Antaeus Dance in Danceworks 2007 March 29, 2007

Jenita

For information, contact:
Joan Meggitt (216) 486-2874 February 5, 2007

ANTAEUS DANCE PRESENTS CLOSE TO HOME, SIX DANCE/MUSIC PREMIERES AT CPT’S DANCEWORKS’07:
FIVE CHOREOGRAPHERS COLLABORATE WITH SIX COMPOSERS FOR THIS ONE-OF-A-KIND COLLECTION

Cleveland, OH—Antaeus Dance returns for its third straight year to Cleveland Public Theatre’s DanceWorks’07 with Close to Home, an amazing collection of all-new dance and music collaborations between Cleveland choreographers and composers.
Directed by Joan Meggitt, this is a unique performance that features all new dances created by Cleveland choreographers collaborating with area composers. Antaeus Dance stands out as the only Cleveland dance company dedicated to the consistent production of original work by local dance artists and composers. Performances run March 29 through March 31 at 7:30pm and April 1, 2007 at 3:00pm in The Levin Theatre. Tickets are $10 general admission on Thursdays, and $15 general admission on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Student and Senior ticket prices are $12. CPT also maintains a pay what can policy on Thursday.

Borne Away on Crooked River, choreographed by Antaeus Dance company member Jenita McGowan, is about the tenuous relationship humanity has with bodies of water; we need them to survive, yet sometimes we cannot survive them. McGowan was inspired to create this piece by Cleveland’s own Cuyahoga River and the author Flannery O’Connor’s writings: The Violent Bear it Away, The River and The Wide Net. Borne Away on Crooked River explores themes of surfacing, sinking, sustenance, disaster and re-birth. Waterways are both life-giving and life-taking and the dancers – McGowan, Joan Meggitt, Carla Monzo, Jeff Schuler and Shanna Sheline – seek balance as they attempt to reconcile this duplicity.

Music for Borne Away on Crooked River is an original composition by composer Ron Andrico. Andrico is an accomplished player and instructor of stringed instruments in the Ithaca, New York area. Andrico has strong ties to the Cleveland area and visits frequently to perform folk music. For more than 30 years, he immersed himself in a wide variety of styles ranging from fiddle tunes to lounge music, Swedish fiddling to bluegrass, and country blues to baroque music. A specialist in music for the theatre, he has performed, recorded and toured the United States and Japan.

Founding company member Shanna Sheline is featured in Stargazer, a solo choreographed expressly for her by Director Joan Meggitt. A study in elegance as well as strength, the dance follows
a celestial observer on a journey of discovery. The stargazer comes to realize that she must be her own astrolabe, finding and following her own path. Lisa Rainsong’s composition for solo piano is at once expansive and dynamic. Inspired by the images and sounds in nature, Rainsong is an accomplished composer, a professional singer, and an amateur naturalist. Her seemingly unmetered melodic lines wind gracefully through rich, complex sonorities just as the stargazer winds along her journey. A constellation of luminaries designed by Brian Meggitt softly illuminates the space.
Reflections of a Tender Edge is a process-driven collaboration between local dancers and composers that explores thresholds within our human experience: where darkness touches light, violence and tenderness merge, and dreams inspire our waking moments. The duet, conceived and danced by both Carla Monzo of Antaeus Dance and guest artist Amy Compton, is a conversation between the spiral and the line, lightness and heaviness, and the phrase and space. The sound score for this dance, much of it improvised in response to video of the dance in progress, consists of two elements: music, composed by Alexander Bonus, and sound, assembled by Paul Cox. Their work coalesces to form a surreal sonic landscape reminisce.