Who: Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company with special guests Seán Curran, Michael Novak, Dante Puleio, and Tiffany Rea-Fisher
What: New dance films and launch of dance platform
Where: Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company Zoom
When: June 25-27, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: “Contemporary dance has been seeping more and more into the mainstream culture for decades, enhanced with the advent of shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars,” dancer, choreographer, and educator Daniel Gwirtzman said in a statement. “With the proliferation of dance online, increased exponentially during the pandemic, more people are arguably seeing contemporary dance than ever. And an appetite for innovative choreography is a byproduct of this exposure. The development of Dance with Us was in place years before the pandemic, with resources that have been created over the past two decades, an extension of programming we have offered as a company since our inception in 1998. We have long been committed to conversing about dance, empowering audiences to trust their opinions, and gain more knowledge of dance in pursuit of expanding one’s dance literacy. The ubiquity of dance on film, finding more currency in popular culture, is not going to change. This platform gives everyone, regardless of their exposure to dance, tools to use to speak about dance, encouraging them to understand their viewpoint is as valid as that of an ‘expert.’ At this moment when there is so much dance to see, this platform seeks to serve as a how-to primer.”
The New York-based Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company is launching the educational digital platform Dance with Us with a series of special events June 25-27, all free with RSVP. Gwirtzman will host each evening, joined by Paul Taylor Dance Company artistic director Michael Novak, accompanied by Limón Dance Company artistic director Dante Puleio the first night, Elisa Monte Dance artistic director Tiffany Rea-Fisher the second, and Seán Curran Company artistic director Curran the third. The presentation will begin at 6:45 with an online slideshow, followed at 7:00 with Amuse-Bouche: Parade; screenings of two short dance films recorded last August in Newfield, New York, Willow, set to Scott Joplin’s “Weeping Willow,” and Dollhouse, set to George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” played by pianist Jonny May; a virtual tour of the new website and the Library, which holds DGDC’s archives; a look at the Fantasyland Project; and a sneak peek at such upcoming works as Castillo, Adrift, and Dandelion. There will be an interactive live discussion at 8:00, and the program will conclude at 8:30 with an after-party that includes learning how to do the Bus Stop. “I don’t want to see any more dances of dancers in their living rooms,” Gwirtzman wrote to troupe members last summer about the Fantasyland Project, which also relates to Dance with Us. “I think this moment in time is one in which we all are fantasizing: about life before, and after, the pandemic. To the extent that this project can reflect the urgent events shaping all of our lives — how this theme of utopia and harmony fits against the current climate — is something the company is interested in investigating.”