Coreografia

This will be an evening of intense performance immersion—striking, captivating, and entirely unique. Dance, theater and visual arts fans will not want to miss it.

Press Release — 8/15/2012

Robert Wood Dance Company, an internationally acclaimed performance group, premiers a ground-breaking new work this October 6 at The Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Coreografia is a full-length, 17 section performance event encompassing contemporary dance, live and recorded music, and theatrical artistry. In all, 16 dancers, a composer, a sound designer, three musicians, and three visual designers will participate.

“Each of the three elements—dance, sound, and design—are independent and exist in their own dimension,” explains company founder and choreographer Robert Wood. “There is structure and planning, but also room for spontaneity from all the artists. It’s precisely choreographed and very organized, but there are also parameters that allow options or room for things to change.” Wood was a featured dancer in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Martha Clarke, David Gordon and other major New York companies for more than 25 years. As a choreographer, he pursues his own vision through artistic residencies and performances around the world. He has been in Santa Fe since 2010.

“I believe that Robert has gone further than anyone else in the direction that 21st century dance needs to go,” says co-artistic director Joan Lombardi. “His work allows the human spirit of each artist to show through. Watching it is deeply emotional and each viewer will come away with a different experience, even though they saw the same thing.” After 20 years as a dancer in renowned companies, Lombardi founded the much honored Joan Lombardi Dance Company in New York in 1976 to explore her own distinctive approach to choreography. She and Wood were friends and fellow dancers. She moved to Santa Fe in 2006 and they reconnected.

The 16 dancers in Coreografia are highly trained and skilled artists from many parts of the world. Several professional Santa Fe dancers will perform, while others are coming from Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Zimbabwe and from the now disbanded Merce Cunningham Dance Company in New York. Noted composers and sound designers Rob Miller and John King will collaborate on what promises to be an elaborate soundscape. Prominent New Zealand visual designer Patricia Morgan will create powerful projected images and various artistic objects will fly, float, and make their own statements with the sound, light, and dance.

Robert Wood Dance Company presents Coreografia at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 6 at The Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, NM.

Tickets are $20 and $35 through Tickets Santa Fe, phone: (505) 988-1234.

This performance is supported by the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

For more information, interviews, and photographs, please contact Marsha McEuen, mcmwrite@comcast.net, phone: (505) 473-9002.