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, 4 male & 4 female 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 female dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2019

Until its dissolution as a medical diagnosis in the early 1950s, hysteria was considered a woman’s disease characterized by, among other things, erratic behavior, shortness of breath, insomnia and “a tendency to cause trouble for others”.  Thirty years later, feminists seized the term for themselves, reclaiming what was once a stigmatizing social smear into a rallying cry against systematic oppression. 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 convergent experiences that chisel away at notions of hysterical contagion to honor the legacy of those women who boldly rebelled in the face of subjugation.

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 female dancers

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

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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.

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.

Deeper Inscription

Choreography, light and costume design: Sidra Bell

Costume realization : Peishan Zhu Stinnett

Duration: 18 minutes, 5 female dancers

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

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2017

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Today for Now

Choreography: Yin Yue

Costume realization: Jaime Stinnett

Music: Janis Joplin

Duration: 16 minutes, 4 female dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater 2018

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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. 

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Chameleon

Choreography, costume, and lighting design: Itzik Galili

Costume realization: Jaime Stinnett

Duration: 10 minutes, 7 female dancers

Premiere date: 2008

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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.

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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, 12 female dancers

Premiere date May 2018

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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.

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