Director's Choice Main Page March 13–22, 2008 About the Artists Ulysses Dove Choreographer, PNB Premiere Vespers Ulysses Dove was an independent choreographer who worked in both the modern dance and ballet idioms. After attending a Martha Graham performance in 1967, Dove gave up his pre-med studies at Howard University to dance professionally with Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, and Anna Sokolow. His first choreography, I See the Moon...and the Moon Sees Me (1979), was commissioned by Ailey. Although he never maintained a company of his own, Dove worked closely with Jeraldyne Blunden's Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and created works for American Ballet Theatre, Ballet France de Nancy, the Basel Ballet, Cullberg Ballet of Sweden, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, New York City Ballet, and the Swedish National Ballet, for which he created the transcendent Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven (1993). In 1980, he became the assistant director of the experimental Choreographic Research Group of the Paris Opera. Ulysses Dove died in 1996. William Forsythe Choreographer, One Flat Thing, reproduced As an American working internationally for the last thirty years, William Forsythe is recognized as one of the world's foremost choreographers. His work is celebrated for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire into a dynamic 21st-century art form. Raised and principally trained in New York, Forsythe arrived on the European dance scene in his early 20s as a dancer and eventually as Resident Choreographer of the Stuttgart Ballet. At the same time he also created new works for ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as Director of the Frankfurt Ballet where he created many of the most celebrated dance theatre works of our time, such as The Loss of Small Detail (1991) in collaboration with composer Thom Willems and designer Issey Miyake. Other key works from the Frankfurt Ballet years include Gänge (1982), Artifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb's Theorem (1990), A L I E/N A(C)TION (1992), Eidos:Telos (1995), Endless House (1999) and Kammer/Kammer (2000). Forsythe's choreography and his companies' performances have won overwhelming audience acclaim and the most prestigious awards the field has to offer, such as the Bessie (1988, 1998, 2004), Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999), Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (1999), the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997) and the Wexner Prize (2002). He has been chosen as Choreographer Of The Year several times by the international critics' survey. After the closure of the Frankfurt Ballet in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble—The Forsythe Company—founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors. Forsythe's most recent creations are developed and performed exclusively by the new company while his previous work is prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world. Forsythe's choreographic thinking has engaged with and contributed to the most significant international artistic currents of our time, from performance and visual arts to architecture and interactive multimedia. Paul Gibson PNB Ballet Master since 2004. Choreographer, Sense of Doubt Paul Gibson, former Principal dancer with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, joined PNB in 1994 as a Soloist and was promoted to the rank of Principal in 1996. His choreographic work includes two world premieres for PNB (Rush, 2002; Diversions, 1998) and works for PNB School's Professional Division in the Annual School Performance. After the premiere of Rush, Mikko Niasson (artistic director of Boston Ballet) nominated Gibson to participate in the New York Choreographic Institute where he created a new ballet, titled E.R.A.R., that premiered in PNB's 2004 Choreographers' Showcase. Other works include ballets for San Francisco Ballet School, the San Francisco Ballet Choreographic Workshop, and the Allegheny Ballet Company. From Altoona, PA, Mr. Gibson began ballet training at the Allegheny Ballet Academy in Pennsylvania, and later supplemented his studies with summer programs at the School of American Ballet in New York. He won a scholarship at San Francisco Ballet School, where he ultimately joined the company in 1988 as an apprentice and became a full member within months. His six-year tenure at SFB brought exposure to a vast and varied repertoire ranging from Russian classics to the innovative works of Mark Morris, William Forsythe, Helgi Tomasson, James Kudelka, and Jiri Kylian. During his performing career with PNB Mr. Gibson was known for his many roles in the Balanchine repertory, including Agon, The Four Temperaments, Chaconne, Mozartiana and A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as his mastery of contemporary pieces by a variety of choreographers such as Nacho Duato, José Limón, Kevin O' Day, Lynne Taylor-Corbett and the works of PNB artistic director Kent Stowell. He has also enjoyed considerable success as a touring