City Center Does It Again
Arlene Schuler president of City Center and producer of the Fall for Dance Festival has done it again. The $10 ticket, to see an evening of works by major companies has attracted younger audiences, as well as older members to new companies and restored the theater's history as an arts producer. The line snakes along 55th Street and around the corner, as the audience waits to step up to the box office to see a work by five different choreographers and companies each night. They perform as ballet, modern dance, Flamenco, ethnic and everything in-between groups, some domestic, some international.
The fall 2006 line up included: Yi-Jo Lim Sun Dance, Dutch National Ballet, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance, Trisha Brown Dance and Pennsylvania Ballet on 9/28 and 29; Stephen Petronio, nathantrice/RITUALS, Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie; Compagnie Frank II Louise and Paul Taylor Dance, 9/30 and 10/1.
The October season, 10/3, began with Alonzo King's Lines Ballet, The Martha Graham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Compagnie La BARAKA/Abou LAGRAA and The Parsons Dance Company. Preserving the works of Alwin Nikolais, Ririe-Woodbury/Nikolais performed on 10/4 along with Maureen Fleming Company, American Ballet Theatre, Robert Moses' Kin and the Honvéd Dance Company that presents gypsy dances from Hungary. Pacific Northwest Ballet, Christopher Williams, Random Dance, Bridgman/Packer Dance and FARRUCO, appeared on 10/5 and 10/6, Closing the Fall for Dance season, 10/7 and 8 were STREB Extreme Action, ASzURE & Artists, Ballet Boyz/George Piper Dances, Odile Duboc-CNN de Franche-Comté à Belfort and Jason Samuels Smith's A.C.G.I.
The festival cost is covered by foundations and corporate donors who provide small groups to perform at a flat rate instead of facing high rental costs to appear in New York City.
In addition, New York City Center's Arlene Schuler and Alistair Spalding, artistic director of London's legendary Sadler's Wells Theatre have joined forces to facilitate the exchange of innovative dance works and new commissions, to begin in the fall of 2006. The collaboration opens with "Push", featuring the French ballerina and superstar, Sylvie Guillem at the City Center on October 11-15, 2006. Guillem's collaboration with contemporary choreographer and dancer Russell Maliphant, in "Push," was awarded an Olivier Award, when it was first produced by Sadler's Wells in September 2005. Tickets for this event, October l1, 13, 14, and 15, returned to the previous price range.
Fall for Dance Festival will travel to the U.K in the spring of 2007 with a wide variety of New York-based companies at accessible prices and continues in the tradition of its land-mark, not-for-profit status as designated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 as Manhattan's first performing arts center. For more information, contact www.sadlerswell.com/push for its American tour information.