Catherine Turocy stage directed Handel's opera. ORLANDO, for the Goettingen Handel Festival in Germany. With sold out houses and unending applause, this production may have future appearances in Europe. We will keep you informed! Bonnie Kruger is the costume designer and this is one of her sketches for the production.

The talented Nicholas McGegan conducted the Festival Orchestra of Goettingen (FOG) in this dramatic interpretation with William Towers as the mad Orlando, Dominique Labelle as the fickle Angelika, Susanne Ryden as the comic Dorinda, Diana Moore as the young Medoro and Wolf Matthias Friederich as the powerful Zoroastro.

Sarah Edgar was the sharp-eyed assistant to the stage director as well as a dancer, playing the genie of air and water and the shadow of Persephone. She was joined by the fiery Caroline Copeland who also portrayed a quivering Princess Isabella, and Alan Jones and Jason Melms who spent the whole opera in remarkable Fire Salamander masks designed by Jane Stein. Our trusty production assistant who never missed a beat was Leonie Wener.

Of course we could not be a success without our supers who played Cupid (Christian Hauke Poensgen) and the lovers (Franziska Poensgen, Selen Erdogmus, Marc Duck and Florian Hallaschka).

Scott Blake designed the wonderful sets and Pierre Dupouey transformed the stage with his lighting design. The last performance ( of 6 ) is this coming Monday, May 12th. So if you are in Germany, fly to Goettingen on a dragon to catch this unusual production!

The Squirrel vs. The Gondoliers; or, why you shouldn't get your PhD in Venice

This is an example of the super-fat-completely-unafraid-of-humans squirrels that The New York Baroque Dance Company had to contend with during our residency at Cornell University. They stalked every tree-lined path on campus for students dreamily looking at the sky and thinking about Heidigger with mufins poking out of their pockets. Then they would strike!! Oh, the horror.When not avoiding these fiends, we spent our time making the adorably funny commedia dell'arte show, Harlequin's Capers. You can read all about it (along with fabulous background information about baroque dance) here in the Ithaca Journal.

After the performance, I went directly to Trieste, Italy for the last installment of The Fairy Queen. I was so happy to see my Italian friends again , and in addition to the joy of jumping around on the stage like a maniac again, allow me to list the other highlights:

1. going to Miramare Castle to smell that special parterre garden air and see a nineteenth century toilet

2. during aperitivo time, eating hand-sliced chunks of prosciutto cotto and drinking good local wine (although I have to admit that I also drank really BAD wine there, too) and then deciding that dinner was unnecessary

3. drinking coffee in a tiny pastry shop where the owner told us all about the supreme goodness of the Illy family

After the shows were over (I only cried a little bit during the last bows), I met Jeremy in Venice!! We had a lovely time, and it was hilarious how both the Italians and the Americans would say "oh, so romantic" when I told them of our plans. It was suitably romantic, but still awfully touristy even in the lowest of the low season. We were quite lucky that it didn't rain because in November there is always the threat of the canals overflowing, called "aqua alta".

Jeremy and I hit all the hot spots: San Marco, where we saw a poor girl being attacked by pigeons (on purpose, her parents were laughing and taking pictures, and she was quite a sport), the Rialto Bridge, the 18th. century museum, etc. etc. We were good tourists and didn't even get lost too much.

Our favorite things:(lists are so much easier than paragraphs)

1. Sarde in Saor, a Venitian speciality of whole sardines served cold with white wine, sweet onions, pine nuts, and raisins (watch out! I may try to make this!!)

2. seeing boats that deliver all of the food, etc. into the city, along with the garbage boats and ambulance boats-- there are no cars!!

3. We always ate Tramezzini (tiny sandwiches with different fillings) for lunch.

4. lots of quiet walks down narrow, twisting streets

Now, to explain the title. We happened upon a strange ritual near the University-- a girl appeared to have just received her PhD, and she was standing in front a huge poster with lots of tiny print and a picture of her swinging through the trees as a monkey. She was wearing padded hot-pants and a tube on her head, and while she tried to read the tiny text of the poster, her friends shouted "Drink!", threw eggs, and squirted her with ketchup and milk. The next day we saw the same thing happening to a boy, so this was no isolated incident. Ha! I can't believe I missed my chance to squirt ketchup at Jeremy. Posted by Sarah at 4:54 AM

Printemps des Arts de Nantes

June 16....Well, it is finally arriving! We are off to Nantes to celebrate the 300th birthday of Marie Sallé at the conference in her honor organized by the Printemps des Arts de Nantes this June 19 and 20th. I will be speaking about the dance technique required to perform her dances and will be joined by Sarah Edgar. With many thanks to the Florence Gould Foundation for covering our travel expenses... we will be joining Rachel, Patricia,Glenda, Jason, Terry and Seth in Paris for the international dance conference at the CND (Centre National de la Danse) where I am lecturing (they are demonstrating!) on training today's dancers in Baroque technique. Of course we will find time to visit Versailles and the Paris Opera, stop in a cafe on the left Bank, visit the rare book shops and get lost in a few museums. Au revoir!

