News From Kanopy Dance Company Contact: Susanne Voeltz [email protected]

Kanopy Dance Academy Second Quarter

Dancing with Kanopy at Home Starts LIVE via ZOOM

November 9, 2020-January 31, 2021

Special Performance Opportunities for Kanopy Academy Students

Including a Holiday Show (ZOOM): “Excerpts from Charles Weidman’s Joyful Christmas Oratorio”.

Registration Now Open. Please visit https://kanopydance.org/school-year/

Madison, WI—November 3, 2020—Kanopy Dance Academy will continue online LIVE via ZOOM for the Fall Quarter 2, starting November 9, 2020-January 31, 2021, in light of Covid-19 and Kanopy’s commitment to the health and safety of our community.  (Decisions about resuming in-studio or a hybrid of virtual and in-studio classes for the Winter/Spring Quarter will be subject to strict guidelines recommended by public health officials).

As Kanopy Dance Company’s official dance school, Kanopy Dance Academy provides rare opportunities for students to learn a repertoire of master works by iconic shapers of dance from nationally acclaimed guest artists, choreographers and an exceptional faculty team.

Kanopy Academy’s fall quarter 2 offers 24 weekly classes including creative modern dance, ballet, repertory, choreography & improvisation and dance history, as well as “intensives” in principal modern dance techniques including those of Lester Horton, Anna Sokolow, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Erick Hawkins and Martha Graham. The fall curriculum will also be enriched with written creative projects, to be completed independently.

New to the Kanopy faculty this quarter is Chicagoan Anne Marie Loesch, a premiere instructor/performer in the pedagogy of the Humphrey/Weidman modern dance technique. She will teach two classes on Saturdays during the 2^nd fall quarter: Humphrey Dance Technique on Saturdays, 2:15-3:05PM and the Charles Weidman Repertory “Christmas Oratorio” at 3:10-3:45PM.

Students enrolled in the Weidman Repertory “Christmas Oratorio” class session will present a holiday performance of Weidman’s joyful choreography—danced to Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio”— live via ZOOM for family and friends on Saturday, December 19, 2020.

Weidman was a modern dance pioneer who famously collaborated with the legendary Doris Humphrey, developing the Humphrey/Weidman modern dance technique. Weidman and Humphrey helped shape a legion of extraordinary dancers including Jose Limon, Gene Kelly, Sybil Shearer, Eleanor King, Bob Fosse and Alvin Ailey. (Weidman also choreographed the searing “Lynchtown”, an attack on bigotry and hatred that Kanopy performed at the Overture Center in 2015.

Another special highlight this fall quarter 2, will be learning Anna Sokolow’s signature work “Rooms”, a powerful dance about loneliness featuring music composed by Kenyon Hopkins for a jazz ensemble. As part of that project, Kanopy Academy students, and those from select companies and colleges nationally, will collaborate through the fall and spring with the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble NYC creating virtual performances, shared rehearsals and coaching, and, ultimately, a film production.

In addition, Kanopy 2 and Kanopy Company dancers will rehearse (remotely) and film an adaption of the “Ciaccona” from Kanopy’s co artistic director Lisa Thurrell’s “Partita & Chorales”. This work is an uplifting yearning emotional work set to J.S. Bach’s Partita in D Minor and Bach Chorales. Kanopy’s directors Robert E Cleary and Lisa Thurrell will collaborate with videographer Mats Rudels in revisioning this work for film.

Whether you are a creative beginner, on a professional track, looking for a body-strengthening workout or wanting to experience the pure joy of dance, Kanopy has a dance class just for you.  Information about registration and a full schedule of classes are available at https://kanopydance.org/school-year/ .  For additional questions please contact Kanopy at [email protected] or Kanopy Dance 608.255-2211. (Registration will be offered on a rolling basis to provide flexibility and accommodate school calendars.)

About Kanopy Dance and Kanopy Dance Academy: A Resident Company of the Overture Center for the Arts.

Kanopy Dance is a quintessential modern dance company. While the company “informs” its works through its roots in the Martha Graham tradition, Kanopy has cultivated its own brand, working to forward a new dimension and visual language to advance American dance. Kanopy’s artistic directors, Robert E. Cleary, (former principal dancer for Ballet Minnesota and Minnesota Dance Theater) and Lisa Thurrell, (former dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company & School, NYC), not only strive to preserve the best of Graham; but also to cultivate the dynamic growth of American dance by training professional dancers, choreographing new works and collaborating with artists to establish new creative benchmarks.

