STUART PIMSLER DANCE & THEATER PRESENT A NATIONAL PREMIERE AND THE ENDS OF LOVE
Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater will present a two-week season at The Ritz
Theater, March 20-30, 2008. During the first week, March 20-23, SPDT will premiere, Ways to Behold, a work that filters a series of inquiries through both a global and personal lens, asking; What do we hold? How are we held? Who holds us back? Pimsler’s eight performers are caught between moments of tenderness and assault as they decide how to respond in dangerous times.
SPDT will then present The Ends of Love during the second week of its season, March 28-30. The Ends of Love, commissioned and presented by The Guthrie last season, played to sold-out audiences and is being reprised due to popular demand.
First Week Program, March 20-23
In Pimsler’s new work, he focuses on the extremes of being “held”- the ways in which support can turn to restraint. Ways to Behold considers the allure of comfort and the potential for public disengagement, inspired by Pimsler’s outrage over the war in Iraq. This work marks Pimsler’s second collaboration with costume designer, Sonya Berlovitz who has contributed a compelling visual component. Spoken-word artist Tiyo Siyolo lends his vocal force to this new work as commentator and provocateur. The first week’s program will also include SPDT’s riveting, repertory work, Sentry, described by the New York Times "as one of the most powerful works to be seen in a long time". In addition, a new solo work for Artistic Co-Director, Suzanne Costello created by SPDT company artist, Vanessa Voskuil will have its premiere. Ms. Costello has been the featured performer for SPDT since the company’s inception.
Second Week Program, March 28-30
The Ends of Love was a Guthrie Theater highlight in their inaugural season and returns this season with an expanded SPDT performer ensemble. Set in an imagistic world of emotional movement and intimate dialogues, The Ends of Love muses on love, lust and loss from youth to old age, while referencing works from Plato’s Symposium to Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love to Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. “Layering humor, pathos, smart talk and carefully honed movement with live music by Michelle Kinney, Pimsler and his gifted company propel the audience from contemporary skirmishes in the battle of the sexes to a mythical world.”
Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press. Michelle Kinney’s original score, filmmaker Paul Auguston’s video and Sonya Berlovitz’s costumes provide lush musical and visual layers to the evening length work.
About SPDT
Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater celebrated its 25th anniversary last season with an international tour and the national premiere of The Ends of Love. The company’s work has been presented in more than twenty-five states as well as Canada, Europe, Israel, Taiwan, St. Petersburg, Russia and by The Ministry of Culture, Bermuda. SPDT’s work for the stage and community-specific sites continues to illuminate the ordinary, often forgotten, moments of the everyday. Artistic Co-Directors Stuart Pimsler and Suzanne Costello direct the company, which includes some of the Twin Cities most distinguished performers including; Laura Selle Virtucio, McKnight Fellowship Recipient, 2007 and Roxane Wallace both of whom are recipients of 2007 SAGE Awards for Best Performer. SPDT also includes Vanessa Voskuil, Cade Holmseth and SPDT first year performers Kari Mosel, Marciano Silva dos Santos and Brian Evans.
www.stuartpimsler.com,
