Great Neck dance company Dance Visions NY will present its newest work, including “Through the Portals,” and the full Isadora Duncan repertory to 2nd act of Orfeo ed Euridice at Universalist Unitarian Congregation Shelter Rock on Nov. 1 at 1:30 p.m.
“Through the Portals” is a new multi-disciplinary work created by choreographer Beth Jucovy that incorporates the works of visual artist Susan Ruth Cohen as portals into worlds of color and relationship.
In creating “Through the the Portals” Jucovy employed the Isadora Duncan dance technique as a primary source of the movement approach. In this same program, Dance Visions NY will also present Duncan’s major work to the 2nd act of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, showing the pure technique as portrayed through original Duncan dances.
The UU program will include a chamber quartet, both concerts will have live music. Other contemporary works by company choreographers complement the program.
“Through the Portals” depicts dancers as colors that begin as one entity. The colors separate and establish independent identity as shown through individual movement motifs and movement qualities. They interact in various groupings; identity is tested through these interactions.
As the dance proceeds, the play between independence and codependence continually cycles. .With a backdrop of artworks by Cohen, an exciting music collage and fresh choreography by Jucovy, “Through the Portals” is a fully integrated multidisciplinary art experience.
Duncan’s masterpiece to the music of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice depicts the story of the Greek myth. This work illustrates Duncan’s ground-breaking range of dynamics with the uplifted dances of the Elysian fields and the tormented dances of weight of the Furies. This version, which includes the aria of Orfeo’s passage with the Furies at his feet, envisioned and originally recreated by Julia Levien, has been presented only twice before in modern times, in 1994 by Duncan Dance Continuum and in 2005 by Dance Visions. The work includes live music.
Through the Portals dancers: Louisa Armstrong, Danielle Atkinson, Vanessa Ferranti, Courtney Ramm. Orfeo ed Euridice also include Natalie Isaza, Christina Stampolis, Beth Jucovy and Adrienne Ramm as Orfeo. Musicians include pianist Mark Fielder, Soprano Patti Dunham/Farah Chandu, Flautists Bernard Rosen, Herbert Waldren and Sam Levine and string musicians. Programs are hosted by actress Shirley Romaine. Programs also include works by choreographers Louisa Armstrong, Cathleen Deutscher and Courtney Ramm with additional dancers.
This program is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and is administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc.
The group will also be performing the piece at Bryant Library, 2 Papermill Rd., Roslyn on Dec. 6 at 2:30 p.m.
For reservations, please call Dance Visions NY at 516-314 2359 or the individual venues.
