Gibney Company Launches 2022-2023 Performance Season
New York City Performances at New York City Center, New York Live Arts, and The Joyce Theater
Gibney Company to Embark on First National Tour to Nine Cities Across the U.S.
Season to Feature World Premieres from Tiffany Tregarthen & David Raymond and Yin Yue, the North American and Company Premiere of Johan Inger’s Bliss, and the Company Premiere of Ohad Naharin’s YAG
NEW YORK, NY, September 21, 2022—Gibney Company’s 2022-23 performance season begins tonight with its debut at New York City Center’s annual Fall for Dance Festival, which will feature the Company in the North American and Company premiere of Johan Inger’s Bliss (Sept. 21 and 22, 2022). The Company will then embark on its first national tour with stops in nine U.S. cities. In New York City, the Company returns to New York Live Arts with the Company premiere of Ohad Naharin’s YAG (Dec. 12-18, 2022) and a program featuring commissioned world premieres by Tiffany Tregarthen & David Raymond / Out Innerspace Dance Theatre and Yin Yue as well as Bliss at the Joyce Theater (May 16-23, 2023).
Gibney Company will perform in Dallas, TX (Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2022); Akron, OH (Oct. 8, 2022); Los Angeles, CA (Jan. 20, 2023); Lone Tree, CO (Jan. 27, 2023); Provo, UT (Feb. 3, 2023); Des Moines, IA (Feb. 23, 2023); Purchase, NY (March 11, 2023); Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (March 15, 2023) and Boston, MA (March 17-19, 2023). Performances will feature commissioned repertory including Yin Yue’s A Measurable Existence (2022),Sonya Tayeh’s OH COURAGE! (2021), and Rena Butler’s Lusus Naturae (2021), as well as Inger’s Bliss.
Gibney Company is a world-class contemporary dance company that presents a breadth of works by emerging and renowned choreographers. Based in New York City at Gibney, a dance and social justice organization founded by Gina Gibney in 1991, the Company underwent an ambitious expansion and reinvention in 2020 following a major gift from Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund. Over the past few years, Gibney Company has commissioned new works and is building a repertory for performances in New York and around the world. Gibney Company dancers, known as Artistic Associates, support the Gibney organization’s mission as both artists and activists, advancing artistry through performance while also leading entrepreneurial advocacy projects.
“Gibney Company’s evolution has been inspired by our vision of creating a contemporary dance company whose artists reflect a diversity of experiences and backgrounds,” said Gina Gibney. Founder, Director, and CEO of Gibney and Artistic Director of Gibney Company. “Our aim is to chart a path for the future of dance as a powerful art form and an act of meaningful expression, and to connect with audiences in New York and beyond.”
“Over the last two years, we’ve brought some of New York’s and the world’s most renowned choreographers into our studios to create new work, or to explore fresh dimensions in existing pieces,” said Gibney Company Director Gilbert T Small II. “We are inspired by their dedication to excellence and excited to share our artistry with new and diverse audiences.”
Artistic Associates for the 22-23 season are: Alexander Anderson, Scott Autry, Eddieomar Gonzalez Castillo, Alicia Delgadillo, Miriam Gittens, Zui Gomez, Eleni Loving, Jesse Obremski, Kevin Pajarillaga, Jordan Powell, Jie-Hung Connie Shiau, Jacob Thoman, Jake Tribus.
Repertory
WORLD PREMIERES
New Work by Tiffany Tregarthen & David Raymond / Out Innerspace Dance Theatre
Created by: Tiffany Tregarthen & David Raymond
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot
Video Light Design: Erik Chad
This new commission will highlight Out Innerspace Dance Theatre’s belief in the power of live performance, the body, dance, technology, and collaboration to inspire, challenge, change and connect us. Featuring rigorous, hyper-detailed movement, the work will meld dance and design into an inseparable and ambitious interdisciplinary collaboration. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
New Work by Yin Yue
Choreography: Yin Yue
Music: Ryan Lott of Son Lux
A new work created by Yin Yue in collaboration with sought-after composer Ryan Lott of Son Lux will be based on Yue’s ‘FOCO Technique™’ — a fusion of Chinese dance, folk, ballet, and contemporary dance movement. Son Lux, whose catalogue of work finds equilibrium between emotional intimacy and electronic constructions, will develop an original score of both recorded and live sound. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Bliss (2016 / Company Premiere 2022)
Choreography: Johan Inger
Music: Keith Jarrett– The Köln Concert, Part 1.
Lighting Design: Peter Lundin
Set Design: Johan Inger
Costume Design: Johan Inger and Francesca Messori
Commissioned by Aterballetto | World Premiere on March 23, 2016, Teatro Comunale Luciano
Pavarotti, Modena, Italy
Acclaimed Swedish choreographer Johan Inger’s Bliss is an ode to pianist Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, a legendary performance at The Opera House in Cologne, Germany, in 1975, which went on to become the best-selling solo album in jazz history.
This work was made possible by the generous support of Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund.