artist, highlighted by his April 1997 performance of Val Caniparolli's Lambarena at the Benois Prize gala at the National Theatre of Warsaw in Poland. Mr. Gibson was named Assistant Ballet Master immediately upon retirement from the Company in June 2004. Edwaad Liang Choreographer, Für Alina Edwaard Liang was born in Taipei, Taiwan. He was raised in Marin County, California, and began his ballet training at the age of five at Marin Ballet. In 1989 Mr. Liang entered the School of American Ballet. He joined New York City Ballet in the spring of 1993, and that same year he was a medal winner at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition and the Mae L. Wien Award. He was promoted to soloist in 1998. Mr. Liang danced with New York City Ballet until 2001, when he joined the Broadway cast of Fosse, performing a leading role. In 2002 Mr. Liang became a member of the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater, where he danced, choreographed and staged ballets. After returning from Holland, Mr. Liang returned to New York City Ballet until 2007. Mr. Liang has also performed as a guest artist with varies companies, including the Norwegian National Ballet and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Edwaard Liang has choreographed a number of works, beginning with Flight of Angels for the Nederlands Dans Theater workshop. Flight of Angels has since been staged for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and Configurations. Mr. Liang was invited to choreograph a piece for the 2004 New York Choreographic Institute and also choreographed a work for Cedar Lake Dance Company. His Distant Cries, performed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Peter Boal and Wendy Whelan, was premiered to rave reviews from the New York Times at the Joyce Theatre, New York City Ballet and City Center of Music and Drama. Mr. Liang has since choreographed ballets for companies and projects, including New York City Ballet, Shanghai Ballet, Hubbard Street, Guggenheim Museum's Works and Process series, Sadler's Wells Theatre and Christopher Wheeldon's Morphoses company. He was named one of the "Top 25 to Watch" for 2006 by Dance Magazine, won the 2006 National Choreographic Competition and was invited to be part of the 2007 National Choreographers Initiative. Phillip Glass Composer, Sense of Doubt Born in Baltimore, Philip Glass studied the violin and flute, and obtained early admission to the University of Chicago. After graduating in mathematics and philosophy, Glass went to New York's Juilliard School, drove a cab and studied composition with Darius Milhaud and others. At 23, he moved to Paris to study under the legendary Nadia Boulanger. While there, he discovered Indian classical music while transcribing the works of Ravi Shankar into Western musical notation. A creative turning point, Glass researched non-Western music in India and parts of Africa, and applied the techniques to his own composition. Back in the United States, Glass spent the late 1960s and early 1970s creating a major collection of new music. In 1976 his landmark opera Einstein on the Beach was staged by Robert Wilson to a baffling variety of reviews. His compositions were so avant-garde that he had to form the Philip Glass Ensemble to give them a venue for performance. Although called a minimalist by the Western classical mainstream, he denies this categorization. His major works include opera, theater pieces, film soundtracks, dance and song. Glass remains one of the most important American composers. More recently, a major reexamination of Glass's oeuvre has led him to be labeled The Last Romantic by the musical press. Arvo Pärt Composer, Für Alina Estonian composer Arvo Pärt attended the Tallinn Music School and, after two years of compulsory national service, continued his studies at the Tallinn Conservatory. As a student, Pärt worked as a recording engineer for Estonian Radio, composed for the stage and received commissions for film scores. Upon graduation in 1963, he was already considered a professional composer. Living in a Soviet country, Pärt had little exposure contemporary Western music. Despite this artistic and intellectual isolation, Pärt broke from the neo-classical tradition and became the first Estonian composer to adopt serialism, collage and other avant garde compositional techniques in the 1960's. Some of his works received critical praise while others were banned, and Pärt retreated into periods of self-imposed silence. In 1976 he re-merged from one such period radically transformed having invented a new technique, "tintinnabuli" (from Latin, little bells)—which he premiered in the short piano piece Für Alina. He then created an abundance of new works, including some of his best known and most highly regarded: Fratre Cantus, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa. Frustrated by the Soviet regime, Pärt and his wife immigrated to Vienna, Austria, with their two sons in 1980. They soon moved to West Berlin where he still resides. Pärt continues to compose, primarily focused on setting religious texts. He has