NM Announces 2016 Dance at Socrates Choreographer Residencies!

Norte Maar is proud to announce our 2016 Dance at Socrates Choreographer Resident Artists and invited guests who will be participating this summer's Dance at Socrates. Bring your picnic and join us for cutting edge dance at one of New York's most unique city parks.

Norte Maar’s Dance at Socrates is “…a great chance to witness the rigorous rounds of innovation and experimentation.”
– L Magazine

August 1-20, 2016
Free Performances Saturdays, Aug 6, 13, 20 at 4pm (weather permitting)
Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Boulevard @ Broadway
Long Island City, NY  11106

2016 Schedule: 

August 1-6, Resident Choreographers:

Elisa Monte
Gabrielle Lamb
with invited guests 
Douglas Dunn + Dancers

Performance: August 6 at 4PM

Elisa Monte Dance, founded in 1981, bridges cultural barriers through the universal language of dance. From its earliest recognition on the world stage in 1982 as “Best Company” at the International Dance Festival of Paris, the company has succeeded for more than three decades. The work of Elisa Monte is widely recognized for its highly athletic and sensual style, as well as its technical and physical acuity, exploring a multitude of topics and themes. The company has performed in over 40 countries on 5 continents. Elisa Monte Dance has also appeared in several major dance festivals: among them, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, The Spoleto Festival (both in the US and Umbria, Italy), Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors, and Steps ’98 Switzerland; the company also participated in Weimar, Germany’s 1999 Cultural Capital activities. Elisa Monte Dance has been featured on television networks through Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean, and the company was highlighted on Metro Arts on PBS Channel 13 as part of the station’s Dance Month, celebrating accomplished New York City-based choreographers. Elisa Monte Dance celebrates diversity through its work, artists, and staff. The dancers rise to the creative challenge in an ecstatic display of physical prowess that gives life to an intense array of emotions. At once true to its own distinctive style and eager to encompass diverse cultural influences, Elisa Monte Dance takes a global view of movement that puts the world of dance within the audience’s grasp. As we celebrate our 35th year, we wish to thank our audiences and donors for their incredible support of our work!

Gabrielle Lamb is a New York City-based choreographer and performer. A native of Savannah, GA, she trained at the Boston Ballet School and was a longtime soloist at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal. In 2009 she was invited by Christopher Wheeldon to join his company Morphoses in New York City. Her repertoire as a performer has also included principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev, Sylvie Guillem, Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, and Nacho Duato. In addition to her choreography, Ms. Lamb is a self-taught animator. Her dance works for stage and screen have been presented by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Ballet Austin, the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group, Ballet Memphis, Jacob’s Pillow, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, and the American Dance Festival.She has also won choreographic competitions at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Milwaukee Ballet, and Western Michigan University, as well as, in 2014, the Banff Centre's Clifford E. Lee Award and a New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. In October 2014 she received a Princess Grace Award for Choreography.

Douglas Dunn first presented dancing–One Thing Leads to Another, a collaboration with Sara Rudner––in Laura Dean's loft on Crosby Street in Manhattan in 1971. After a number of years of solo and duet work, Douglas Dunn + Dancers took shape. In addition to touring internationally, the company has presented annual seasons at The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Performance Space 122, and Dance New Amsterdam. In 2009, under the auspices of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Program, Douglas Dunn & Dancers danced at the Ailey Citicorp Theater in midtown, featuring a modern dance revival of Pulcinella. Over the last few years the company has hosted Salon Events at the Douglas Dunn Studio. Dunn has been commissioned to create dances for the Groupe de Recherche Choreographique de l'Opera de Paris, the Grand Ballet of Bordeaux, New Dance Ensemble of Minneapolis, Repertory Dance Theater of Salt Lake City, the Ballet Théâtre Français de Nancy, the Walker Art Center, WGBH-TV, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, and Portland State University. Dunn's commissions for site-specific work include Second Mesa, (1982) at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, Multiple Undo, (2006) at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Glass Sea (2006), at Dancing in the Streets, and Informations (2008), at the Ancram Opera House in Ancram, NY. Other outdoor dances include The Higgs field (2004), Vain Combat (2010), and The Snake (2010). (Biography from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts)

August 8-13, Resident Choreographers:

Gleich Dances
GREYZONE
with invited guests 
Kyle Marshall
and 
Rebecca Kelly Ballet

Performance: August 13 at 4PM

Julia K. Gleich is a choreographer, scholar, and mathematics aficionado interested in re-contextualizing ballet: creating new environments for traditional works and illuminating the relationships between the traditional and the contemporary. Her company, Gleich Dances has performed in the UK and US including seasons at NYC’s Joyce SoHo (’01, ’03) and CPR (’11,’12) with critical notice in The New York Times, Village Voice, The New Criterion and Brooklyn Rail. She was an invited speaker at The Brooklyn Museum for her work The Brodmann Areas which explored the cerebral cortex responsible for memory, emotion, aspects of language and vision, etc. She collaborated with psycho-physicist Denis Pelli in an exploration of peripheral vision through dance. Ms. Gleich is also a founder and director of Aegis Live Arts creating unique locational dance works that enliven history and architecture in London.

