NEW

VIDEO BY REBECCA BUTLER

BWDP Named to the 2016–2018 Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Roster

We are proud to announce our appointment to the 2016–2018 Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) Touring Roster. This distinction enables us to increase touring, exposure, and building audiences in Texas. We are grateful to the TCA for its support and we are honored to join TCA’s distinguished list of Texan artists from dance, music, theater, literature, storytelling, visual arts, and film/media.

Through the Arts Respond Performance Support Grant, TCA provides funding to presenters in Texas to assist with booking fees. This quarterly program provides support to Texas schools, libraries, and nonprofit organizations for hiring TCA Touring Roster artists for performance, residency, or workshop. Negotiations take place between the presenter and artist/company. The presenter then applies to TCA for funding to supplement the engagement.

Our company is looking forward to touring and is prepared to travel to theaters, colleges and universities, libraries, and schools across the state. “We are excited to present works by Founder Bruce Wood® and new works by BWDP resident choreographers—Albert Drake, Joy Atkins Bollinger, and Kimi Nikaidoh—along with nationally acclaimed choreographers Bryan Arias, Andy Noble, and Katarzyna Skarpetowska,” said Gayle Halperin.

BWDP Raises $10,900 on North Texas Giving Day

We are grateful for the support of our many donors. Thank you to everyone who got up and gave on September 22!

New Grant from TACA Donna Wilhelm Family New Works Fund for Thalken/Drake Project, which premieres June 17+18, 2017 at the Dallas City Performance Hall.

Great news for our 2017 season. The Thalken/Drake Project has been selected as a recipient of a grant from the TACA Donna Wilhelm Family New Works Fund. The Fund endowed BWDP with an unprecedented $70,000—the largest single award since the Fund’s inception five years ago. The purpose of the Fund is to stimulate new works demonstrating artistic excellence and transformational relevance. The award goes toward the development and production of the new work, which premieres at the Dallas City Performance Hall on June 17+18, 2017.

The project brings together two exceptional artists to create a work about the refugee experience—delving into the struggles, hopes, fears, and dreams of displaced people. The collaborators are award-winning New York composer Joseph Thalken and BWDP Artistic Associate Albert Drake. The premiere features BWDP dancers with Thalken conducting his score to live music provided by Dallas Chamber Symphony. The evening promises to be a tour de force of dance and music.

“BWDP offers audiences joy, healing, and opportunities for fruitful introspection, while providing exciting, meaningful work for local artists,” says Artistic Director Kimi Nikaidoh, “We are grateful for the tremendous support of the New Works Fund and excited about the ways in which the gift helps us serve our community through thoughtful, high-caliber productions.”

Thalken adds, “Dallas has such a long and thriving history of dedication to the arts, and to have the opportunity to work so closely with this world-class dance company and the incredibly talented Albert Drake is a very exciting opportunity that I am looking forward to with all my heart and soul.”

“I’m excited about working with such an accomplished composer and combining our creative perspectives to shed light on the current refugee dilemma. Bruce Wood®’s past mentoring has inspired me to take on new challenges and find purpose in making art,” declares Drake.

The latest statistics from the United Nations Refugee Agency report that “65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations.” Furthermore, a UNRA Global Trends report noted that “on average, 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds.”

Joseph Thalken is an acclaimed composer whose theater and concert works have been performed internationally. Among Thalken’s original scores are Harold And Maude, Was, And The Curtain Rises, and Borrowed Dust. Thalken has also written choral, vocal, and instrumental music. On Broadway, Thalken conducted Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli, and Gypsy, with Patty LuPone. As a pianist and music director, he has worked with Bernadette Peters, Kristin Chenoweth, Marin Mazzie, Jason Danieley, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Michael Crawford. Previous honors include two Gilman & Gonzalez–Falla Foundation Musical Theater Commendations, the Constance Klinsky Award, Meet the Composer Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and support from the Shen Family Foundation. He has taught at Yale University and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Albert Drake is a founding performer in the BWDP company and a celebrated up-and-coming choreographer. His first major work for the company, Whispers, premiered in June 2015. Drake went on to work with Thalken for BWDP’s holiday event, Mistletoe Magic, in December 2015. He has been with BWDP since its beginning and has performed in at least 20 of Bruce Wood®’s acclaimed works. As a freelance performer, Drake was featured in the 2016 Soluna: Rules of the Game, presented by Dallas Symphony and AT&T Performing Arts Center. Choreographer Jonah Bokaer oversees this multidisciplinary work that will appear next at the Brisbane Festival in Brisbane, Australia and then at Theatre National Populaire in Villeurbanne, France. Drake was born in Houston and has a BFA in Dance Performance from SMU Meadows School of the Arts.