APRIL—MAY 2014

This New York-based contemporary company collaborated on every level with local artists in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

APRIL—MAY 2014

This New York-based contemporary company collaborated on every level with local artists in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

Working with raw physicality and emotional immediacy, David Dorfman Dance explored new modes of moving with Armenian ethnographer and folk master Gagik Ginosyan. Then, in Turkey, the company formed a lasting relationship with choreographer Korhan Başaran and worked with performance artist Erdem Gündüz. They also participated in a workshop with Devinmler Dance Group, which pairs enabled and impaired dancers, and went on to lead workshops with 150 physically and cognitively challenged orphans in Tajikistan.

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

Working with raw physicality and emotional immediacy, David Dorfman Dance explored new modes of moving with Armenian ethnographer and folk master Gagik Ginosyan. Then, in Turkey, the company formed a lasting relationship with choreographer Korhan Başaran and worked with performance artist Erdem Gündüz. They also participated in a workshop with Devinmler Dance Group, which pairs enabled and impaired dancers, and went on to lead workshops with 150 physically and cognitively challenged orphans in Tajikistan.

FROM THE TRAVEL BLOG

“Yesterday’s visit for just an hour and a half to the orphanage for disabled children at Hirmanak Village, an hour down a bumpy road outside of Dushanbe, was a fitting nexus for the entire trip.”

—David Dorfman on concluding the journey in Tajikistan

FROM THE TRAVEL BLOG

“Yesterday’s visit for just an hour and a half to the orphanage for disabled children at Hirmanak Village, an hour down a bumpy road outside of Dushanbe, was a fitting nexus for the entire trip.”

—David Dorfman on concluding the journey in Tajikistan

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Since its founding in 1987, David Dorfman Dance (DDD) has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Great Britain, Europe, and Central Asia.

DDD has regularly performed in New York City at major venues including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, La Mama Theater, The Duke on 42nd Street, The Met Breuer, and the 92nd St. Y/Harkness Dance Festival. David Dorfman, the company’s dancers, and DDD’s artistic collaborators have also been honored with eight New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards. Dorfman’s work has enjoyed broad and diverse audiences nationally and internationally by sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic.

DDD’s creative projects include: Aroundtown (2017); Come, and Back Again (2013); Prophets of Funk (set to the music of Sly and the Family Stone); Disavowal (inspired by radical abolitionist John Brown); underground (inspired by The Weather Underground); Older Testaments (2005, set to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics); Lightbulb Theory (2004, original commissioned score by Michael Wall); Impending Joy (2004, original commissioned score by Chris Peck); and See Level (2003, original commissioned score by Chris Peck and visual design by Samuel Topiary).

DDD is company-in-residence at Connecticut College, has its own summer intensive at the college, a winter intensive at Gibney Dance in New York, and appears annually at the Tisch School of the Arts Summer Dance Residency Program at NYU.

In the community-based projects Out of Season (The Athletes Project) and Familiar Movements (The Family Project), the members of the company rehearsed and performed with volunteer groups of athletes and families in a host of cities. In No Roles Barred, DDD examined social roles, engaging groups ranging from corporate executives and “at-risk” youths to college administrators, doctors, carpenters, and social dance enthusiasts. These three community projects have been presented more than 30 times in 18 states and two foreign countries.

In March 2016, DDD performed at the opening day of the Met Breuer Museum in New York City, dancing to an original live score by Ken Thomson throughout the day in the Sunken Garden. The company embarked on a landmark tour to Athens, Greece in the summer of 2016, working with community athletes, dancers, and mixed ability movers to animate the new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center for their Metamorphosis Festival. DDD’s newest evening length work, Aroundtown had its World Premiere at Bates Dance Festival in July 2017, and its NY Premiere at the BAM Next Wave Festival in November 2017. In May 2018, DDD partnered with USAID El Salvador to bring dance to youth in El Salvador. Together they pledged to use their bodies for peace rather than gang warfare. All of these efforts help DDD promote its mission of kinetic diplomacy: if you’re dancing, you’re not hurting another human being.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Since its founding in 1987, David Dorfman Dance (DDD) has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Great Britain, Europe, and Central Asia.

DDD’s creative projects include: Aroundtown (2017); Come, and Back Again (2013); Prophets of Funk (set to the music of Sly and the Family Stone); Disavowal (inspired by radical abolitionist John Brown); underground (inspired by The Weather Underground); Older Testaments (2005, set to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics); Lightbulb Theory (2004, original commissioned score by Michael Wall); Impending Joy (2004, original commissioned score by Chris Peck); and See Level (2003, original commissioned score by Chris Peck and visual design by Samuel Topiary).

DDD is company-in-residence at Connecticut College, has its own summer intensive at the college, a winter intensive at Gibney Dance in New York, and appears annually at the Tisch School of the Arts Summer Dance Residency Program at NYU.

In the community-based projects Out of Season (The Athletes Project) and Familiar Movements (The Family Project), the members of the company rehearsed and performed with volunteer groups of athletes and families in a host of cities. In No Roles Barred, DDD examined social roles, engaging groups ranging from corporate executives and “at-risk” youths to college administrators, doctors, carpenters, and social dance enthusiasts. These three community projects have been presented more than 30 times in 18 states and two foreign countries.

In March 2016, DDD performed at the opening day of the Met Breuer Museum in New York City, dancing to an original live score by Ken Thomson throughout the day in the Sunken Garden. The company embarked on a landmark tour to Athens, Greece in the summer of 2016, working with community athletes, dancers, and mixed ability movers to animate the new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center for their Metamorphosis Festival. DDD’s newest evening length work, Aroundtown had its World Premiere at Bates Dance Festival in July 2017, and its NY Premiere at the BAM Next Wave Festival in November 2017. In May 2018, DDD partnered with USAID El Salvador to bring dance to youth in El Salvador. Together they pledged to use their bodies for peace rather than gang warfare. All of these efforts help DDD promote its mission of kinetic diplomacy: if you’re dancing, you’re not hurting another human being.