Her most exciting moment in performance was dancing alongside Sara Rudner at the National Academy Museum in NYC. Gleich’s site-specific dance works include performances in drained pools, on piers, in train stations and an annual stint in the WalMart parking lot in Plattsburgh, NY (’04-’07). She was commissioned to create a site-specific work for the opening of St. Pancras International Eurostar station in 2007. She has collaborated with composers, musicians, designers, directors and writers and welcomes new ideas to challenge her own aesthetic. In 2014 Gleich was awarded the Distinguished Alumna by the University of Utah Ballet Department. Ms. Gleich is Head of Choreography at London Studio Centre and technique faculty at Trinity LABAN Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She was Choreographer-in-Residence for Brooklyn Ballet and master teacher for Burklyn Ballet Theatre, VT. She has taught at Peridance, Broadway Dance Centre and Brooklyn Ballet in NYC, and for Michael Clark Company on the largest dance floor in Europe at Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London. She has been on faculties of the University of Utah and Manhattanville College. Ms. Gleich earned an MFA from the University of Utah. Dance advocacy is a strong part of Gleich’s motivation to create and to produce dance.

GREYZONE is a dance and multimedia project by Lindy Fines (neé Schmedt) and Justin Fines, focusing on intersection of dance and art. Lindy Fines received her BFA from the University of Oklahoma in modern dance. She then moved to NYC and continued training on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio. Justin Fines is an award winning graphic designer and artist based in NYC.

Lindy and Justin co-founded GREYZONE in 2011 with the aim to further explore the intersection of dance, sound design, time-based media and the visual arts. Evening length works have been commissioned for Mike Perry's "Wandering Around Wondering" art space (Brooklyn, 2012) and FLICfest (Brooklyn, 2014). Their short film "Queens Duets" (2015) screened at the International Dance Film Screening (NYC, 2015) and the Philadelphia Screendance Festival (PA, 2016). GREYZONE were residents at the Dragon's Egg (CT, 2013) and were Liftoff residents at New Dance Alliance (NYC, 2015). Their most recent work "Drift" premiered at Abrons Arts Center as part of NDA's 30th Anniversary Performance Mix Festival. The work included a costume collaboration with visual artist Maia Ruth Lee, and received funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. GREYZONE has also performed at The Flea, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts and Brooklyn Arts Exchange, amongst other venues.

Kyle Marshall organized Kyle Marshall Choreography in 2014 to help support his dance-making process. He is curious how histories, cultural movements and personal experiences dictate how people create social groups and interact with their environments. Kyle's dances have been performed at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, NJPAC, NYC Summerstage, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dumbo Dance Festival, Triskelion Arts, Green Space, Rutgers University and the Dance+ Festival in Portland, OR. He has received residencies from the Jamaica Performing Arts Center, CoLab Arts and is the 2016 Montclair Dance Festival’s emerging commissioned choreographer. As a dancer, Kyle currently works with Doug Elkins Choreography Etc, Tiffany Mills Company and was a founding member of 10 Hairy Legs. Kyle recently assisted choreographer David Neumann on the musical The Total Bent directed by Joanna Settle at the Public Theater. Kyle graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rutgers University with a BFA in Dance. Up next: Thursday, September 8th-DanceNow @ Joe's Pub Saturday; September 10th-"Dance on the Lawn" Montclair Dance Festival.

Rebecca Kelly Ballet was founded in 1979 by choreographer and director Rebecca Kelly. In her work, Kelly creates abstract and narrative ballets which fuse classical dance with modern forms resulting in an arresting lyrical earthy quality. Themes range from topical issues about the environment and astute social commentary, to poetical works involving the sheer energy and beauty of the highly skilled dancer and the complex use of the body. Classical line and touching performance, coupled with intense musicality and energy distinguish each of Kelly's works. RKB has appeared on television on the CBS Early Show and USIA ArtsAmerica, and PBS Mountain Lakes TV. Kelly has been interviewed on "All Things Considered" for National Public Radio, on North Country Public Radio, and American Today, a program of the USIA. RKB has been profiled in Pointe Magazine, American Arts, Continental and Working Woman magazines.

