Matthew Barney, including on the Cremaster Cycle and the recently-premiered River of…
[ Read More → ]Doug Elkins at ADI
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
Doug Elkins’ Fraulein Maria toured the country for years, delighting audiences with its hilarious take on The Sound of Music. Last year his new work Mo(or)Town/Redux, which had its premiere at ADI, was named one of the top 10 dance pieces of 2013 by The New York Times. And just a couple of weeks ago at the annual convening of performing arts presenters in New York, the company brought the house down and was greeted with loud cheers and whoops for its presentation of Scott, Queen of Marys, at the Joyce Theater. Now Doug Elkins and his company return to…
[ Read More → ]Jane Comfort at ADI
Thursday, October 3rd, 2013
Jane Comfort has been making dance/theater work for 35 years, so when she gets into a dance studio, she knows what she’s doing. But for her latest work, she wanted to scare herself and shake things up. New York-based Comfort usually makes work based on a research topic, anything from investigating extraordinary rendition to create 2008’s “American Rendition”, to last year’s “Beauty”, which looked at cultural ideas of female beauty in the United States. The new work to be shown at ADI on October 4 and 5, is as of yet untitled and represents a radical departure. Comfort wanted to…
[ Read More → ]Brian Brooks at ADI
Thursday, September 19th, 2013
“Do you want to come in?” One of Brian Brooks’ stellar dancers is inviting another one to join her inside the web of 350 fabric strings that is stretched across the stage at ADI. It’s midway through the company’s residency at ADI as part of the National Incubator series and there are 8 dancers scattered across the stage, dressed in costumes of space-age silver, grey and black. They’re still getting used to the challenges of depth perception and orientation that come with a radically unusual stage environment. Brooks was the first Incubator residency of the ADI season and is a…
[ Read More → ]Inside ADI’s Incubator
Friday, September 13th, 2013
What does it mean to do a production residency at American Dance Institute? What can we expect from artists who are showing works in progress as part of the Incubator series? What’s going on behind the scenes of contemporary performance? Over the course of this season, we’ll be peeking in the theater to see what’s up with Jane Comfort, Doug Elkins and John Jasperse while they’re at ADI. We’ll kick off the series next week with a look at Brian Brooks Moving Company’s residency week. The National Incubator series at ADI was created in response to research in the dance…
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