Holding Passage

Presented by LABCO Dance

January 23, 2009–January 25, 2009

January 23/24 at 8pm and January 25 at 2pm

Committed to advancing the daring art of movement, LABCO launches its 2009 season with a presentation of Holding Passage at the New Hazlett Theater on January 23 and 24 at 8pm and January 25 at 2pm. This concert will feature work by three female choreographers and an all female cast. Three astounding works will be presented including a world premiere choreographed by Slippery Rock University's Ursula Payne, an established work by choreographer Stephanie Thiel, and an imaginative new duet by renowned New York choreographer, Jeanine Durning.

Internationally presented Ursula Payne is a dancer, choreographer as well as Artistic Director of Soul Deep Creations. Payne's choreographic and performance endeavors use movement to penetrate the intellect and capture the depth of life's experiences. "Under Lock and Key" is a hauntingly reflective work based on intimate partner domestic violence and the ways women maneuver to protect themselves. This quartet will feature LABCO company dancers with original music composed by Andy Hasenpflug.

LABCO company member Stephanie Thiel, finds her bold and dynamic choreographic voice with "Flip the Script" which is conceptualized and fueled by the powerful 2003 "Invisible Children" documentary. This work is a visceral reaction to the genocide happening in northern Uganda with a focus on the plight of the children in this region. This mixed media duet features video projection by Jessica Fenlon and sound by Jeff Reid.

New York choreographer, Jeanine Durning, creates performance works that explore physical concepts and systems through improvisation while remaining specific to the performers involved. In "Re: Memory (2)," a duet for Slippery Rock University Associate Professor of Dance, Jennifer Keller and LABCO's Artistic Director, Gwen Hunter Ritchie, Durning uses concepts of memory, repetition and duplication as templates to construct a sense of created history and excitement within real time performance. Though this high stakes memory game piece is rigorously structured, it remains different every time! "Re: Memory (2)" plays with the individual's perception of "what happened" in relation to the other by recreating events in the moment while mutating and distorting information.

The accomplished dancers that make up LABCO's ensemble include Meredyth Casey-Smaretsky, Kelley Krepin DeFade, Gretchen Moore, Rachel Renock, Gwen Hunter Ritchie and Stephanie Thiel. The company continues to be lead by Artistic Director, Gwen Hunter Ritchie.

Come and experience the breathtaking, unstoppable physical prowess of Pittsburgh's leading experimental dance company, LABCO Dance, as it makes its distinct mark among Pittsburgh's dance companies with its presentation of Holding Passage.

Click here to see what the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has to say about Holding Passage