been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1996), was nominated as the International Composer for the year by the Royal Academy of Music in London (2000) and received the "Contemporary Music Award" at the Classical Brit Awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London (2003). Mikel Rouse Composer, Vespers Mikel Rouse was born in 1957 in St. Louis, Missouri. A composer of New York's Downtown post-minimalist movement, his music is associated with the sub-genre of totalism, which integrates the harmonic complexity of classical European style with the rhythm and texture of African and Asian music and, particularly, rock. Rouse's numerous recordings span a variety of genres from pop to electronic. Quorum, for Linn drum machine (1984), was used for the late choreographer Ulysses Dove's Vespers (1987). In 1989, Rouse began composition of the opera Failing Kansas (1994), inspired by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which premiered at The Kitchen in New York. He has since completed the remaining two works in this opera trilogy, Dennis Cleveland (1996) and The End of Cinematics (2001). Other works include Book One, a book of nine string quartets; Quick Thrust, a twelve-tone rock piece, and Two Paradoxes Resolved, a piano suite. Thom Willems Composer, One Flat Thing, reproduced Dutch composer Thom Willems has collaborated with William Forsythe since 1984 and has composed the scores for more than 40 ballets. Ayman Harper Stager, One Flat Thing, reproduced Ayman Aaron Harper was born in Clear Lake City, Texas, in 1979 and trained with Bay Area Houston Ballet and Theater while attending Houston's High School for the Performing & Visual Arts. He danced with Hubbard Street's trainee program before joining Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Mr. Harper then moved to Holland to join Nederlands Dans Theatre II and currently resides with The Forsythe Company, under the direction of William Forsythe. He has choreographed Bedfears;Dreampiles for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, as well as works for Nederlands Dans Theatre ll and Hubbard Street ll. Jill Johnson Stager, One Flat Thing, reproduced Dancer Jill Johnson's fusion of classical purity with modern physical grace has brought her to stages around the globe. A graduate of the National Ballet School, she was a soloist with National Ballet of Canada and principal dancer with Ballet Frankfurt. She has staged William Forsythe's ballets for companies worldwide, including Norwegian National Ballet, State Opera Ballet Munich, Paris Opera Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Italy's Alterballetto, Netherlands Dans Theater, Israel's Batsheva Dance Company, National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre. Recently commissioned to design and lead a dance workshop series at the Baryshnikov Center, Johnson has a residency teaching monthly master workshops at Cedar Lake in New York City. She is adjunct faculty at the Juilliard School, has taught master classes at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and The Alvin Ailey School, and choreographs for television and film. Richard Siegal Stager, One Flat Thing, reproduced Richard Siegal is the founder of The Bakery (2002), an organization dedicated to the exploration and production of contemporary performance. Siegal danced with William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt from 1997 through its final season in 2004. During his tenure, he was named "Outstanding Dancer" by Balletanz's Annual Critics' Survey (1998, 2000, 2003). His own choreography was presented three times by Ballett Frankfurt, most recently in the 2002 trilogy, x(evening). His other numerous works have been performed by companies in New York and throughout Europe. Prior to 1997, Siegal lived and worked in New York City, where he danced in the companies of Doug Elkins, Zvi Gotheiner, Janis Brenner, Robin Staff, Muna Tseng, Sin Cha Hong and Mark Dendy. He is on faculty of D.A.N.C.E. and at American Dance Festival, for which he also curates an annual Forsythe Festival. Nasha Thomas-Schmitt Stager, Vespers Nasha Thomas-Schmitt gained national and international attention as a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AADF), where she danced for 12 years. She performed two of Alvin Ailey's most famous ballets, Cry and Pas de Duke, which were originally created for the company's current artistic director, Judith Jamison, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. As Co-Director of Arts In Education & Community Programs for the AADF, Thomas-Schmitt works to establish partnerships and implement dance education residencies with schools and organizations, hires and supervises teaching artists, and informs the Ailey organization of current education trends, concerns, and opportunities. As National Director of AileyCamp for the AADF, she works with local communities to develop AileyCamps across the nation. A 1980 recipient of the prestigious Presidential Scholar of the Arts award, Thomas–Schmitt is also a graduate of Southern Methodist University and of New York's High School of the Performing Arts.