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  Richard Alston Dance Company: Three American Premieres

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Boasting a “rich, pliant, full-bodied” style that transports audiences “to the heart of dance itself” (The New York Times), Richard Alston Dance Company returns to Peak Performances for its final American engagement before the company closes its doors after more than 25 years. A selection of recent works highlights the unflagging invention of this beloved group, led by Richard Alston, one of the world’s finest choreographers currently celebrating his 50th year of making dances. Performed to live music, Alston’s witty Brahms Hungarian is presented alongside Shine On, the last piece the choreographer will create for the company. The fast-paced Detour, created by associate choreographer Martin Lawrance, rounds out a thrilling program that celebrates a troupe still in top form, even as the curtain closes.

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  Grand Band

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Grand Band is a six-piano musical ensemble composed of the finest contemporary-classical pianists. The sextet envelopes the audience in the sonic euphoria of contemporary compositions by Kate Moore, Julia Wolfe, Missy Mazzoli, and Julius Eastman, in a tour de force combination of sight and sound. Three Fragile Systems is complemented by the debut of an animated film by Joshua Frankel.

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  Spring : Gandini Juggling and Alexander Whitley

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  The seismic juggling virtuoso Sean Gandini collaborates with visionary choreographer Alexander Whitley to create Spring. This production mixes mind-bending juggling and dance into a kaleidoscopic dreamscape propelled by an immersive score by Gabriel Prokofiev. This performance is a refreshing and entertaining production at the vanguard of contemporary circus.

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  Martha Graham Dance Company : Appalachian Spring, The Auditions

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  APPALACHIAN SPRING (1944) tells the story of a young frontier couple on their wedding day.Created as the war in Europe was drawing to end, the ballet captured the imagination of Americans who were beginning to believe in a more prosperous future, a future in which men and women would be united again. Themes from American folk culture can be found throughout the dance. Aaron Copland weaves a Shaker tune, “Simple Gifts,” throughout his luminous score, while Martha Graham’s choreography includes square dance patterns, skips and paddle turns and curtsies, even a grand right and left.The spare set by Isamu Noguchi features a Shaker rocking chair. With its tale of a new life in a new land, the dance embodies hope.Critics called Appalachian Spring“shining and joyous,” “a testimony to the simple fineness of the human spirit.” THE AUDITIONS (2019) takes place in two worlds -one ethereal, one grounded. It follows its musical framework closely, which, in a cyclical nature, pulses between two very distinct, imaginative sonic and dramatic worlds: “theethereal landscape”and“the audition room.” Designed in seven arcs:slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, the work has a duration of 26 minutes and is performed without a pause.

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  Falling & Loving

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  Two titans of avant-garde performance—director Anne Bogart and choreographer Elizabeth Streb—join forces for the first time to take on works by Obie Award–winning rebel playwright Charles Mee in an original production co-produced by Peak Performances. In FALLING & LOVING six actors from SITI Company and six dancers from STREB Extreme Action storm the stage and launch into the air with the aid of a Guck Machine, an enormous contraption conceived by Streb that features rings and buckets armed to continually release materials into the stratosphere. Artists, ideas, and objects collide in this radical new production.

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  2019-2020 Season Brochure

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University