Doug Varone and Dancers

Whether exploring the most telling human gesture or full-throttled bursts of movement, Doug Varone’s choreography takes your breath away and astonishes with the countless ways a body can be expressive. Doug Varone and Dancers perform the NYC premiere of “Alchemy”, set to Steve Reich’s simmering “Daniel Variations,” in a program that includes 2006’s explosive “Lux” and 2000’s “Tomorrow”, with music by Reynaldo Hahn, sung live by soprano Theodora Hanslowe. The New York Times raves, “Varone’s ability to convey depths of emotion through highly charged, physically exciting choreography has made him a rarity among his generation.”

From its first concerts at P.S. 122 in 1986, in repertory dances such as the propulsive Rise (1993) and Lux (2006), the site-specific Neither (2000) at the lower East Side Tenement Museum, in Ricky Ian Gordon’s song cycle Orpheus and Euridice for Lincoln Center (2005), the emotionally charged opera Joseph Merrick: The Elephant Man (2006), and the multi-media Bottomland, televised on PBS for Dance in America in 2008, Doug Varone and Dancers has been singled out for its expansive choreographic vision, versatility, and technical prowess. Varone and his company members are especially prized for their kinetic dexterity, musicality and acting instincts, and are sought after for their multi-discipline residency programs and intensive professional workshops. Eleven New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies) have been awarded to Varone, his dancers and designers. At home in New York City, Doug Varone and Dancers is the resident company at the 92nd St. Y Harkness Dance Center, for onsite rehearsals, showings, performances, workshops and classes. On tour, the company has performed in more than 100 cities in 45 states across the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. Stages include The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, San Francisco Performances, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Toronto’s Harbourfront, Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater, the Venice Biennale, and the Tokyo, Bates and Jacob’s Pillow Festivals. Choreographic awards include two American Dance Festival Doris Duke Awards for New Work, and three from the National Dance Project. The company’s dances have been commissioned by such leading institutions as the Joyce Theater, Whitebird (Portland, OR), the Carlsen Center (Overland Park, KS), the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts (College Park, MD), Bard’s SummerScape, and Wolf Trap. In recent years the Company has created and performed works in partnership with producers, and opera and theater companies on new productions including Le Sacre du Printemps for the Metropolitan Opera (2003), the Aquila Theatre Company on H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (2005), and Minnesota Opera on the American premiere of Petitgirard’s Joseph Merrick: The Elephant Man (2006) and the upcoming Faust (2009). Varone directed and choreographed these diverse pro¬ductions. Doug Varone and Dancers’ three-week intensive dance workshops are held at different universities around the country each year. On tour, the company’s residency programs redeploy the concepts, imagery, and techniques that propel its work to explore theories of creativity and innovation across disciplines and for people of all ages and backgrounds. Activities for math, arts, literature, philosophy, early childhood, architecture, at risk youth and life sciences constituents reach out to new audiences and supporters in ways that directly relate to their lives and interests.