NEHANDA
artistic director, concept, design, performance
by nora chipaumire
Shona spiritual dramaturgy by Gwinyai Rutsito
OPERA | ZIMBABWE
September 2022
nora chipaumire returns to PEAK Performances with Nehanda and the legend of Nehanda. A powerful spirit, venerated by the Shona people, a native of Zimbabwe and central Mozambique, inhabits a woman, a heroic revolutionary leader who orchestrated the first uprisings in British-occupied Southern Rhodesia.
PRINCE HAMLET
a bilingual Why Not Theatre production
adapted and directed by Ravi Jain
ASL and visual translation by Dawn Jani Birley
THEATRE | CANADA
September 2022
Remixed, reimagined, and bilingual Prince Hamlet features a cross-cultural, gender-bent cast – challenging traditional ideas of who can tell this story. Interweaving Shakespeare’s spoken text with heightened and poetic American Sign Language, this physical theatre production creates a visually stunning retelling for both hearing and Deaf audiences.
“This is no ordinary Hamlet.”
–Toronto Star
FURIA
Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças
by Lia Rodrigues
Mature
DANCE | BRAZIL
November 2022
A constant flow of overflowing imagination that visualizes. Nine young dancers develop a series of images inspired by the daily lives of Black people in Brazil, creating poetry from these broken abandoned nothings.
In collaboration with The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; PEAK Performances at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ; BAM, Brooklyn, NY.
IN THE FIRE
Femmes Du Feu Creations
concept, created and performed by Holly Treddenick
original score by John Gzowski
directed by Monica Dottor
MULTIDISCIPLINARY, AERIAL, DANCE | CANADA
November 2022
Memories, trauma, self-discovery, aging, and love. In The Fire is a solo dance/aerial circus show about Holly Treddenick’s father, based on his experience as a firefighter. The production uses rescue equipment as invented apparatuses—including boots, a rope loop, and an aerial ladder.
Choral composition commissioned by PEAK Performances at Montclair State University. In The Fire received preliminary support from the MICC Working Group on Circus Commissioning (TOHU, Montréal), an international consortium dedicated to advancing new circus globally.
AMARYLLIS & BELLADONNA
by Mary Halvorson
stage design by Aaron Copp
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Adam O’Farrill, trumpet; Jacob Garchik, trombone; Patricia Brennan, vibraphone; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Nick Dunston, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums
plus The Mivos Quartet: Olivia De Prato, violin;
Maya Bennardo, violin; Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola;
Tyler J. Borden, cello
MUSIC | USA
December 2022
Amaryllis & Belladonna are two new, modular, and interlocking projects by Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer, and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson.
“The most forward-thinking guitarist working right now”
–Lars Gotrich, NPR.org
“One of today’s most formidable bandleaders”
–Francis Davis, Village Voice
THE NIGHT FALLS
book and lyrics by Karen Russell
music and lyrics by Ellis Ludwig-Leone
choreographed and directed by Troy Schumacher
DANCE, MUSIC THEATRE, OPERA | USA
February 2023
All across America, people on the brink of despair begin to have the same nightmare. A song will not leave their heads—dangerously beautiful music that lures lost souls to a mysterious grotto in Florida. With choreography that dramatizes the leap of empathy between bodies and music that channels the polarities of surrender and resistance, The Night Falls shows the visceral power of art to brace us against the abyss.
Developed and co-produced by BalletCollective, Inc.; The American Opera Project; and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University. The Night Falls was developed during a Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals 2018 residency.
OMBRES PORTÉES
Cie L’Oublié(e)
direction and choreography by Raphaëlle Boitel
artistic collaboration, light, scenography, Spider design
by Tristan Baudoin
original music by Arthur Bison
ACROBATIC THEATRE | FRANCE
March 2023
A physical and choreographic piece, with a particularly cinematic atmosphere, at the crossroads of circus, dance, and theatre that plunges us into the heart of the unsaid. Exploring the different sides of human nature–complex, funny, and ultimately moving–which highlights the danger of lying to ourselves.
U.S. Tour Partners: ArtsEmerson, Emerson College (MA), The Williams Center, Lafayette College (PA), and PEAK Performances @ Montclair State University (NJ).
The presentation of Ombres Portées by Cie L’Oublié(e)—Raphaëlle Boitel has been made possible with the support of FACE Contemporary Theatre, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and private donors.
ANΩNYMO
Amorphy
concept and choreography by Tzeni Argyriou
dramaturgy by Miguel Angel Melgares
original music and sound design
by Pepe Garcia Rodriguez
set designer and visual concept
by Vassilis Gerodimos
commissioned & produced by Onassis Stegi
production & touring by Delta Pi
DANCE | GREECE
May 2023
A journey back to a time when art was not something created by particular, named individuals, but a practice which brought people – and kept communities – together. Anonymo observes our lives through collective body memory, the experience of passing traditional dances on and their complete transformation into a contemporary movement idiom.
Onassis Stegi | Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales | Kalamata International Dance Festival | Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center | Delta Pi Touring