Hedwig Dances

Description

Hedwig Dances, the critically acclaimed and award-winning dance ensemble, was founded in 1985 by Artistic Director Jan Bartoszek. A resident company at Chicago's Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Hedwig Dances creates, performs, and cultivates contemporary dance theater within communities of audiences, dancers, and artists with the goal of provoking human connection and wonder. Stellar in technique, the dancers are culturally diverse and their dynamism is deeply rooted in rigorous years of training in modern dance and ballet.

Hedwig builds vibrant, novel, and at times startling visual and aural environments that cast the dancers in an altered, yet specific, time and place. The company's bold interdisciplinary collaborations combine poetic choreography with sculptural artifacts, projected images, and haunting original music.

Hedwig Dances has presented over 1,500 performances at prestigious national and international venues, including Joyce SoHo (New York City), The Bauhaus 100 Festival (Germany), Teatro Nacional de Cuba Sala Avellaneda (Cuba), and the Aspen Institute (Aspen, Colorado) among many others.

Presenters may wish to enhance a Hedwig performance engagement with audience engagement activities - offered in English, Spanish, or Portuguese - including master classes (e.g., Tecnica Cubana), workshops (e.g., Dance + Objects), lecture-demonstrations, open classes/rehearsals, and pre-/post-performance conversations.

Work Sample

Title: "META | MOR | PHOS - A Triadic Fiction"
A co-production between Hedwig Dances and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Performance Date: September 2, 2022 at Bauhaus Museum, Dessau, Germany
Running Time: 45 minutes
Choreography: Jan Bartoszek
Dramaturgy: Torsten Blume
Dancers: Ciara Borg Weaver, Jessie Gutierrez, Olivia Gonzalez, Hannah Marcus, Rigo Saura, Lucas van Rensburg
Composer: Patricia Taxxon with sound design and additional music by Richard Woodbury
Costume Design: Oskar Schlemmer from the "Triadic Ballet" reproductions constructed at the Bauhaus from the originals by Annegret Mittmann, Andreas Wohmann, Matthias Lipeck. New Costumes and mask design and production by Torsten Blume, Jacky Kelsey with assistance from Zach Sun and the Chicago Puppet Studio (a program of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival). Additional costume assistance by Eduardo Sosa.
Lighting Design: Michael Reed
"META | MOR | PHOS" is a sequel to Oskar Schlemmer's 1922 "Triadic Ballet," an icon of dance and performance art. While Schlemmer oriented his work toward a man-machine symbiosis, the ideas in "META | MOR | PHOS" are redirected through the metamorphosis of insects to an existential connection to the natural world.

Title: "FUTURA"
A collaboration between Hedwig Dances, Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and Bauhaus Dessau
Date: September 12, 2019 at Bauhaus Building Stage, Germany
Trailer Running Time: 2:17 minutes (full 51 minute work available upon request)
Choreography: Jan Bartoszek
Dancers: Jacob Buerger, Jessie Gutierrez, Olivia Gonzalez, Jesse Hoisington, Taimy Ramos, Rigo Saura Composer: Richard Woodbury
Costumes: Sanja Manakoski, Jan Bartoszek
Lighting: Alexander Ridgers
Video: Jason White
"FUTURA" is a spectacle of bold geometry, rich theatrical movement, and a rousing musical score. Inspired by the Bauhaus modernists, choreographer Jan Bartoszek examines spatial concepts of confinement and freedom. By framing movement with imaginative costumes and objects, she orchestrates a colorful, collaborative exploration of how dance shapes and is shaped by society, art, architecture, and design in the 21st century. To celebrate the Bauhaus Centenary, Jan Bartoszek and Torsten Blume, research associate at the Bauhaus Dessau, fostered an historic. Hedwig, Institute of Design at IIT (founded as the New Bauhaus in 1937) and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany came together to re-establish ties and create a new work. "FUTURA" premiered in 2018 at The Dance Center of Columbia College and was showcased in Germany in 2019.

Title: "ASCENDance"
Date Performed: June 2013 at Athenaeum Theatre, Chicago
Trailer Running Time: 1 minute (full work is 1 hour, available upon request)
Choreography: Jan Bartoszek
Dancers: Victor Alexander, Edson Cabrera, Katie Graves, Maray Gutierrez, Jessie Gutierrez, Michel Rodriguez
Composer: Matthew Ferraro
Costume Design: Vin Reed
Lighting Design: Ken Bowen
Sculptor: Barbara Cooper
Video Design: Petra Bachmaier of luftwerk
Rigging: Michael Reed of Reed Rigging
"ASCENDance" explores the themes of renewal and transformation in a chaotic world. This multi-disciplinary collaboration was such that each component -- movement, sculpture, video, lighting, costume and music -- influenced the direction of the created art, and was, in turn, affected by it.

Hedwig Dances builds vibrant, novel, and at times startling visual and aural environments that cast the dancers in an altered, yet specific, time and place. The intersection of movement and visual environments "“ most specifically with objects, but also via integration of video, film, projections, set, and costume "“ has fascinated Artistic Director Jan Bartoszek throughout her four-decade career. Movement alters the perception of the visual field, animating the inanimate; and objects lend metaphor to movement.

History

Hedwig Dances, the critically acclaimed and award-winning dance ensemble, celebrates its 38th season under the artistic direction of Founder Jan Bartoszek. A resident company at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts in Chicago, Hedwig Dances has presented over 1,500 performances at prestigious national and international venues, including two exclusive performances at Joyce SoHo in New York City. Additional engagements include The Bauhaus 100 Festival in Dessau, Germany; the Teatro Nacional de Cuba Sala Avellaneda in Havana, Cuba; Teatro Diana in Guadalajara, Mexico; the Aspen Institute (Aspen, Colorado); Grace Street Theater (Richmond, Virginia); Margaret H'Doubler Performance Space (Madison, Wisconsin); and Lee Theater (Spring to Dance Festival, St. Louis, Missouri) among myriad other performance residencies and outreach programs spanning the past four decades. Hedwig Dances and its associated artists have been honored with two Ruth Page Awards and a Chicago Dance Award. For 20 years (1992-2011), Hedwig Dances served as the Dance Company-In-Residence at the Chicago Cultural Center under the visionary leadership and invitation of the late Lois Weisberg (Commissioner, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, 1991-2011). The company is named in honor of Jan Bartoszek's grandmother.

Artistic Vision

Hedwig Dances creates, performs, and cultivates contemporary dance theater within communities of audiences, dancers, and artists with the goal of provoking human connection and wonder. To achieve this, Hedwig works in collaboration with prominent artists from a variety of mediums and cultural backgrounds, trains and mentors dance artists, and creates corporeal works of emotional insight and beauty "“ engaging its communities in a process of artistic creation and reflection.

Hedwig Dances' bold interdisciplinary collaborations combine poetic choreography with sculptural artifacts, projected images, and haunting original music. Stellar in technique, the dancers' dynamism is deeply rooted in their rigorous years of training in modern dance and ballet.