Festival Ballet Providence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 14, 2008

Festival Ballet Providence, 401.353.1129

Up CLOSE, on HOPE
Program 2: Four Weekends of Thrilling Dance
March 2008
Dance so near you can touch it!

Providence, RI -

Program:	Up CLOSE on HOPE, program II performances
Date:	March 8, 15, 16, 22, 29, 2008
Time:	Saturdays at 7:30, Sunday at 6:00 pm
Place:	Festival Ballet Providence Black Box Theater, 825 Hope Street, Providence, RI
Cost:	$40, includes performance and intermission wine and hors d’oeuvres
Program:	Includes numerous contemporary ballets in an intimate setting, by choreographers including, Colleen Cavanaugh, Mark Harootian, Viktor Plotnikov, Giani Di Marco and newcomer Avichai Scher, performed by the Company’s international roster of dancers.
Information	Vist www.festivalballet.com , write info@festivalballet.com or call 401.353.1129.

Festival Ballet Providence’s award-winning series, Up CLOSE, on HOPE, showcasing exciting mixed repertory works in an intimate studio setting, opens for four weekends in March. The program will include a dynamic and varied program of world and company premieres, representing a broad span of choreographic talent. Up CLOSE on HOPE performances offer the chance to see thrilling, original contemporary dance, to meet the dancers, and to mingle with the evening’s choreographers. Up CLOSE on HOPE is a unique way for audiences to experience dance!

The performances will take place March 8, 15, 16, 22, and 29 at the company’s East Side studios at 825 Hope Street on Saturdays at 7:30 pm and on Sundays at 6:00 pm in the Leach Grand Studio black box theater, for a limited audience of 90. The performances will feature an enhanced theater facility, with an enhanced lighting and sound system completed in November 2007. Financial support for the improvements has come from significant gifts from Fidelity Investments, the State of Rhode Island, and generous individual donors.

The success of Up CLOSE, on HOPE is largely due to the intimacy of the theater and the quality of the wide ranging repertory chosen by Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric. The program is intended to expand the audience’s taste for dance, to showcase established and rising choreographers, and to provide numerous challenging roles to the dancers in the company.

Rhode Island’s Colleen Cavanaugh will set a duet to the music of Annie DiFranco as a company premiere for the March series.

Company member Mark Harootian, who has created numerous works for Up CLOSE on HOPE including last year’s audience favorite Armenian Moves, and November’s engaging Spektor of Things, will create a new ensemble work, Southern Comfort, to the music of Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline.

Viktor Plotnikov, who has created numerous acclaimed works for Festival Ballet Providence, will set two of his ballets on the company: Elegant Souls, previously performed in 2005; and “2”, a fascinating duet created for Jackson International Ballet Competition Gold Medal winner Misa Kuranaga specifically for that competition.

Another choreographer who has also created numerous commissioned works for Festival Ballet Providence, Gianni Di Marco will create, The Road to Ensenada, a new solo work about promises, to the music of Lyle Lovett.

Up CLOSE newcomer and Israeli-born choreographer Avichai Scher will create a new work for the company. Winner of the Lorna Strassler Excellence Award from Jacob’s Pillow and one of Dance Magazine’s “Top 25 to Watch in 2005”, Mr. Scher has created works for Miami City Ballet, Washington Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School and ABT’s Studio Company.

To round out the program, Djuric has chosen to include two classical works, the Dying Swan and the Grand Pas de Deux from Don Quixote.

Audience members will have the opportunity to explore the delectable bounty offered on Hope Street with hors d’oeuvres and wine intermissions sponsored by neighboring East Side restaurants and caterers. The intermission sponsors for the March performances are Chez Pascal, Ristorante Pizzico, The Butcher Shop, Gourmet Take & Bake, and Not Just Snacks, accompanied by wines courtesy of Laurine Ryan Perry and the Martignetti Companies of Rhode Island.

Tickets are available for $40 as general admission seating. Tickets are available by contacting Festival Ballet Providence, 401.353.1129. For further information, send email inquiries to info@festivalballet.com.

For additional information about upcoming programs visit www.festivalballet.com <http://www.festivalballet.com/>

The 2007-2008 Up CLOSE on HOPE series is made possible in part by Up CLOSE on HOPE sponsor GLADWORKS, with additional support from NBC10, Acadia Consulting and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

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Festival Ballet Providence and the Festival Ballet Providence Center for Dance Education are together a not-for-profit arts organization whose EIN is 05-0377245 and whose Rhode Island Corporate ID number is ND-27-137.

Intermission sponsors for Up CLOSE on HOPE are:

March 8	Not Just Snacks
March 15	Gourmet Take and Bake
March 16	Pizzico
March 22	Chez Pascal
March 29	The Butcher Shop

Wines for the intermissions will be provided courtesy of the Martignetti Companies of Rhode Island and Laurine Ryan Perry.

