The New York Baroque Dance Co.

We are delighted to share with you, compliments of Ars Lyrica Houston, our November 20, 2015 performance of Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants in a semi-staged production.

Catherine Turocy, photo by Catherine Andrako 2015

NEA Project from 1982 now available to view online!

1982 8:42
choreography/performance Catherine Turocy
camera/direction Celia Ipiotis
narration Robert Einenkel
music Folies d’ Espagne by Marin Marais/Les Fetes Venitiennes by Andre Campra
music performance Sandra Miller flute/James Richman harpsichord/Sarah Cunningham viola da gamba

from “The Videodance Project: Volume One”
produced with partial support from the National Endowment for the Arts

Celia Ipiotos and Jeff Bush have been contributing to the NY dance scene with video coverage, creative projects, archive videos, etc., since the 1970’s. Please visit their award winning Eye on Dance

Dance of the Month on November 7, 2016 with Catherine Turocy at Mark Morris Dance Center, 3pm to 5pm

Dancing the Garden Path, a Cosmic Choreography will explore symbolic meaning behind geometry of court dances of the 18th century as well as period garden design. Turocy will use the La Gavotte de Roy as a springboard for embodying cosmological theory and will also look into La St. George, a contredanse which Turocy thinks was in  honor of the Chevalier de St. George. The purpose of the class is to grasp the intangible nature of the past in asking from a period perspective, “What were they thinking!”  All are welcome to attend, no previous baroque dance experience required.

Location and cost: Click here

About the Video (description credit, Barnard IMATS)

From Parquet to Parterre is a video lecture developed to enhance the Barnard College course, “The Golden Age of Versailles: an interdisciplinary course that focuses on the vibrant cultural life in and around the court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV (1661-1715). The course, taught in French by Laurie Postlewate of the Barnard French Department, features a number of digital components to emphasize the conversation at Versailles between multiple disciplines. “

“Parquet” refers to the patterned ballroom floor where complicated geometric dances were a part of an evening’s entertainment and “Parterre” is the distinct garden space designed with the same basis in geometrical forms.  Both were used in social intercourse in Baroque society. Catherine Turocy, Artistic Director of The New York Baroque Dance Company is the guest writer and narrator. She discusses the philosophical origins of art with its social and moral importance and demonstrates the reflection of these ideals in both dance and garden design. Through demonstrations by professional dancers of her company (Caroline Copeland and Olsi Gjeci) and student dancers from Barnard, Ms. Turocy examines connections between the geometry used in 17th/18th century choreography with configurations of garden design by André Le Nôtre.  She discusses the philosophical origins of art with its social and moral importance, and reveals how both dance and garden design reflect these ideals. The video concludes with a momentous event in our own time, a look at the 2015 installation of the fountains at The Water Theatre Grove in Versailles by sculptor Jean-Michel Othoniel. One begins to understand how these designs are still of primary interest today.

From Parquet to Parterre  is the first in a series of video projects to be developed for “The Golden Age of Versailles” by Laurie Postlewate and Barnard’s IMATS (Instructional Media and Technology Services) with funding from COOL, the Committee for Online and On-Campus Learning, at Barnard College. This video is available for educational and noncommercial use, with attribution. (Catherine Turocy and Barnard College, 2015) Please email cturocy@gmail.com for more information on other videos and lectures of The New York Baroque Dance Company.  For a complete listing of video credits please refer to the final minutes at the end of the video.

October 3, 2015 Dance of the Month with Caroline Copeland at MMDC

October 9, 2015 at King Manor, 6:30pm: An Evening at Home with our Founding Fathers. Location: King Manor Museum, 150-03 Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, NY(a short walk from the last stop on the E train – Directions: http://www.kingmanor.org/visit/directions.php)  Caroline Copeland, Associate Director of NYBDC, working with NYBDC dancer Matthew Ting, has devised an entertaining dance/drama for this special concert with musicians Dongsok Shin, fortepiano & Leah Gale Nelson, violin. Reading letters from the period and singing songs of early America, Grant Herreid will be joining them in the intimate setting of the Dining Room at the Rufus King family estate.  For Tickets: $40 at the door. Advance purchase recommended. Seating is limited. more info: Click Here

November 6-9 at Haymarket Opera in Chicago:  Amadigi di Gaula by George Frederick Handel.  Sarah Edgar, Associate Director of the NYBDC, is the stage director and choreographer for this inventive production of one of Handel’s “magic” operas fully staged with new costumes and sets. Do not miss this exciting production with period instruments conducted by Craig Trompeter.  For Tickets and more information: http://haymarketopera.org/events.html

November 07, 2015  Dance of the Month with Catherine Turocy: Dancing the Garden Path,  dance notations which correspond to 18th century parterre designs will be the basis for the lesson.  Held at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.