Kanopy Dance Company has a strong regional and national presence working collaboratively with cutting edge dance and dance theater companies throughout the country. Each season, Kanopy attracts dancers and choreographers who are shaping the modern dance scene to create with us on stage. In 2013, Kanopy also formed an ongoing partnership with Martha Graham Dance Company that continues to flourish and grow.

In addition to performing original works at our home, the Overture Center, and presenting at arts venues including Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City, Kanopy annually engages in outreach programs reaching thousands through area public and private schools, libraries, community centers, preschools, senior centers, outdoor festivals, and colleges; presenting educational workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations and performances. Kanopy also provides free tickets to those who might otherwise not have access to the performing arts with the Community Tickets program in collaboration with Overture Center. 

Kanopy is comprised of Kanopy Dance Company, Kanopy 2, (our second company and pre-professional training program), Kanopy Academy, and Kanopy Studio. Kanopy Dance Company is a resident company of Overture Center for the Arts. Please visit us at https://kanopydance.org/.

For an inside look at the Kanopy Dance Academy check out an article by Gwen Rice published in Isthmus https://isthmus.com/arts/stage/teaching-to-keep-kanopy-alive/ and browse through photojournalist Ruthie Hauge’s stunning gallery of Kanopy students  “Dancing at Home” in a spread shot for the Capital Times https://madison.com/ct/news/local/photos-kanopy-dance-has-gone-virtual/collection_3b1521e9-8302-5093-bc4f-0edc5c031d77.html#19 .

Contact: Susanne Voeltz for Kanopy Dance [email protected]  608.284.0848

In light of the continuing threat of Covid-19, and in the best interest of our community, Kanopy Dance Academy will continue its virtual program Dancing with Kanopy at Home LIVE via ZOOM, at least for the first quarter of fall September 15- November 7, 2020. 

Register now for fall quarter. Please go to: https://kanopydance.org/school-year/ and click on the orange button to register and see schedule of classes.

Registration ongoing.

Audition for Kanopy Company 2!  Pre-Professional performance and trainee program ages 14-26. See more here: https://kanopydance.org/kanopy-company-2/

We will continue to monitor what is clearly a very fluid situation and follow the standards and guidelines prescribed by our public health officials before we reconvene for hybrid in-person classes.

We are, however, preparing for an eventual return to the Kanopy studios and are identifying all necessary protocols and interventions that must be implemented to gather safely again. Recently, we also invested in a Needle Point Bi-Polar Ionization System to purify and maintain clean air in our studios.

Taught by world acclaimed guest artists along with Kanopy’s outstanding faculty, the fall program will include creative modern dance, modern dance techniques, ballet, choreography & improvisation, repertory, and dance history, as well as “intensives” in the premiere modern dance techniques including those of Lester Horton, Anna Sokolow, Erick Hawkins, and Martha Graham. 

Select master classes will supplement the “intensives” -a rare, in depth training opportunity to learn excerpts from masterworks by those iconic shapers of modern and contemporary dance. Kanopy’s fall curriculum will also be enriched with written creative projects, to be completed independently, and other special surprises. Students will have an opportunity to video and showcase their creative work.

Kanopy Company 2 dancers will also have virtual rehearsals for upcoming projects.

If you have any questions, and need more information, please do reach out to us at [email protected] or Kanopy Dance 608.255-2211.

Contact: Susanne Voeltz for Kanopy Dance [email protected]  608.284.0848

Kanopy Dance Company Cancels Fall Productions at the Overture Center

Company Plans Return to the Stage in Spring of 2021

Madison, WI—June 25, 2020—Kanopy Dance Company, a resident company of the Overture Center for the Arts, announced today the cancellation of its Fall 2020 productions, citing continued uncertainty about the trajectory of Covid-19 and its impact on the health and safety of audiences, artists and staff as a paramount concern; as well as the difficult decision by the Overture Center to suspend all live performances at least through November, 2020.

Kanopy’s canceled productions include “Kanopy Rising”, originally scheduled to run October 16-18, 2020, and featuring cutting edge new work by internationally renowned guest artist, Tadej Brdnik, of the Martha Graham Company, and the popular annual holiday classic, “Winter Fantasia”, a magical dance journey into Norse mythology, December 4-6, 2020.

Last spring, in response to the Covid pandemic,  Kanopy also cancelled performances of  the “Far Out Prophecies of Nostradamus”  and “Martha Graham: The Next Generation” both scheduled at the Overture Center.

