TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR HOUSTON, AUSTIN ON SALE JULY 12
Austin, TX – ISHIDA Dance Company presents Faraway, So Close, an evening of thought-provoking world premieres in contemporary dance: new works based on original poetic narratives that invite existential questions choreographed by ISHIDA Artistic Director Brett Ishida, a new work by former Batsheva dancer and USC Professor Bret Easterling, a work by Australian native Danielle Rowe, a former principal with Houston Ballet and Netherlands Dans Theater who has choreographed on San Francisco Ballet and Royal New Zealand Ballet, and a new creation by European award-winning choreographer Kristian Lever. Kristian returns to Texas having premiered “Unravel” with Royal Danish Ballet in Houston at Dance Salad in 2019. Tickets are on sale now for Houston and will go on sale for Austin on July 12. To purchase tickets go to Ishidadance.org.
AUSTIN, TX – August 13-14, 2021
Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm
Dell Fine Arts Center at St. Andrew’s
5901 Southwest Pkwy, Austin, TX 78735
Tickets: $25-$60/VIP $100
HOUSTON, TX – August 19-21, 2021
Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm
MATCH – Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston
3400 Main Street, Houston TX 77002
Tickets: $30-$70/VIP $110
The 80-minute program will feature an introduction by the choreographer and personal insights into each piece.
About ISHIDA Dance Company
ISHIDA is a new world-class contemporary dance company based in Austin, Texas, featuring venerated dancers from many of the top companies in the world (Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet BC, Netherlands Dance Theater, Kidd Pivot, Hubbard Street). ISHIDA blends contemporary dance with theatrical elements while retaining the physicality and beauty of the human form from traditional ballet. ISHIDA presents unique narratives relevant to a modern audience that explore archetypal themes and invite existential questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Such works enable audiences to gather meaning and emotional connection. ISHIDA’s poetic narratives intuitively prompt introspection to lead to greater kindness towards oneself and otherness.
About Brett Ishida – Artistic Director
Brett Ishida is a fourth generation Japanese American—Yonsei—raised in a typical valley town of Porterville, California. She grew up working and dancing in between trees on her grandparents’ modest citrus farm…
Brett’s love for dance inspired her to move away from home at age fifteen when she received a full scholarship to the Kirov Academy and later to the School of American Ballet. She then danced with Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, where she debuted her first choreographic work on the company, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montréal where she toured performing around the world. At Les Grands Ballets, she collaborated in new creations with choreographers and performed principal and soloist roles in repertoire by Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin and Didy Veldman, among others.
Enchanted by wordplay and narrative, Brett studied ancient Greek, ancient Greek philosophy or poetry, and in particular ancient Greek tragedy, and received a BA from UCLA in Literature with emphasis in Creative Writing: Poetry. She also studied psychology and human development earning a MA in Montessori Education from St. Mary’s College. Brett was an educator and administrator in Texas, California, and in Greece devoted to promoting and implementing experiential arts in education and advocating for children and young adults with special learning needs.
Brett launched Ishida Dance Company in the Spring of 2019 in Austin, Texas, bringing together her two worlds of experience. In January 2020, ISHIDA performed beginning/aρχή to sold out audiences at The Long Center in Austin. Several performances were canceled in the 2020-2021 season due to the pandemic, including her full-length dance theatre production involving film projection which is based on her original poetic narrative titled dream of black you come roaming.
Brett’s work is unique in that she crafts relevant poetic narratives that audiences can emotionally attach to and extrapolate meaning from. The movement is driven by the intimate narratives she creates which invite existential questions and introspection. Her intention is that her pieces may encourage greater kindness towards oneself and otherness.
About Bret Easterling – Guest Choreographer
Bret Easterling is an international dance artist, educator, and producer who received his BFA and the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreography from The Juilliard School. He was a formative member of Gallim Dance before joining the internationally renown Batsheva Dance Company under the direction of Ohad Naharin. Now based in Los Angeles, Bret is on faculty at USC’s Glorya Kaufman International School of Dance, an Ilan Lev Method practitioner, and a certified Gaga teacher who stages Naharin’s repertory at collegiate BFA programs and professional dance companies around the world. He is an avid dance creator who was recognized as a Choreographic Fellow at the inaugural Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob’s Pillow and invited to be an Artist in Residence at LA Dance Project as well as a participant in Rosanna Gamson|Worl Wide’s Decameron Residency. Bret is the founder and Artistic Director of BEMOVING, a non-profit organization that produces financially accessible opportunities to witness and experience the transformative power of dance, and the co-creator of the Ghost Light Residency.
About Danielle Row – Guest Choreographer
Choreographer Danielle Rowe was born in Shepparton, Australia and trained at the Australian Ballet School. Rowe was a Principal Dancer with the Australian Ballet and Houston Ballet, and also danced with the prestigious Nederlands Dans Theater.
Rowe has choreographed works for San Francisco Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater’s SWITCH program, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Co.Lab Dance (featuring dancers from American Ballet Theater), Ballet Idaho, Grand Rapids Ballet, Louisville Ballet, SFDanceworks, Barak Ballet, Diablo Ballet, Oakland Ballet and Berkeley Ballet Theater.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rowe pivoted to film making; writing, choreographing and directing eight dance films, namely Wooden Dimes for San Francisco Ballet and Wilis in Corps-en-tine for The Australian Ballet (with creative partner Garen Scribner and producer Reneff-Olson Productions) which was voted “one of the best things to come out of quarantine” by Vogue.
About Kristian Lever – Guest Choreographer
Kristian Lever is a British-Finnish award-winning choreographer. Born in London, UK but raised in Helsinki, Finland, he started his dance education at the Helsinki Dance Institute and later with the Finnish National Ballet School. His passion and ambition to dance lead him to continue his training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, as well as later on at the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden. Kristian’s performance repertoire includes works by Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Natalia Horencna, John Neumeier and many others. Under the direction of Mr. John Neumeier and Kevin Haigen in Hamburg, Kristian was offered his first professional engagement as a choreographer at the young age of 20. He has created several works for The National Youth Ballet of Germany, Croatian National Ballet of Rijeka, Croatian National Ballet of Split, Ballet Theatre Tivoli in Copenhagen, festivals of the Royal Danish Ballet, Ballett Vorpommern, the Hamburg Ballet, the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Salzburger Landestheater Ballet Company, as well as for dancers with Nederlands Dans Theater, Hessisches Staatsballett and The Royal Ballet.
Kristian founded his own production-based dance company, Klever Dance, creating a platform which allows him complete artistic freedom and to collaborate with world renowned dancers, actors, designers and composers. The company is constantly striving to create art that speaks to a larger demographic than the regular theatre goers. Enjoying creating multi-disciplinary dance theatre performances, Klever Dance recently premiered Kristian’s latest full evening production Framework, in November 2019, a show crossing borders between theatre and dance. The production was co-written by Kristian and Kellen McDaniel. He was most recently awarded the prestigious Erik Bruhn Prize representing Hamburg Ballet for his choreography An Intimate Distance, hosted by the National Ballet of Canada on March 23, 2019 in Toronto. Germany’s TANZ Magazine’s yearbook of 2019 honored Kristian Lever as “Promising Talent 2019”.
In 2020, Kristian premiered new works for the Hamburg Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada. In July 2020, Klever Dance premiered a new creation based on Kristian’s latest script Connecting doors, in collaboration with the Origen Cultural Festival 2020 in Switzerland. Kristian is currently writing and directing a film called The Stranger that will debut in 2021.