Dances for the Next Depression June 11, 2009

June 11 at 8pm, June 12 at 8pm, June 13 at 8pm, June 14 at 7pm

Depression? Again?? Stephen Pelton Dance Theater will see you through with the premiere of "Sugarfoot Stomp", created by the company in collaboration with playwright-in-residence Brian Thorstenson. Out of the rehearsal notes that Pelton has held on to for the past twenty years, comes a new dance of wit, energy, sophistication and total zaniness. Sugarfoot Stomp is performed to the irresistible sounds of Larry Clinton & His Orchestra, a big band from the 1930s that really knew how to swing.

Other highlights of the season include a revival of last year's "and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me". This haunting work, set to a score by Gavin Bryars, was inspired by the poem "Prayer Before Birth," written at the height of World War II, by the Anglo-Irish poet Louis MacNeice. The dance is Pelton's deeply personal meditation on how one might reconcile one's self, not only with mankind's darkest impulses, but to the progress of time and the body as well.

The evening also includes Christy Funsch's new "Three Rue Road", a series of interlocking solos choreographed for herself, core company member Nol Simonse and artistic director Stephen Pelton to the solo piano music of Gonzales.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, writes: Stephen Pelton's antennae must be of the gossamer type. They pick up on nuances of living that most of us ignore as we race against that next deadline. Pelton creates work of tremulous acuity with a nod toward the melancholic, though without a whiff of sentimentality...Pelton is a storyteller in the manner of poets who suggest, evoke, and analogize - but don't spell out. The results are dances that resonate like a Zen bell.

In addition to Funsch and Simonse, the company includes Goldie-award winner Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and Private Freeman, who dazzled audiences for years with his dancing for ODC. The company is joined by guest actor Anne Darragh.

$20, $15 for members, students and seniors.

Official Website: http://stephenpeltondance.org