American Midwest Ballet celebrates a longstanding dance-art collaboration with Joslyn Art Museum this summer.
Sunday, June 23 – American Midwest Ballet dancers performed Bacchanale Variations at Joslyn’s Family Fun Day – a free event offered several times a year by the art museum. Each short performance was followed by a 10 minute question and answer session with the dancers.
Friday, Aug. 2 – American Midwest Ballet presents Bacchanale Variations at 7pm at Joslyn followed by a workshop
In addition to free events and performances, American Midwest Ballet dancers also serve as subjects for children’s art classes and adult professional photography classes presented by the museum.
The ongoing partnership has spurred both organizations to discover innovative ways to share ballet and visual art.
Each season, American Midwest Ballet choreographs an original work inspired by an individual piece of art or exhibition at the museum.
Past artistic collaborations include Overturff’s contemporary ballet Connemara, based on a painting of the same name by artist May Stevens, as well as Cleopatra, a shorter story ballet created to celebrate the museum’s 2012 exhibit To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum.
The 2013-14 season will feature a work by Matthew Carter inspired by Joslyn’s spring 2014 exhibit Poseidon and the Sea.
“The pieces created are inspired by artwork in the museum and become part of each season’s Momentum,” Overturff says. Momentum is American Midwest Ballet’s award-winning mixed-repertory production featuring a series of original short works in variety of dance styles presented at Joslyn’s Witherspoon Hall.
Says Overturff “our ongoing collaboration with Joslyn is an extremely rewarding experience which enhances the opportunities to share our work with the community.”
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