Friday, February 10, 2012 – 7:30pm
Choreographer Benjamin Levy creates a new relationship between audience and performer that heightens and activates the role of the viewer. ROMP seats dancers and audience members together at banquet tables, providing a familiar setting for everyday interactions to transform. Playful and exuberant, this world unites audience and performer together in the somewhat surreal experience. LEVYdance’s signature partnering and dynamic physicality are witnessed at close range, amplifying the intimate connections inherent in Levy’s work. Students from the Dance Department at Boyer College of Music & Dance will join the company in this special performance of ROMP.
The creation and production of ROMP was made possible in part by funding received from Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, the David and Laura Merage Foundation, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
PDP is pleased to expand its partnership with TU Dance Department in 2012.
The two will partner to host a Guest artist in residency with San Francisco-based Choreographer Ben Levy. Levy will teach technique classes and dance students will be selected to perform repertory as part of the company’s presentation of a new work ROMP, which seats dancers and audience members together at banquet tables creating an increasingly surreal and hyper-expressive world.
PDP’s 7th Annual presentation of SCUBA at Conwell Dance Theater includes corollary interactions between students and SCUBA artists, who will teach technique classes and be guests speakers about their work and their choreographic process. SCUBA provides precious touring opportunities for dance artists, and for everyone else it gives a fantastic view of the breadth of choreographic invention across the country.
This partnership is providing not only access to contemporary dance for the TU community and the public at large, but it also aims to create opportunities for student interaction with creative artists and to deepen engagement.
Artists
LEVYdance Artistic Director Benjamin Levyhttp://www.levydance.org/
LEVYdance Artistic Director Benjamin Levy has been awarded the honors of “Top 25 Choreographers to Watch in 2004” by Dance Magazine and a Goldie Award by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Levy’s choreography has been presented at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Zellerbach Playhouse, ODC Theater, The Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Cowell Theater, Dance Place, Joyce SoHo, and internationally at VDU University in Kaunas, Lithuania and the Internationale Tanzmesse Festival in Dusseldorf, Germany. He has taught master classes and been in residence at the Juilliard School, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet BFA and Training Programs, the University of Utah, University of California Santa Barbara, SUNY Purchase, San Jose State University, University of California Berkeley, George Washington University, and DeSales University. Levy has also been commissioned to create new work for companies including Scottish Dance Theatre and Santa Barbara Dance Theater. Location: Conwell Dance TheaterNE corner of Broad and Montgomery StreetsPhiladelphia, PASee map: Google Maps