Wendy Whelan / Brian Brooks / Brooklyn Rider in
Some of a Thousand Words
A Visions and Voices Signature Event

ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required. RSVP beginning Thursday, January 19, at 9 a.m. 

USC Students, Staff, and Faculty: RSVP
USC Alumni: RSVP
General Public: RSVP

DESCRIPTION:
Wendy Whelan, who spent 30 years with the New York City Ballet, is widely considered one of the world’s leading dancers. Brian Brooks is an award-winning choreographer and director of the acclaimed Brian Brooks Moving Company. They will come together to perform their tour-de-force duet First Fall along with luminous new work they have created with string quartet Brooklyn Rider, “one of the wonders of contemporary music” (Los Angeles Times).

The stunning First Fall bears testament to Whelan and Brooks’ friendship and effervescent artistic chemistry. Their new collaboration with Brooklyn Rider, Some of a Thousand Words, illuminates the intimate relationship between music and dance, featuring music by John Luther Adams, Tyondai Braxton, Philip Glass, Evan Ziporyn, and Brooklyn Rider’s own Colin Jacobsen.

This production was co‐commissioned by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, The Joyce Theater, The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, and the Modlin Center for The Arts at the University of Richmond.

Check out this video on the making of Some of a Thousand Words at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

Artist Bios:

Choreographer Brian Brooks has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, a New York City Center Choreography fellowship, and many other honors. He has danced with numerous choreographers, including three years with daredevil Elizabeth Streb. His dance group, the Brian Brooks Moving Company, “shatter[s] conventional notions of the human capacity for strength and endurance” (Dance magazine).

Wendy Whelan, widely considered one of the world’s leading dancers, spent 30 years at New York City Ballet, dancing virtually all of the major Balanchine roles, working closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets, and originating roles in ballets by such notable choreographers as William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei, and Wayne McGregor. In 2011, she received both The Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for her sustained achievement in performance. In 2012, as her career at New York City Ballet began to wind down, Whelan started developing new collaborative projects. First Fall was part of her inaugural project, Restless Creature. (Instagram)

Brooklyn Rider has performed at venues as varied as Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Todai‐ji, and South by Southwest. The group has collaborated with artists including Gabriel Kahane and Béla Fleck, and performed the world premiere of Veils and Vesper by Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams. (Facebook)

Additional Links:
New York City Ballet Twitter, Wikipedia

Related Event:
Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
A Film by Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger
A Screening and Conversation with Wendy Whelan
Wednesday, February 15, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.
Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center, Room 102
For more info, click here.
Photos: Erin Baiano

Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Co-sponsored by the USC Kaufman School of Dance.