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Modern/Contemporary
Dance Theatre Workshop
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Dance Theater Workshop presents world premiere of "Bear Crown," by Ivy Baldwin Dance (March 18-21, Manhattan, NY)

by Sarah Hart
March 18, 2009
Dance Theatre Workshop
219 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-924-0077
Dance Theater Workshop

presents

the world premiere of

Bear Crown

by

Ivy Baldwin Dance

MARCH 18-21, 2009

Wed-Sat at 7:30pm

Dance Theater Workshop presents Ivy Baldwin Dance in the world premiere of Bear Crown. Described as "wildly, darkly imaginative" by The New York Times, Baldwin's work uses movement and theatrical abstraction to create "oddly coherent other worlds"(The New Yorker) inhabited by alluring characters. Ivy Baldwin Dance continues to evoke the serious and humorous sides of the human condition with its newest production. Bear Crown investigates the cause and effect of great transformation – personal, cultural, emotional – and the inevitable deterioration of what is often deemed powerful, beautiful, and grand. Cannons, harmonicas, sounds of warping metal, and Bonnie Tyler ballads accompany the performers of Bear Crown as they show off their muscles, skip nostalgically, and manhandle each other a bit too much.


"This fusion of low and high, of elegant and comic, is Baldwin's secret weapon and the source of her great charm." — Elizabeth Zimmer, Gay City News


Bear Crown is choreographed by Ivy Baldwin and features Baldwin, Anna Carapetyan, Lawrence Cassella, Mindy Nelson, and Katie Workum, with Lighting by Chloë Z Brown, Sound by Justin Jones, Set by Mendel Rabinovitch, and Costumes by High-Fashion Designer Alice Ritter.


Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the Bessie Schönberg Theater, March 18-21 (Wednesday -Saturday at 7:30pm). There will also be a Post-Show talk with Heather Olson on March 18 (Wednesday) and a Pre-Show Coffee & Conversation with Sara Nash and David Sheingold on March 19 (Thursday at 6:30pm). Tickets are $10 online and $15 through the box office and are available for purchase at dancetheaterworkshop.org, over the phone at 212.924.0077, or in person at the box office. Box office hours are Monday – Friday from 5pm-9pm and Saturday – Sunday from 12pm – 8pm. Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19the Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.


About the Company

In 1999 Ivy Baldwin Dance was founded by choreographer and performer Ivy Baldwin. Ivy Baldwin Dance is a New York City based performance company dedicated to the creation of original contemporary dance. Known for her vivid and wild imagination, Baldwin creates works that are part of an interdisciplinary art form that break the traditional boundaries and assumptions of theater. Through a broad range of mediums, and by creating work that explores both the serious and humorous sides of the human condition, the Company creates dance that is emotionally engaging and can therefore provoke an awakening within an audience member. This company of performers described as "amazing, smart, physically fearless, dancer-actors all… "(The Village Voice) take you on a journey both beautiful and strange.



Since its inception, the Company has been presented by many theaters, including Dance Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Williamsburg Art neXus (WAX), Painted Bride in Philadelphia, PA, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp and Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theaters, Joyce SoHo, P.S. 122, and LaMaMa E.T.C. The Company has presented work in numerous festivals and performance series' including Tanz im August in Berlin, Germany, Dans Contemporan in Bacau, Romania, Catch, Danceoff!, Dancenow, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the LaMaMa Moves Dance Festival.

About the Artist
Ivy Baldwin is a choreographer and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. In 1999 she founded Ivy Baldwin Dance. Since its inception, the Company has been presented by many theaters, including Dance Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Williamsburg Art neXus (WAX), Painted Bride/Philadelphia, PA, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp and Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theaters, Joyce SoHo, P.S. 122, and La MaMa, E.T.C. The Company has presented work in various festivals and performance series' including Dance Sampler, Catch, Danceoff!, Dancenow, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, La MaMa Moves Dance Festival, and Tanz im August in Berlin, Germany.

Ms. Baldwin has been fortunate to receive grants from the Puffin Foundation, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and the William and Karen Tell Foundation. She has been supported by many residency's including an ArtistNe(s)t residency at the George Apostu Cultural Center in Bacau, Romania, a Bogliasco Foundation Jerome Robbins Fellowship in Dance residency at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities in Genoa, Italy, The Yard's Bessie Schönberg Residency for Choreographers and Dancers, a Sugar Salon residency; a program of the Williamsburg Art neXus (WAX) in partnership with the Barnard College Dance Department of Columbia University, and annual residency's at Dragon's Egg in Mystic, CT. since 2004. Ivy Baldwin has received two Bessie Schönberg/First Light Commissions from Dance Theater Workshop with funds from the Jerome Foundation, a DNA Presents commission from Dance New Amsterdam, two Mondo Cane! commissions from Dixon Place, and four commissions for original student work from Barnard College, Iowa State University, North Carolina School of the Arts, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In spring 2007, she was an adjunct professor at Barnard College, and was selected as a featured choreographer on the educational DVD series "Downtown Dance – New York" produced by Insight Media with Barnard College and Elizabeth Zimmer.

Ms. Baldwin also recently enjoyed performing Karinne Keithley's play, Do Not Do This Ever Again at the Ohio Theater, and Katie Workum's Carlisle at Dance New Amsterdam. Ms. Baldwin is a graduate of both the North Carolina School of the Arts and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts MFA program. Please visit ivybaldwindance.org.


Bear Crown is commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop's Commissioning and Creative Residency Program with support from the Jerome Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Jerome Robbins Foundation. This presentation is made possible, in part, by the generous support of Judy and Steven Gluckstern through the David R. White Producers Circle.


Additional support was provided by the William and Karen Tell Foundation, Ivy Baldwin Dance Commissioning Circle Member Olivier Rustat, and the Dugas Family Foundation. Bear Crown was created, in part, through an ArtistNe(s)t Residency, a program of the Swiss Cultural Programme at the George Apostu Cultural Center in Bacau, Romania. The Company's residency in Bacau was made possible by a generous grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding. Bear Crown was created, in part, with a space grant from BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the Dance and Theater Programs of the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and Mertz Gilmore Foundation.
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