Rink to Create New Work for Harvard Dancers
During the January reading period, choreographer Scott Rink will be in residence as visiting master dance instructor and choreographer. Rink, former dancer with Eliot Feld, Elisa Monte and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, has created works for Ailey II, American Ballet Theatre Studio Co., and for his own company DanceRink. He has been a guest teacher at North Carolina School for the Arts, University of Minnesota, and University of Utah. A new work, created by Rink for Harvard dancers, will premiere in the spring as a part of “Dancers’ Viewpointe VII.”
Nissinen Discusses ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’
On February 1 at 7 pm, Mikko Nissinen and dancers of Boston Ballet will present this year’s second Dance Talk, a ticketed event open to students and the public. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and watch Boston Ballet dancers as they perform excerpts from George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the intimate Harvard Dance Center.
Original Collaborations in ‘Dancers’ Viewpointe VII’
Under the direction of Elizabeth Bergmann, the Dance Program will present five performances of its seventh annual spring production. Student-choreographed works will be featured alongside professional pieces, including excerpts from Balanchine’s Serenade, an original collaborative work by Bergmann, composer Martin Case and stage and lighting designer Jessica Flores, and a new work by Scott Rink.
Serenade, created in 1934, was named after its Tchaikovsky score and was created for Balanchine’s first fledgling dancers. This work has retained the sweetness and mystery of the score and the innocence of those early performers. Under the stylistic tutelage of former New York City Ballet principal dancer Heather Watts, with assistance from Kathleen Tracey, Harvard dance students will recreate this classic masterpiece.
An edgy, modern work, choreographed by Bergmann, will be the result of a three-pronged collaborative effort with Case and Flores. After an October audition, the ensemble set to work on a weekly basis with selected dancers. The end result will be an unlikely marriage of talent, color, and wit. In the third professionally choreographed work of the evening, Harvard dancers will perform a work that exhibits Rink’s style, combining elegance with strong theatrical images, performed to a score by electronic music duo Matmos.
