together apart

 

Choreography and visual design by Jessie Jeanne Stinnett with the performers

Performers: Gabriela M. Amy-Moreno, Isvel Bello, Olivia Coombs, Khris Henry, Henoch Spinola (also Project Manager)

Videography by Ernesto Galan / Scalped Productions

Original music by Grant Stinnett

Costumes and set design by Zane Kealey

Commissioned by Goethe-Institut Boston 2021

 

Prompted by Goethe-Institut Boston’s newly appointed director Christoph Mücher to imagine a coming together again post COVID-19, BDT founder/co-director Jessie Jeanne Stinnett teams up with videographer Ernesto Galan, costume and set designer Zane Kealey, composer Grant Stinnett, and the dance artists of Boston Dance Theater to envision a dance installation created for film. Informed by documentary interviews sourced from 1989 Germany following the collapse of the Berlin wall, an event that sparked a complex process of healing and reunification, Stinnett and her collaborators explore connections between those stories and their experiences of the ongoing effects of the pandemic. 

Ofrenda

 

Choreography by Rosie Herrera in collaboration with the performers

Performers: Gabriela M. Amy-Moreno, Isvel Bello, Olivia Coombs, Khris Henry, Jessie Jeanne Stinnett

Music: Carol Kaye, Mel Carter, The Beach Boys, Barbra Striesand, Vikki Carr, David Axelrod, Arca

Costumes design and realization by Zane Kealey

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2021

 

'Ofrenda' is the second work commissioned for BDT's Carol Kaye Project. While Cuban American choreographer Rosie Herrera has intentionally left her work with no official description, hallmarks of her playful yet spiritually resonant choreographic practice seep through via images of motherhood, desire, sacrifice, and ‘just getting on with it’. The longest section of the work is a solo in which the performer wears layers and layers of clothing which seem to take forever to remove, and to reveal what lies beneath.

For the Record

 

Choreography: Rena Butler

Costume design & realization : Zane Kealey

Music: Kendrick Lamar, Frank & Nancy Sinatra, Carol Kaye

Duration: 14 minutes, 6 dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2020

 

"For the Record" is a work that examines the discography of bass musician Carol Kaye, and the scale of her contributions and influence from the past until now. The work references repeated patterns and the various ways a patriarchal society often overlooks substantial voices by othering them.

Shadows & Flame

 

Choreography by Jessie Jeanne Stinnett with the performers

Performers: Gabriela M. Amy-Moreno, Isvel Bello, Olivia Coombs, Khris Henry, Henoch Spinola

Film by Ernesto Galan / Scalped Productions

Original music by Grant Stinnett

Costumes by Zane Kealey

Commissioned by: Museum of Fine Arts + Jewish Arts Collaborative in 2020

 

“Shadows and Flame” is a co-commission by the Jewish Arts Collaborative and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston for their annual Hanukkah celebration. Co-director Jessie Jeanne Stinnett had originally been asked to choreograph a dance work that would live in the gallery space for an audience of 3,000 people. The project shifted however, in favor of a dance film collaboration with Ernesto Galan of Scalped Productions, where dancers can be viewed from only a single light source and the light and shadow of their dancing bodies is at play. Grant Stinnett, Jessie’s brother, composed the score for this work, creating a tone scale that references traditional Hebrew folk songs.

Memories

 

Choreography, lighting, and costume design: Itzik Galili

Choreographer Assistant: Elisabeth Gibiat

Costume realization : Zane Kealey

Music: Kodo, Gavin Bryars, Percossa

Duration: 15 minutes, 5 dancers, 

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2019 

Supported in part by the Israeli Consulate to New England

 

Co-Artistic Director, Itzik Galili looks back on his illustrious choreographic career with "Memories", collaging movement phrases from earlier dances with text he wrote over a decade ago into a new work fashioned specifically for the women artists of BDT.

I had a thought

 

Choreography: Micaela Taylor

Assistant to the choreographer: Jessie Lee Thorne 

Music: Mika Vainio, Max Richter, Vazio 

Costume realization : Zane Kealey

Duration: 15 mins, 5 dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2019

​

“I had a thought” is inspired by the integrity of trying to stick with the task at hand, not allowing distractions to take you off course. To quote Joshua Rothman,  author for The New Yorker: “Like typing, Googling, and driving, distraction is now a universal competency. We’re all experts.” In her commission from Boston Dance Theater (BDT), choreographer Micaela Taylor creates a space for the artists of BDT to dig in and focus on the process of the work unfolding. This process is a direct response to our urbanized, high-tech, 21st century Western society which seems to be designed to distract us.

Peekaboo

 

Choreography: Marco Goecke

Dramaturgy: Nadja Kadel

Costume design: Thomas Lempertz 

Costume realization : Zane Kealey

Assistant to the choreographer: Ryan Lawrence

Lighting Design: Udo Haberland

Music: “Simple Symphony”, “H.Y.V.A.” and “Sininen Ja Valkoinen”

Composers: Benjamin Britten, Mieskuoro Huutajat

Duration: 18 mins 36 secs, 8 dancers

Supported in part by Goethe Institut Boston

Premiere Date: April 16, 2013 by Sao Paulo Dance Company at Movimentos - Festwochen der Autostadt, Wolfsberg, Germany

 

