Thursday, March 15, 2012

Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround's Worship/Home

Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround announces its newest evening length DC premier this season - Worship/Home - investigating act of home, leaving home, creating home or being without a home. This is the second part of The Perimeter Project which is inspired by issues and stories about immigration. This performance will feature a live internet broadcast, spontaneous solos for audience members and more surprises! Come join us at Joe's Movement Emporium April 21 & 22 (Sat @ 8pm, Sun @ 7pm). I've included the press release below for more information. You can also visit our website here.


Press Release:

We are all homeless. 
We all need a home.
Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround explores concepts of home, leaving home, finding home and the absence of home in a unique performance experience featuring a live internet broadcast, spontaneous solos for individual audience members and its signature athletic movement style.


What: premiere of Worship/Home
When: April 21 & 22, 2012 (Saturday @ 8pm, Sunday @ 7pm)
Where: Joe’s Movement Emporium

3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier, MD 20712
Tickets: $20 General Admission, $15 Students, Seniors, Artists

The company will premiere Worship/Home, their newest venture in audience participation, internet broadcasts and movement exploration. Developing from Director Daniel Burkholder’s interest in issues around immigration, Worship/Home asks what does it mean to create a new home, how much do you take with you and how much must you leave behind? Performed in-the-round, the work will include unique audience engagement through spontaneous solos for individual audience members, athletic movement phrases and personal reflections about home.

As a further investigation into audience and performer relationships, the audience will be divided in half at each performance with one section of the audience watching the performance live while the other stays in the lobby watching the internet broadcast on monitors during the first half of the performance. At intermission the audience with switch places and watch the piece again from the other view point - either live or on monitors. The internet broadcast will also be available for viewing by anyone in the world with internet capability.

Asked about the multi-layered approach of this work, Artistic Director Daniel Burkholder responds, “In this work we’re interested in the metaphor of home as being a place of intimacy, of closeness. By structuring the work to relate to audiences in different amounts of closeness - from the one-on-one solos we’ll be doing for individual audience members, to the difference between watching the work live or as a video projection, to the people who will watch it many miles away on their computers, we’ll be layering levels of intimacy between the audience and the performers. I’m very excited to see how this plays out with our ability to perform across multiple medias at the same time as well as the meanings and interpretations for the audience as they view it in multiple and various ways.”

Created and performed by Daniel Burkholder with Kathryn Harris Banks, Stefanie Quinones Bass, Christine Stone Martin, Carrie Monger, and Keira Hart Mendoza. Music by Chad Speed and various artists.

Daniel Burkholder / The PlayGround is a movement based performance group engaging audiences through dynamic work combining the formalism of choreography with the spontaneity of improvisation. By layering movement ranging from highly athletic to subtle gestures with text, live music and video the company considers multiple perspectives as it presents accessible, yet complex performances works. The company has presented work throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Metro/DC region at venues as varied as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Place, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Transformer, Carter Barron Amphitheater, on the sidewalk in front of the Martin Luther King Library, Bladensburg Waterfront Park along the Anacostia River, The H Street Playhouse and Warehouse Theater as well as performances in New York City and San Francisco.  In the fall of 2003 The PlayGround premiered Buried in the Sky during a 5-week run with over 20 performances. In 2005 the company was awarded a Local Dance Commissioning Project commission from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to create together/apart (we go each our way). In 2006 was awarded a Metro DC Dance Award for “Outstanding Performance by a Group in a Dance Production”. Also in 2006, as part of the inaugural Capital Fringe Festival, Daniel Burkholder and composer and musician Jonathan Matis premiered unmapped, a 30-minute duet that was performed on the hour, every hour, for 24 hours. In 2009 the company completed a 3-year project, My ocean is never blue, in a collaboration with Archne Aerial Arts (aerial dance), Coyaba Dance Theater (West African dance) and Devi Dance Theater (Traditional Indian dance). Recent projects include: Scenic Route, a 3 hour hike interspersed with site specific performances along the Potomac River; Primary/Scale, an all day performance instillation at the Northern Virgina Fine Arts Festival; and, The Chemistry of Lime Trees, an evening length theatrical work using historical stories to explore how borders, real or perceived, separate people. In January 2011 Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround became the dance company in residence at Georgetown University Hospital, offering dance and movement sessions to patients, nurses, doctors, administrative staff and support personal, as well as on-site performances.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

20 Years of Creative Collaboration Celebrated

I am very excited to invite you to see Sharon Mansur and I present our evening length duet - sightlines -February 18 & 19, 2012 at Dance Place. These performances mark our 20th year of creative collaboration. In that time we've choreographed and performed together, co-directed Quiescence and taught near and far at universities, studios and festivals. 
 
Sharon and I have been "bending, breaking, suspending and arresting audiences' expectations" (Washington CityPaper) since 1992 as"one of DC's exceptional duos" (DanceView). 

We recently performed an excerpt of sightlines in Philadelphis where the reviewer states our 20 years of collaboration "is apparent in their familiarity with each other's bodies, weight, physical structures: they have an ease, a command, the freedom to play. One suggests an idea and the other immediately takes it up. There is clear structure here; they shape the space and time of this dance together as they move through it. They are listening: to each other, to the space, to the dance that unfolds beautifully, carefully, exuberantly before us" (thinkingdance).

