“The arts open your heart and mind to possibilities that are limitless. They are pathways that touch upon our brains and emotions and bring sustenance to imagination. Human beings’ greatest form of communication, they walk in tandem with science and play and best describe what it is to be human.”
-- Jacques d’Amboise
Jacques d’Amboise, recognized as one of the finest classical dancers of our time, joins Michele de la Reza, co-founder of Pittsburgh’s Attack Theatre at this cityLIVE! event to discuss how the arts can impact community, youth and the city. Moderated by Lynn Conner, we’ll surprise you with a youthful warm up act by the Coleman Brothers and a dance event led by Peter Kope which promises to bring the house down.
Mr. d’Amboise, who was raised on the streets of New York and went on to become the first male ballet star in the United States, now leads the field of arts education with a model program that exposes thousands of school children each year to the magic and discipline of dance. In 1976, while still a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, Mr. d’Amboise founded the National Dance Institute (NDI) in the belief that the arts have a unique power to engage and motivate individuals towards excellence. Over the last 30 years NDI programs, in New York City and their affiliates, have reached and influenced well over two million children.
Attack Theatre co-directors Peter Kope and Michele de la Reza have been recognized as a “masterful and dynamite duo…the Fred and Ginger of the 90s where Ginger does most of the lifting.” Attack Theatre has been making personal, accessible and collaborative dance-based performances with “ninja-like intensity” for more than a decade. They combine modern dance, original live music, multimedia and interdisciplinary art forms to present work in traditional and nontraditional spaces throughout the United States and around the world.
Michele has performed throughout the US, Europe and Asia. With Peter, she has received numerous awards in the field of dance. They have choreographed works for the Avignon Festival, the 7th Next Wave Dance Festival in Japan, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and the Broadway production, Squonk.
Moderator Lynne Conner is a theatre and dance historian, playwright and arts consultant. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches courses in theater and dance history and dramatic literature. She recently published the book Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater (University of Pittsburgh Press).
Bring your questions, your ideas and your energy. It might be you out on the dance floor. Cocktails and conversation to follow.
Respond to: rsvp@nowall.com
Presented by no wall productions, the Heinz Family Philanthropies and the New Hazlett Theater. Sponsored by Pop City, ON Motion Media, the Heinz Endowments, the Grable Foundation and the Fine Foundation.