Evening of Modern Dance

Pennington Dance Group of Los Angeles and Yorke Dance Project of London join forces for an evening of modern dance inspired by their mentor, Bella Lewitzky.

Saturday, December 3, 2011, 8:00 p.m. at the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach (Supported in part by the CSULB Department of Dance); on Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. at PDG’s new space, ARC Pasadena. The performances mark the first time that these two modern dance companies have performed together. The companies will each perform a work from their repertory, PDG will perform Yield of Vision and YDP will perform City Limitless, and the third work will be a premiere joint venture in dance entitled Overlay. This first major collaboration for both companies infuses their different paths of creativity as well as a great cultural exchange of ideas. John Pennington, the artistic director of both the PDG and ARC Pasadena, enjoyed a 14-year career with the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as a performer and teacher, serves on faculty at Pomona College and Cal State Long Beach, and is co-director of the Lewitzky Dance Gallery. Yolande Yorke-Edgell founded YDP in Los Angeles in 1998 shortly after dancing with Rambert Dance Company in London and Lewitzky Dance Company in Los Angeles.

PDG and YDP join artistic energies to create the premiere of Overlay, a new dance which layers creative energies from both dance groups. Pennington and Yorke have devised a dance choreographed on separate continents employing the immediacy of technology as a means for choreographic invention. Four new scores by three musicians provide the foundation upon which movement investigations overlay to create a kinetically charged border-crossing dance. Themes of dividing, merging, separation and unity weave through the geography of the dance. Overlay is choreographed by both John Pennington and Yolande Yorke-Edgell, with original music by Aaron Chavez, world percussionist; Mary Lou Newmark, an electric violinist, composer and poet; and Edgar Rothermich, composer and music producer.