We promise the evening will hold unexpected delights as we continue our ongoing, creative explorations.

Go Here for more info and to order tickets. 

Monday, September 21, 2009

My ocean is never blue - a collaborative version


My ocean is never blue explores humanity's multi-faceted relationship to water - from the personal to the spiritual, environmental and political - in a new collaborative version with Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround (post-modern dance), Arachne Aerial Arts (aerial dance), Coyaba Dance Theater (West African dance) and Devi Dance Theater (Kuchipudi/Classical Indian dance). Combining traditional and contemporary dance techniques with live music, spoken word and video, My ocean is never blue is a collage of movement, images, information and sensory input.

My ocean is never blue is "remarkably cohesive... punctuated by many small surprises...a stunning display of ensemble work."
-- The Washington Post

Live Music by
Sam Turner

October 8 & 9, 2009 @ 8pm
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
University of Maryland College Park

For tickets go to:
or call
301-405-ARTS (2787)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround & Jane Jerardi @ Dance Place


March 28, 2009 @ 8pm
March 29, 2009 @ 7pm

Dance Place, Washington, DC
www.danceplace.or

DC-area artists Daniel Burkholder and Jane Jerardi generate inventive dance works that engage audiences in unexpected ways by employing improvisation, experimentation and multi-media. Daniel Burkholder's company, The PlayGround, combines the formalism of choreography with the spontaneity of improvisation in My ocean is never blue. Called  a "stunning display of ensemble work" by The Washington Post, the work examines our multi-faceted relationship to water, from the personal to the ecological and political. Jane Jerardi's dances move fluidly between media - from dancers captured in videos that are projected on the sides of buildings to intimate personal private performances and site-specific works. With Perspective, she returns to the stage and collects excerpts from several pieces she's created over the past five years. Re-imagined as a series of related dances, they will intersperse projected video with striking gesture and compelling performance, including a new piece to a score by Amy Farina of The Evens. "Jerardi's talent is well established within dance circles; her perfectly capable video installation proves her merits in other genres as well." - Washington Post's Express

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround perform in Dance Bethesda


Daniel Burkholder and Stefanie Quinones Bass will perform together/apart (we go each our way) March 8th as part of the Dance Bethesda celebration. See this award winning work (Outstanding Performance by a Group at the 2006 Metro DC Dance Award and Stefanie was a finalist for Outstanding Performance by an Individual at the 2007 Metro DC Dance Award) along with works by Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company, Aysha Upchurch / Life Rhythm, Move Project, Step Afrika, Maryland Youth Ballet and Ziva’s Spanish Dance Ensemble. Should be a really varied and excellent show!

more details at www.bethesda.org.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Daniel Burkholder & Eigenvalues performing Saturday, 8/11/07

See Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround with Eigenvalues perform excerpts from "My ocean is never blue" at Metro DC Dances on August 11th at Carter Barron Amphitheatre. They will be performing both a pre-performance event on the grounds and up on stage during the show. And its FREE!!!!

For more about "My Ocean is Never Blue" access our ongoing blog about the creation and performance process @
http://improvarts.alkem.org/myoceanisneverblue


Details:
*Metro DC Dances
August 11 at 7:30pm at Carter Barron Amphitheatre
Presented by Dance/MetroDC as part of the Metro DC Dance Awards in cooperation with Rock Creek Park/National Park Service
Performances by 2006 Metro DC Dance Award winners:
CityDance Ensemble
Daniel Burkholder/The Playground
Maida Withers Dance Construction Company
Tappers With Attitude Youth Ensemble
VTDance/Vincent E. Thomas
Free!



Hope to see you there!



Daniel Burkholder
Director, The PlayGround
Co-Director, Improv Arts

Blog: http://improvarts.alkem.org/myoceanisneverblue

http://improvarts.alkem.org

www.myspace.com/improvarts

http://people.tribe.net/improvarts

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Performance of "My ocean is never blue" @ Dance Place

The PlayGround @ Dance Place
See "My ocean is never blue" and other repertory
Exploring our personal, environmental and political relationships to water, Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround presents the theatrical premiere of "My ocean is never blue" April 27-28, 2007 @ Dance Place. Featuring over 18 performers, live music and video projection "My ocean is never blue" focus on one of the most important issues the world today. Also on the program Director Daniel Burkholder will be performing 3 duets: "unmapped" - with musician Jonathan Matis, "together/apart (we go each our way)" with Stefanie Quinones Bass, and "Duet for 3" with his wife, Andrea Burkholder.

For more about "My ocean is never blue" access our ongoing blog about the creation and performance process at
http://improvarts.alkem.org

Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround @ Dance Place
April 27*-29, 2007
Friday & Saturday @ 8pm, Sunday @ 7pm
Tickets: $7-$20*

To order tickets go to www.danceplace.org
or call 202-269-1600

*Speical Fundraiser for Water for People
Friday, April 27 @ 8pm
Tickets: $20-$25
Water for People helps the most impoverished people worldwide improve their quality of life by supporting sustainable drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene projects.


Event Info
Dance Place
3225 8th Street NE
Washington, DC 20016
April 27-29, 2007
www.danceplace.org