Australian Dance Theatre Returns to New York
The Joyce Theater | May 3-6
This weekend the Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) will perform in New York city when the acclaimed contemporary dance company returns to North America for the first time in 15 years.
Programmed as part of the The Joyce’s Australia Festival – two week’s celebrating Australian dance –ADT will be performing The Beginning of Nature at the premier venue of contemporary dance, New York’s famed The Joyce Theater, from 3-6 May.
The theater’s Australia Festival also features Dancenorth‘s Attractor and a selection of homegrown works by The Australian Ballet.
The Beginning of Nature is choreographed by ADT’s Artistic Director Garry Stewart and explores the rhythm in nature; day and night, seasonal and tidal shifts, patterns of weather, migration, hibernation and bodily growth and decay.
Acclaimed composer, Brendan Woithe, and Kaurna leader & teacher, Jack Buckskin, collaborated to develop the original score which features a libretto sung in Kaurna language, the first language of the Adelaide Plains in South Australia, where ADT is based.
“When I first decided to make this, I wanted to include the human voice in the score. In a work about rhythms in nature it just made sense to work with the Kaurna language, which has been spoken here for tens of thousands of years,” Garry Stewart, Artistic Director, ADT.
The Beginning of Nature had its world premiere in Bogota, Colombia in 2017, to critical acclaim. Since then the work has astonished audiences of 16,500 across Australia and Europe.
ADT’s New York season consists of 5 performances and will be followed by a residency at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow in Massachussetts, where the company will initiate the development of a brand-new work.
The Beginning of Nature – North American Premiere Season
The Joyce Theater, New York
Friday 3 May (8pm), Saturday 4 May (2pm & 8pm), Sunday 5 May, 2pm & 7.30pm
Bookings: joyce.org/performances/australian-dance-theatre
