Works & Process, the Performing Arts Series at the Guggenheim, Announces 2011 Spring Season

Highlights:

Royal Danish Ballet with Nikolaj Hübbe

World Premiere: Watermill Quintet-Robert Wilson Curates New Performances

Pacific Northwest Ballet Revisits Giselle

Works & Process Dance Commissions: Donald Byrd & Pam Tanowitz Set New Works to Music by John Zorn

Works & Process Dance Commission: Celebrating David Del Tredici-Lynne Taylor-Corbett Choreographs a New Work

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New York, NY – --Works & Process at the Guggenheim is pleased to announce its 2011 spring season. Since 1984, in over 300 programs, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Each 80-minute program informs artistic creation through stimulating artist discussion and performance and is presented in the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. Each season Works & Process champions new works and offers unprecedented access to leading creators and performers. After most programs, the artists continue the discussion at a reception in the museum’s rotunda. Described by the New York Times as “a popular series devoted to shedding light on the creative process,” Works & Process is produced by founder Mary Sharp Cronson.

Lead funding provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation with additional support from The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, The Christian Humann Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.

This program is supported by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

2011 Spring Season Schedule

Pacific Northwest Ballet—Giselle Revisited
Sun, Jan 9, 3 pm Enter via ramp at 5th Ave and 88th St; no reception
Sun, Jan 9, 7:30 pm
Mon, Jan 10, 7:30 pm
Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers will perform excerpts from Peter Boal’s new staging of Giselle prior to its June 2011 premiere at McCaw Hall in Seattle. The ballet features reconstructed choreography by dance scholar Doug Fullington and Giselle scholar Marian Smith based on Stepanov notation circa 1903 and French sources from the 1840s. PNB will be the first American company in modern times to use the Stepanov notations from the Harvard Theatre Collection for a ballet production. Artistic Director Peter Boal will discuss the production with Fullington and Smith. PNB dancers Carrie Imler, Carla Körbes, James Moore, and Seth Orza will perform.


Physicist Michael Tuts
Answers From the Large Hadron Collider
Why Do We Exist?
Sun, Feb 6, 7:30 pm
Columbia University professor and particle physicist Michael Tuts will discuss the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory in Geneva. He will illustrate how data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC might help us to understand how we came to exist by explaining the origin of mass, the nature of space and time, the composition of the universe, and other fascinating puzzles.


Why Is Gravity So Weak?
Mon, Feb 7, 7:30 pm
Columbia University professor and particle physicist Michael Tuts will unravel new insights on the nature of gravity based on his research with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. We normally think of the force of gravity as strong. It keeps us grounded here on Earth and tethers the planets around the Sun. However, compared to the forces that hold together an atom, or even the force exerted by a refrigerator magnet, gravity is exceedingly weak. A combination ticket for both nights with Michael Tuts is offered at a special price of $50, $40 members.


New Commissions
John Zorn’s Music Interpreted
New Choreography by Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz
Sun and Mon, Feb 27 and 28, 7:30 pm
Choreographers Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz each create new works, commissioned by Works & Process, set to the music of composer John Zorn. Byrd, known for his beautiful yet volatile work, will choreograph a piece with his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater set to Zorn’s ∴ played by pianist Stephen Drury. Tanowitz, known for her unflinchingly postmodern treatment of classical dance, sets a work to Zorn’s Femina, written as a tribute to the rich legacy of women in the arts. Working with seasoned dancers, including Ashley Tuttle, Tanowitz draws from the sensuality, spontaneity, and fantastical imagination of the Romantic ballets for this new work. The performance will be interspersed with discussion by Byrd, Tanowitz, and Zorn, moderated by composer Charles Wuorinen.


How Judges Judge—Youth America Grand Prix
Sun and Mon, Mar 6 and 7, 7:30 pm
Youth America Grand Prix is America’s first and the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition. Join YAGP jury members Gailene Stock, Director of the Royal Ballet School; Franco de Vita, Director of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre; and Adam Sklute, Artistic Director of Ballet West, to gain an insight into the selection process and watch as they critique dancers’ performances during an impromptu ballet competition on stage.


World Premiere
Watermill Quintet
Robert Wilson Curates New Performances
Sun and Mon, Mar 13 and 14, 7:30 pm
This world premiere of a collaborative work is curated by Robert Wilson and features five young emerging directors and choreographers. The work combines dance with performance art, theater, video, and music by composer Michael Galasso. It was created by artists Marianna Kavallieratos, Ryan Mitchell (of Implied Violence), Andrew Ondrejcak, Jason Akira Somma, and Carlos Soto, under Robert Wilson’s mentorship during the summer of 2010 at the Watermill Center.
Created in partnership with the Watermill Center, a laboratory for performance founded by Robert Wilson that supports the cultivation of next generation directors and choreographers. Made possible in part by Rockefeller Brothers Fund.


Royal Danish Ballet
Sun and Mon, Mar 20 and 21, 7:30 pm
Royal Danish Ballet dancers will perform excerpts from the repertory prior to their American tour in May and June 2011. Artistic Director and former New York City Ballet principal Nikolaj Hübbe will share his vision for the company in a discussion moderated by John Meehan, Professor of Dance at Vassar College. Dancers will perform highlights from August Bournonville’s The Jockey Dance, La Sylphide, A Folk Tale, and Bournonville Variations, plus Nikolaj Hübbe’s new staging of Napoli, and Jorma Elo’s Lost on Slow. Tickets $50/$40 members/$20 students under 25 with valid ID.


New Commission
Celebrating David Del Tredici
With New Choreography by Lynne Taylor-Corbett
Sun and Mon, Mar 27 and 28, 7:30 pm
Celebrating David Del Tredici, one of America’s foremost living composers, choreographer Lynne Taylor Corbett creates a brand-new work set to Del Tredici’s Grosse Tarantella. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City, directed by Francisco J. Núñez, will sing Del Tredici’s Four Heartfelt Anthems. Del Tredici and Taylor-Corbett will participate in a moderated discussion.


New York Theatre Workshop & Playwrights Horizons
The Shaggs: Philosophy Of The World
Sun and Mon, Apr 17 and 18, 7:30 pm
Works & Process offers a sneak peek of the new musical The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World prior to its New York debut in May at Playwrights Horizons, coproduced with New York Theatre Workshop. A working-class dad has a vision of rock’n’roll destiny for his three talentless daughters, convinced that they are his family’s one-way ticket out of hardship and obscurity. Based on a true story, this musical is directed by John Langs and with a book by Joy Gregory, music by Gunnar Madsen, and lyrics by Gregory and Madsen. Excerpts will be performed and discussed by members of the creative team.


American Ballet Theatre—On To Act II
Sun and Mon, May 1 and 2, 7:30 pm
This program follows dancers after they take their final bow. Members of American Ballet Theatre and a panel of distinguished alumni explore the exciting journeys and challenges that dancers face in the second act of their careers. Current ABT dancers will perform excerpts from their upcoming Metropolitan Opera House season.

Location:

Peter B. Lewis Theater
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street
Subway – 4, 5, 6 train to 86th Street
Bus – M1, M2, M3, or M4 bus on Madison or Fifth Avenue

Tickets:

$30/$25 members/$10 students under 25 with valid ID, unless otherwise noted
Tickets on sale January 3, unless otherwise noted.