Dance in Albany Series Begins 2023 with ODC/Dance Company

ALBANY – The performing arts centers at the University at Albany and The Egg are pleased to present ODC/Dance as the sixth company in the 2022-23 Dance in Albany series. Having recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary, this San Francisco-based ensemble is scheduled to perform on Friday, January 27, 2023 at 7:30pm at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus located at 1400 Washington Avenue.

Founded in 1971 by Artistic Director Brenda Way, ODC/Dance was one of the first American companies to incorporate a post-modern sensibility into a virtuosic contemporary dance technique and to commit major resources to interdisciplinary collaboration and musical commissions for the repertory.  Since then, the company has performed for more than a million people in 32 states and 11 countries with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. State Department and many state and city arts agencies.   In addition to two annual home seasons, past highlights include numerous appearances at the Joyce Theater in New York, sold out performances at the Kennedy Center, two USIA tours to Asia and standing room only engagements in Europe and Russia.

According to Dance Magazine, “…the major reason to celebrate ODC is its artistic achievements… Over the years, this body of work has become formally more sophisticated without losing its humanistic principals and questioning spirit…”

The company will perform three works on the program.  Choregraphed by Associate Choreographer Kimi Okada, Two if by Sea explores a couple’s secret language and signals which become increasingly imperative and urgent as their world changes. The dance is set to music by Ijo Ito and Steve Riech.

With choreography by Artistic Director Brenda Way, Unintended Consequences (A Meditation) premiered in 2008 and is set to music by renowned performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Commissioned by the Equal Justice Society, an Oakland-based organization working to transform the nation’s consciousness on issues of race and social justice, the work “offers a cutting critique of human relationships, and of how easily we become isolated.” (The New York Times)

Originally created for Robert Moses’ Kin in 2014 and featuring music by Someone Else & Miskate, Impulse celebrates “individuality, physicality and ferocity of movement” according to creator and ODC guest choreographer Dexandro Montalvo. The piece was nominated for an Izzie award for outstanding choreography. Izzies are bestowed from the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards program which celebrates the unique richness, diversity and excellence of Bay Area dance.

Through a major collaboration with the Dance Department at Skidmore College, there will also be the premiere of a new work on the program.  In a first-time choreographic collaboration by the pair, Way and Montalvo spent five days at Skidmore from January 18 to 22 creating a dance for 22 students selected through an audition process.  ODC will welcome Skidmore’s students as guest performers on January 27 when the students open the show performing the new dance.

TICKET INFORMATION

Advance tickets for are $15 for the general public and $10 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff.  Tickets purchased on the day of the show are $20 for the general public and $15 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff.  Individual tickets can be purchased on the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac or The Egg’s website (fees apply) at www.theegg.org.