Arte Institute Dance at Alvin Ailey
Arte Institute is pleased to announce “Arte Institute Dance at Alvin Ailey”, a Contemporary Dance Performance to celebrate Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities.
The event will take place at Alvin Ailey Theater on Monday, June 10 at 8.30 pm.
The show will include performances by Edgar Cortes Dance Theater Company, the Niteroi Ballet Company (Brazil) and the performer Alice Joana Gonçalves.
Get tickets here!
LAGRI MAR by Edgar Cortes
Edgar Cortes was born in Portugal. He graduated from the School of Dance of the National Conservatory in Lisbon where he worked with choreographers from Ballet Gulbenkian, the National Ballet, Escola Superior de Danca, Escola Superior de Teatro and Companhia de Dança de Lisboa.
In 1995 he was awarded a scholarship to the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City and worked with the Martha Graham Dance Ensemble.
In New York City he has worked with Pearl Lang Dance Theater, Sophie Maslow, Jeanette Hemstad, Analysis Dance Company, Chen & Dancers, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Ralf Jaroesenski, Sensedance, Mark Dendy among many other independent choreographers; and has toured extensively for six years with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (U.S.A., Japan, Australia, Europe, Canada, South America, Central America).
As a choreographer he created “Pescadora in Do Major”, “Algodao-Doce”. He also worked with Teatro do Mar in Portugal where he choreographed and directed a performance entitled Mar-Moria.
He was part of La Mama Moves – “Mavericks in Motion” dance festival at La Mama Experimental Theater Club where he performed a duet entitled “LAGRI MAR”.
In May 2010 he choreographed the opera “Pygmalion” – My Unfair Lady, for Underworld Productions as well as “Apollo and Daphne”/ “Clarence and Anita” 2011 and was the costume designer for “Don Pasquale” 2012 and “Il Trionfo dell’ Onore” in 2013.
In January of 2009 he founded the Edgar Cortes Dance Theater.
He was awarded a grant by NOMAA (Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance) and created “UNICORNIUS”, a piece inspired by the Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries currently at the Cloisters Museum and was invited to perform his solo from this piece at Open House, for the 75th Anniversary at the Apollo Theater and at the DUMBO dance festival in September 2010.
He is currently working on the new piece SOL-I-DÓ inspired by his native country of Portugal to premiere in September of 2013. “LAGRI MAR” is part of this piece and is a duet between a fisherman and his wife, depicting the eternal triangle between man, woman and the sea. This piece follows their emotional journey.
CORDA FRICCIONADA (BOWED STRING) by Clébio Oliveira
Clébio Oliveira is a choreographer from Natal, in the Northeast of Brazil who has torn down all boundaries with his art. Inspired by Luiz Gonzaga’s one hundredth celebration and by the sound of cello strings, he has created “Corda Friccionada” (Bowed String), a contemporary dance presentation by the Niterói Ballet Company, with songs by Luiz Gonzaga and musical arrangements by Ricardo Medeiros, a perfect blend for a majestic show.
The Niterói Ballet Company was founded in 1992, a major enterprise of the Niterói City Hall, and has been highly acclaimed by critics and public alike for its exquisite and bold choreographies, thus becoming a source of excellence in artistic creation and production. The NBC displays in its resume a wide repertoire of great choreographers of national and international fame, and it has performed in more than 20 Brazilian states and overseas.
“Corda Friccionada” is the result of the reunion between this fine company and one of the most important, creative and perfect artists in the Brazilian pop music scenario – Luiz Gonzaga – and to the classic and traditional erudite quality of cello music.
This show stemmed from the desire to display in movements all the tension created by the bowed strings of a cello, which will translate into beauty and art. There’s a parallel drawn with contemporary life, where tension shows in the most routine situations, nevertheless creating renewed possibilities and realizations.
THE HUNTING by Alice Gonçalves
Alice Joana Gonçalves was born in Coimbra, Portugal in 1986 and lives and works in Oporto, Portugal.
She is a dancer and a choreographer as well as a performer. In her work she has not only been gradually dwelling with the body’s physical presence but also developing the idea of her own body as pure art material; using it as an instrument, transforming and reshaping it, using her anatomical movements in accordance to her own wishes and needs. It is difficult to separate her art from her own life at the same time. Alice’s own life feeds her art to the point of becoming two in one. Her private live becomes completely entangled with her own work being virtually impossible to differentiate where one ends and the other begins. Her body becomes thus the artwork, fragmented both in time and space and at the same time the victim and the perpetrator of the immanent tension caused by its physical presence.
Camões – Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua supports Arte Institute´s annual program.
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