Photo: Julie Lemberger
CONTACT: Reed College Dance Department
www.reed.edu/dance/events
REED COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT PRESENTS:
CHOREOGRAPHER-PERFORMER
STEPHEN PETRONIO
IN
INTRAVENOUS LECTURE
When: Monday, March 10, 2014, 7 PM
Where: Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland, OR 97202-8199
Tickets: $12 Adults, $7 Seniors and Non-Reed Students with ID
Free for the Reed Community with Reed ID (ticket required)
Available here: http://reed.ticketleap.com/stephen-petronio-lecture/
Sponsors: Reed Dance Department, Weitkamp and Wolfe Funds
Info: www.reed.edu/dance/events
“The flesh is real; the movement coursing its way through his body is like blood.”—The New York Times
The Reed College Dance Department hosts choreographer-performer Stephen Petronio and his company as guest artists in residence on campus March 10-11, 2014.
Petronio will perform Intravenous Lecture, an improvised meditation on censorship utilizing movement and spoken text. Referencing Steve Paxton’s 1970 piece of the same title, Petronio’s work integrates dance and social commentary through his own biographical events. Petronio fearlessly ruminates on his life as a dancer and a gay man while simultaneously dancing full-force and strapped to an IV. Following the performance, Petronio will give a talk about his choreographic work.
This residency is made possible through a generous partnership with White Bird Dance, who will present the Stephen Petronio Company in Like Lazarus Did on March 6-8, 2014 at the Newmark Theatre, Portland, Oregon.
Artistic Director of Stephen Petronio Company / Choreographer STEPHEN PETRONIO has honed a unique language of movement that speaks to the intuitive and complex possibilities of the body within the shifting sphere of our current time. He continues to create a haven for dancers with a keen interest in history and an appetite for the unknown. Petronio was born in Newark, NJ, and received a BA from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, where he began his early training in improvisation and dance technique. He was greatly influenced by working with Steve Paxton as well as the dancing of Rudolph Nureyev and was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979 to 1986). He has gone on to build a unique career, receiving numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an American Choreographer Award, and a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award.
Petronio has created over 35 works for his company, and has been commissioned by some of the world’s most prestigious modern and ballet companies, including William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt (1987), Deutsche Oper Berlin (1992), Lyon Opera Ballet (1994), Maggio Danza Florence (1996), Sydney Dance Company (2003, full evening), NorrDans (2006), the Washington Ballet (2007), and The Scottish Ballet (2007).
His company repertory works have been set on The Scottish Ballet, NorrDans in Sweden, Dance Works Rotterdam, National Dance Company Wales, X Factor Dance Company in Edinburgh, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet de Lorraine, and London Contemporary Dance Theater. In 2009, Petronio completed an evening-length work, Tragic/Love, for 30 dancers in collaboration with composer Son Lux for Ballet de Lorraine. He completed two additional new works with Son Lux: By Singing Light, for National Dance Company Wales (2010), and The Social Band, a commission for OtherShore Dance Company in New York (2011). In September 2013, Petronio created Water Stories, his second commission for National Dance Company Wales. Other recent projects include Prometheus Bound (2011), a musical for the American Repertory Theater, in collaboration with director Diane Paulus (HAIR), writer and lyricist Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) and composer Serj Tankian (Grammy award, lead vocalist “System of a Down”). Petronio performed his rendition of Paxton’s Intravenous Lecture at the TEDMED-2012 conference at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC, and has spent the last several years working on his memoir, Confessions of a Motion Addict. In October 2012, Petronio received the honor of being named the first Artist-in-Residence at The Joyce Theater, an appointment running through September 2014.
For more information please visit www.reed.edu/dance/events
The Stephen Petronio Company residency is made possible with support by the Reed College Dance Department, the Weitkamp Fund and the Wolfe Fund, and through a generous partnership with White Bird Dance.