Kennedy Center Announces DEMO: NOW

Damian Woetzel continues his innovative interdisciplinary series uniting artists from across fields in a special one-night only performance, March 7 in the Terrace Theater. Part of the inaugural DIRECT CURRENT, the Kennedy Center's two-week celebration of contemporary culture, this installment of the multi-genre series will present recently commissioned works, including a world premiere, and Washington, D.C. premieres by some of today's most creative and groundbreaking voices in dance and music.

The evening includes a world premiere Kennedy Center DEMO commission choreographed by Pam Tanowitz, with music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. A collaboration between Tanowitz and Shaw, the work titledBlueprint, is set for a trio of dancers-Patricia Delgado, Victor Lozano, and Jason Collins-with Shaw's composition to be performed by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Of her process, Tanowitz states "In one way, what I do is not new. I make steps to music. Choreographers have been doing this for centuries. But in another way what I do is quite novel: rather than search for innovation separate from what came before, I embrace the past. I don't see antiquated steps that have no meaning in contemporary society. I see direct links to the ways we move, express, and relate in the present day...I love the creative interplay and dialogue between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the reimagined. Incorporating these references is my way of cataloguing history, processing it, re-organizing it, and presenting it in a new way..."

Additional D.C. premieres also include Alexei Ratmansky's critically acclaimedFandango, danced by New York City Ballet star Sara Mearns and set to the music of Boccherini; the rarely seen solo work, Orbit, choreographed and performed by Memphis jookin' street dance pioneer Lil' Buck to the music of Philip Glass; Solo for Patti, choreographed by Pam Tanowitz for Patricia Delgado, formerly of Miami City Ballet; Dig the Say, a duet created and danced by Lil' Buck and fellow Memphis jooker Ron Myles, set to a score by Vijay Iyer; Desire Liar, a work performed and choreographed by former Merce Cunningham Dance Company performers and modern dance luminaries Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener set to Glenn Kotche's "Ping Pong Fumble Thaw." In addition to these dance and music collaborations,DEMO: Now will also feature musical performances by Caroline Shaw and Brooklyn Rider. Further information can be found here.

"The idea of this edition of DEMO is to focus on the energy of the now," said DEMO's curator and director Damian Woetzel. "These extraordinary artists are creating not only new works but new vernaculars, and this program is a unique opportunity to place a range of important and current voices in harmony with each other."

Previous DEMO performances have centered on the themes of time and place, song and dance, as well as paid tribute to heroes, and the legendary choreographer Jerome Robbins. Featured artists have included iconic dancer and actress Carmen de Lavallade, New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck, Grammy®-nominated tabla player Sandeep Das, Tony Award®-winning Hamilton actor (George Washington), Chris Jackson, and Memphis jookin' pioneer Lil Buck, among many others.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

New York City Ballet principal dancer turned director, choreographer, and producer Damian Woetzel curates and directs DEMO. Woetzel is currently the artistic director of the VailDance Festival and the director of arts programs for the Aspen Institute. Dubbed "the matchmaker" by The New York Times, Mr. Woetzel has earned acclaim over the past years for creating unusual combinations of music, dance, and theater-often engaging with the world of ideas-in venues varying from China's National Performing Arts Center to New York's Delacorte Theater in Central Park. In 2009 President Barack Obama appointed Mr. Woetzel to his President's Committee on Arts and Humanities, where he worked on issues including arts education until January 2017. Mr. Woetzel holds an M.P.A. from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Harvard Arts Medal. In July 2018, Woetzel will become the 7th President of The Juilliard School.

Australian classical guitarist and Augustine Artist Scott Borg performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, and is known for his colorful, refined, and daring performances. With a string of international scholarships and prizes under his belt, including the Australian Music Examinations Board highest honor, the Fellowship in Music Australia (F.Mus.A), his previous engagements have included performances at the Festival Internacional de Guitarra Mérida (Mexico), ICPNA Guitar Festival (Peru), among many others. His performances have been broadcasted on Australian and American radio stations including ABC Classic FM and NPR. Currently a candidate in the Doctorate of Musical Arts program at New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Maestro Eliot Fisk, he received his Artist Diploma (Yale University), Masters of Music (The Juilliard School) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts with First Class Honours (University of Wollongong). As a conductor, he is the director of the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society Orchestra, and was previously director of the Boston Guitar Orchestra (2009-2016) and has performed in diverse venues ranging from the Ateneo de Madrid and Boston's Jordan Hall, to the Newburyport Lantern Festival and the 2014 VietAID. Mr Borg is currently on faculty at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, and is Artistic Director of the Mid-Maryland Guitar Festival. His debut CD, On an Overgrown Path is available on the Odradek Label.

