SEASON 2022
Carol/Karole
Choreography: Karole Armitage
Costume design & realization: Zane Kealey, Grace Saathoff
Music: Sonny & Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Lalo Schifrin, Carol Kaye
Duration: 12:42 minutes, 5 dancers
Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2022
My dance is an homage to Carol Kaye. I discovered her genius thanks to Jessie Stinnett who dreamed up Boston Dance Theater's Carol Kaye project. Carol possesses that rare artistic ability to combine the highest level of innovation and sophistication with something so natural and fundamental that it almost goes unnoticed. Her music attracts you like a magnet and so that you don't even know what is happening to you. It is, in the deepest sense, truly populist and accessible while operating at a rarified level. I sought to create a lively, fun, and serious work through four of her iconic songs. Carol/Karole addresses the cultural context of the worlds of motown, pop, tv series and movies while exploring a new dance vocabulary and diving deeply into the way dance relates to music. It is set in motion by a situation - a performance art like collage of amps, chairs, instruments, and bits of costume. Dance is a force of pleasure, a force of life and carries with it the nuances of culture. The way that dancers move, the way that a dancer's inner life is registered as they feel movement and hear the music, the way dancers relate to each other - these differences and subtilites create a world on stage that mirrors the world of the audience. I hope the audience finds enjoyment in listening, looking and feeling. –Karole Armitage
SEASON 2021
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
Music: Carol Kaye, Mel Carter, The Beach Boys, Barbra Striesand, Vikki Carr, David Axelrod, Arca
Duration: 23 minutes, 5 dancers
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.
SEASON 2020
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.
SEASON 2019
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
After being delayed from 2019 due to building renovations and the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston Dance Theater and Sound Icon presented the in-person world premiere of “New Dances for Goethe-Institut” in 2022, a site-specific work that takes place over the five floors of the historic headquarters of Goethe-Institut Boston. BDT founder and co-artistic director Jessie Jeanne Stinnett collaborates with Artistic Director of Sound Icon Ensemble Jeffrey Means to create the new work, accompanied by live music. Music selections are from famous German composers spanning Germany’s musical history.
Filmed on location by Troy Ewing
SEASON 2018
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
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, one of Itzik Galili's staple pieces of repertoire created in Holland, he challenges the dancers to show their versatility through a continuous metamorphosis. Gestures come and go, characters appear and dissolve. The nuances of the music by John Cage are gently emphasized by the
choreography.
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.