November 11-13 at BAM: You Us We All   Seth Williams, advisor and former dancer/teacher of the NYBDC, is the choreographer for this new opera making its US premiere at BAM Harvey Theater. Part of 2015 Next Wave Festival …Shara Worden is the composer, Andrew Ondrejcak is the librettist, designer and stage director and the music is played by B.O.X. (Baroque Orchestration X). For Tickets and more information: Click!

November 20, 7:30pm with Ars Lyrica Houston, Hommage to the Sun King. Catherine Turocy and members of the NYBDC, Brynt Beitman, Carly Fox Horton, Alexis Silver and Andrew Trego celebrate Louis XIV’s 300th anniversary with music and dance in this special “Hommage to the Sun King.” Turocy provides the semi-staging and choreography for Marc Antoine Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants in a period instrument performance conducted by Matthew Dirst. Location: Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center in Houston  Plan your visit  For Tickets and more information: Please click!

photo by Emily Miller

November 6-9 at Haymarket Opera in Chicago:  Amadigi di Gaula by George Frederick Handel.  Sarah Edgar, Associate Director of the NYBDC, is the stage director and choreographer for this inventive production of one of Handel’s “magic” operas fully staged with new costumes and sets. Do not miss this exciting production with period instruments conducted by Craig Trompeter.  For Tickets and more information: http://haymarketopera.org/events.html

November 11-13 at BAM: You Us We All   Seth Williams, advisor and former dancer/teacher of the NYBDC, is the choreographer for this new opera making its US premiere at BAM Harvey Theater. Part of 2015 Next Wave Festival …Shara Worden is the composer, Andrew Ondrejcak is the librettist, designer and stage director and the music is played by B.O.X. (Baroque Orchestration X). For Tickets and more information: Click!

November 14, 8pm with The Dallas Bach Society: A Tale of Two Cities: Music in Paris and London. Catherine Turocy, Director of the

Carly Fox Horton, photo by Courtlyn Hanson

NYBDC, with dancers Brynt Beitman, Carly Fox Horton, Alexis Silver and Andrew Trego with a guest appearance of members of the Contemporary Ballet Dallas directed by Valerie Shelton Tabor will join the Dallas Bach Society in music and dance of the 17th and 18th centuries, including music by Handel, Purcell, Lully and Campra for both the ballroom and theater. Location: SMU Meadow School of the Arts, Caruth Auditorium – 6101 Bishop, Dallas TX 75205. For Tickets and more information: Dallas Bach Society

photo by Juan Garcia

November 20, 7:30pm with Ars Lyrica Houston, Hommage to the Sun King. Catherine Turocy and members of the NYBDC, Brynt Beitman, Carly Fox Horton, Alexis Silver and Andrew Trego celebrate Louis XIV’s 300th anniversary with music and dance in this special “Hommage to the Sun King.” Turocy provides the semi-staging and choreography for Marc Antoine Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants in a period instrument performance conducted by Matthew Dirst. Location: Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center in Houston  Plan your visit  For Tickets and more information: Please click!

photo by H. Nizam

Sarah Lysgaard, a student currently pursuing a master’s degree in Art and Art History at San José University will be attending our workshop this year.  Sarah’s dance experience includes over fifteen years of RAD ballet training.  She is now reaching toward a dream of working in a major museum or gallery, with a particular interest in curating performance art.  Sarah’s thesis revolves around dance as a spectacle and as immersive art.   Her enthusiastic outlook is evident as she states, “Art History provides knowledge and understanding of the past, and through it, of the present.  The discipline encourages humanity and sympathy by teaching about other individuals and societies through their visual expression.  I would like to take this level of scholarly degree forwarding by incorporating dance, especially ballet.”  The Santa Barbara Historical Dance Workshop is proud to encourage Sarah in her work.