Homage to Marie Sallé

Our concert, Homage to Marie Sallé, included major choreographic works by her and was a huge artistic undertaking by the company. Partially supported by commissions from the Music Festival of Sansoucis in Potsdam, Germany , the work was praised by national and international press. All music, as usual, was played by period instrument orchestras. Excerpts from this concert will be presented at the Hillwood Museum and Garden in Washington D.C., this July 14th and 15th, in honor of Salle’s 300th birthday with music by Opera Lafayette.

Ongoing projects for the NYBDC include Battlefields and Ballrooms, which creates performance and educational dance programs for historical sites. Our first performance was for the re-opening of Federal Hall in NYC this past October and marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship with Federal Hall and the Conservancy of National Parks of New York Harbor as well as a new presence for the NYBDC in lower Manhattan.

 

NYBDC at Federal Hall Opening, Photo by Julie Lemberger

The Monteverdi to Mozart Project, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, has documented Invisible Dances and Mozart's only ballet, Les Petits Riens. The ballets are to be promoted as historical repertoire for mainstream dance companies in the professional and university fields with the aim to include these works in their own repertoire much as a symphony orchestra season includes works of Bach and Mozart alongside later and contemporary composers.

Future plans include the Historical Dance Summer Workshop to be held annually at Goucher College . This workshop consists of a weekend intensive exploration of ball and country dances from Shakespeare’s time to Jane Austen’s, as well as a professional studies week for choreographers, dancers and teachers.

Anchorage Daily News, October 3, 2006

The New York Baroque Dance Company, guest artist with the Anchorage Symphony
by Anne Herman

..."New York Baroque Dance Company Artistic Director Catherine Turocy re-choreographed the work (Les Petits Riens) to Mozart's music, using ideas steps and poses from late 18th century dance. The result Saturday was a delightfully silly and beautifully rendered interpretation of Baroque dance.

A rather bawdy romp for Cupid and several young lovers, the ballet captured both the gentility of upper class French Baroque dance and its earthier aspects. When the performers weren't chasing one another around or flirting madly with the wrong person, they offered up a grace and precision of gesture and step that was lovely.

Their Baroque movements were precursors to Romantic ballet, and this can be seen in many ways- in a male dancer rising slowly on demi-pointe, his other leg stretched elegantly behind; in a female' dancer's gentle placement of an upturned palm on a cheek; and in a somewhat demure male glance at a well-placed toe peeking out from under a skirt. Little hops, turns and delicately fleet footwork wove complex floor patterns that echoed Mozart's musical intricacies."

Federal Hall performance

Federal Hall, Timothy Wilson

Contributed by Rachel

Caroline and Catherine have been hard at work on this project and on Oct. 6, eight dancers and three musicians presented "An Entertaining Assembly for George Washington" as part of the re-opening celebration of Federal Hall in lower Manhattan. Federal Hall is a beautiful 18th century building that was the site of George Washington's inauguration. Dances presented in the beautifully restored Rotunda included a Fancy Minuet, La Bretagne, The Louver (L'Aimable Vainqueur), La Nouvelle Yorck, and George Washington's Favourite Cotillion. The presentation ended with a lively game of Blind Man's Buff performed to the tune and lyrics of Yankee Doodle sung by our "master of ceremonies" Paul Shipper.

Anchorage, Alaska

Rachel List, Catherine Turocy and Sarah Edgar

Catherine Turocy and Patricia Beaman

Jason Melms

Sarah Edgar and Jason Melms


Contributed by Rachel

On Sept. 26, six NYBDC members left New York on quite an adventure. We were to travel to Anchorage, Alaska to perform Catherine Turocy's ballet "Les Petits Riens" with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. Arriving in Anchorage after a very long journey, we were met at the airport by Catherine and Board member, Peter Brown, who had been the Artistic Director of the Anchorage Opera Company for ten years. Peter was very pleased to be able to introduce us to the city and to the beautiful area surrounding it. It was cloudy and rainy for the first couple of days we were there, so we really only took in the waterfront at first. But then, when the clouds lifted, we were amazed to see majestic, snow-capped mountains surrounding us on three sides. Peter and his friend, Ellen, organized an outing to nearby Portage Glacier and we were able to take in more of the amazing natural landscape on our drive. Once we got into rehearsals with the orchestra, we were very happy to get to know our conductor, Randall Craig Fleischer. He was extremely attentive to the needs of the dancers and very energetic in his leading of the orchestra! The theater was very large and seemed to be practically sold-out for both shows. But the most important thing, as far as we dancers were concerned, was that the audience started laughing and enjoying themselves from the moment Cupid was placed upon the table at the beginning of the piece until all three couples were happily united at the end. Thank you, Anchorage!