2010 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival Dance Line-up Announced

The 2010 Live Arts Festival brings world-class contemporary dance to Philadelphia while continuing to cultivate the work of the region’s top choreographers.  Visiting artists include the celebrated New York-based choreographer Lucinda Childs, who will present the Philadelphia premiere of her rarely performed signature work DANCE. This seminal collaboration is an exploration of human motion, musical movement, and harmony, featuring a new company of dancers seamlessly interacting with Sol LeWitt's film of the original cast and backed by a powerful score by Philip Glass. Originally created in 1979, the remounted performance offers a fascinating view of a pinnacle in interdisciplinary contemporary art making, generating a dialogue about postmodern dance and aesthetics 30 years ago and today. French choreographer Jérôme Bel (The show must go on and Pichet Klunchun and Myself, ‘08) returns to the Festival with the U.S. premiere of Cédric Andrieux, a solo for the eponymous dancer Cédric Andrieux. The touching and humorous examination of the life of a dancer follows Andrieux, as he narrates and dances his way through the course of his career in this unusual performance featuring excerpts from work by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Philippe Tréhet, and Bel. The Festival continues to expand and enhance its mission to support the development of new work by local artists. With a focus on Philadelphia-based talent, the 2010 Festival will feature premieres by Marianela Boán, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, and Brian Sanders, along with a showcase of eight emerging choreographers. With Decadere (“to decay” in Latin), Philadelphia-based, Cuban choreographer Marianela Boán (Voyeur, ‘07) offers a clash of music, language, humor, and violence across cultures and in a world of decline. The performance follows Boan’s “Contaminated Dance” style which radically merges different forms of art with dance performance. This U.S. premiere follows a successful international tour to the Dominican Republic and Bogotá, Colombia. The World premiere of TAKES by Nichole Canuso Dance Company (The A.W.A.R.D. Show!, ’09 and Wandering Alice, ’08) is a genre-bending exploration of dance, installation, and cinema with performances by Canuso and collaborator Dito Van Reigersberg (of Pig Iron Theatre Company), film by Lars Jan, and music by Mike Kiley. The visually captivating and physically daring Brian Sanders’ JUNK (Urban Scuba, ’09) will present Sanctuary, a new work exploring ritual and mistaken assumptions, performed along a 120 foot long wall with wild illusion and intense movement. The emerging artist showcase 8 will present eight rising contemporary choreographers from the Philadelphia region who have been commissioned by the Festival to create eight major new works, performed over the course of several days. The artists are Meg Foley, Eun Jung Choi-Gonzalez, Jaamil Kosoko, Megan Mazarick, Shavon Norris, Olive Prince, Jumatatu Poe, and Daniele Strawmyre. The 14^th annual Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, which runs from September 3 – 18, 2010, will showcase 18 cutting-edge programs featuring over 35 original dance, theater, and music works by acclaimed U.S. artists from Philadelphia and New York, along with internationally recognized artists from France, China, and Ireland. With 12 World and 2 U.S. premieres and a long-term commitment to the development of new work, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival serves as a platform for both world renowned and newly emerging contemporary artists. Each year, the Festival presents innovative and highly interdisciplinary performing arts events, offering a snapshot of trends at the forefront of the international performing arts scene. Tickets will go on sale beginning mid-May at www.livearts-fringe.org. A full schedule as well as tickets for the Philly Fringe, the unfiltered Festival, where new and established artists of all disciplines produce their own work, will be available in July. Live Arts Festival performances will take place at venues throughout the city of Philadelphia including the Arts Bank at The University of the Arts, the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, home of Philadelphia Theatre Company, Christ Church, World Café Live, and the Festival’s own Live Arts Studio, with additional venues to be announced. As an internationally recognized presenting organization, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival has garnered critical praise, national grants, and numerous awards while captivating legions of dedicated and enthusiastic audiences. The Festival runs for 16 days in conjunction with the Philly Fringe, in which hundreds of new and established artists stage their own works in both traditional and unusual performance sites throughout the city. Together, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe draw tens of thousands of people who come to be a part of “Festival time” in the city – to see innovative work, meet new people, and interact with over 2,000 artists performing in over 1,200 performances.