 New
York theaters were aglow with his work over the past year. The 3800-seat
Metropolitan Opera House; the 75-seat Ohio Theater; the 475-seat
Joyce Theater; the 2200-seat BAM Opera House and the 900-seat Symphony
Space all featured his original work. Yet, despite the diversity
of venue, variety of subject matter and music, there is an inimitable
choreographic signature to Doug Varone’s dances: a sly wit,
romantic heart with a dash of darkness, humanity, not to mention
a musicality radiant with imagination. A quiet, but firm and daring
spirit indelibly distinguishes the signature.
One of the highlights of Doug Varone and Dancers’s Joyce Theater
season, February 3–8, is the world premiere of his luminous
“Castles,” set to music by Sergei Prokofiev. Swelling
with breathtaking musicality, the work is filled with intricate
dancing, an unexpected love duet and moments of shadowed circumstance.
The costumes are by Liz Prince and the lighting by Jane Cox and
Joshua Epstein.
The Joyce season also features “The Bottomland,” a haunting
marriage of video and dance, that explores the changing lives and
relationships of an imagined backwoods Kentucky community. Providing
a larger-than-life dialogue with the dancing on stage, the video
dramatically alternates between the rolling, verdant landscape outside
and the jagged walls and curling passageways of Kentucky’s
Mammoth Caves, which are animated by the movement of Varone’s
dancers. The music is by Patty Loveless. The version of the work
that will be performed at The Joyce was commissioned by the Wolf
Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts and the Clarice Smith Performing
Arts Center.
Varone’s 1993 classic “Rise,” set to John Adams’s
“Fearful Symmetries,” resonates with the fierce power
of the music. At times the dancers leap and spin through the air
with breath-taking speed, almost as if never to return to earth
again.
Last spring’s world premiere, “Of the Earth Far Below,”
will receive its first Joyce performance this season. Positing nature
at cross-purposes with herself, the dance is set to Steve Reich’s
“Triple Quartet,” where swelling and receding waves
of musical energy are reflected in the demonic force of the choreography.
“Short Story” shows Varone as a master of distilled
fiction. The powerful, five minute duet, set to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s
“Prelude in C minor,” features Varone and guest artist
Nina Watt as a couple whose relationship resonates with a multitude
of feelings and passions.
Varone, who began his training as a tap dancer at a young age, was
born and raised in Syosset, NY. He studied at the New Dance Group
in Manhattan as a teenager and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree from SUNY, Purchase. As a dancer he performed as a principal
with the Limón Dance Company and the Lar Lubovitch Dance
Company, before founding Doug Varone and Dancers in 1986. Since
its creation, the company has toured extensively throughout the
United States, Europe and Asia, garnered eight New York Dance and
Performance Awards (Bessies) and received commissions from numerous
institutions.
In addition to choreographing for his own troupe, Varone has received
commissions from the Pennsylvania Ballet, Dayton Ballet, Toronto
Dancemakers, the Batsheva Dance Company, the Limón Dance
Company, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and, most recently,
the Colorado Ballet.
Varone made his Broadway debut in the fall of 1997 when he choreographed
and staged the musical “Triumph of Love.” He has also
choreographed and staged George Antheil’s opera “Transatlantic”
for the Minnesota Opera, Gioacchino Rossini’s “Il viaggio
a Reims” for the New York City Opera and Richard Wagner’s
“Die Valkerie” for the Washington Opera. In the spring
of 2001, he directed and choreographed the Opera Colorado production
of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice,”
and he will return this spring to direct Rossini’s “Barber
of Seville” in a production that will feature his company.
For the Metropolitan Opera, Varone choreographed Hector Berlioz’s
“Les Troyens” and, in fall 2003, a new production of
Igor Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps,” as
part of an all-Stravinsky evening conducted by Valery Gergiev. In
spring 2004, Varone will choreograph a new production of Richard
Strauss’s “Salome,” also for the Met.
Outside of concert dance, his work has included choreography for
“The Planets,” a dance and skating visualization of
the Gustav Holst score, which aired on A&E in 1995. It was subsequently
nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable ACE Award, and
Grammy. For three consecutive seasons, Varone choreographed Geoffrey
Beene's Couture Fashion Ballets in New York.
Varone has been awarded numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship
(1996); a Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography (1998); annual Choreography
Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1988 to 1997);
a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Choreography (1987);
Metropolitan Life’s Emerging Artist Award (1990); and a 1998
“Bessie” for Sustained Achievement in Choreography.
Prior to its Joyce season, Doug Varone and Dancers performed in
Middletown, CT (September 12–13); Dartmouth University in
Hanover, NH (January 16–17); and Connecticut College in New
London, CT (January 30). Following its season at The Joyce, the
company will continue to tour in Keene, NH (March 1–2); Boston,
MA (March 4–6); Denver, CO (April 24–May 2) and in Albany,
NY (June 19). The company will then begin a tour of Italy to three
festivals (July 11–25).
The evening curtain for Doug Varone
and Dancers at The Joyce Theater, Tuesday through Saturday, is at
8pm; and on Sunday at 7:30pm. There will also be 2pm matinees on
Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $40 and are available at The Joyce
Theater box office or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or
online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth
Avenue at 19th Street.
###
Fugate/Bahiri Ballet NY’s appearance at Symphony Space is
supported, in part, with funds from The Grand Marnier Foundation,
The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Arnhold Foundation, NYMEX Charitable
Foundation and The Evelyn Sharp Foundation.
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