Chamber Dance Project (CDP) packed the house, both in the audience and on the stage, with 14 dancers and a host of musicians including The Red Clay Ramblers, Washington Men’s Camerata, and The Chamber Dance Project’s own String Quartet.
A few things have remained constant with the contemporary ballet company, Chamber Dance Project (CDP): Its bringing together of soloist-level professional ballet dancers during their lay-off periods from major professional companies and partnering them with equally talented musicians and boundary pushing choreographers to create onstage magic, and the company’s founder and visionary leader, Diane Coburn Bruning an award-winning choreographer.
Eight years later, Bruning’s vision of presenting her own choreography and that of others in intimate spaces with live music has flowered.
Some of the most exciting dance work is happening outside the largest institutions, where artists often have the freedom to experiment, take risks, and wholeheartedly follow their artistic curiosities. A perfect example is Chamber Dance Project, whose work is consistently atmospheric, intimate, and deeply original.
“We are a performing art form – it lives it breathes, it is different a little or a lot each time with the freedom this collaboration brings to those collaborating live onstage.”
The “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” the ancient Greek sculpture at the Louvre, inspired Diane Coburn Bruning’s 1994 ballet “Berceuse.” How fitting that the Chamber Dance Project performs the duet this summer as Bruning takes a victory lap as the troupe’s outgoing founding artistic director.
“There are moments, but none supersedes the overall feeling that what I set out to do is well on its way, and that I’ve helped people’s work and I’ve helped their careers go forward on their artistic journey. It is the overall feeling of having had a positive impact in the world for my medium which is dance.”
Chant, choreographed by Diane Coburn Bruning and Andile Ndlovu, opens on a resonant landscape of live Gregorian chant, forming a cathedral of sound, movement, and light that envelops and enraptures the audience.
Diane Coburn Bruning, founder and longtime artistic director of Washington, DC–based Chamber Dance Project, has decided to step down following the company’s upcoming June season.
Reflecting on the season, Bruning said the lineup represents different chapters of her artistic career and the collaborative values that have shaped the company since its founding in New York in 2000.
Chamber Dance Project artistic director Diane Coburn Bruning will retire from the post and shift to the role of artistic advisor after the company’s season ends in June.
Bekah Nettekoven, wardrobe director and costumer designer for the Chamber Dance Project, is hosting an evening taking guests behind the scenes of the art of costume creation.
Chamber Dance Project’s performance at Arena Stage’s Finchandler Theatre was a charcuterie board for dance lovers. The nine brief works, including two world premiers, offered glimpses into larger worlds that left the audience wanting more.
Perhaps my single favorite moment of the evening was “Don’t Fence Me In” in Songs by Cole, with Lope Lim, Palkens, and Peter Mazurowski in full cowboy regalia from head to toe, galavanting around the stage in 6-gallon hats, flannel shirts, a pair of six shooters, and with boots and spurs that jingled in time to the music.
Washington, D.C.’s 100° June weather wasn’t the only thing generating heat in the city. Chamber Dance Project’s 11th annual D.C. summer season production, “Red Angels,” produced its own scorching intensity as one of this summer’s early triumphs.
The exhilarating evening combines live chamber music, dancers, and for one of its pieces, a narrator reciting a poem. It also showcases dancers from Atlanta Ballet, BalletMet, The Washington Ballet, as well as several freelance dancers from New York City, New Jersey and elsewhere.
D.C.’s leading contemporary ballet company will present Red Angels, a collection of CDP repertory favorites, music performances by CDP’s string quartet, a world-premiere by Argentinian choreographer Jorge Amarante, and the D.C. premiere of Ulysses Dove’s masterwork “Red Angels.”
Choreographer Diane Coburn Bruning founded the Chamber Dance Project to make space for and celebrate those surprising works—the ones that push the art form and give dancers something new to sink their pointe shoes into.
Pointe spoke with Diane to learn more about the company’s upcoming summer season, working with Boal, and where she sees CDP going next.
Washington’s contemporary ballet company takes wing with the angels — namely, “Red Angels,” Ulysses Dove’s intense and muscular work, set to an electric violin solo composed by Richard Einhorn.
Chamber Dance Project’s complement of dancers, consisting of professionals on breaks from regular dance companies and freelance artists, featured dancers from Atlanta Ballet, BalletMet, BalletX, and more. Together, they brought to “Ramblin” a premiere level of dancing enhanced by stellar performances by CDP’s String Quartet and The Red Clay Ramblers.
In celebration of the company’s ten years in Washington, D.C., contemporary ballet company Chamber Dance Project (CDP) presented SLAM: A Festival of Ballets, June 22-25 at Washington’s Greenberg Theatre.
Presented in four sections, “SLAM!” features the work of four choreographers, one per section. All of it, says Bruning, is “put together as a collage, and then we give it a whirl — give it out to the audience and see what happens.”
Dance is frequently poetic, but it’s a different matter to incorporate actual poetry. Chamber Dance Project’s new piece “Slam!” stars slam poets Drew Anderson and Gayle Danley performing alongside eight dancers executing choreography by Victor Adebusola, Peter Chu, Gabrielle Lamb and Andile Ndlovu. In honor of this adventurous creation, the company’s run of June performances is titled “Slam! A Festival of Ballets.”