GOOSEROUTE.ORG :: Press Release 4/7/2006

PRESS RELEASE

Goose Route Dance Festival’s Eigth Season Expansion

CONTACT: Kitty Clark
304-876-6751; gooseroute@frontiernet.net
For Immediate Release
March 19, 2008

Shepherdstown, WV -- Goose Route Arts Collaborative is pleased to announce the dates and artist line up for the Eighth Annual Goose Route Dance Festival. This year’s Festival, known for its intimate setting and stimulating presentations, runs July 10-20 and will feature concerts, lectures, shows and classes for children, master classes, and a teacher training program. The Festival has expanded this season to include eight performances, up from four in the past seven seasons. Four different concerts will each be presented twice -- Friday night and Saturday matinee; and Saturday night and Sunday matinee. The number of tickets sold for each performance will be limited to improve on the crowded conditions of last year’s sold-out shows and give people a second chance to catch a performance.

Performing the weekend of July 10-13 are Megan Mazarick (Philadelphia, PA), who blends raw athleticism with character-based movement studies to address such issues as racism, classism, and stereotypes; Karen Schupp (Phoenix, AZ), whose virtuosic solos are laden with rich symbolism; Guta Hedewig (New York City), whose company will perform Dog Days, dance theater that uses slapstick, folk dance, and burlesque to portray the disturbing implications of the Bush administration’s use of propaganda; and Heather Ahern (Morgantown, WV), with four pieces that reflect explorations of gender issues, humor, and inner emotional states in dances that are funny, high energy, quirky, and contemplative.

During the weekend of July 18-20, choreographers include Cara Hagan (Winston Salem, NC), performing a fun solo with video projection that reveals the choreographer’s personal journey, and two duets danced with uncanny precision with twin sister Mackenzie; Sweetie Pie Productions (Boulder, CO), a duet company comprising Erika Randall and Anna Sapozhnikov, performing two dance theater works that exude humor, tenderness, and a healthy dose of dysfunction, topped off with whip smart movement vocabulary; Courtney Greer, Carson Efird, and Katherine Kiefer Stark (Raleigh, NC), a collective of choreographers whose solo and group work contain impulse- driven, interactive movement that explores the edges of modern dance; and Kitty Clark (Shepherdstown, WV), whose choreography is laced with both gestural and highly physical movement that explores our relationship with the environment, with each other, and with the unseen forces around us.

Concerts take place Fridays, July 11 and 18 at 7 pm; Saturdays, July 12 and 19 at 3 pm and 7 pm; and Sundays, July 13 and 20 at 3 pm. Tickets are $12 in advance ($10 for students/seniors); $15 at the door ($12 for students/seniors). Master classes for adults and teens in modern dance technique and contact improvisation, taught by visiting dance artists, take place Saturdays, July 12 and 19 and Sundays, July 13 and 20 at 10:30 am and cost $12 each (or all four for $40). Classes for kids (free) take place on Thursday, July 10 at the Martinsburg Public Library (time TBD), on Thursday, July 17 at the Shepherdstown Day Care Center (for Day Care enrollees), and on Saturdays, July 12 and 19 at 9:30 am. Open dress rehearsals, free for kids, take place on Fridays, July 11 and 18 in the morning. Two free lectures are also planned for each weekend. The Goose Route Dance Festival will also host the West Virginia Dance Teacher Institute, co-sponsored by the Appalachian Education Initiative. This free teacher training program is open by application to all West Virginia public school teachers of dance and includes workshops in all facets of dance training, fundraising, and production. The Institute takes place from Wednesday, July 16-Sunday, July 20. Unless otherwise noted, all events take place at the War Memorial Building, 102 East German Street, Shepherdstown, magically transformed into a dance theater for the Festival.

For more information and to order tickets, call 304-876-6751 or go to www.gooseroute.org

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Shepherdstown, WV -- Goose Route Arts Collaborative Executive Director Kitty Clark received a 2006 Governor’s Arts Award on Monday, April 3 during a ceremony at the Cultural Center in Charleston, WV. She was chosen in the category of “Arts Innovator” for her efforts to involve the Eastern Panhandle community in dance, and was among seven chosen statewide to receive an award this year. She was nominated by Kearneysville potter and arts advocate Pam Parziale, who last year received the “Distinguished Arts Award” for lifetime achievement.

During a brief acceptance speech, Clark thanked the people of Shepherdstown and the Panhandle who had supported her work by participating in and seeing performances, coming to classes, and generally encouraging arts entrepreneurship. She especially thanked Parziale who, when Clark first located to the area, encouraged her to go out and dance all over the county. “I am truly honored to receive this award,” Clark says. “I never set out to be innovative, just to do what needed to be done to get dance out to the community. There are so many more things to undertake in this effort.”

Presenter Kelli Burns, curator of the Museum in the Community in Hurricane, WV, told the audience that Clark’s “innovative chroeographed and improvisational performances range from a corps of dancers greeting train commuters at a rural station to a multi-section dance with children and adults traveling through fields of cows, using the recorded voices of farmers as a way to highlight farmland preservation.” Burns also noted Clark’s work in producing the annual Goose Route Dance Festival.

The awards are coordinated by the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and chaired by Commission member and Berkeley Springs resident Jeanne Mozier. Larry Groce, host and artistic director of West Virginia Public Radio’s “Mountain Stage,” was the master of ceremonies. Governor Joe Manchin and First Lady Gayle Manchin were also in attendance.

GRAC’s mission is to collaborate with artists -- both urban and non-urban -- to create and present new performance pieces; to cultivate in audiences an appreciation of dance, music, and other art forms; and to provide communities with meaningful artistic experiences.