Holiday dancing at WFC

arts>World Financial Center dance events for Holiday 2009

New York Theatre Ballet in The Nutcracker
Tuesday, December 1 (12:30pm and 6pm)

Hour-long version. The 6pm show will be preceded by the annual Winter Garden lighting celebration.

ETHEL and Annie-B Parson: Wait for Green
Friday, December 18 (12:30pm and 7pm)

Choreographer/director Parson once again joins forces with postclassical string quartet ETHEL, restaging their 2008 collaboration, Wait for Green.

Ase Dance Theatre Collective
Monday, December 28 (12:30pm)
Dance and song in celebration of Kwanzaa

All events take place in WFC's Winter Garden and are free; no tickets required.

Map and directions

For a complete schedule and information on all Holiday 2009 events in the arts>World Financial Center series, click here.

"We are a dance band!"

Benjy Fox Rosen (left, bottom); Rima Fand (right)
(c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


Rima Fand (left), Sarah Alden (right)
(c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


Yes, they are.

That would be Brooklyn's Luminescent Orchestrii, with their waltzes for the proletariat, their mashups of klezmer and Jimi Hendrix, their transformation of what they called Andy Statman's "quiet mandolin thing" with its droning, pleasing dragginess into something raucous, their Yiddish songs that proclaim things like "I can't dance/my shoes are broken/I will dance in my socks!" These musician/singers are peppery and irresistible, and it did my heart good to see a couple of totally unselfconscious dads twirling and frolicking with their joyful tots right in front of the stage. Any band that can get a couple of (presumably straight) guys to cut loose like that will surely stir your weary ass, too.



Rima and Sarah (left); Sxip Shirey (right); Sarah (bottom)
(c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


Sxip (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


So, if you missed today's show at World Financial Center Plaza, you can catch Luminescent Orchestrii at Celebrate Brooklyn, where they will open for the Kronos Quartet in a free show on Thursday, July 16 (7:30pm).

Check out some LO music here.

Annie-B Parson: Body and Soul podcast

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.

(c)2008,Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

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.