Parsons Dance Company

Parsons Dance is a contemporary dance company founded by choreographer David Parsons. The company tours nationally and internationally, and includes an annual season in New York. Based in New York City, Parsons Dance was founded on July 17, 1985, by David Parsons and lighting designer Howell Binkley. Since its founding, Parsons Dance has toured to six continents. Parsons Dance is the only dance company in history to perform at all three Spoleto Festivals (Italy, Australia and the US) in a single season.

History

Since 1985, Parsons Dance has toured an average of 32 weeks per year, to a total of more than 235 cities, 30 countries, six continents and millions of audience members. Many others have seen Parsons Dance on PBS, Bravo, A&E Network, and the Discovery Channel. Millions watched Parsons Dance perform live in Times Square as part of the internationally broadcast, 24-hour Millennium New Year's Eve celebration. In New York City, Parsons Dance has been featured at The Joyce Theater, City Center, New Victory Theater, Central Park Summerstage, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and The World Trade Center.

Parsons Dance has been seen on PBS, Bravo, A&E and the Discovery Channel. Millions watched worldwide as Parsons Dance performed live in New York's Times Square, as part of the internationally broadcast, 24-hour Millennium New Year's Eve celebration on December 31, 1999.

The company consists of nine full-time dancers. It maintains a repertory of more than 80 works, twenty of which feature commissioned original scores by composers and musicians including Dave Matthews, Michael Gordon, Milton Nascimento, John Mackey, and Phil Woods. Parsons Dance has collaborated with many other artists, including Julie Taymor, William Ivey Long, Annie Leibovitz, Donna Karan and Alex Katz.

Company members

Zoey Anderson, Deidre Rogan, Henry Steele, DaMond LeMonte Garner, Croix Dilenno, Rachel Harris, Megan Leigh Garcia, and Eoghan Dillon (Artistic Associate).

Current repertory

The company is currently presenting the following performances:
''Caught'',
''Bachiana'',
''Hand Dance'',
''Mood Swing'',
''Nascimento'',
''Nascimeno Novo'',
''Sleep Study'',
''Slow Dance'',
''Swing Shift'',
''The Envelope'',
''Remember Me''.

Outreach

The company offers master classes in modern dance, ballet and jazz techniques, lectures and demonstrations of repertory and/or elements of production, and workshops and seminars on nutrition, fitness and the art of dance. They also hold post-show discussions and offer the Parsons Dance Study Guide, designed in collaboration with the Ferst Center for the Arts, which serves as an educational dance resource for teachers and students.

Parsons Dance also holds an annual summer intensive dance workshop for pre-professional and professional dancers in New York City, designed to have participants work and interact with Parsons Dancers while taking classes in contemporary dance, ballet technique and Parsons repertory.

References

External links

* ''Parsons Dance''

Selby/Artists MGMT – Artist Representation


accessed 23 June 2007
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/arts/dance/07pars.html Leap, Turn, Strike a Broadway Pose (review of Parsons Dance performance of ''Nascimento Novo'') in The New York Times, December 7, 2006
Archival footage of David Parsons performing Caught in 1989 at Jacob's Pillow

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Dance companies in New York City
Contemporary dance companies
1985 establishments in New York City
Arts organizations established in 1985