New Season Musings: Aimée
As I think about the season ahead there are many things that excite me. However, I fear any listing of performances would just be a recounting of the entire season! And then there is the expanded School Time Performance series and a number of incredible community-based residencies with visiting artists and Maine-based artist-educators. But I’ve been told to focus… To me, one of the things that makes the 2010-11 season most unique are two co-commissions of internationally recognized artists and the rich community collaborations that anchor these projects here in Maine.
For several years now, we’ve been partnering with Bates Dance Festival to create a year-round contemporary dance presence in Maine. With the co-commission of award-winning choreographer Doug Varone we step up our partnership, support artists in making of a new work and provide the piece, Chapters from a Broken Novel, gestation time here in Maine. Varone and his company will be in residence at Bates Dance Festival this summer, creating, teaching and performing. The company will be back to present the completed new work in February 2011 as part of our season. Ovations also spearheaded a regional leg of his national tour that will bring Varone, his company of eight extraordinary dancers and Chapters from a Broken Novel to communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut in addition to his two visits to Maine.
We close the season with Phil Kline’s John the Revelator, a stunning Mass for the 21st century, which features internationally renowned vocal ensemble Lionheart, our very own Portland String Quartet and municipal organist Ray Cornils performing on the mighty Kotzschmar. Together with Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ we are co-commissioning a prelude to John the Revelator, which has been called one of the most important new works of the last decade. It seems only natural that after spending almost two years as office mates (three of five non-profits that inhabit the same suite at 50 Monument Square) that Ovations, Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ and Lark Society (the organizational arm of Portland String Quartet) would come together for such a deep project that we hope will resonate across our audiences.
It is incredibly fulfilling as an arts organization to not only present exceptional artists from around the world but to also support artists in the creation of new works—works with Maine roots that will then travel the globe.
Laura Faure says:
We are absolutely thrilled to be partnering with Portland Ovations on this historic co-production by one the the country’s leading contemporary choreographers, Doug Varone. The Bates Dance Festival has had a long and fruitful relationship with Varone that stretches back to 1992 when we commissioned, “A Momentary Order” a moving work inspired by the Franco-American mill workers of Lewiston-Auburn. Since that successful collaboration the company has returned to BDF many times to develop new works that have toured the world to great acclaim.
We are also proud to have received and American Masterpieces grant from the Maine Arts Commission in support of Varone’s creative residency to complete “Chapters…”
We look forward to this collaboration with Portland Ovations and to other joint efforts to bring great dance to Maine audiences in the coming years.