For the first time, Saint Joseph Ballet invited four modern dance companies to participate in its annual New Dance production on February 22 & 23, 2008. An open call for submissions produced a tremendous response from the Southern California dance community, highlighting the importance of the project.
All works presented by the hosted companies were World Premiers. Saint Joseph Ballet’s 400 students were exposed to the various creative processes of the participating groups through master classes and other art making opportunities.
New Dance aims to support and produce new work by local artists in Southern California.
After careful consideration, the four participating artists were:
casebolt and smith
Based in Los Angeles, casebolt and smith are an emerging duet dance/theater company. Comprised of Co-Artistic Directors, Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith, the company has presented work all over Southern California, including at the UC Riverside Performance Lab and UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures.
contra-tiempo
This well known non-profit dance company based in Los Angeles aims to create courageous and compelling work that sparks social change and uplifts their local community. Founded and directed by Ana Maria Alvarez, contra-tiempo engages a diverse audience with their unique Salsa-based, urban-latin dance theater.
NUGENT DANCE
Since 2001, NUGENT DANCE is committed to the presentation, promotion, and education of intelligent, inspiring, and contemporary dance theater. Led by choreographer Stephanie Nugent, the company pursues socially relevant and kinetically virtuosic performance.
Rebecca Pappas
Rebecca Pappas graduated with a degree in dance and anthropology from Connecticut College where she taught and choreographed as part of the Children’s Dance Center. She is the artistic director of Pappas and Dancers and has been presenting her choreography professionally since 2001.
ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND
Saint Joseph Ballet is a unique nonprofit after-school program that uses dance to teach young people what it takes to succeed in life – self-esteem, confidence, leadership, cooperative learning, and discipline.
Saint Joseph Ballet has pioneered the practice of involving youth in a high quality and professional process of creating new, contemporary dance with renowned choreographers and other collaborating artists. New work is regularly commissioned from artists, such as Sean Curran, Mark Haim, Melanie Ríos Glaser, Donald McKayle, Nami Yamamoto, Sally Silvers, Beth Burns and composer Alan Terricciano among others. Works are created with, and then performed by students at an Annual Concert at the Irvine Barclay Theatre as well as performances in Saint Joseph Ballet’s Studio Theatre. Dance companies in residence have included the prestigious Limón Dance Company, Eliot Feld Ballet Tech, and Elizabeth Streb’s STREB, who have worked with the students on repertory and master classes.
Through participation in Saint Joseph Ballet’s cutting edge programs, professionals ignite creativity in nearly 400 low-income youth. Utilizing collaborative rehearsals and performances, young people passionately engage in the artistic process.
Saint Joseph Ballet believes in contributing to the research and development of contemporary dance in Southern California as a way to live its vision of innovation.