Dancer & Director of Graham 2

Intermediate/Advanced Dancers, Ages 12-Adult

Saturday Oct 19, 2019

10:45am-12:00pm

Kanopy Studio, 341 State St, Madison WI 53703

$25

registration closed

Virginie Mécène, Director of Martha Graham Dance Company’s second company Graham 2 since 2007, was a Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company touring around the world from 1994 to 2006. She has served as the Director of the Martha Graham School from 2007 to 2015 developing the School curriculum while sustaining the integrity of the Martha Graham technique and nurturing the process that continues its development. She is currently the Program Director for the Two-Year Certificate Program and for the Teacher Training Program at the Martha Graham School. A native of France, Ms. Mécène graduated from the University of Bourgogne with a Licence Professionnelle in Artistic and Cultural Management. She received multi-disciplinary dance training in Paris and graduated with a C.A.E. in Jazz from the Fédération Française de la Danse. After teaching in Paris for two years she moved to New York City in 1988 for in-depth studies of the Martha Graham technique. As a regisseur Ms. Mécène restaged and directed numerous works of Martha Graham and has taught the Graham Technique at multiple national and international conferences. In 2011 Ms. Mécène restaged Ms. Buglisi’s Table of Silence on the Plaza of San Rufino Cathedral in celebration of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Assissi, Italy. She was also a Lecturer at Barnard College, NY, in 2004.

In 2017 Ms. Mécène re-imagined Ekstasis, a lost Graham solo from 1933, for the Martha Graham Dance Company premiering at the Joyce Theater with rave reviews. She also reconstructed an original work from Miss Graham’s American Document, The “Puritan Duet”, on Graham 2 dancers, premiering in 2010 at the Joyce Theater during the Martha Graham Dance Company New York Season.

Her choreographic work has been presented in New York City, Saratoga Springs, New Town, Flint, Baton Rouge, Cape May, and also internationally, in Singapore, France, Italy, and in Japan.

Ms. Mécène danced with Buglisi Dance Theater (formerly Buglisi/Foreman Dance) from its inception in 1994 until 2007 and continues to perform as a guest. She also danced with Pearl Lang Dance Theater, Battery Dance Company and in the work of Susan Stroman, and Lucinda Childs, among others. Mécène also serves as an adjudicator for dance competitions nationally and internationally. Ms. Mécène writings have been published in Ballet Review and the French magazine Danser. She has served as President of EFSD (Emergency Fund For Student Dancers) in New York City from 2012 to 2016.

Questions: [email protected] or 608.255.2211