Margaret Jenkins Dance Company / Guangdong Modern Dance Company

Sep 24-26, 2009 • World Premiere
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company / Guangdong Modern Dance Company
Other Suns (A Trilogy)
http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production/view.aspx?id=9121

"... a fiercely visceral piece that felt like one had stepped onto a platform that revolved sometimes at dizzying speeds." — SF Bay Guardian

"... a stunning new synthesis that unites the hectic language of the limbs with morphing group sculptural forms, tied together with [Jenkins] unflinching commitment to beauty." — Contra Costa Times

YBCA is thrilled to co-commission Other Suns (A Trilogy), a world premiere trilogy of dances created by Margaret Jenkins and her company in a cross-cultural collaboration with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company of Guangzhou, China. Jenkins, who has for 35 years been one of the Bay Area's most influential and innovative choreographers, investigates symmetry and asymmetry in both Chinese and American cultures. Through an intricate blend of contemporary dance forms, Other Suns (A Trilogy) transcends national and cultural barriers, offering a new perspective on balance and imbalance in our fast-changing, global society. Live music composed by Paul Dresher and performed by the Paul Dresher Ensemble, with additional music by Bun Ching-Lam.

Other Suns (A Trilogy) has been co-commissioned by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Peak Performances at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, with additional support from Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Hellman Family Philanthropic Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, and generous individuals.

Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• ybca
• yerba buena
• arts
• performance
• modern dance
• dance
• choreography

[dvapnek]

Just when you think Marge has done it all, she manages to make very clear that her inspirational and creative waters are fathomless.

[alisrockshow]

beautiful

[agdb91ny]

does anyone know where this was performed?

[VisionsofSprode]

Although my training is in fairly classical modern I absolutely adore this current style on display here where the dances are more "moment to moment" and less "count to count" if you know what I mean. It's really an endless kaleidoscope of kinesthetic virtuosity done effortlessly by the dancers with a choreographers vision that includes the smallest details and the big picture. Fantastic.

[aliloca2211]

This is beautiful, really liked it =)

[WallyFishWallington]

@StudSupreme

No one is trying to call this "Ballet." Someone as ignorant as to think this artist is trying to create "ballet" here is obviously uneducated in dance form and history. Such ignorance is tantamount to listening to a conversation in a language one is unfamiliar with and asserting that the conversation is meaningless gibberish.

Dance is a language. If you can't speak it, don't pretend to understand it.

[WallyFishWallington]

@StudSupreme

No one is trying to call this "Ballet." Someone as ignorant as to think this artist is trying to create "ballet" here is obviously uneducated in dance form and history. Such ignorance is tantamount to listening to a conversation in a language one is unfamiliar with and asserting that the conversation is meaningless gibberish.

Dance is a language. If you can't speak it, don't pretend to understand it.

[StudSupreme]

Oh my god - this is a JOKE, right?

To call this Ballet of any kind is like making an orangutan drink a gallon of coffee, giving him twenty gallons of different colored paints, letting him freak out with it, and calling the result "a thrilling, original, post modern successor art form."

You really have to be a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual retard with the depth of a puddle of mud to call THIS CRAP "Art."

[jeannyamitameloso]

amazing!

[scrapysid5]

no words to describe it.

[sofiastrempek]

Jenkins seems to find (at least in this brief video) a comfortable and fluid balance between the articulate nature of contemporary movement and the often performance-art/stationary world which modern dance is seeming to inhabit more and more, recently. I especially enjoy the partnering in this dance, which uses physical weight as a source of momentum and force, but also elaborates on the heaviness with contrasting intricate gestures and expanding lines.