A Stanford White barn at Kaatsbaan is targeted to become a museum to hold dance-related artworks and artifacts, once renovations make the space usable. Already, many important collections have been donated for showing there, and Roton and Cary hope to have the museum up and running in a couple of years. Another dream is to build a facility for the production of scenic sets and costumes.
The founders have even conceived a plan for permanent residences for elderly dancers to live in. “We’d like to build a limited-sized senior complex, so that retired dancers can still be a part of the creative process. They could be very capable teachers for the young people who come here,” Roton says. “It might even lengthen their lives to continue to be involved in the artform.”
The original buildings on the property were erected in 1794, and all the renovations and additions have been done sustaining the style of architecture of existing buildings. Roton says that explaining their vision of a working creative residency center to local zoning boards was not easy, but he feels that they’ve become good neighbors to the people in Tivoli. In fact, county and state agencies have been very supportive of Kaatsbaan, which attracts world-class artists and musicians and teachers.
Waxing nostalgic, he comments on how technique has evolved over the decades. He cites the pirouette, a spin on one foot. “I started when I was five years old,” Roton says, “and I still can shuffle a little… We were lucky if we could get two or three good spins clean and finish without falling over. Now dancers are jumping higher and higher and are turning more. Contemporary audiences have been known to count out loud as a dancer spins. It’s amazing. Still, young people need to work on passion, feeling, projection and being able to tell a story. This requires developing muscle memory and the maturity of an emotional element. Older teachers are trying to pull this out of the young dancers, realizing that the young ones are technically better than they ever were.”
The public is welcome to visit Kaatsbaan. Most rehearsals are open and free of charge. “Dance is an experience of love, in many ways,” Roton says. “You either fall in love with your partner, or you fall in love with the artform.”
Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, 120 Broadway, Tivoli; (845) 757-5106, www.kaatsbaan.org.
Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company performs at Kaatsbaan
Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (photo by Gary Gold)
The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (ESDC) will begin its weeklong winter residency at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli with a concert performance featuring four original works created by Ellen Sinopoli. Taking inspiration from the work of artists outside the realm of dance – painters, musicians, scientists, poets – Sinopoli often collaborates with them in unique ways to interpret the terms of their specific genres through bodily movement, incorporating mixed media, spoken word, music composition, sculpture and architectural design. “Music informs me a great deal,” says Sinopoli. “The audience might recognize a style in one dance, but the next dance will be very, very different.”
At the Kaatsbaan performance, four unique works will be staged. Oh My! has five parts based on phrases pulled from five books. Each movement is a play on words that reflects an emotional tone, set to Appalachian Waltz (Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor). In Continuum, Sinopoli commissioned New York City violinist Cornelius Dufallo to create music integrated with computer. In Choreophysics she worked with professor Keith Earle of the University of Albany Physics Department to juxtapose the principles of the science – echo, pendulum, force and so on – with modern dance. In a piece inspired by the work of visual artists Michael Oatman and Ken Ragsdale, whose installation at Sage College paid homage to the International Exhibition of Modern Art of 1913 (better-known as the Armory Show), Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase was translated into movement using a mobile staircase. Sinopoli paired this translation with the music of Red Hook’s own Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor Joan Tower.
Now in its 24th season, ESDC is the resident company of the Egg Performing Arts Center in Albany. As a touring repertory, it brings choreographed programs out into the larger community through dance projects in schools, libraries, workshops and camps, and in special needs organizations such as the CDS Mobility Opportunities via Experience (MOVE) program, which explores definitions of ability and disability with individuals who have physical limitations.
Credited with skills of “vibrant energy and airborne athleticism,” current members of the company are Salt Lake City’s Louisa Barta, Maggie Ciambrone from Easton, Pennsylvania, Marie Klaiber from Buffalo, Brooklyn’s Andre Robles, Sara Senecal from Schenectady and Laura Teeter from Minneapolis, Minnesota. ESDC was formed around the same time that Kaatsbaan came into being, and has enjoyed a long history of performance and residency there.
Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, Saturday, December 13, 7:30 p.m., $30/$10, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, 33 Kaatsbaan Road, Tivoli; (845) 757-5106, www.kaatsbaan.org, www.sinopolidances.org.
