Join JMTW for our first-ever Virtual Gala, celebrating the company's 45th Anniversary.
October 28th, 2020 | 7pm
No need to leave your house to partake in our 45th Anniversary Online Celebration...
Artistic Director, Jennifer Muller, as well as JMTW's Board of Directors, Artistic Council, Dancers and Staff, would like to invite you to virtually attend our 45th Anniversary celebration as we look back at the company's groundbreaking history of repertory & collaborators, while we look forward with determination and commitment to pushing creativity into our present & future.
In our ode to the past, present, and future of JMTW, we will be featuring videoclip excerpts of four iconic repertory pieces, spanning 1973 through our current times, and featuring a host of notables and alumni from around the world, including:
Christopher Pilafian
Original JMTW Company Member, Professor of Dance at University of California, Santa Barbara , Artistic Director of Santa Barbara Dance Theater
Jeff Croiter
Tony Award Winner, JMTW Lighting Director
Christopher Makos
Andy Warhol's principle photographer & JMTW collaborator on Interview: The Warhol Project
Roel Voorintholt
Artistic Director of the celebrated Netherlands Dance Company, Introdans
...as well as archival interview footage from Keith Haring, the late set designer for JMTW's 1986 piece, Interrupted River.
If you are unable to join us for our Virtual Gala Debut, but would still like to celebrate and support the company, we will be making our online Youtube link viewable on October 28th, 7pm EST, and anytime thereafter!
Excerpts of the Evening
TUB, choreographed in 1973, was a pacesetting piece in its use of unusual physical elements on stage. The piece employs a tub filled with water and is danced wet. To an original score by Burt Alcantara, Tub is both an evocative and playful piece about the symbolic and emotional significance of water and cleansing.
Music by Burt Alcantara
Original Lighting Design by Richard Nelson
Costume Design by Christina Ham, Stageworks
Tub and Cup Design by John Duff
GRASS (2020 Virtual Adaptation) is a piece loosely inspired by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, from the depth of meaning and essential spirit of the writing. Whitman’s sensibility—his celebration of life and his awareness that the threads connect us all stem from the shared experience of longing, loneliness and the need for companionship— as well as from the contentment of being and the mystery of our connection to the earth and each other.
Live Music Performed by Julia Kent
Original Lighting Design by Jeff Croiter
INTERRUPTED RIVER: Propelled by Yoko Ono's hypnotic score and framed by Keith Haring's stunning decor, this broad canvas of a work witnesses the conflict and violence that arises when the natural progression — the stream of life — is disrupted and diverted from its course. Danced on a floor strewn with newspapers etched with red footprints, against a spectacularly vibrant backdrop, with costumes blaring Post headlines — all elements designed by Keith Haring— the piece becomes, in totality, a living work of art.
Music by Yoko Ono
Sets by Keith Haring
Costume Design by William Katz and Keith Haring
Lighting Design by Ken Tabachnick
INTERVIEW: THE WARHOL PROJECT: Based on the life of Andy Warhol, quotes capturing his point of view, and the photos taken of Warhol by Christopher Makos, the principle photographer of Andy Warhol’s life. The piece also employs images from Interview Magazine, the magazine that Warhol founded.
Commissioned and performed by Introdans, (the Netherlands).
Photos by Christopher Makos
Video Projection Design by Mark Bolotin