August 15-20, Resident Choreographers:

Ephrat Asherie
AaronMcGloinDance
with invited guest 
Nora Gibson
and
Rebecca Kelly Ballet

Performance: August 20 at 4PM

Ephrat Asherie has trained extensively in ballet and modern dance but found her artistic home in breaking, hip hop and house. She began breaking in 2002 under Richard Santiago (aka Break Easy) and soon after was introduced to house music. She has been greatly influenced by the New York club scene ever since. As artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD), Ephrat received a Mondo Cane! commission from Dixon Place to support the creation of her first evening length work, A Single Ride.  This original work earned two Bessie nominations in 2013 for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and Outstanding Sound Design. This year, Ephrat was selected to participate in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Program, which provides professional and developmental support for new work over the course of two years. In the fall of 2015 Ephrat was selected to participate in Alvin Ailey Dance Center’s New Directions Choreography Lab where she began developing ideas for her new work “riff this, riff that” to premiere in the summer of 2016. EAD has presented work at FiraTarrega in Spain, the Doris Duke Theater at Jacob’s Pillow and the River to River Festival. Ephrat’s work has also been presented at the Apollo Theater, the Ahmanhson Theater, Dixon Place, New York Live Arts and the Yard, among others. Ephrat has also created several solos for her work with Dorrance Dance and Philadanco’s Get on the Good Foot Tour: A Tribute to James Brown, which toured both nationally and internationally.

With a mission to create honest and ambitious art, Aaron McGloin Dance presents joyous, athletic movement with an eclectic sensibility. Created in 2008 in its native Arizona, AMD hit the ground running with 4 fully produced evenings of rep, and fostered a number of community engagement programs within its first two years. Since moving to NY in 2010 the company has presented work at Joyce SoHo, Dance New Amsterdam, Dixon Place, The Irondale Center, Triskelion Arts and the 92nd St Y and taught classes at Gibney Dance and Broadway Dance Center. For more information you can connect with them at their website (www.aaronmcgloindance.com) or through social media platforms. 

Jamaican born, Christopher Rudd started dancing in Miami, Florida at the Thomas Armor Youth Ballet. After graduating from New World School of the Arts High School, he became a founding member of Carolina Ballet, a soloist for Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montreal, and a dancer for Cirque Du Soleil. As a choreographer he has been awarded several grants, multiple residencies, and has been invited to present work in the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Mr. Rudd established RudduR Dance to create works that are relevant and widely accessible, in an environment that respects his artists’ well being. His desire is to explore the place where beauty, innovation, education, collaboration, truth, and movement meet. Thus, RudduR Dance's mission is to fuse ballet, contemporary, theatricality and at times aerial artistry, with a seamlessly provocative score to create performances that hold a mirror to society. As a choreographer, he finds that what is most rewarding is the search for what a piece says, its relevance, and its confirmation of some truth that deepens our understanding of who we are as humans.

Nora Gibson is an American female choreographer evolving ballet for the 21st century. Gibson is interested in the beauty of the natural world, as evidenced in mathematics and science, and in working across disciplines to expand ballet's reach. Gibson trained at Baltimore School for the Arts, Chautauqua, and NCSA, and earned a BFA from Tisch, at NYU. In addition to performing in the genres of ballet and contemporary dance in MD, D.C., and NY, Gibson was selected to work from 2010-2013 with Lucinda Childs to perform various iconic 70s works as part of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage's Virtual Reconstruction project. Gibson has been invited as a resident artist in the US and abroad, including the nEW Festival in Philadelphia (2009-10), the CEC New Edge Residency (2009-10), the Ellen Forman Memorial Award (2011), the PHL/Poland Artist Exchange Residency (2012), the Choreographers on Campus Residency, funded through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2014), and at Diepenheim Werkplaats (2016). Gibson’s choreography has been presented by New Dance Alliance at Joyce SOHO, at Dance Place in Washington DC, Philadelphia Dance Projects, and The Williams Center for the Arts (upcoming). Her choreography was featured in Transfixion Films’ Dark White, presented at the 2015 Triskellion Dance Film Lab in Brooklyn, NY. Gibson’s work has received consistent critical acclaim, heralded by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "the most authoritative work in Philadelphia. . ." Gibson's work has been commissioned regularly by universities such as Bryn Mawr College, Drexel University, Georgian Court University, and University of the Arts. Gibson is also a teacher, and has taught ballet and composition in the US and abroad, including Temple University, University of the Arts, the Zawirowania Festival, and many other institutions.

Dance at Socrates is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.