Northrop's dance series for the 2023-24 season features artists bursting onto the national conversation and new ways to think about performance. It includes two world premieres of Northrop Centennial Commissions, long-term partnerships and an eye toward the new and innovative.
In the first world premiere, Ohio native Dianne McIntyre, who has been a mentor to generations of dancers and choreographers, combines all forms of theater storytelling in a "choreopoem." "In the Same Tongue," co-commissioned by the Walker Art Center and Northrop, brings together McIntyre's movement and Ntozake Shange's poetry, with music by Diedre Murray. (Oct. 5-7 at the Walker)
"It's about dance and music speaking to each other," said Marsha Walker, Northrop's communications director.
The second world premiere, co-commissioned by Northrop and the Cowles Center, features a piece by St. Paul's hip-hip rooted BRKFST Dance Company with music by Renée Copeland. It will be held at the Cowles April 27-28, 2024. BRKFST also will perform "Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents," set to a 2010 orchestral tone poem by Daniel Bernard Roumain, inspired by a dance between President Barack Obama and Ellen DeGeneres in 2007.
Besides the McIntyre commission, Northrop is partnering with the Walker on a three-year commitment supporting the New York-based Shamel Pitts and his collective of interdisciplinary artists, Tribe.
Philip Bither, director and senior curator for performing arts at the Walker, said he felt "knocked out" seeing Pitts' work at a conference, along with Northrop's director of programming Kristen Brogdon. "We agreed that he held such promise and that he was the exact kind of incentive, rigorous choreographer who gave us hope for the future of American dance," Bither said in an email.
The first installment of Pitts' work, "Black Hole: Trilogy and Triathlon" will be on March 21-23, 2024.
Phil Chan, author of "Final Bow for Yellowface," will bring "10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography" to Northrop on April 12-13, 2024.