Brooklyn Rider, with Johnny Gandelsman (violin), Colin Jacobsen (violin), Nicholas Cords (viola), Michael Nicolas (cello). Hailed as "the future of chamber music" (Strings), the veteran string quartet Brooklyn Rider presents eclectic repertoire and gripping performances that continue to draw rave reviews from classical, world, and rock critics alike. NPR credits Brooklyn Rider with "recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble." To start the 2017-18 season, Brooklyn Rider released Spontaneous Symbols in October on Johnny Gandelsman's In a Circle Records label. The album features new quartet music by Tyondai Braxton, Evan Ziporyn, Paula Matthusen, Kyle Sanna, and Brooklyn Rider violinist Colin Jacobsen. To mark the release the group will tour the northeast, with stops in New York and Boston, performing music from the new album. Works from that recording by Braxton, Ziporyn and Jacobsen were also featured in live performance for Some of a Thousand Words, the ensemble's recent collaboration with choreographer Brian Brooks and former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Wendy Whelan.

Jason Collins is originally from Defreestville, New York and currently works with Pam Tanowitz Dance, The Metropolitan Opera, and Danielle Russo Performance Project. Recent credits include projects with Ryan McNamara, David Parker, Josh Prince, and Dylan Crossman Dans(c)e where he also serves as rehearsal director. Collins studied at Walnut Hill School for the Arts and holds a BFA from The Juilliard School. Additionally, he is company manager of Pam Tanowitz Dance and an Associate Producer for Big Dance Theater.

Patricia Delgado, formarly a principal dancer with the Miami City Ballet, began her dance training with Cuban teachers Liana Navarro, Vivian Tobio, and Maria Victoria Gutierrez. When she was 12 years old she began studying at the Miami City Ballet School. She spent summers in New York City at the School of American Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. She was the Princess Grace nominee in 2000, and that same year Edward Villella invited her to join the company as an apprentice. She was promoted to principal in 2007. Delgado has performed many ballets by George Balanchine including Symphony in ThreeMovements, The Four Temperaments, Agon, the Concerto section of Episodes, Bugaku, the Coquette and the Sleep Walker in La Sonambula, Ballet Imperial, Symphony in C, Square Dance, Raymonda Variations, Theme and Variations, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. She has danced in Jerome Robbins's works as well including In the Night, Afternoon of A Faun,Dances at a Gathering, West Side Story, and Fancy Free. She has also danced works by Twyla Tharp including When Push comes to Shove, the bomb squad in In the Upper Room,Baker's Dozen, and Nine Sinatra Songs, among many others. She has been fortunate enough to create feature works with choreographers Alexei Ratmansky, Liam Scarlett, and Justin Peck. She was a guest artist performing the Dark Angel in Balanchine's Serenadewith the New York City Ballet at the 75th anniversary of the School of American Ballet. She performed an excerpt from Justin Peck's Year of the Rabbit at The Bolshoi in Moscow at the Benois de la Danse gala in 2013. She has also performed twice at the Atheneum Dance Festival in Nantucket, Massachusetts, originating two new works by Peck, Sea Change, andOsso Duet. Most recently she danced with Miami City Ballet at the Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Savannah Harris is a drummer and writer who recently graduated from Howard University with a degree in journalism. Growing up in Oakland, California, she learned drums at an early age, studying and performing with her father Fred Harris and her step-father Khalil Shaheed, as well as Bay Area luminary Faye Carol. As a member of the Howard University Jazz Ensemble, she has shared the stage with Bobby Watson, Hubert Laws, Sonny Fortune and Hugh Masekela, and has performed independently with names such as Geri Allen and Cyrus Chestnut. She recently joined Jason Moran and the Bohemian Caverns All Stars for an installment of Moran's Jason+ series at the Kennedy Center. She currently acts as teaching artist for NJPAC's Jazz For Teens and Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz For Young People programs.

Named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2012 and the Wall Street Journal's 2014 Performing Arts Innovator, Lil Buck began jookin'-a street dance that originated in Memphis-at age 13. His rendition of The Swan with world renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, brought together by Damian Woetzel, has garnered more than 3 million views to date, and opened the door to future collaborations with a broad range of renowned artists, from Janelle Monae to JR, to the New York City Ballet, and Madonna. Lil Buck was the 2011 artist-in-residence at the Vail International Dance Festival and also served as an artistic ambassador alongside Yo-Yo Ma at the U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture in Beijing that same year. In 2013, among other performances he starred in the award-winning show,Lil Buck @ (le) Poisson Rouge, which was directed by Woetzel and featured Ma and an assortment of international musicians. Lil Buck has performed on The Ellen Degeneres Show, with Madonna during her Super Bowl XLVI halftime show and on her MDNA and Rebel Heart tours, and in the Cirque du Soleil show Michael Jackson: One. He was an Aspen Institute Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence in 2014.

Victor Lozano is a Brooklyn-based dancer who currently performs with the Brian Brooks Moving Company and Pam Tanowitz Dance. Lozano has also performed as a guest artist with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and Kate Weare Company. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School (BFA) and a fellow of the Juilliard Career Advancement Award (2016). He is originally from Houston, Texas.

Sara Mearns was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and began her dance training at the age of three with Ann Brodie at the Calvert-Brodie School of Dance, also in Columbia. At the age of 13, Mearns trained with Patricia McBride at Dance Place, the School of North Carolina Dance Theatre, in Charlotte. She continued her studies at age 14 with Stanislav Issaev at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville. She entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, full time in the fall of 2001. In the fall of 2003, Mearns became an apprentice with New York City Ballet. As an apprentice, she danced a featured role in Michel Fokine's Chopiniana, performed by SAB as part of New York City Ballet's 2004 winter season. In June of 2004, she joined the company as a member of the corps de ballet, in 2006 was promoted to soloist, and promoted to principal dancer in 2008. saramearns.com.

Bessie Award winner, Ron "Prime Tyme" Myles was born in Memphis, TN and specializes in jookin', a type of freestyle dance developed on the streets of Memphis. A long-time headliner at the Vail International Dance Festival, he has appeared in feature films such asFootloose (2011), Frank and Cindy (2014), and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip (2015), and has also starred in several commercials including Beats by Dre, Diet Pepsi (with Sofia Vergara), Kohl's, and Adidas Originals. One of the premier interpreters of jookin', Myles currently lives in Los Angeles, CA and performs around the world.

Since 2010 Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener have created dance in response to complex and active spatial environments, often merging elements of fantasy, absurdity, and quiet contemplation into challenging multifaceted performance. After working together for years in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mitchell and Riener developed a keen interest in the way abstraction and representation coincide in the body. Their collaborative work takes many forms, from site-specific installations, improvisational dances, and traditional proscenium pieces to highly crafted and intimate, immersive experiences. Together they have been part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Extended Life Dance Development program, the New York City Center Choreographic Fellowship, and have been artists-in-residence at EMPAC, Mount Tremper Arts, Wellesley College, Jacob's Pillow, and Pieter. Their work has been presented at MOMA PS1 as part of Greater NY, The Chocolate Factory, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, the Vail International Dance Festival, REDCAT, ICA Boston and Summer Stages Dance, the Walker Art Center, among many others.

Caroline Adelaide Shaw is a New York-based musician-vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer-who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She is the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Recent commissions include new works for the Dover Quartet, the Calidore Quartet, the Aizuri Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Anne Sofie Von Otter, Roomful of Teeth, Philharmonia Baroque, the Baltimore Symphony, and Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect, among many others. In the 2017-2018 season, Shaw's new works will be premiered by Renée Fleming with Inon Barnatan, Dawn Upshaw with S? Percussion and Gil Kalish, the Orchestra of St. Luke's with John Lithgow, TENET with the Metropolis Ensemble, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, among others. Future seasons will include a new piano concerto for Jonathan Biss with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and a new work for the LA Phil. Shaw's scoring of visual work includes the soundtrack for the feature film To Keep the Light as well as collaborations with Kanye West. She studied at Yale, Rice, and Princeton, and has held residencies at Dumbarton Oaks, the Banff Centre, Music on Main, and the Vail Dance Festival.

Pam Tanowitz has been making dances since 1992. The company has performed at The Joyce Theater, Peak Performances at Montclair State University, The Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process program, ICA Boston, Bard's Summerscape festival and Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. Tanowitz has been invited to create new work for the Vail International Dance Festival (2015, 2017) and New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival (2015). She has set work on The Juilliard School, Ballet Austin, New York Theater Ballet and Saint Louis Ballet, and has been a guest choreographer in the dance departments at Barnard College, Princeton University, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, among others. Tanowitz is the recipient of the Baryshnikov Arts Center's Cage Cunningham Fellowship (2017-18); two Bessie Awards (2009, 2016); a New York City Center Choreography Fellowship (2016); The Center For Ballet and the Arts Fellowship (2016); Princeton's Hodder Fellowship (2013); two Joyce Theater Residency Program fellowships (2012,2014); Guggenheim Fellowship (2011); and a Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grant to Artists Award (2010). She currently teaches at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and holds dance degrees from The Ohio State University and Sarah Lawrence College.

About DIRECT CURRENT

Modern masterpieces, cutting-edge composition, dance, drag, film, jazz, Hip Hop, video games, and electronica all converge in DIRECT CURRENT, the Kennedy Center's two-week celebration of contemporary culture. From interdisciplinary creations in which artistic worlds collide to innovative responses to topical concerns, this immersive music-driven experience showcases some of the most potent, provocative, and original voices in American arts today.

In this inaugural season of DIRECT CURRENT, culture mavens and the culturally curious will witness, act, and interact as artistic risk-takers use their art to spark introspection, conversation, and action. This current of creativity spreads throughout the city, with events at The Phillips Collection, Union Market, Dupont Underground, and the 9:30 Club as well as the Kennedy Center. With many free events, workshops, and talk-backs, DIRECT CURRENT invites you to plug in and electrify your mind.

FUNDING CREDITS

New Artistic Initiatives are funded in honor of Linda and Kenneth Pollin.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets start at $39 and can be purchased online, at the Kennedy Center box office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600 or (800) 444-1324. For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540.

For more information about the Kennedy Center visit www.kennedy-center.org.

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