The JCE JAZZ DANCE PROJECT
OCTOBER 2019
DATE
LOCATION
Salvatore Capezio Theatre at Peridance
126 E. 13th Street
New York, New York 10003
www.peridance.com
“FRENCH TRiO” choreographed by Jeff Davis. Photo: Jan La Salle
Artistic Directors
Merete Muenter
Merete Muenter is a choreographer and director, as well as the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Jazz Choreography Enterprises. Choreography: Off-Broadway – Fiddler on the Roof - In Yiddish (Assistant Choreographer – Director, Joel Grey), Amerike – The Golden Land (The National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene), The Golden Bride (Chita Rivera Award Nomination / The National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene), South Pacific and Man of La Mancha (Plaza Theatricals), The King of Second Avenue (New Repertory Theatre). Director/choreographer:Fiddler on the Roof - In Yiddish (Associate Director, Off-Broadway / New World Stages – Director, Joel Grey), The Bridges of Madison County, (American Theater Group), Chicago, Tommy, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Woodstock Playhouse), They Walk Among Us (MITF / Award - Best Choreography). Short Film: Through the Ages (Director/Choreographer/Producer) Multiple Film Festival Awards. Originally from Buffalo, New York. SUNY Geneseo Graduate.
Danielle Diniz
Danielle Diniz is the Co-Artistic Director of Jazz Choreography Enterprises. She has choreographed works for the JCE Jazz Dance Project and will become the Co-Artistic Director on January 1, 2024. She recently was Artist in Residence at Tribeca BMCC via CUNY Dance Initiative and has been commissioned by Jacob's Pillow, Avant Chamber Ballet, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Ballet Hartford, Central Utah Ballet, Earl Mosley's DoD, Stars of American Ballet and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, among others. She choreographed the musicals 'An Unbalanced Mind’ (Off-Broadway), “On the Air” (Galley Players) and “My Way” (Theatre By the Sea), and presented work at the McCallum Theatre/Palm Desert Choreography Festival and the NYTB Choreography Lab at Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is a winner of the New York Dance Project Choreography Competition, a grant recipient from NYFA/City Artist Corps, choreographs/ADs at AMDA and has served as Associate Choreographer for Lorin Latarro. She is on faculty at Kanyok Arts Initiative and Manhattan Youth Ballet and teaches for Steps and Peridance. Cornell University Graduate.
Featured Choreographers
INSPIRATIONAL JAZZ DANCE ARTISTS
We thought you might enjoy seeing some videos of dance artists who influenced and inspired some of our choreographers in this edition of the New York Jazz Choreography Project.
Anthony de Marte
I found the song “Plain Gold Ring” a few years before I created movement to it. I stumbled across the song as most millennial do – via shuffling music on Spotify and YouTube playlists and seeing what comes up. When I first listened to it, I was entranced by the way in which the melody and instrumentation build alongside with the singer’s angst and improvisations. However, I was not yet in a place where my body could access a movement vocabulary appropriate to the music. As I began training in modern dance and composition, the tools I was developing allowed me to find the sense of grounding and freedom that I felt the music called for. This merged with the musical theatre and heels-based jazz styles that continued to influence me to create the sensual, fluid dance style of “Plain Gold Ring.”
Gregory Kollarus
“Snowflakes,” the music for my piece, was composed by Aleksandr Tsfasman, a Soviet-era jazz musician. At that time Russian musicians did not typically write jazz music. So the idea is about two things that don’t belong together, but somehow work. I let my mind wonder, and thought about two people in love vacationing in a place that somehow is summer and winter at the same time. Hence, my piece, “Summer Snow.”
Jeff Davis
My piece is inspired by the amazing music of Harry Belafonte. His vocal style evokes a lot of joy and creates very vivid imagery to me. I wanted to make a story of sailors in the Caribbean dreaming of being reunited with their loves. If any movie has a physical influence it might be the Havana scene from the film version of “Guys and Dolls.” I also love this picture of Katherine Dunham from a movie called “Casbah.”
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers in “Hellzapoppin'” (1941)