Submitted by Irvine Barclay Theatre
The National Choreographers Initiative begins with a three-week rehearsal period that takes place in the dance studios at the University of California, Irvine, culminating in a public performance.
Two of the professional dancers chosen for this year’s project have southern California roots. James Fuller grew up in Orange County and studied at the Ballet Pacifica studios. He attended college at Harvard and now dances with Ballet Austin. Corinna Gil is from Fallbrook CA and majored in dance at UCI. After graduating, she danced with Los Angeles Ballet for a couple of seasons and now dances with the Boston Ballet.
The 8th annual National Choreographers Initiative is now into its second week! At this point, each of the dancers have been cast into two pieces and are in the rehearsal process. NCI’s demanding schedule has the dancers in the studios 6-8 hours a day, 6 days a week.
This demanding process will result in the creation of four new pieces and the opportunity for southern Californian audiences to experience a night of dance performed by professional artists from companies across the country.
The NCI Discovery showing allows the audience an opportunity to hear the four choreographers talk about their concepts and ideas and to ask questions and participate in the discussion.
Since its inception in 2004, 28 choreographers have been invited to create new work. Seventeen of those works have gone on to be performed with various companies around the country.
Brian Enos
Brian Enos has been making dances since age 14 and has been described as “a wonder kid of contemporary ballet.” At age eighteen, while still a student in the Houston Ballet Academy, Enos was invited by Ben Stevenson to create his first work for The Houston Ballet. He has since gone on to create works that have been performed both nationally and internationally for companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Ballet Met, DanceWorks Chicago, Ballet Austin II, Chicago Ballet, Hubbard Street 2, Momenta, and the University of Chicago.
Enos was named “Best up and coming choreographer” by the Houston Press in 2001 and was also a winner of the annual Hubbard Street 2 International Choreographic Competition in 2000. As a dancer, he spent several years performing with The Houston Ballet before embarking on an eight year career with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
Heather Maloy
Heather Maloy began her professional career with the North Carolina Dance Theatre at the age of seventeen. Maloy stayed for thirteen years, dancing principal and soloist roles in works by George Balanchine, Salvatore Aiello, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, William Forsythe, David Parsons and Alonzo King.
Mentored by Aiello, Maloy choreographed her first professional work at the age of nineteen. After his death, his successor, Jean Pierre Bonnefoux, commissioned her to create five more pieces for NCDT and brought her work, Couch Potatoes, to the Joyce Theatre in New York, where it was received with great success.
Recently Ms. Maloy placed 3rd in the national 21st Century Choreography Competition sponsored by Ballet Nouveau Colorado. She has been living in Asheville, NC since 2003, where she founded the summertime dance company Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance as a vehicle for her work and the work of Salvatore Aiello.
Peter Pucci
Peter Pucci was a member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre for 9 years, serving as principal dancer, co-choreographer, and rehearsal director. In 1986, Peter founded his company Peter Pucci Plus Dancers, which performs annually in New York City (including 5 appearances at the Joyce Theater), and tours extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Peter has created movement for many theatrical productions, fashion shows, commercials, videos, film, television, opera and several dance segments for the children’s television program Bear in the Big Blue House. In addition to creating over 50 works for PP+, Peter has choreographed for numerous ballet and modern dance companies both in the US and abroad.
In 1990, Peter became the first recipient of the Samuel H. Scripps Humphrey/Weidman/Limon Fellowship, a choreographic commission awarded by the American Dance Festival. Peter is also the winner of an Absolut Joffrey Award for Choreography and 2 Choo-San Goh Awards.
Paula Weber
Paula Weber began her career as a dancer performing solo and principal roles in works that include Swan Lake, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Coppelia, and contemporary works by Balanchine’s, DeMille, and Ailey. She has been a member of the Milwaukee Ballet, Lyric Opera Ballet of Chicago, Chicago Ballet, Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, and a guest artist with the Hartford Ballet. She is currently a member of the Wylliams/Henry Danse Theatre and is a principal dancer/ballet mistress with the Albany Berkshire Ballet.
In 1996, Ms. Weber was invited to be a guest instructor of ballet for the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China, making her the second American ballet master to visit that conservatory. Most recently, Ms. Weber choreographed Toccata e due Canzone for the Kansas City Ballet, and a successful Carmina Burana for the Kansas City Ballet and the Albany Berkshire Ballet. She is currently an associate professor of ballet at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.
NCI is a Southern California dance project with national influence. The first NCI took place July 22, 2004 with the idea of promoting the creation and production of professional dance.
In its first seven years, NCI helped 28 choreographers develop new works. Seventeen of the pieces begun at NCI have gone on to be premiered or developed further and performed elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2007, Molly Lynch, Artistic Director of NCI, received an Arts Orange County Award naming the National Choreographers Initiative “Outstanding Arts Organization of the Year.”
NCI Discovery
July 30, 2011 at 8pm
at Irvine Barclay Theatre
Tickets: $30
box office: 949.854.4646 | 4242 Campus Drive | Irvine | CA | 92612
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