Cumulatively, the  extensive show cancelations, as well as the Kanopy Dance Academy’s transition to an exclusively virtual class program for the near future, will continue to have a substantive effect on Kanopy financially and, importantly, artistically. Kanopy’s performances and pre-professional training programs are closely linked. The company regularly engages major guest artists for its concert series and they play an important role in  offering in-person master classes and educational outreach both for Kanopy students and the larger community. Kanopy Academy students can also earn opportunities to perform in some productions. 

In making today’s announcement, Lisa Thurrell, Kanopy’s co-artistic director, remarked:

“While we will deeply miss performing and seeing our audiences this fall at our home in the Overture Center, we are strongly committed to planning a slow and deliberate path back to the stage to ensure that we all can safely convene for inspiring dance performances for seasons to come.

With the challenging demands and close interactions required during rehearsals, we must also secure a safe window for our artists, directors, students and crew to come together in a healthy environment well before the curtain rises.

We are so very grateful to our supporters, students and Kanopy families, as well as to the Overture Center team and our resident  group colleagues for their encouragement and guidance that is so critical in  helping to sustain us during this unprecedented journey to the other side.”

Kanopy plans to resume live performances with two signature productions during the spring of 2021. Discussions regarding performance dates are ongoing and will be finalized soon with the Overture Center for the Arts. The opening concert, “Reflection +Dreams” will cast modern dance legend, Anna Sokolow  (1910–2000), at center stage. The fearless and celebrated Sokolow, (who began her career as a dancer with Martha Graham and founded the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble consistently and uncompromisingly expressed her driving sense of social justice and a commitment to political change through her work. 

NYC based Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble’s artistic director, Samantha Geracht, and Brad Orego, a Sokolow Company member, will guest star in Kanopy’s “Reflections +Dreams”, performing selections from Sokolow’s 1955 masterpiece , a groundbreaking and timely work that examined the psychic isolation of characters isolated in small city apartments against the curtain of the 1952 polio epidemic, the “Red Scare” and the threat of atomic annihilation—all shrouding them with pervasive uncertainty and loneliness. 

On a related note, Kanopy Dance Company has been invited by the Sokolow Theatre/ Dance Ensemble – along with the dance departments at Williams College, and Loyola University, Chicago to perform in a major digital production of  Anna Sokolow’s iconic 50-minute long Rooms, set to music composed by Kenyon Hopkins for a jazz ensemble. that will be live- streamed this fall.

Kanopy will close its abbreviated mainstage season at the Overture Center, partnering with Are We Delicious?, Madison’s own ingenious pick-up theatre company, on a wildly creative production of “The Far-out Prophecies of Nostradamus”. The evening of vignettes exploring life’s “unexpected journeys”, to be expressed through dance, spoken word, and onstage live music is inspired by stanzas from the “Prophecies” of the mysterious French astrologer, physician and poet, Nostradamus. It is  a strangely prescient production —with tales yet to be told–  that was originally slated to be staged in April at the Overture Center.

About Kanopy Dance and Kanopy Dance Academy

Kanopy Dance is a quintessential modern dance company. While the company “informs” its works through its roots in the Martha Graham tradition, Kanopy has cultivated its own brand, working to forward a new dimension and visual language to advance American dance.

Kanopy’s artistic directors, Lisa Thurrell, (a former dancer with the Graham Company & School in New York City) and  Robert Cleary, (former principal dancer with Minnesota Dance Theatre), not only  strive to  preserve the best of our Modern Dance Lineage (Graham and others); but also to cultivate the dynamic growth of American dance by training professional dancers, choreographing new works and collaborating with artists to establish new creative benchmarks.

Kanopy Dance Company has a strong regional and national presence working collaboratively with cutting edge dance and dance theater companies throughout the country. Each season, Kanopy attracts dancers and choreographers who are shaping the modern dance scene to create with us on stage. In 2013, Kanopy also formed an ongoing partnership with Martha Graham Dance Company, that continues to flourish and grow,

In addition to performing original works at our home, the Overture Center, and presenting at arts venues including Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City, Kanopy annually engages in outreach programs reaching thousands through area public and private schools, libraries, community centers, preschools, senior centers, outdoor festivals, and colleges; presenting educational workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations and performances. Kanopy also provides free tickets to those who might otherwise not have access to the performing arts with the Community Tickets program in collaboration with Overture Center. 

Kanopy is comprised of Kanopy Dance Company, Kanopy 2, (our second company and pre-professional training program), Kanopy Academy, and Kanopy Studio. Kanopy Dance Company is a resident company of Overture Center for the Arts.