Live Arts Bard Presents May Day Dances: Faye Driscoll and John Jasperse
A weekend of adventurous, exciting contemporary dance by two Bessie award-winning choreographers
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY – Celebrate the arrival of spring at Bard’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts with a double bill of new dance featuring two of New York City’s most inventive choreographers.
Bessie award-winning choreographer Faye Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming: Attendance is an acclaimed work imagining a fantastical society in which performance is both a collective and political act, exploring dance from ancient ritual to contemporary forms, from balletic to the head-bang. Thank You For Coming: Attendance will be performed on Friday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 30 at 5 p.m., and Sunday May 1 at 4:40 p.m. in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Stage Right.
John Jasperse’s Within between is a playful and complex dance exploring emptiness and in-between places. With an original score by Jonathan Bepler and performances by four of New York City’s most remarkable modern dancers, Within between earned two Bessie awards. Within between will be performed on Saturday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 1 at 2 p.m. in the LUMA Theater.
Tickets are $25 for a single performance, $10 for students; a $40 package includes tickets to both Driscoll and Jasperse programs. The package price for students is $15. For tickets and more information go to at fishercenter.bard.edu or call the box office at 845-758-7900.
About the Artists
A Bessie Award–winning choreographer and director, Faye Driscoll was one of several dance artists to exhibit at Younger Than Jesus, the New Museum’s select triennial exclusively for artists born after 1976. The New York Times has praised Driscoll as a “startlingly original talent.” Her projects have received support from a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), a Creative Capital award (2013), The Jerome Foundation (2012–2014), and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant (2013).
“Faye Driscoll is a postmillenium, postmodern wild woman. A wild woman with a scrupulous sense of form that she tweaks into eye-opening weirdness. Ferocious, hilarious, and disturbing . . .”
– Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
“Ms. Driscoll is fascinating in that she makes such utterly original work. It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, nor can you imagine thinking it up.”
– Roslyn Sulcas, New York Times
“Faye Driscoll is the future.”
– Elizabeth Zimmer, Metro
John Jasperse is a dance artist working in New York City since 1985. Jasperse has created sixteen evening-length works for John Jasperse Projects, as well as several commissioned works for other companies including White Oak’s Dance Project; Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lyon Opéra Ballet in France; and two co-productions with Ballett Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company in Frankfurt, Germany. His work has been presented internationally in 24 US cities and 29 countries across the globe.
Jasperse’s work has received several prestigious awards and fellowships including, most recently, a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award and a 2014 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Within between in the category of Outstanding Production. In 2001, Jasperse received his first Bessie Award recognition of his body of choreographic work. He also received a US Artists Brooks-Hopkins Fellowship in 2011 as well as multiple fellowships over the years. Jasperse is co-founder of CPR - Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, NY.
“Within between is a wondrous work, made all the finer by the expertise and expressiveness of all involved. You can’t conveniently liken it to a patchwork quilt or a photo album or a collage. All the memories, styles, and structural ideas have been merged into an intriguingly original work, their diversities absorbed and re-imagined by Jasperse and the very individual performers.”
– Deborah Jowitt, DanceBeat
“Mr. Jasperse has a keen eye for detail and composition; the subtle internal logic of his choreography tends to drive both sense and sensibility in his dances.” – Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College
Named for the late Richard B. Fisher, the former chair of Bard’s Board of Trustees, the Fisher Center has become an influential force in performing arts programming, earning critical acclaim for innovative productions of opera, orchestral, chamber, dance, and theater programs. The Center was designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry and distinguished acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and has received international praise for its breathtaking architecture and superb sound.
Each summer the Fisher Center presents the Bard SummerScape festival, eight weeks of performing arts programs reflecting the life and times of the featured composer of the esteemed Bard Music Festival, now celebrating its 26th year. Fall and spring seasons include original productions, special one-night-only concerts, and touring artists from around the globe.
The Fisher Center is home to the Bard College Theater & Performance and Dance Programs, providing students access to exceptional theater facilities and opportunities to work with professional directors and dramaturges on publicly attended productions throughout the year. The Bard College Conservatory of Music and Bard College Music Program stage regular orchestral and chamber concerts.
