Harvesting Two Fall Dance Weekends!

Dancers: Heidi Sutherland, James A. Pierce III, Claire Hancock, Paulo Gutierrez
Dancers: Heidi Sutherland, James A. Pierce III, Claire Hancock, Paulo Gutierrez

Autumn started on a busy note as two back-to-back weekends of dance loaded my schedule, but lightened my heart! With 26 years under my belt with Adams Company Dance, I still approach each project with the eagerness of a kid learning to ride a bike for the first time. Nothing ever feels mundane once I enter the studio and see the essence of beauty before me in each dancer.

Two teams of dancers made it possible to perform “Willing to Catch,” a new work which began in August, for both the CBG Fall Dance Festival in Soho, September 30th and October 1st, followed by the Temple University Alumni Dance Concert on October 6th and 7th. Dancers Claire Hancock, (a dancer whom I’ve known since she was seven!!) who coupled with Paulo Gutierrez ( a dancer who attended my Master Class in June); and James A. Pierce, III (longtime dancer with ACD), who coupled with Heidi Sutherland (another dancer who attended my Master Class)– took on the new piece with vim and vigor!

Talent pushed the boundaries with these duets, and with James also dancing the solo “Avec Moi,” at Temple– I think we hit a flush! The concerts gave a platform for the dancers to rise to new levels of grace, beauty and strength, and I am so happy to be able to have those qualities in perpetuity, with the wonderful images from each of the shows! See our albums below here:

 

With an attitude of gratitude I will treasure these Fall weekends with these extraordinarily gifted dancers, and give thanks to the bounty we reaped during this time of harvest!

Me and the dancers post shows
The Dancers & Me

Weekend in Philly!

  • Heidi Sutherland and James A. Pierce, III take the stage this weekend at Temple University’s Conwell Hall. They will perform a new duet, “Willing to Catch,” and James will perform a solo, “Avec Moi.” Alums from the Temple dance department are joining forces for these two performances, which are sure to delight!
Heidi and James in motion during rehearsal
Heidi and James in motion during rehearsal

Continue reading Weekend in Philly!

A Look Back at 2016

 

After 25 years of making dances depicting the human condition, relationships and the comically absurd, this year allowed me to look back and honor the dancers, the dances, and the archives of Adams Company Dance through the ages. What a gift to have been able to do the work I have been doing for all these years! I surely could’ve given up many times when the going got rough. I recently told a former student, who just started her own company, that the key to success is tenacity. It’s not all about talent or luck in this field, but it is about how well you can stick to it when the odds are against you. Balancing it all has been a challenge, but passion always trumps — oh dear, there’s that word…  Talk about challenges we faced this year, and one can only imagine what is to come with this guy in office. Ughh!

Through trials and tribulations on both a personal and global scale, I marched through 2016, with a bit of a ball and chain feeling I was dragging around. However, I know I was not the only one. My steadfast and stalwart rehearsal studio, ” The DANY,” closed their doors from the weight and pressure of the economy. Oh no! Thank God for trials though, as that is the stuff of creativity and art — but c’mon — enough already, 2016! I chose to celebrate my dancers, however. They are the committed ones that came through the muck and mire of their own personal trials, and like the phoenix rising from the ashes, they helped navigate through, using their ultra-talented gifts to fuel our choreographic endeavors. I owe everything to them!  Take a look here at their beauty in motion!

So looking back at the tenacious doings of 2016, I will remember fondly my Jin Shin Jyutsu Self-Help class for dancers at Greenwich Academy’s dance department, in Greenwich, CT; a fun podacst called “Quest Hands,” with one f my former dancers, Robert Halley, who started his own business; a summer into fall rehearsal schedule with James A. Pierce, III, working on our new dance “Sentimento Spirituale”;” our archival video shoot at Gelsey Kirkland Theater and our near-debacle, where we lost, then found all the video footage; our “Behind the Lens,” screening at the Bryant Park Hotel: our 25th anniversary celebration event; and lastly, the spiritually uplifting performance of James A. Pierce, III, in his new solo on the bill of Aries in Flight, at the West Park Presbyterian Church in NYC, where two performances that day allowed for a divine experience!

Most fondly, I will remember the dancers who showed up this year and performed in and attended our events — a reunion of my saints — who marched in some way, for some part, through these dance fields for the past twenty-five years, all who contributed to the essence of ACD; and, just like the postmen — through rain, sleet, snow, and hail — they delivered, no matter the weather… and that’s tenacity!

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Throwback artistic director’s moment
Film Screening at the Bryant Park Hotel
Film Screening at the Bryant Park Hotel
James A. Pierce, III
James A. Pierce III, in Sentimento Spirituale
Glenn Lonetybeing honored by Debra Levine at "Behind the Lens"
Dr. Glenn Loney being honored by Debra Levine at “Behind the Lens”
A moment with the dancers after the Bryant Park event: Milan Misko, Alana Kirzner,Chris Jackson, Mitzi Adams, Meredith Fages, Julie Fiorenza, Annie Heinemann