Program Notes: Upcoming on "Body and Soul"

Annie-B Parson--co-founder and choreographer of the Bessie Award-winning Big Dance Theater--joins forces with the exciting post-classical string quartet ETHEL and dancer Elizabeth DeMent for a site-specific production in the Winter Garden at World Financial Center. Wait for Green--ETHEL's third Winter Solstice concert at WFC--premieres on Friday, December 19, in two free performances, 12:30pm and 7pm. Wait for Green has been commissioned by arts>World Financial Center for its 20th Anniversary celebration. Get further information here.

ETHEL

Big Dance Theater

arts>WorldFinancial Center

Annie-B Parson founded OBIE- and Bessie Award-winning Big Dance Theater in 1991. She has created 14 pieces for the company, touring the work both nationally and internationally to such venues as Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Spoleto Festival USA, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and American Dance Festival, as well as international festivals and venues in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany. She is currently working with David Byrne on his world tour and with the OtherShore dance company as well as preparing a premiere for Lyon with her company. In New York City, her work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, City Center, The Kitchen, Classic Stage Company, and the Guggenheim Works & Process Series. She was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007 and is working on a book about octagenarian, off-the-radar ballet teachers.

ETHEL is comprised of four world-class, Juilliard-trained composer/musicians: Cornelius Dufallo (violin), Ralph Farris (viola), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Mary Rowell (violin). Described as "the fiercest string quartet this side of hell," and "the most bad-ass quartet around," ETHEL has performed over 300 shows in ten different countries as a favorite at countless festivals and venues around the globe. ETHEL's most recent CD release--Light (Cantaloupe Records)--was #3 on Amazon.com's Best of 2006: Top Classical Editors' Picks. As composers, the members of ETHEL draw on their singular and collective experience with a broad range of genres, styles and influences--from classical to bluegrass, from jazz to rock.