Partita Project Brings Baroque Dance to Campus

As part of the International Bach Festival Week in Philadelphia, Lisa Kraus and Dancers teams with virtuoso violinist and composer Diane Monroe to present their dance/music event, The Partita Project, in Goodhart Music Room on Saturday, March 24 at 7 p.m. Based on the Violin Partitas of J.S. Bach, which are themselves based on baroque dances, The Partita Project slides between classical forms and contemporary "doubles." The audience is invited to become spectators at an intimate ball, with refreshments and free admission.

Critic Nancy Dalva wrote of the work's 2006 premiere in Dance View Times: "Music and dance build together, deeply winding us into their twined architectures. A total sense of something complex and wonderful and real, yet utterly ephemeral."

Describing The Partita Project as "a great idea" and its music as "among the best ever written," Philadelphia Inquirer music critic David Patrick Stearns also wrote "I refuse to believe it won't have a further life." In 2006-07 with support from Dance Advance, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Five County Arts Fund and Meet-the-Composer, the work is being reconfigured for a variety of audiences and historic spaces.

Veteran contemporary choreographer Lisa Kraus taught the Paris Opera Ballet in 2003 and 2004 and while there became fascinated by baroque dance in part because it reminded her of the square dances her father called when she was a child. Kraus performed in the internationally renowned Trisha Brown Dance Company and was a member of New York's downtown dance scene for 12 years, presenting her work at major venues in the United States and abroad before moving to Europe to teach at the European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands for a decade. Now in the Philadelphia area, she wears several dance hats in addition to choreographer: writer (Dance Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer), teacher (Swarthmore College), and coordinator of the Performing Arts Series at Bryn Mawr College.

Violinist and composer Diane Monroe has been praised by critics for her interpretations of both European classical and American jazz traditions. New York Times critic Bernhard Holland wrote that her playing has "at its center, a heart of gold." Jim Ferguson of Jazz Times has applauded her "stunning musicianship and bright creative spark." Monroe is a Pennsylvania Performing Artists on Tour roster artist. She has performed with the Uptown String Quartet, Max Roach Double Quartet, Arnold Steinhardt, Yo-Yo Ma, the String Trio of New York and in the chamber music and jazz festivals of Marlboro, Caramoor, Sitka, North Sea, Peco and Mellon Jazz Festivals. With Itzhak Perlman she was an original soloist in "Fiddlefest" at Carnegie Hall. Her recent commissions have been from TapIT/NewWorks, Relache Ensemble for Contemporary Music and Core Ensemble.

The company Lisa Kraus and Dancers includes several of Philadelphia's most dynamic and adventurous dancer/choreographers. Performing in this chamber concert will be Devynn Emory, Meg Foley, Jaamil Kosoko, Melisa Putz, Gabrielle Revlock and Josie Smith.

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