(HIGHLAND PARK, NJ) -- 10 Hairy Legs, the male repertory dance company, continues its aggressive commitment to the commissioning of new works and gains first-time rights to perform Brian Brooks’ solo I’m Going to Explode, now totaling 14 World Premiere Commissioned Works since our founding in 2012. Three of the four works will debut at the company’s New York Season June 27-29 at New York Live Arts; the fourth dèbuting in New York following its World Premiere at Ocean County College’s Jay and Linda Grunin Center for the Arts on April 18, 2020. OCC Commissioned the work with support from the Louis Prima Foundation.
Artistic Director Randy James notes, “I am thrilled to continue our artistic trajectory with these works. They will serve to inspire and challenge our artists, audiences, students and educators and provide a meaningful platform for the continued creativity of these exceptional choreographers I have always found ‘I’m Going to Explode” to be a powerful solo and we are honored that Brian has authorized us to be the first company to produce it.”
David Parker - “I've been involved with 10 Hairy Legs almost since its inception and have set three of my most iconic works on the company whose depth of interpretation has given these works new life. These three dances, 'Bang,' 'Slapstuck,' and 'Friends of Dorothy' are all duets that transform rhythm and partnering into a kind of kinetic dialogue about male intimacy. With this new commission, I will create a ballroom-based dance for four men who must not only negotiate and accommodate themselves into a form essentially meant for a leader and a follower but also cope with the genre's intrinsic chivalry, decorum and romantic forbearance. The work will feature a new score by Pauline Kim Harris who will perform live at each performance.”
David Parker is a 2013 Guggenheim fellow for choreography. In 1995 Parker and Jeffrey Kazin founded The Bang Group, a company devoted to aesthetic diversity, creative liberty and rhythmic forms. TBG has toured extensively though the U.S. and Europe and enjoys regular home seasons in New York City presented by Danspace Project, DANCE NOW NYC, New York Live Arts, Harkness Dance Festival, and the 92nd Street Y, among others. In addition to his work with The Bang Group, Parker has created nearly 50 commissioned works for dance companies, universities, festivals and soloists both here and abroad. He has won awards for his work in The Netherlands, Germany and Monaco and has won community awards from Dancers Responding to AIDS, Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts,) and The Gibney Dance Center. His notorious Velcro duet, Slapstuck received a New York Dance and Performance Award for Design (Rozema and Teunissen) in 2002. Mr. Parker has served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Barnard College, