History
How We Revive Baroque Ballets
Staged Operas/Ballets by Catherine Turocy
A Select Listing of Past Performances
Press
Company Bio for Press and Programs
The New York Baroque Dance Company founded in 1976 by Catherine Turocy, Artistic Director, and Ann Jacoby is still leading the historical dance field today. The company specializes in producing 17th and 18th century programs ranging from street performances to fully staged operas. There are over 60 operas in its repertoire as well as reconstructed dances and ballets choreographed in period style. Through residencies at educational institutions serving grades k-12 and at the university level, the NYBDC instructs professionals and the general public, thus preserving our cultural heritage. The NYBDC has toured North America, Europe and Japan with conductors James Richman, John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Wolfgang Katschner. In their home base of New York City, the company produces concerts annually with Concert Royal directed by James Richman. The NYBDC also performs with Opera Lafayette Orchestra and Chorus, The Dallas Bach Society, Mercury Baroque, Apollo’s Fire and Philharmonia Baroque.
Groundbreaking productions over the past three decades include the premiere of Jean Philippe Rameau’s Les Boreades (not performed in the 18th century because of Rameau’s death) and Hippolyte et Aricie, both at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Opera de Lyon; Henry Purcell’s Indian Queen performed at the Barbican in London; the award winning Scylla et Glaucus by Jean Marie Leclair performed at the Opera de Lyon as well as over 100 performances of a double bill with Rameau’s Pygmalion and George Frederick Handel’s Terpsicore. The company is very proud to have performed in Handel’s operas Terpsicore, Ariodante, Arianna, Alcina, Atalanta, Orlando, and Teseo at the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany.
The NYBDC is very appreciative of ongoing support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and its individual contributors. The company is being archived by the New York Public Library and many archival videos of past performances are on file in the Dance Collection and available for scholarly research.
Mission Statement
The mission of The New York Baroque Dance Company is to actively promote the advancement of public knowledge on 17th and 18th century dance, in all aspects of the art, through concerts, fully staged opera and ballet productions, lectures, workshops, classes and video and film productions. Baroque dance uses a technique considered to be at the very foundation of dance today and understanding the links to this earlier time gives one a keener vision to the future. We hope to mine the treasures of the past to create a richer future by bringing history to life in innovative productions true to the style of the period.
The company creates innovative performances such as street parades, costume balls, site specific events on battlefields as well as the more formal venues of European opera houses and concert halls. Currently the NYBDC is working on a project in collaboration with Jane Peck called Four Rivers to the Future to build better community relations between Native Americans and college students through an innovative educational outreach program focusing on dance and music of the 1750’s and 60’s in America.
