PRESS RELEASE:
FRESH TRACKS

DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP
announces the 2009 - 2010

FRESH TRACKS PERFORMANCE AND RESIDENCY PROGRAM
featuring
Vanessa Anspaugh, Jen McGinn, Liz Santoro, Eleanor Smith,
Makiko Tamura/small apple co., and Enrico Wey

Feb 11 - 13 at 7:30pm
Feb 12 at 10pm

New York, NY, November 24 - Dance Theater Workshop announces the 2009 - 2010 Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency program participants selected through open auditions by a panel of artists, presenters, and Dance Theater Workshop staff. The 2009 - 2010 Fresh Tracks artists are Vanessa Anspaugh, Jen McGinn, Liz Santoro, Eleanor Smith, Makiko Tamura/small apple co., and Enrico Wey. Created in 1965, Fresh Tracks is Dance Theater Workshop’s longest running series of new dance and performance featuring works by emerging artists on a showcase program presented in the Bessie Schönberg Theater.

After the showcase performances, each artist receives a $500 commission and a 50 hour creative residency in the Dance Theater Workshop studios for research and development of new work. In addition, they participate in a series of introductory level professional development workshops in marketing, fundraising, and career development strategies. Artists also participate in dialogue sessions with Levi Gonzalez, facilitating open discussion about their creative process. New to the program this year, Gonzalez will also serve as an Artistic Advisor offering individual consultations with each artist.

Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the Bessie Schönberg Theater, February 11 - 13 (Thursday - Saturday) at 7:30pm, and February 12 (Friday) at 10pm.  There will be a free wine reception following every performance (Thursday - Saturday). Fee-free tickets are $15 and are available online at dancetheaterworkshop.org, over the phone at 212.924.0077, and in person at the box office. Dance Theater Workshop Members, Students, and Seniors are eligible for a 20% discount ($12 tickets).  Box office hours are Monday - Friday from 5pm - 9pm and Saturday - Sunday from 12pm - 8pm.  Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street between 7^th and 8^th Avenues.

About the  Artists

Vanessa Anspaugh is originally from Los Angles, California where she studied and performed classical ballet for most of her young life. After high school she attended art school in San Francisco and Mexico as well as worked on farms, traveled, and made works on paper. She later graduated from Antioch College in Ohio where she was introduced to modern dance, improvisation, and making live performance. In 2008 she received her MFA in Choreography and performance from Smith College, where she was a teaching fellow and taught dance at both Smith and Mt. Holyoke Colleges. In NY and Massachusetts, Anspaugh has performed for and with Maura Donahue, Elizabeth Ward, Jen Rosenblit, Jules Skloot, Lisa D’Amour & Emily Johnson, among others. Most recently she has enjoyed dancing for Faye Driscoll in Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge at HERE Arts Center. Currently, she is dancing in new works for Jillian Pena and fellow collaborator Aretha Aoki. Her own dance and video work has been performed at venues such as Danspace Project, Movement Research Festival, Gilded Pony Performance Festival, Aunts, and Studio 303 in Montreal, where she and Aoki were awarded Vernisage-Dans Emerging Choreographers for the Summer of 2007. There they created and performed their first evening length work In this Place on our Hands. She and Aoki have maintained a creative partnership under the title of The Still Collective; both dancing in each others work, exploring similar themes, sharing resources, dancers, and most of all, continue an ongoing discussion which returns to an effort to understand embodiment through awareness of the present moment in all its vicissitudes of interpretation. The summer of 2009 the two also had a residency in Amherst, Massachusetts at The Blue Barn at Bramble Hill Farm and Performance Space. During this residency, they both began working on separate works, however, continued to dance for one another.

Jen McGinn began dancing in the womb of an incredible ballerina, while listening to the Scottish limericks and songs whispered to her by her father, a painter. Today, she makes works with her friends and family as an independent dance artist. She received her B.A. from Hollins University in Dance and Arts Management in 2005 and went on to receive her M.F.A. in Dance from Hollins in partnership with the ADF in 2006. She has been an artist-in-residence at Hollins University, Booker High School Visual and Performing Arts Center, the American Dance Festival School for Young Dancers, the West Coast Civic Ballet, and currently as a nEW Festival Artist. She has shown her work along the east coast, primarily in New York (Movement Research at the Judson Church, Performance Mix at Joyce SoHo, AUNTS, Danspace Project Academy Dances, etc.) and Philadelphia (Paraphrase at Nexus, In-Flux at Mascher Space Co-op, The A.W.A.R.D Show, nEW Festival at the Drake, etc.). Her interests include Cecchetti ballet, magical thinking, and logic problems. www.jenmcginn.org
Liz Santoro was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  She received her early dance training at Boston Ballet School and her Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.  Since moving to New York in 2003, she has performed the works of Jack Ferver, Trajal Harrell, Jillian Peña, Emily Wexler and Ann Liv Young, among others.  She is a 2009 recipient of the danceWEB scholarship at ImPulsTanz in Vienna.  She has taught at Harvard University and IALS in Rome.  Her choreographic work has been presented at Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The Field, Gowanus Arts, Movement Research, and in Paris at Naxos Bobine and the Ritz Hotel.
Eleanor Smith was born at home in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated with honors from Virginia Commonwealth University. Smith has danced for Gabriella Barnstone/El Gato Teatro, Jerome Begin/Jin Ju Song, Propel-Her Dance Collective, Molly Lieber, and Thorgy. Currently she is dancing for Juliana F. May/Maydance and Miriam Wolf. She collaborates choreographically with Molly Lieber, and together they have performed their work through Hot Toddy Fridays, Throw at The Chocolate Factory, New Works at The Tank, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Eleanor’s own work has been shown at AUNTS and Triskelion Arts.

