March 22, 2005

One of the most innovative, exciting and daring dance companies in the world—Emio Greco | PC—makes its area debut at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Emio Greco | PC
• Double Points: 1 and 2
• Greco is one of Europe’s most lauded dancers/choreographers
• Pieter C. Scholten is a legendary Dutch theater director
• This program won the prestigious Edinburgh Festival Herald Angel Award
• Tuesday, April 26 / 8 pm
• UCSB Campbell Hall
• General public: $35 / UCSB students: $19
• Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535

The international award-winning Emio Greco | PC—which takes its name from Emio Greco, one of the hottest young choreographers around, and the visionary Dutch theater director, Pieter C. Scholten—will perform the heart-stoppingly intense Double Points: 1 and 2 on Tuesday, April 26 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. Emio Greco’s physical presence has the same impact as a primal force of nature, and he draws the audience into his drastically beautiful world with passionate performances. In 1995 Italian choreographer Greco and Dutch director Scholten created this cutting-edge dance company acclaimed for inspired elegance and fierce majesty. Greco and Barbara Meneses Gutiérrez will perform the sizzling Double Points: 1 and 2, winner of the Herald Angel at the Edinburgh International Festival. Time Out London 2004 called this work the Outstanding Performance/Best Live Performance of 2003, claiming, “Few artists are so compellingly mesmerizing. Greco’s visit to London was one of the year’s most intense performances.”

In this pair of pieces Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten question and at the same time pursue the utopia of synchronicity. In Double Points: One dancer Emio Greco is confronted by the mesmerizing music of Ravel’s Bolero. Resisting and responding to the compelling pattern imposed by the music, he explores the boundaries of the dancing body. Double Points: Two presents different aspects of duality and the occurrence of opposition and correspondence. It is a duet in which Greco and Gutiérrez delve into the consequences of two people sharing the same space.

For Greco and Scholten curiosity about the body and its inner motives serve as the starting point for creating dance. In their performances movement is seen as self-sufficient and capable of creating its own time and space. Dance is not used as a medium to convey a message or decorate theatrical space, instead it is seen as having an intelligence of its own, capable of communicating a wisdom of the body that needs no added explanations. Throughout the working process, all the elements of performance—stage design, sound, lighting—are there to support, contradict, provoke, compel and evolve with the body in a state of discovery.

Emio Greco merges classical and contemporary elements to arrive at a new movement language in order to articulate the connection between body and mind. Following his classical ballet training in Cannes, Greco danced for several years with Ballet Antibes Cote d’Azur. From 1993 onwards he performed in several stage productions of Belgian visual artist and theatre director Jan Fabre as well as in Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara’s work.

The search for a new dramaturgy of the body has always been a central motivator in the work of theatre director and dramaturge Pieter C. Scholten. His early stage productions include performances of Oscar Wilde, Yukio Mishima and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Scholten worked for several years as a dance dramaturge and advisor to a number of choreographers and initiated Dance Instants, a work-in-progress program for Netherlands-based dance makers.

Barbara Meneses Gutiérrez started her dance training in Barcelona. In 1999 she graduated from the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S.) in Brussels and was invited to Impulstanz in Vienna on a Dance Web scholarship. In 2000 Gutiérrez received a Spanish artist grant to study in New York where she worked with choreographer Lance Gries. Barbara Meneses Gutiérrez joined Emio Greco | PC in 2000.

Concert-goers may enhance their experience by attending a tasty Dutch buffet served by the UCSB Faculty Club at 6 pm. The dinner is $18 per person; reservations must be made by April 19 by calling 805.893.3096.

Emio Greco | PC is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Santa Barbara News-Press. This event is supported by the Michael Towbes Foundation and is funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

Tickets are $35 for the general public and $19 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and the evening of the show.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.