Third Life Choreographer Series

Kelley Donovan & Dancers present

Third Life Studio Choreographer Series

A new performance series for Boston choreographers!

Friday, July 13^th at 8:00pm

Third Life Studio, 33 Union Sq., Somerville

$15 General Admission, advance purchase online only (25% discount)

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/254321

$20 General Admission, purchased at the door

$12 for Student/Seniors

25% off tickets purchased in advance!!! Full price at the door.

Call (617) 388-3247 or kddcompany@yahoo.com for information and reservations.

Free Parking is available at the Citizen's Bank parking lot,

The entrance to the parking lot is off Warren St., which runs off of Bow St.

 http://kddcompany.wordpress.com     

Photos Happily Provided Upon Request

 Because of lower rent and more opportunities for expansion of their facilities, all of the best dancers are moving to Somerville. Kelley Donovan and Wendy Jehlen, both Somerville residents and 2012 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artistic Fellowship Grant Recipients, will perform in the upcoming Third Life Choreographer Series, on July 13^th, in Somerville, MA.

The Third Life Studio Choreographer Series is a new informal performance series held monthly on Fridays, February – August 2012.   It gives Boston area choreographers a venue to try out new work in an informal setting or to show more developed work. The intimate setting of Third Life Studios creates an opportunity for busy dance artists to see one another’s work, to network and for audience members to see established artist and up and coming dancers and choreographers they might not otherwise be exposed to. 

After each show there will be time to chat with choreographers, colleagues and audience at the end of the evening providing an opportunity to develop audience, visibility etc. Choreographers help to promote the evening expanding audience for all who participate. Tickets can be purchased in advance at a 25% discount online at  http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/254321 or audience members can pay full price at the door.

Kelley Donovan, in addition to producing the Third Life Series, has been showing work in Boston since 1989, and currently splits her time performing and choreographing in Somerville and New York City.  Her work has been produced by World Music/Crash Arts, Summer Stages Dance, MIT, Mobius, Harvard University, Mass College of Art, and The Federal Reserve Bank in Boston. Her work has received financial support from The Artist Foundation of Boston and a Harkness Space Grant from the 92nd St. Y.  Kelley studied choreography with Mark Morris and Bessie Schönberg, and received a B.A. from Bradford College in 1989. She is producing a monthly showcase this fall at Gibney Dance Center starting on September 21st. 

“Tempering Strength and vulnerability, she can turn sharp edges into soft corners with sensuous fluidity” – DANCE MAGAZINE

“…Kelley Donovan’s “It’s All Forgotten Now” stood out form its first moments for its precise and subtle shifts in dynamics…the great pleasure was the way it used movement not merely to fill space but to create an organic narrative with its own inherent linearity” – JENNIFER DUNNING, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“It’s all about transformation. You can see it in the sinuous coils of limbs that seem to twist completely around, like a snake shedding its skin, a … dancer remarkable suppleness, speed, and control. Donovan is a commanding presence, shifting weight and dynamic impulse with quicksilver lightness and precision.” – THE BOSTON GLOBE

 For additional photos:

http://kddcompany.wordpress.com/photos/

 Wendy Jehlen is a choreographer whose unique approach to movement incorporates elements of a wide range of dance styles including Bharata Natyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi, Capoeira, Kalaripayattu, West African dance, Butoh, and American and European Modern and Contemporary dance forms. Jehlen’s choreography has been performed in the US as well as internationally. Jehlen has received funding and recognition for her choreography from the Senior Performing Artist Fellowship program of the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Ford Foundation/Arts International, the Tokyo American Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright program/United States Educational Foundation in India, the Alliance Francaise de Madras, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, among others.

 "(Jehlen's) dance style is contemporary without its customary abstractness. The movements had an inbuilt rhythm and mood...the well choreographed, tightly knit movements were executed with discipline and professionalism."
- THE HINDU NEWSPAPER, INDIA

“Wendy Jehlen’s gorgeous ‘Dawn’…was about the careful generation of rhythm and tempo in the arms, an elegant accumulation of energy.” – THE BOSTON HERALD

“Wendy Jehlen is a captivating choreographer, with sharp musical sensibilities, an affinity for the natural integration of modern and world dance styles, and a deep sensitivity to the connections between human body movements and moods.” – LISA JO SAGOLIA, BACKSTAGE

For additional photos:                   

http://wendyjehlen.wix.com/anikai#!home/mainPage

Angela Conte, a recent graduate of the rigorous dance program at Roger Williams University, will present a new work. Katelyn Bartelson will perform P.78’, a solo created as a result of a change. In the piece, Bartelson explores how and what it means to rebuild. ‘P.78’ was performed at The Dance Complex’s Shared Choreographer’s Concert in April 2012. Gabrielle Orcha will perform a one-woman show, a work in progress.

Kelley Donovan, will perform Triadic Memories, an improvised solo performed to music by Morton Feldman. In Morton Feldman's "Triadic Memories" chords are repeated three times, another, seven or eight times causing the listener to forget the reiterated chord and is a conscious attempt at formalizing a disorientation of memory.  Chords are repeated without any discernible pattern. In this irregularity there is a suggestion that what we hear is functional and directional but we soon realize that this is an illusion.  A similar development of a finite amount of movement material is explored in this work. Original phrases change into variations on variations creating a sense of impermanence of perception. Donovan has been teaching creative modern dance classes at Third Life Studio since 2007 and has held performances at the studio since 2010.  She is teaching a series of Sunday Afternoon Modern Dance Technique Classes and Performance workshops through the summer. Visit Kddcompany.wordpress.com for info.

Wendy Jehlen will perform excerpts from Found, a 50-minute dance-theater work consisting of six episodes, ranging from 1 to 15 minutes in length. As it is expanded in time and space, an environment, a world, a character is revealed.  Moving from introspection to discovery, from despair to ecstasy, Found is a distillation of mood and meaning. Found grows out of ideas Jehlen has gathered in her years of moving and studying around the world.  It is at once her own coming into being and an explication of her belief that the performer functions as a conduit, tapping into other realms, other realities, and bringing bits and pieces of those realities into our own.

Third Life Studio, a center for creativity and spirit, is a beautiful, intimate studio space in the heart of culturally dynamic Union Square and is a creative home to many.  The Studio is host to music concerts, dance performances, poetry readings,  music, dance or creative movement classes, yoga, t’ai chi, and meditation classes/workshops. The Studio is committed to presenting quality, multi-genre performances and has a particular interest in promoting the arts of all cultures, as well as performances that foster cross-cultural understanding and promote peace-building in our communities and around the world.   http://www.thirdlifestudio.com  for info on the space.