The scholarship committee continues efforts to meet its goal for this year’s scholarships. Although they have raised over $3,000, an additional $1,000 is being sought. Any amount is appreciated. Donations can be made through PayPal. (See our website link on the right sidebar)

We are very grateful to our scholarship donors who have made it possible to award four scholarships this year:

Starr Siegele, Robin Woodard (Shirley Wynne Scholarship), Catherine Turocy (Shirley Wynne and Edith Rosenblatt Scholarships), Pantxoa Etchegoin, Michel and Marie-Jo Dulade-Coclet, Sandra Noll Hammond, Wendy Fuller Mora, Deidre Towers, Catherine Lee, Carol Teten and Marci Hall

We are also thankful to Harriet Berg in advising the committee.

Link to June scholarship announcement listing the other recipients

I. Shirley Wynne Scholarship, Dancer Ann Pidcock recipient

A new scholarship has been established in the name of Dr. Shirley Wynne (1928-2013). She was a dance historian, teacher, choreographer and stage director who pioneered recreations and reconstructions of Baroque dance in the United States as well as bringing these works to the stage.  Her first production of Jean Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion in 1969 with conductor, Alan Curtis, may have been the first staging in America.

Ann Pidcock in her own words:

II. Scholarship given in the name of Edith Rosenblatt, Dancer/Actress Francesca Bridge-Cicic recipient

From Catherine Turocy: Edith Rosenblatt (1925-2014) was a wonderful elementary school teacher , mother and mother-in-law.  I will always be grateful to my father-in-law, Edward Richman, for bringing Edie into our lives.  Lila Richman had died in 1999 and my own mother had passed away in 1997 and I had no mother of experience to talk to when facing questions of raising two boys. I will always be indebted to Edie for her love, kindness, compassion and common sense. She passed away in August of 2014 and this scholarship is given in her honor to mark this anniversary.

Francesca Bridge-Cicic

Francesca originally trained as a dancer at the Paris Conservatoire and continued her training at Drama Centre London and The Vahktangov Institute Moscow in classical acting. She works as a dancer, choreographer, movement director, director and actor worldwide. Theatre credits include: Company Member / Movement Director, Cannibal Valour Rep Season, Owle Schreame Theatre Company; Rosalind, As You Like It, RADA Studios & Stratford-Upon-Avon summer Shakespeare festival; Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s Globe; Sonya, Uncle Vanya, Vahktangov Studio Theatre, Moscow and Woman#1, Beckett’s, Play, The White Box Project; Film credits: Anastasia, Caviar II and Amanda, Essays in Love. Other credits include: Venus and Choreographer, Venus & Adonis, Kings Place, London; Solo Dancer, The Significance of Costumed-Bodies – A Study of Tanztheater Wuppertal, Dance Film, Principle Dancer, FlatPack an Opera in Ikea; Katherine, Running Spies, Talk Radio and Director, Hunting Cantata 208, by J.S. Bach, Stockholm Bach Festival. Francesca currently teaches movement for The Court Theatre Training Company.

III. Work/Study Scholarship, Dancer Althea Fultz, recipient

Althea will be the “on- location administrative assistant” when she is not busy taking classes at the workshop.  A former student of Regine Astier, she is fluent in French and easily reads Feuillet notation. She is also a multi-era dancer with a wide range of interests.  In her own words: ” Over the course of my life I have been involved in a variety dance genres, whether it be swing dancing, Baroque dance, Ballet, etc. I have developed a great appreciation for the historical aspect of dance; or maybe a better way to express it, is that I have found that the experience and understanding that develops for one type of dance, greatly informs the way one might approach another. One of the greatest intellectual (and physical) gifts anyone ever gave me was my experience with Baroque dance: I was taught not only technique and practicalities, but the notation and history behind the dances. Recently, I was able to decipher the Baroque notation for a dance called Ballo Secondo, as well as learn to dance it. The privilege of looking at and understanding a piece of art that no one has seen for centuries is inexpressibly rewarding. This joy of dance and interest in the intellectual aspect –for lack of a better word— sticks with me, and greatly increases the vim and physical control I have in other forms of dance. Therefore, I would like to take this workshop because, other than simple curiosity (the class on gestures particularly interests me), I feel that experiencing and thinking about a variety of dance forms exponentially increases the quality and enjoyment I find in dancing.”