Vineyard Arts Project welcomes contemporary ballet company

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The Vineyard Arts Project, whose cutting edge studio is nestled on Upper Main Street in Edgartown, is an impressive Island residency program initiated to foster new work. The local organization boasts in-studio performances that enable the public to experience firsthand the development of each new production alongside its creators. For five weeks, thanks to a collaboration with Works & Process at the Guggenheim, the Vineyard Arts Project is excited to welcome a choreographic residency with the internationally acclaimed contemporary ballet company Morphoses.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim, founded and produced in 1984 by Mary Sharp Cronson, provides groundbreaking programs that blend performance, demonstration, and discussion among creative collaborators in all fields of the arts. The organization has been involved in over 300 productions since its inception.

Founded in 2007, Morphoses seeks to build on classical ballet with creativity in collaboration. Over the course of the company’s residency on the Vineyard, choreographers Jessica Lange and Pontus Lidberg will each create a new work set to the same pieces of music by Pullitzer-Prize winning composer David Lang. These works will premier October 3 and 4 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, an event deemed one of the twenty “most anticipated classical music dance events this fall” by New York Magazine (September 2011).

During the company’s Island residency, choreographer Melissa Barak, who recently created a new piece for the New York City Ballet, will produce a new work for the 2011 Morphoses season. Jill Johnson, a protégé of William Forsythe and Morphoses’ first artist in residence, will also teach classes focused on the Forsythe technique.

The opening rehearsal with the ballet company, scheduled for last Saturday, September 4, was curbed by Earl’s deceit, but the show will go on Saturday, September 25, when excerpts from new works will be previewed for the public. For reservations for the 6pm complimentary performance, email rsvp@vineyardartsproject.org.