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With modern standards from Tharp, brand-new work by November, Gibney Company to take Amp stage

Gibney Company
Gibney Company

Modern dance group Gibney Company is scheduled to grace the stage at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.

For Gina Gibney, founder, artistic director and CEO of Gibney Company, it’s thrilling to bring the company to an audience as engaged as Chautauqua’s. She’s excited to bring the company’s repertoire to the Amp stage, highlighting the world of modern dance, and she’ll discuss the company’s work prior to the performance when the Chautauqua Dance Circle hosts a preview event at 7 p.m. tonight in Smith Wilkes Hall.

Tonight’s Amp program consists of three pieces. The first two pieces, “Bach Duet” and “The Fugue,” are choreographed by the prolific modern dance trailblazer Twyla Tharp. Her “Bach Duet” is a “really beautiful and ironic juxtaposition” piece, according to Gibney.

“The dance has this fun, off-the-cuff, flirty quality to it,” she said. “It’s very released, very thrown, but very intricate and very much about the intricate connection and relationship between the two dancers.”

“The Fugue,” the second of the two Tharp pieces, is a cerebral, contemporary piece.

“It’s a mind teaser, it’s very hard physically because a lot of the movement is created through manipulation of movement,” Gibney said, and this is because the choreography was not generated on a body, but instead was generated through ideas and variations on these ideas.

The last piece, “Vukani,” is a much more recent piece, choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November.

“It’s a piece that both taps into and draws from South African traditional dance roots, but also draws on his more contemporary sensibility,” Gibney said. “It’s a piece in which he was really looking to explore his own contemporary sensibility. We’re really delighted to be presenting it to the Chautauqua audience because I have a feeling that there will be a real appreciation for what Mthuthuzeli is working on.”

Gibney said the company had originally planned to do another, different piece from its repertoire, but she and Gibney Company Director Gilbert Small felt that Chautauqua’s audience would connect strongly with November’s piece.

“Given the depth of inquiry of the Institution and given the sense of seeking and searching that I associate with it, it felt like (Chautauquans) would really respond to some of the spiritual themes,” she said.

Gibney said part of what makes the company unique is their commitment to social justice and equity, both in society and in
dance specifically.

“We have a decades-long commitment to using dance to address social justice issues and tackle inequities and gaps, both primarily in the community but also in the dance field itself,” Gibney said.

She thinks the juxtaposition of the program will be interesting and engaging, and that Tharp’s decades-old iconic pieces will contrast nicely with November’s work — which will be performed for just the second-time ever tonight. She looks forward to seeing the variation between enduring classic pieces and cutting-edge, innovative
new work.

Gibney hopes Chautauquans will engage with the varied, diverse program that showcases the breadth of what modern dance can be.

“I think each one of these pieces has a different reason for being and a different intellectual and kinetic underpinning,” she said. “To be present and to allow that to wash over (you), and to be in a mode of inquiry about that will
be helpful.”

For Gibney, a successful performance would be one that sends Chautauquans home with an appreciation for the expansiveness of modern dance and the innovation taking place within the genre.

“Modern dance has so many different voices and different manifestations,” she said. “I hope it reminds them that they love dance, that dance is many things and that they should go see more dance.”

Tags : Bach DuetChautauqua Dance CircledanceentertainmentEvening EntertainmentGibney CompanyGina Gibneymodern danceThe FugueTwyla Tharp
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The author Julia Weber

Julia Weber is a rising senior in Ohio University’s Honors Tutorial College where she is majoring in journalism and minoring in art history. Originally from Athens, Ohio, this is her second summer in Chautauqua and she is excited to cover the visual arts and dance communities at the Institution. She serves as the features editor for Ohio University’s All-Campus Radio Network, a student-run radio station and media hub, and she is a former intern for Pittsburgh Magazine. Outside of her professional life, Julia enjoys attending concerts, making ceramics and spending time with her cat, Griffin.