PearsonWidrig DanceTheater

Since 1987, Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig's PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER has been praised for work which transforms the familiar into the mysterious, the subversive, and the intimate, and for creating and presenting “American dance theater at its funniest and most compelling” (NZZ, Switzerland).

Based in New York City, their work has been produced by the city's major dance venues including Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, the City Center Fall for Dance Festival, DTW, the Kitchen, Central Park SummerStage, Danspace Project, P.S. 122, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, and Dancing in the Streets. Foundation support includes the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, NPN, NCCI, the Rockefeller, Altria, Harkness, Jerome, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore, Puffin, Swiss Center and Sequoia Foundations, the Asian Cultural Council, and Arts International. Video specials have appeared on the national television networks of India, South Korea, Mexico and Greece.

2007-08 engagements include touring "Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans" to Washington, DC, New Orleans, LA, Saratoga Springs, NY, and Atlanta, GA; the development of the new company/concert stage work "Sayonara, Martha"; the creation of the site-specific performance project "Paradise Pond" in celebration of the Bates Dance Festival’s 25th anniversary, with original music by Obie and Bessie winner Robert Een; a NYC performance season at the Thalia at Symphony Space, a choreographic residency with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, WA; and creative residencies in Switzerland, India, and upstate New York.

Through dance, text, and video, the ideas they explore range from the socio-political "Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans" (“Heart-wrenching and wryly comic” [The Washington Post]) to the poetic "Thaw" (“Carries enough everyday magic for several productions” Eva Yaa Asantewaa) to the mystical piece "The Return of Lot’s Wife" ("unfolds with the pulsating rhythm of a carefully crafted poem - one part Woody Allen narrative, one part prayer" [The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY]) to the historical "Alpsegen" (in which Widrig takes a critical look at his native Switzerland’s role during WWII) to their early, emotionally charged duets "Partners Who Touch, Partners Who Don’t Touch" to the "most amazing! most enjoyable!" (The New York Times) "Ordinary Festivals," which has been seen by over 18,000 people on three continents.

Their site-specific projects and community dance/theater/video installations have taken them from rowboats in Central Park to the Great Lawn at Jacob’s Pillow to the Eiun-In Buddhist temple in Kyoto to the modern architecture of I. M. Pei’s Portland Museum of Art and to Wave Hill, the bucolic estate in the Bronx. Their most recent site-adaptive work, "Paradise Pond," premiered on and around the campus pond at Bates College and involved over 100 festival dancers, community participants, and musicians. The work marks the fourth major collaboration with Obie and Bessie award winning composer Robert Een.

Their site-adaptive extravaganza "A Curious Invasion" features 8-88 performers, 24 haystacks, 10 fans, 5 sprinklers, 4 TV/VCR’s, and 2,000 ice cubes. Elizabeth Zimmer of the Village Voice wrote, "In over a decade of watching Wave Hill events, I’ve never had such a good time. It really was perfect." The piece has been performed at Gilsland Farm Audubon Sanctuary, Falmouth, ME, 97, commissioned by the Bates Dance Festival; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, 01, co-commissioned by Dancing in the Streets and Wave Hill; Dartmouth College, commissioned by the Hopkins Center, Hanover, NH, 03.

Collaborations with composers have formed a vital part of their work andinclude music created and performed live by Robert Een, Andy Teirstein, Philip Hamilton, Carman Moore, and Hollywood composer Carter Burwell, who created "one of the finest scores for modern dance" (Back Stage) for "The Return of Lot’s Wife."

Pearson and Widrig have conducted residencies at New York University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Wesleyan University, UW Madison, Keene State, Oberlin and Antioch Colleges, the Bates Dance Festival, the Laban Centre in London, the Chang Mu Arts Center in Seoul, Korea, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico, the New Zealand Schools of Dance in Auckland and Wellington, and in India at the International Festival of Dance in New Delhi, among many others.

External Links

official website: http://www.pearsonwidrig.org/company/

Washington Post review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901705.html

Dance Magazine: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-15635045_ITM

Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/dance/0537,jowitt,67731,14.html

Symphony Space: http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/2181; http://www.entertainment-link.com/event_details_music_new.asp?evs_id=378077

Kennedy Center performance on video: http://www.millenniumstage.org/programs/millennium/archive_month.cfm?month=5&year=2006#

Bates College performance: http://www.bates.edu/x166156.xml