An evening of new experiments with the methods of three visionary artists who have expanded the meaning of choreographic practice. And still do. See Harvard students perform and engage with work that spans 90 years of dance history. Evocative, idiosyncratic, distinctive and infinitely expressive, each of the these works provides dancers and audiences alike the opportunity to encounter dance history and participate in it.

The performance program is comprised of: gym dance for Harvard, 2019, Harvard Dance Project students in conversation with Merce Cunningham, directed by Silas Riener (Cunningham Trust); Lamentation Variation, Harvard Dance Project students in Lamentation (1930) by Martha Graham, staged by Miki Orihara (Martha Graham Dance Company); and Bill T. Jones’ Story/Time (excerpt; 2012), reconstruction of excerpts staged by Christina Robson (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company).

At the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Harvard Dance Project students premiered gym dance for Harvard, 2019, at Baryshnikov Arts Center, in “Runs the Gamut,” an event exploring the legacy of Merce Cunningham’s choreography and his experimental use of chance procedures. The event was also in celebration of Cunningham's centennial. Harvard Dance Project performed alongside the Alvin Ailey School, The Juilliard School, and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

The Harvard Dance Center is excited to collaborate with local musicians Osnat Netzer, Preceptor in the Department of Music, and Erika Matei, Master’s candidate from Longy School of Music, who will perform Piano Piece, Op. 3, No. 2, by Zoltán Kodály (1910), the original score used for Lamentation (1930), choreographed by Martha Graham. Nate Tucker, composer and electronic musician, will be perform his original works for gym dance for Harvard, 2019 and Story/Time (excerpt).

SEMINAL VOICES received additional support from the Bromley Innovation Fund for Dance and the Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities at Harvard University.