COMPANY PREMIERE
Yag (1996 / Company Premiere 2022)
Choreography: Ohad Naharin
Lighting & Stage Design: Maxim Warrat
Costumes: Eri Nakamura
Music: John Zorn / Music from the album Absinthe (Naked City), Gaetano Donizetti / Una furtiva lagrima sir D’amore, from the opera L’Elisir D’Amore (Jussi Bjoerling), John Taverner / In-Nomine, from the albums Rosa, Elizabethan Lute Music and Sixteenth Century Music for Viols, Ran Slavin / Bum Carib, from the album Thermo Swing; “Sweet and Sour”: Tommy shles Shaffir, from the book “Me and My little sister” by Dan Timor, Am Oved Publishers Ltd., 2003
Originally commissioned for Batsheva Dance Company | World Premiere, 1996, Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel Aviv
Hailed as one of the world’s preeminent contemporary choreographers, Ohad Naharin creates work that is distinguished by the use of his own innovative movement language called “Gaga.” Gaga employs dancers’ capacity for physical hyperawareness and experiments with various concepts of gesture, friction, release, tension, timing, gravity, and connectivity to produce multi-dimensional, instinctive movement. In Yag, six dancers gradually reveal an intriguing narrative through dance, speech, and visual symbolism. The audience is left to interpret the family dynamics at play, informed by the work’s audacious, curious, and imaginative staging.
This work was made possible by the generous support of Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund.
COMMISSIONED REPERTORY
Measurable Existence (World Premiere 2022)
Choreography: Yin Yue
Original Score: Rutger Zuydervelt
Lighting Design: Asami Morita
Costume Design: Christine Darch
In A Measurable Existence, Yin Yue delves into how we discover aspects of ourselves by discovering others. The moment we realize our journeys parallel, intersect, repel, or collide with others’ experiences, we begin a new understanding of our own existence that may frighten, challenge, and, at the same time, sustain us.
This work was made possible by the generous support of Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund.
OH COURAGE! (World Premiere 2021)
Choreography: Sonya Tayeh
Associate Choreographer: Jenn Freeman
Original Music: The Bengsons
Set Design: Rachel Hauck
Lighting Design: Asami Morita
Costume Design: Márion Talán de la Rosa
Costume Construction: Victoria Bek
OH COURAGE! is a piece about self-reflection, truth, and resilience. It is a soul march that navigates what occurs when there is a guttural need for change. In that need, there is a sense of euphoria in possibility, and a vivid mourning for what is being lost along the way. How do we create a sanctuary for both?
This work was made possible by the generous support of Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, and the Omomuki Foundation.
Lusus Naturae (World Premiere 2021)
Choreography: Rena Butler
Sound Design: Darryl J. Hoffman
Lighting Consulting: Asami Morita
Costume Conception: Hogan McLaughlin
Costume Construction: Kyle Pearson
Costume Coordinator: Victoria Bek
Text: Rena Butler
Choreographic Advisor: Kyle Abraham
Exploring her own questions around colonization and the process of decolonizing the self as a point of departure, this trio by Rena Butler reimagines and abstracts the narrative of the infamous film “King Kong,” and demystifies its iconic, monolithic title character.
Chronological Listing of Performances
September 21 & 22 at 8:00 p.m. | New York City
New York City Center, New York
Bliss by Johann Inger | Company and North American Premiere
Presented as part of the Fall for Dance Festival
September 30 & October 1 at 8:00 p.m. | Dallas, Texas
Moody Performance Hall, AT&T Performing Arts Center
October 8 at 7:30 p.m. | Akron, Ohio
E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall
Presented by Dance Cleveland
December 12 – 18 | New York City
New York Live Arts
YAG by Ohad Naharin | Company Premiere
January 20, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | Los Angeles, California
Bovard Auditorium
Presented by USC Visions and Voices
January 27, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. | Lone Tree, Colorado
Lone Tree Arts Center
February 3, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | Provo, Utah
Richards Building Theatre
Presented by BYUArts
February 23, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines Civic Center
March 11, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | Purchase, New York
PepsiCo Theater
Presented by The Performing Arts Center, Purchase College
March 15, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
EJ Thomas Hall, Bard College
March 17-19, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. | Boston, Massachusetts
Institute of Contemporary Art Boston
May 16 – 21, 2023 | New York City
The Joyce Theater
New Work by Yin Yue | World Premiere
Bliss by Johan Inger
Untitled by Tiffany Tregarthen & David Raymond | World Premiere
Support
Gibney Company is grateful for leadership support from Andrew A. Davis and the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund. The Company also receives generous support from The Bay & Paul Foundations, the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Con Edison, the Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Howard Gilman Foundation, Christopher Jones & Deb McAlister, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, the O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, the Omomuki Foundation, The Ready Foundation, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General of New York, the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, The SHS Foundation, Symbio Physiotherapy, and Timothy and Virginia Millhiser, among others. Gibney is additionally grateful for in-kind support from Symbio Physiotherapy and Winston & Strawn LLP.
About Gibney Company
Gibney Company, led by Artistic Director Gina Gibney and Director Gilbert T Small II, commissions and performs works by renowned and emerging choreographers from New York and around the world who are committed to exploring connections between the rigorous, often superhuman physicality of contemporary dance alongside responsive, humanistic storytelling. Presenting a broad range of aesthetics and techniques, Gibney Company has an unrelenting focus on artistic excellence and social integrity.
About Gibney
Founded by Gina Gibney in 1991, Gibney is a New York City-based performing arts and social justice organization that taps into the vast potential of movement, creativity, and performance to effect social change and personal transformation. Gibney deploys resources through three strategic and interwoven program areas: Gibney Center, a meeting ground for New York City’s artistic community comprising 23 studios and 5 performance spaces that provide critical space for training, rehearsal, professional development, performances, and convenings; Gibney Community, programs that use movement to help address a range of social issues with a focus on gender-based violence and its prevention; and Gibney Company, the organization’s resident dance ensemble. Gibney supports movement-based artists in every aspect of their creative development: classes, residencies, low-cost rental space, entrepreneurial training and incubation, presentation opportunities, commissioning, and operating a professional dance company.