sjDANCEco Opens 17th Season October 18 and 19, 2019 in San Jose

Photo by John Parencia

Features World Premiere, two West Coast Premieres, Company Premiere and Masterwork by José Limón.

Who: sjDANCEco presents

What: Etched in Time   

When: Friday and Saturday, October 18 and 19 at 8:00 pm.  

Where: California Theatre, 345 South First Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Why: sjDANCEco’s 2019-2020 season opens with a World Premiere, two West Coast Premieres, a Company Premiere, and a masterwork by José Limón. The program is performed to live music by San José Chamber Orchestra.  

Tickets: $45 to $70.

Saturday night’s VIP tickets are $100 and include entry to the after-show Gala with sjDANCEco dancers and choreographers.

Available online at www.sjdanceco.org or 408.520.9854 

More: The 17th Anniversary of sjDANCEco opens with “Etched in Time”, a program of modern dance featuring two new works that premiered in March at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.  Included on the program are a World Premiere based on the experiences of a DACA/Dreamer, a 1950 masterwork by José Limón, and a revival of a piece inspired by Nelson Mandela. This season also marks the 10th year of collaboration with conductor Barbara Day Turner and the San José Chamber Orchestra.  

The Dancers: Mario Barron, Maria Basile, Kevin Gaytan, Kelisha Gardeen, Sarah Hernandez, Katherine House, Hsiang-Hsiu Lin, David Le, Gabriel Mata, Danielle Sullivant, Ryan Tucker, and Jazmyn Turner with guest artists, Fred Mathews and Gary Masters.

The Program:

José Limón’s powerful 1950 masterwork “The Exiles” is a male-female duet inspired by John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost, set to Chamber Symphony No. 2, Opus 38 by Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian composer who emigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape the Nazis. (He began writing his Second Chamber Symphony in 1906 but did not complete it until 1939.) A version created by the composer will be played four hands on two pianos by Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi (ZOFO). The piece will be danced by Kelisha Gardeen and Gabriel Mata.

A World Premiere from choreographer Gabriel Mata entitled “This is where/I Begin...” is set to JENUWINE FLOW by Michael Wall. It is a solo work performed by Mata which is inspired by the plight of a Mexican/American DACA/Dreamer immigrant living in the United States. The piece addresses the current sociopolitical climate and civil unrest while using humor to engage in levity, optimism and hope.  NOTE: Very nice piece just published by IN DANCE magazine about Gabriel here: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/240090/2/#zoom=z 

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Hsiang-Hsiu Lin with music of the same name by Randall Thompson is based on the poem by Robert Frost, and performed by the San José Chamber Orchestra with the San José Choral Project.  It is danced by eight members of the company.  

Hsiang-Hsiu Lin will also present her Company Premiere of “Tomorrow”, set to ‘For All We Know’ written by J Fred Coots & Sam M Lewis. Danced by Katherine House.     

Maria Basile’s “Inner Edge” is a tribute to Nelson Mandela set to Piano Concerto by Michael Ching (1996) with piano soloist Michael Touchi. Danced by eight company members. 

“Etched in Time” is a group collaborative that explores the multi-generational experiences of the dancers. It is set to music by Jazon Escultura that was commissioned for the piece. The music was actually created AFTER the dance. It was a collaborative effort of Gary Masters, Barbara Day Turner and composer Escultura who together watched video of the dancers and then discussed how the music should sound. It was originally a “sound scape” computer-generated score, but has now been transcribed and will be performed live by the orchestra. Danced by Maria Basile, Kelisha Gardeen, Gary Masters, Gabriel Mata and Fred Mathews. 

ABOUT US

sjDANCEco is a year-round contemporary dance company based in San Jose, California that produces world premieres by its core and guest choreographers, and presents the very best of Contemporary and Classic Modern Dance and Masterpieces of the American Modern Dance Repertory. The company has also participated in International Dance Festivals in New York and Taipei and produces a FREE Spring Festival each year celebrating National Dance Week. sjDANCEco ignites the spirit of dance.