BIOS: Guest Choreographers

Colleen Cavanaugh, Guest Choreographer
Colleen Cavanaugh danced professionally in New York and Europe before returning to her native Rhode Island to complete a medical degree at Brown University. She choreographed for and directed Cadence Dance Project for four years and is now working as an independent choreographer, making ballets for regional companies and college dance programs. Cavanaugh received a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts fellowship in choreography as well as several project grants. Two of her ballets were selected and presented by Ballet Builders in New York City, a showcase for contemporary ballet. Her choreography has been presented in New England, New York and Europe. Her commissioned work, I Corpi Celesti, inspired by Galileo, was premiered in May 2003 by Festival Ballet Providence to great acclaim. Ms. Cavanaugh’s works have been featured regularly for the Up CLOSE on HOPE series including Caress, Demeter’s Tears, Schumann Songs, Scarlet Tangents and Little Girl Blue. Colleen is also a practicing Obstetrician/Gynecologist and is an Assistant Clinical Professor at Brown University School of Medicine.

Gianni Di Marco, Guest Choreographer
Gianni Di Marco, a native of Venezuela, joined Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1988, where he rose to the rank of first soloist, and joined Boston Ballet in 1995, retiring in 2005. Mr. Di Marco has also danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Germany’s Oper Leipzig Ballet. Providence audiences have been delighted by his guest appearances with Festival Ballet Providence, including Gamache in Don Quixote and the King in The Princess and the Pea. He has created a number of works for a variety of institutions including many Boston Ballet fundraising galas, Dance on the Top Floor, and Raw Dance. Mr. DiMarco’s short works Killing Time, Amphibious Love, Gracias a La Vida and Je ne t’Aime Pas have been performed for Festival Ballet Providence’s Up CLOSE, on HOPE series. His commissions by Festival Ballet Providence include Schéhérazade (2005), Azucar (2006) and El Amor Brujo (2007). Di Marco was named Principal of CityDance in 2005, Boston Ballet’s outreach program and also teaches Boston Ballet’s Adaptive Dance Program, created for children with Downs Syndrome. He shares his life with his wife Adrianna Suarez and their two children.

Mark A. Harootian, Company member, Guest Choreographer
A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Mark received his early training from the Performing Arts School of Worcester dancing with the Worcester Youth Ballet and Burncoat Senior High’s dance department. He matriculated to University of Utah’s ballet department on scholarship and as a member of Utah Ballet, graduating with a BFA, emphasis on performing and teaching. There Mark performed and choreographed in many of the department’s seasonal shows as well as dancing many leading roles with Utah Ballet. In addition Mark has performed at Disney’s Epcot Center, the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics Medal Plaza, the Festival of White Nights in Pushkin Russia. Aside from memorable roles including The Captain in Carmen, The Sailor in Con Amore and Doug Spivey in The Widow’s Broom, Mark has captivated audiences and inspired his colleagues by choreographing new works Breaking the Limits, Let it Go for a While, Mutable Air and his most recent premiere, Armenian Moves for the Up CLOSE, on HOPE series. Awarded a choreography grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts in 2007, Mark will continue to pursue this talent for choreography.. This is Mark’s fourth season with Festival Ballet Providence.

Viktor Plotnikov. Guest Choreographer
Viktor was born in Kharkov City, Ukraine, and began his training at the age of 11 at the Kiev-Ukraine School and continued at the St. Petersburg Ballet Academy. From 1987 to 1990 he was a soloist with Donetsk Ballet Company in the Ukraine. In 1990 Viktor joined Ballet Mississippi as a principal dancer.

In 1993 he joined Boston Ballet as principal dancer, performing major roles in the company’s classical and contemporary repertory and created roles in the World Premieres of Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles, Spencer/Colton’s Before Ever After, and Daniel Pelzig’s Nine Lives: Songs of Lyle Lovett, The Princess and the Pea, and Flights and Fancy.

While at Boston Ballet, Plotnikov created works specifically for Boston Ballet dancers and members of Boston Ballet II, and has choreographed works for institutions throughout the region, Dance on the Top Floor, Company performances in Nantucket, the Dancer’s Resource Fund, and Khachaturian’s Centennial at Boston Conservatory. Plotnikov created solos and duets, performed at International Gala Performances. His creations include works for the 2002 International Ballet Competition in Jackson MS, the Dancer’s Resource Fund, the Bolshoi Ballet and Raw Dance. With Crazy Nun, Viktor won the Choreography Award at the 2005 Helsinki International Ballet Competition. He currently creates choreography for companies and dance schools throughout the US.
Plotnikov has created numerous commissioned works for Festival Ballet Providence, including the world premiere of Carmen (2003), The Widow’s Broom (2004), Loof and Let Dime (2006), Coma (2007) and Cinderella (2007). Viktor has set numerous works on Festival Ballet Providence dancers for Up CLOSE on HOPE performances including Elegant Souls, Viktorations, Tension and Beauty, and Crazy Nun and created Blue, Blue Canary for the Festival Ballet Providence Junior Company.

Avichai Scher - Guest Choreographer
Avichai Scher was born in New York City but spent his childhood in Israel. He returned to New York City to train at the School of American Ballet for 8 years. Professionally, he has danced with eight different ballet companies including the Joffrey Ballet, Washington Ballet, and European Ballet. Some memorable roles have been Puck in The Dream, Frantz in Coppelia, and in New Works by Byrd, York, and Smuin. Also a choreographer, his work earned him a spot in DANCE Magazine’s Top 25 To Watch, and the 2005 Strassler Excellence Award from Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.