The award-winning dance program at The Hartt School will present its Fall Concert from Nov. 14 – 17, featuring classic works from August Bournonville and José Limón alongside two premieres by Katie Stevinson-Nollet and Debra Collins-Ryder and a revival by director, Stephen Pier.
The five pieces represent what has given the school its national reputation as an outstanding training ground for professional dancers. Fulfilling its mission to explore the work of past masters to inform the work of today, the program will include excerpts from Napoli by the renowned Danish choreographer, August Bournonville, a work that celebrates the quick dynamic footwork and ebullient warmth of this unique style.
Hartt’s dancers are coached by Hilda Morales whose career as a soloist and principal dancer included American Ballet Theater and Pennsylvania Ballet. José Limón’s legendary solo, Chaconne, set to Bach’s Partita no. 2 in D minor has been staged as a trio by Nina Watt, a renowned member of Limon’s company for more than 30 years. Katie Stevinson-Nollet, a choreographer and director well known to Hartford audiences, has collaborated with the composer Kathryn Swanson combining their own unique voices to create a light-hearted whimsical work of contemporary dance and music. Debra Collins-Ryder, a former principal dancer with Hartford Ballet, has fashioned a brand-new ballet to traditional American folk music which supports the contemporary pointework of the school’s talented artists. Stephen Pier, the school’s director whose career included the Royal Danish Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, and the José Limón Company, created his work to Prokofiev’s Variations on Hebrew Themes for an ensemble of nine women. The piece entitled At the Garden Wall is inspired by the films of Persian artist, Shirin Neshat, exploring the conflicts of freedom and restraint, inhibition and release, order and change.