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April, 2016
Bessie award-winning choreographer Faye Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming: Attendance is an acclaimed work imagining a fantastical society in which performance is both a collective and political act, exploring dance from ancient ritual to contemporary forms, from balletic to the head-bang. Thank You For Coming: Attendance will be performed on Friday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 30 at 5 p.m., and Sunday May 1 at 4:40 p.m. in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Stage Right.
John Jasperse’s Within between is a playful and complex dance exploring emptiness and in-between places. With an original score by Jonathan Bepler and performances by four of New York City’s most remarkable modern dancers, Within between earned two Bessie awards. Within between will be performed on Saturday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 1 at 2 p.m. in the LUMA Theater.
Tickets are $25 for a single performance, $10 for students; a $40 package includes tickets to both Driscoll and Jasperse programs. The package price for students is $15. For tickets and more information go to at fishercenter.bard.edu or call the box office at 845-758-7900.
About the Artists
A Bessie Award–winning choreographer and director, Faye Driscoll was one of several dance artists to exhibit at Younger Than Jesus, the New Museum’s select triennial exclusively for artists born after 1976. The New York Times has praised Driscoll as a “startlingly original talent.” Her projects have received support from a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), a Creative Capital award (2013), The Jerome Foundation (2012–2014), and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant (2013).
“Faye Driscoll is a postmillenium, postmodern wild woman. A wild woman with a scrupulous sense of form that she tweaks into eye-opening weirdness. Ferocious, hilarious, and disturbing . . .”
– Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
“Ms. Driscoll is fascinating in that she makes such utterly original work. It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, nor can you imagine thinking it up.”
– Roslyn Sulcas, New York Times
“Faye Driscoll is the future.”
– Elizabeth Zimmer, Metro
John Jasperse is a dance artist working in New York City since 1985. Jasperse has created sixteen evening-length works for John Jasperse Projects, as well as several commissioned works for other companies including White Oak’s Dance Project; Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lyon Opéra Ballet in France; and two co-productions with Ballett Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company in Frankfurt, Germany. His work has been presented internationally in 24 US cities and 29 countries across the globe.
Jasperse’s work has received several prestigious awards and fellowships including, most recently, a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award and a 2014 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Within between in the category of Outstanding Production. In 2001, Jasperse received his first Bessie Award recognition of his body of choreographic work. He also received a US Artists Brooks-Hopkins Fellowship in 2011 as well as multiple fellowships over the years. Jasperse is co-founder of CPR - Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, NY.
“Within between is a wondrous work, made all the finer by the expertise and expressiveness of all involved. You can’t conveniently liken it to a patchwork quilt or a photo album or a collage. All the memories, styles, and structural ideas have been merged into an intriguingly original work, their diversities absorbed and re-imagined by Jasperse and the very individual performers.”
– Deborah Jowitt, DanceBeat
“Mr. Jasperse has a keen eye for detail and composition; the subtle internal logic of his choreography tends to drive both sense and sensibility in his dances.” – Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College
Named for the late Richard B. Fisher, the former chair of Bard’s Board of Trustees, the Fisher Center has become an influential force in performing arts programming, earning critical acclaim for innovative productions of opera, orchestral, chamber, dance, and theater programs. The Center was designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry and distinguished acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and has received international praise for its breathtaking architecture and superb sound.
Each summer the Fisher Center presents the Bard SummerScape festival, eight weeks of performing arts programs reflecting the life and times of the featured composer of the esteemed Bard Music Festival, now celebrating its 26th year. Fall and spring seasons include original productions, special one-night-only concerts, and touring artists from around the globe.
The Fisher Center is home to the Bard College Theater & Performance and Dance Programs, providing students access to exceptional theater facilities and opportunities to work with professional directors and dramaturges on publicly attended productions throughout the year. The Bard College Conservatory of Music and Bard College Music Program stage regular orchestral and chamber concerts.
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April, 2016
This event was last updated on 04-14-2016