Makiko Tamura is the Founder and Artistic Director of small apple co. as well as a special guest choreographer/dancer of The Dance Satellite Lecture at The Yamaguchi University Faculty of Education every year since 2004 in Japan. In 2007, she has received JCDN (Japan Contemporary Dance Network) Presents “ODORINI IKUZE vol.7″ with her work “ANA,” performing at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan. She graduated from Japan Women’s Junior College of Physical Education in Dance, vocal music, pantomime and traditional art, and then graduated from Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music in Tokyo, Japan. She performed her work in theaters such as Asahi art square, Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Hofu-shi public hall, and Session House in JAPAN. In 2007, she moved to the U.S.A. She has worked with Nathan Trice/RITUALS, Vanessa Justice Dance, Digby Dance, Ellis Wood Dance, and in the works of various New York City choreographers. She performed her work at Newsteps choreographer’s series 2008 at Chen Dance Center, Danspace Project Food For Thought 2009, Dance Theater Workshop, Center for Performance Research, JENNIFER MULLER/THE WORKS, Dance New Amsterdam, Tisch School of the Arts, Joyce Soho, and other NYC venues. In 2009, she was selected to be a part of Joyce Theater Presents “The A.W.A.R.D Show! 2009: New York City” with Order made, receiving the first prize.
http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~small_apple05/

Enrico Dau Yang Wey was born in the States and raised in Taiwan. His background lies primarily in puppetry and experimental film through Sarah Lawrence College.  He has been engaged with the Handspring Puppet Company in South Africa since 2004 on “Tall Horse” (BAM Next Wave, Kennedy Center) and on the William Kentridge directed opera, “Il Ritorno d’Ulisse” (Edinburgh International Festival).  Wey began developing work through the St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab in 2006 and 2007 under the moniker “living laboratory,”  a reference to radiology case studies in the 1920s.  Since then, he has been experimenting with found footage, puppetry, and movement. Primary subjects have included: the inner ear, the language of bees, the radium watch dial painters, and standard gravitational acceleration.  He has shown iterations of these concepts for Fresh Meat (Chocolate Factory) with Lucy Yim, Catch30 with the band Shitheads on Dynamite from Austin, TX, Throw, Mt Tremper Arts, AUNTS and MR at Judson Church. He was commissioned for the Winter 2009 Season at Danspace Project. As a performer, Enrico has worked intensively with choreographer Milka Djordjevich since 2004 and has had the privilege of performing for Laura Manzella, Ashley Byler, The Octopus Ensemble, and visual artist Jonathan VanDyke. Currently, he is a LMCC Swing Space Resident Artist, is cultivating ideas for an installation/ performance venue and is creating a full length table top puppet work for UNIMA South Africa’s Out the Box Festival with long standing composer/collaborator Samuel Stein, half of the band The Great Republic of Rough and Ready.  He recently curated an evening of Food for Thought at Danspace and serves as a freelance technical director/ stage manager in the community. He is excited to share another small piece within this expansive puzzle.

Funders
The Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program is supported, in part, by the Greenwall Foundation.

*   *   *

Dance Theater Workshop is the preeminent U.S. based center for dance and performance that maintains an uncompromising mission to identify, present, and support independent contemporary artists and companies to advance dance and live performance in New York and worldwide. Dance Theater Workshop supports innovative artists through all facets of their creative process and offers audiences the opportunity to experience and engage with artistic expression in bold and evocative ways.

Dance Theater Workshop’s 2009-2010 Season Supporters   (as of July 1, 2009)

Private support provided by: American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Carnegie Corporation of New York; Chervenak-Nunnalle Foundation; The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Ford Foundation; French United States Exchange in Dance of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Mertz Gilmore Foundation; The Greenwall Foundation; The William Randolph Hearst Foundations; The Jerome Foundation; The Lambent Foundation; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Performance Network; The New York Community Trust; New York State DanceForce; The Jerome Robbins Foundation; Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; The Scherman Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; The Trust for Mutual Understanding; and The Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund.

Corporate support provided by: Bloomberg L.P. and Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

Public support provided by the following government agencies and elected representatives: National Endowment for the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Kate D. Levin, Commissioner; Speaker Christine C. Quinn; New York City Council; New York State Council on the Arts; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; Senator Thomas K. Duane, New York State Senate.

PRESS KITS AND DIGITAL IMAGES AVAILABLE
DANCETHEATERWORKSHOP.ORG/PRESS
Login: DTWPress

PASSWORD: pressphotos

#     #     #