Purchase Dance Company at NY Live Arts

Purchase Dance Company will present its first full New York City Season at New York Live Arts on May 22–25. The company will perform works by five choreographers, including Bill T. Jones’s Spent Days Out Yonder (2000), George Balanchine’s Valse-Fantaisie (1967), and new works created specifically for the company by Ori Flomin, Loni Landon and Claire Porter.

The Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College’s School of the Arts is one of the world’s premier professional training programs. Members of the Purchase Dance Company are selected from the BFA program each year and represent some of the most promising performers of the next generation of dance artists.

“I am excited to give nearly 100 of our tremendously talented students, especially our graduating seniors, an opportunity to perform works by diverse and exceptional artists at one of New York City’s most recognized performance venues, New York Live Arts,” says Wallie Wolfgruber, Artistic Director of Purchase Dance Company.

The program includes Bill T. Jones’s Spent Days Out Yonder, a pure musical exploration set to the second movement of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 23 in F Major. Firmly rooted in Jones’s elegant, weighted movement vocabulary, the work challenges dancers to move with ease and physical honesty through the sublime score.

The company will also perform Balanchine’s acclaimed Valse-Fantaisie, set to a score of the same name by Mikhail Glinka. Then, with a cast of 25 dancers, Ori Flomin’s dance plays with the relationship of the individual to the larger group and explores ideas of perspective, proportion, distance and symmetry. The work’s original sound score is by composers Pierre de Gaillande and Gary Greenblatt.

Next, Loni Landon uses an abstract theme of memory and nostalgia as the point of departure for her work, created on six dancers. Finally, Claire Porter’s work uses language, movement and humor to explore what it is to question something and what it is to answer. The music was created by accordionist/composer Guy Klucevsek.

Performances will take place Wednesday to Saturday, May 22-25, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 on day of performance, and $10 for seniors and students. All performances are general seating. Tickets can be purchased by calling 212-924-0077 or online at www.newyorklivearts.org. The Theater at New York Live Arts is located at 219 West 19th Street in New York City.

Photo: Purchase Dance Company’s Seneca Lawrence. Photo by Ted Kivitt.