Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Aurora, New York— The Wells College Arts and Lecture Series proudly welcomes the renowned Elisa Monte Dance Company for a campus residency and formal performance of their work. The performance will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 1, in Phipps Auditorium of Macmillan Hall on the Wells College Campus. Elisa Monte Dance will also work with students in a pair of modern dance master classes and hold a brown bag lunch discussion.

The Elisa Monte Dance company was founded in 1981 and made a strong start with a win at the International Festival de Dance de Paris. The company followed that with an outstanding season in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. Ever since, Elisa Monte Dance has built a strong reputation through diverse techniques and influences drawing on traditions from around the world; collaboration with and support from renowned artists in many other disciplines; and intense, expressive performances that show the possibilities of dance.

The company has toured extensively in the United States and more than 40 other countries and has performed festivals such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave,” Lincoln Center’s “Out of Doors” and both the U.S. and Italy’s “Spoleto” Festivals, as well as on television programs broadcast in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.

Elisa Monte, artistic director of the company, made her professional debut at the age of eleven, attended the prestigious School of American Ballet, and spent years working with professionals such as Martha Graham, Lar Lubovitch and Pilobolus before turning to choreography.

Her more than 45 original works have been performed by Elisa Monte Dance as well as the Boston and San Francisco Ballets, Ballet Gulbenkian of Portugal, the Batsheva Dance Company of Israel, and many others. Her recognitions include “best company” at the International Dance Festival of Paris, a commission by the National Choreography Project, and choreographer-in-residence status at institutions such as Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in Salt Lake City, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.

v8i7