2006-07 Guest Artist Series

Contemporary Dance Theaters's Thirty-Fourth Season

Guest Artist Series for 2006-07

moving bodies moving souls

CDT's guest artist season is highly respected as a model of quality, diversity and variety in contemporary dance and performance. The 34th. season continues that tradition with an exciting mix of familiar friends and amazing newcomers. Presented during the season are young companies, and well-established companies with twenty years or more experience. Culturally diverse the season includes Asian, African-American, and Latino choreographers as well as companies drawing from European and Appalachian traditions.

The company draws on traditional forms of American music and dance, such as swing tunes and tap dance, hoe downs and clogging, the Dayton, Ohio, based Rhythm in Shoes presents innovative work that is at once original and recognizable. They’ll bring a repertory concert to Cincinnati with highlights from their twenty year history. Creating their own music and dance this company is “a rhythmic tour de force.”

Rhythm in Shoes - photo credit: Andy Snow

To purchase tickets for Friday, Oct. 6 at 8:30 PM click here

To purchase tickets for Saturday, Oct. 7 at 8:30 PM click here

November 17 & 18, 2006 – H. T. Chen & Dancers
“The dancers seem to be part of one organism—an amoebic, ever-changing shape—taking impulses from each other’s movements and from the music.”

Chen & Dancers is an innovative modern dance company that has
created a uniquely Asian-American expression by embodying its cultural heritage. The New York company's dynamic technique, which infuses Western modern dance with the strength, beauty and formalism of Asian aesthetics, has enchanted audiences across the United States, Europe and Asia since its inception in 1978. Directed by H.T. Chen, the company will present his newest work, Shift, H.T. Chen brings Vijay Seshadri’s poetry to life in a five-part visual interpretation.
Seshadri begins “Street Scene,” a poem from Wild Kingdom, with the lines: “The job of redemption, with its angels and lawyers, / runs late into the morning”. Shift digs below the surface of everyday life and weaves between realism and surrealism. Chen’s choreography tells a story, but one that is not so clearly defined that it blocks out audience interpretation. Angular yet fluid movements create an oceanlike rhythm.

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

To purchase tickets for Friday, Nov. 17 at 8:30 PM click here

To purchase tickets for Saturday, Nov. 18 at 8:30 PM click here

January 19 & 20, 2007 -- Teo Castellanos/D-Projects
“Scratch & Burn burns up the stage … Call it hip hop dance theater. Call it contemporary performance.” “(it) keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.”

Teo Castellanos's gripping and immensely entertaining dance-theater work, “Scratch and Burn,” combines elements of ancient Zulu, Maori, and butoh rituals with movements from hip-hop and urban street combat to create a powerful dance-theater work about our primal urge to battle for supremacy and domination. Choreographed by break-dance legend Ricardo "Speedy Legs" Fernandez, “Scratch” transforms the language of popular street dance into a theatrical whole. Created in Miami, Florida, this work will certainly heat up our winter.

photo credit: Luis Olaz√°bal

To purchase tickets for Friday, January 19 at 8:30 PM click here

To purchase tickets for Saturday, January 20 at 8:30 PM click here

March 2 & 3, 2007 -- Urban Bush Women
“… the Urban Bush Women are committed, triple-threat performers who dance, sing and act with a sometimes searing sense of truthfulness.”

photo credit: antoine tempe

Urban Bush Women is a Brooklyn-based performance ensemble, directed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, that engages a diverse audience by producing bold and life-affirming dance theater based on women’s experiences, African American history and cultural influences of the African Diaspora. Rooted in the folklore and spiritual traditions of African Americans, Urban Bush Women speaks to a broad audience with an emphasis on the survival of the human spirit.

To purchase tickets for Friday, March 2 at 8:30 PM click here

To purchase tickets for Saturday, March 3 at 8:30 PM click here

April 13 & 14, 2007 -- The Tiffany Mills Company
“Tiffany Mills specializes in violently visceral movement.”

Tiffany Mills is making a name for herself as a young modern-dance innovator and one of the rising talents of a new generation. Her work favors a boldly physical vocabulary, where vivid partnering plays a prime role in detailing human relations. Mills states, “What begins in the studio as abstract movement, evolves in performance as complex, emotional relationships, driven out by raw physicality.” Mills will be presenting, Godard with music by John Zorn inspired by the films of Jean Luc-Godard, as well as her new work, LandFall in which her collaborating film-maker and electronic composer appear on stage as part of the performances.

To purchase tickets for Friday, April 13 at 8:30 PM click here

To purchase tickets for Saturday, April 14 at 8:30 PM click here

June 8 & 9, 2007 -- Choreographers without Companies

Each year, Contemporary Dance Theater presents a juried showcase of the best new work by the tri-state’s most accomplished choreographers. This concert has become a tradition for ending CDT’s season. The concert provides a rare opportunity for area choreographers and dancers to present their work in a state-of-the-art setting.

The 2007 choreographers are : 

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You can also purchase tickets to any of these events by calling the Aronoff Center Ticket Office at 513/ 621-2787.