In "Peekaboo", the German choreographer Marco Goecke deals with the act of hiding and revealing in an exciting way. The title refers to a childish game well known to children: the person peeks, hides his/her face and suddenly reappears and says, ‘found’ or ‘boo’. In the work, Britten’s symphony combined with the sound of the Finnish choir Huutajat, shows contrasts: while talking about fantasy, it brings out the fears and loneliness of each dancer. The cast alternates in solos, duos, trios and ensembles, the movement is fast and accurate and the performers mysteriously appear and disappear from the scene. “Everything is a matter to be lost and found”, says the choreographer. (Written by Nadja Kadel)

Women on the Verge

 

Choreography: Shannon Gillen

Costume design & realization : Zane Kealey

Assistants to the choreographer: Jason Reese Cianciulli, Kiley Dolaway

Music: Lorelei Ensemble

Composers: David Lang & Mary Montgomery Koppel

Duration: 13minutes, 4 dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2019

 

Accompanied by the nationally acclaimed voices of Boston’s own all-woman vocal group the Lorelei Ensemble, Shannon Gillen’s newly commissioned work for Boston Dance Theater “Women on the Verge” hones in on four divergent voices. Gillen blends her interest in the theatrical devices of cinematic with physical, risk-taking choreography. In "Women on the Verge" Gillen creates a temporal landscape that is at once full-bodied and reflective of womanhood.

New Dances for Goethe Institut

 

Choreography: Jessie Jeanne Stinnett

in collaboration with the dancers

Costume design & realization : Zane Kealey

Music: Stockhausen, Schumann, Bach, Praetorius, von Bingen, Mundry

Duration: 45 minutes, 12 dancers

Commissioned by Goethe Institut Boston in 2019

​

The premiere of this site-specific work has been delayed due to COVID-19 health and safety precautions. It will premiere when it is once again safe to assemble at Goethe-Institut Boston https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/bos.html

Music selections curated by Jeffrey Means (Sound Icon)

Filmed on location by Troy Ewing

Man of the Hour (excerpt)

 

Choreography, light and costume design: Itzik Galili

Costume realization : Peishan Zhu Stinnett

Assistant to the choreographer: Inbar Tanzer

Music: Henry Purcell

Duration: 15 minutes, 8 dancers

Supported by: Live Arts Boston, The Boston Foundation with support from the Barr Foundation

 

Conceived in 2015 as a co-production between the Israeli Opera and Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance, award winning choreographer Itzik Galili’s Man of the Hour is an evening length work for 8 men accompanied by a live operatic score by Henry Purcell. The BDT commission marks the first and only time that Man of the Hour (excerpt) has been set on a cast comprised exclusively of women, smashing socially accepted notions of physicality and igniting raw individuality at the brink of exhaustion in service of group power. This excerpt has been generously supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts and The Boston Foundation in partnership with The Barr Foundation.

Deeper Inscription

 

Choreography, light and costume design: Sidra Bell

Costume realization : Peishan Zhu Stinnett

Duration: 18 minutes, 5 dancers

Supported by: The Boston Foundation with support from the Barr Foundation.

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2017

 

In this new work for 5 women, New York-based choreographer Sidra Bell intertwines nuanced phrase work, supple spines, and movement research in service of collaborative language building. Lauded as thought provoking, identity focused, and exploding with creativity by the Pittsburgh Examiner, Bell creates space for the generation of shared vocabulary, utilizing structural systems that build work capable of both looking forward and referencing itself. Deeper Inscription has been sustained in part by The Boston Foundation in partnership with The Barr Foundation.

Today for Now

 

Choreography: Yin Yue

Costume realization: Jaime Stinnett

Music: Janis Joplin

Duration: 16 minutes, 4 dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2018

​

Set to the music of iconic singer/songwriter Janis Joplin, Yin Yue’s Today for Now explores a meeting of inner sensitivity and outward wildness. Vigorously physical and unapologetically loud, the work unveils a tribe of dancers tasked with driving one another forward as they join forces to celebrate an unbroken lineage of upstanding women. 

Chameleon

 

Choreography, costume, and lighting design: Itzik Galili

Costume realization: Jaime Stinnett

Duration: 10 minutes, 7 dancers

Premiere date: 2008

​

In Chameleon, Itzik Galili challenges the female dancers to show their versatility through a continuous metamorphosis. This work is a suggestive exercise in the revelation of the feminine being. The nuances of the music by John Cage are gently emphasized by the

choreography.

peg•puff

 

Choreography, light and costume design: Jessie Jeanne Stinnett 

in collaboration with BDT dancers

Costume realization : Jessie Jeanne Stinnett and Jaime Stinnett

Duration: 15 minutes

Premiere date May 2018

​

The outlandish Scottish noun peg•puff denotes a young woman with the manners of an old woman. Calling upon a cast of caricatures, Jessie Jeanne Stinnett’s latest work disrupts chronology, allowing youth and age to interact in service of a body remembering itself.

Little Match Girl Passion

 

Choreography and costume design: Jessie Jeanne Stinnett

in collaboration with BDT dancers

Costume realization : Jamie Stinnett

Music: David Lang (2008 Pulitzer Prize)

Duration: 35 minutes, 4 dancers, 4 musicians/vocalists

Premiere date April 2018

Supported by: Boston Cultural Council

Commissioned by Emmanuel Music 2018

 

An interdisciplinary work commissioned by Emmanuel Music, with Emily Marvosh (contralto),  for the Late Night at Emmanuel concert series. David Lang’s Pulitzer-Prize-Winning the little match girl passion tells an everyday story in a hauntingly simple way. The human story of a starving girl freezing to death is framed within, and brilliantly juxtaposed with the divine St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach. If Bach’s masterpiece is less familiar to you, this intimate performance will spark your curiosity and introduce you to the heartbreaking themes of this eternal story.