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Dance Theater Workshop presents "The Barnard Project" with four world premieres. (April 23-25, Manhattan, NY)

by Sarah Hart
April 23, 2009
Dance Theatre Workshop
219 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-924-0077
Dance Theater Workshop

presents

THE BARNARD PROJECT

with four world premieres by

Nora Chipaumire, Nicholas Leichter

Susan Rethorst, and Morgan Thorson

APRIL 23 – 25 at 7:30pm & APRIL 25 at 2pm


New York, NY, March 12, 2009 – For the fourth year running, Dance Theater Workshop partners with Barnard College on The Barnard Project – a showcase of performances choreographed by Dance Theater Workshop artists with Barnard College dance students. For both the students and the artists-in-residence, this program is not only a semester-long class, but also a valuable resource for creative growth and experimentation. Coming up in April, these creative residencies will take shape in four premieres by Nora Chipaumire, Nicholas Leichter, Susan Rethorst, and Morgan Thorson, the current artists-in-residence at Barnard College this Winter and Spring.


Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the Bessie Schönberg Theater, April 23 – 25 (Thursday – Saturday at 7:30pm), with a matinee on April 25 (Saturday at 2pm). Tickets are $20 ($12 for members, seniors, and students) and are available online at dancetheaterworkshop.org, over the phone at 212.924.0077, and in person at the box office. Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.


Barnard College, a women's college located in New York City, aims to provide the highest quality liberal arts education to promising and high-achieving young women, offering the unparalleled advantages of an outstanding residential college in partnership with a major research university. With a dedicated faculty of scholars distinguished in their respective fields, Barnard is a community of accessible teachers and engaged students who participate together in intellectual risk-taking and discovery. Barnard students develop the intellectual resources to take advantage of opportunities as new fields, new ideas, and new technologies emerge. They graduate prepared to lead lives that are professionally satisfying and successful, personally fulfilling, and enriched by love of learning. The Department of Dance at Barnard College of Columbia University, with a faculty roster of 33 artists and scholars, provides all artistic, theoretical, historical, and cultural dance courses for both Barnard and Columbia.

About the Artists-in-Residence

Nora Chipaumire was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe during the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation. A self-exiled artist now based in New York, she investigates the collaborative process within cultural, political, economic, and technological identities of African contemporary life. Her work is transnational, unafraid, and eager to burn cultural, creative, and geographic boundaries. She creates provocative and politically relevant multimedia dance work, illuminating the struggles of human identity in an increasingly borderless world. Her work is inspired by art from her native country such as shona sculpture and chimurenga music - art that results from the often violent convergence of rural, urban, African, non-African, cultural, economic, colonial, and technological ideas. A visionary African contemporary dance artist, her work speaks to the human condition with power, authority, and urgency.

Nora Chipaumire is a Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) 2007-08 Choreographic Fellow. She is a recipient of National Dance Project (NDP) Tour Support in 2007-08. She also received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant to participate in the JANT-BI Diaspora Project in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in May and August 2007. Nora was honored with the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University Center for the Arts on March 10, 2007. She is featured in the documentary Movement (R)evolution and is the subject of the documentary-in-progress, Nora Chipaumire: A Physical Biography, directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, supported by a 2007 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission.

Nicholas Leichter received a BA in Dance from Connecticut College where he studied with Jacylnn Villamil and Martha Myers. He was a member of Ralph Lemon Company from 1993-1995, and performed with the companies of Jennifer Muller, Ronald K. Brown, and Gus Solomons jr. Leichter has taught throughout the US, at festivals in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, and Canada, and he has been on faculty at Tisch School of the Arts and the American Dance Festival. Recent commissions include the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach Community College. Nicholas has been artist in residence/guest artist at many institutions including Sarah Lawrence College, University of Iowa, George Washington Universtiy, University of Houston, Muhlenberg College, and Idaho State University.

Since 1975, Susan Rethorst has created dances out of New York City. Since 1995, she has divided her time between New York and Amsterdam, teaching choreography throughout Europe and Scandinavia and continuing to make work in both Europe and America. Rethorst's work has been presented by The Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Saint Marks, The Downtown Whitney Museum, among others, as well as at various dance theaters, universities, and festivals throughout the U.S. Internationally, her work has been produced by The Holland Festival, Spazio Zero Rome, The Kunsthalle Basel, The Aix-en-Provence Festival, among others. She has ongoing teaching relationships with the Dansens Hus in Copenhagen, at Dartington College in England, and at Firkin Crane in Cork, Ireland. In 1999, she was the recipient of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2002, she co-initiated a new post graduate study program in Choreography/New Media at the Amsterdam School for the Arts.

Morgan Thorson, originally from Connecticut and New York, has created dance and performance in Minneapolis as an independent artist since 1994. Her passion for dance-making has manifested in many forms including outdoor performance, site specific choreography, and ensemble/solo improvisation. Her works have been presented at a variety of international, national, and local venues such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Dance Theater Workshop in New York City, Seattle Festival for Alternative Dance and Improvisation, London Improvisation in Performance at Jackson Lane, and The Crossover Dance Festival in Seoul, Korea. She has been commissioned to create works for notable institutions like Gustavus Adolphus, Carleton College, the Zenon Dance School scholarship program, and the nationally acclaimed Split Britches Theater Company.

Recently, Morgan received a commission from the Walker Art Center for the Momentum Series. Thorson teaches dance at the University of Minnesota and has received many awards for her work including fellowships from the Bush (2000) and McKnight Foundations (2002) and Jerome Foundations (2002). In 2004 she received the Bessie Schonberg Memorial Endowed Fellowship.

Press kits and digital images available on request.
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