Hubbard Street presents ‘Solo Echo’ in U.S.

Hubbard Street’s Season 38 Winter SeriesHubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic direction of Glenn Edgerton, will present its second mainstage engagement of the 2015–16 dance season on December 10–13 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. The Season 38 Winter Series features the first production by a U.S. dance company of Solo Echo by Crystal Pite, originally created for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2012. Inspired by poet Mark Strand’s “Lines for Winter” and set to excerpts from two sonatas for cello and piano by Johannes Brahms, opuses 38 and 99, Solo Echo is exemplary of the fluidity with which Pite’s choreography shifts between dance and theater, using classical and contemporary techniques.

 

Solo Echo “speaks of hope and holding on through the dark, as the dancers move as liquid,” says Amsterdam-based dance writer Lambrecht Wessels, and “presents a man reckoning with himself at the end of his life,” explains Pite. “The character is echoed — copied, reiterated, by seven different dancers. He is portrayed through both male and female bodies, and through various physiques and strengths. Each performer is a distinct and nuanced version of the character, and the connections between them evoke a man coming to terms with himself.”

 

The highly skilled, early-career dancers of Hubbard Street 2 join the main company for the Winter Series to perform a world premiere by Yin Yue, born and raised in China with an MFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and currently artistic director of Yin Yue Dance Company, one of two artists selected in spring 2015 through Hubbard Street’s 16th annual International Commissioning Project. Titled A Glimpse Inside a Shared Story, Yue’s new work features a cast of five and fast-paced, athletic choreography set to music by Wolfgang Voigt (Gas), Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and Michel Banabila, and The Advent and Jason Fernandes, with original costume designs by Rebecca M. Shouse and lighting by Julie E. Ballard.

 

Penny Saunders also unveils a world premiere during the Winter Series, with costumes by Branimira Ivanova and décor by lighting and visual designer Michael Mazzola, a two-time New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award winner and longtime Bebe Miller Company collaborator, currently in residence at Oregon Ballet Theatre. This new work follows Saunders’ previous creations for Hubbard Street (Adalea in 2013), Hubbard Street 2 (Bonobo in 2012), and numerous projects for Hubbard Street’s annual Inside/Out Choreographic Workshop. Its score features a wide-ranging collection of music including recordings by Icelandic artist Ólafur Arnalds, as well as from Silfra, the 2012 collaboration for violin and prepared piano between Grammy Award–winner Hilary Hahn and German composer Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka). A Hubbard Street dancer from 2004–2013 who returned in August 2015, Saunders’ hiatus from the company “led to some interesting discoveries,” she explains, “about the fact that every place is always changing and moving forward, whether or not you are there. This new piece is, in part, my way of forging a dance within that truth.”

 

The Winter Series also features the Harris Theater debut of Waxing Moon by Hubbard Street alumna Robyn Mineko Williams, for three dancers with an original score by Chicago composers Robert F. Haynes and Tony Lazzara, costumes by fashion designer Hogan McLaughlin, and lighting by Brooklyn-based designer Burke Brown. Waxing Moon was first presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago as part of Hubbard Street’s two-week engagement, Princess Grace Awards: New Works, in December 2014.

 

“Williams, who danced with Hubbard Street for 12 years, has grown into a choreographer of great sophistication and power,” wrote Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times, while Miriam Finder of Gapers Block noted that “this is the type of dancing viewers get lost in,” and Laura Molzahn of the Chicago Tribune called Waxing Moon “breathtaking.”

 

Edgerton said, “Two of my core missions as Hubbard Street’s artistic director have been to bring the best choreography from the world’s stages to our audiences and dancers here in Chicago, and to foster the creative talents of the artists within our building in the West Loop. This Winter Series program is a great example, with two terrific contributions coming from longtime associates Penny Saunders and Robyn Mineko Williams, alongside a brilliant work created by a Canadian choreographer in the Netherlands, and the exciting new voice of an artist who divides her time between New York City and Nanchang, China. To top it all off, both of our ensembles get to share the Harris Theater’s stage for this December engagement. It’s quite fulfilling to recognize where we are in this moment.”

 

Hubbard Street Board Chair Sara Albrecht said, “Crystal Pite is among the most sought-after artists working today, and I am thrilled to help bring Solo Echo into Hubbard Street’s repertoire alongside these two premieres and Waxing Moon. My colleagues and fellow philanthropists Liza Yntema, Denise Stefan-Ginascol and I are proud to support this concentration of incredible choreography by women and their increased visibility in the field of dance.”

 

Hubbard Street’s Season 38 Winter Series is at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, located at 205 East Randolph Street in Chicago. Tickets are now available. Visit hubbardstreetdance.com/winter for further information.

 

Photo Collage: Hubbard Street’s Season 38 Winter Series choreographers, clockwise from top left: Crystal Pite (photo by Michael Slobodian), Robyn Mineko Williams (photo by Cheryl Mann), Yin Yue (photo by Kent Miller) and Penny Saunders (photo by Todd Rosenberg.)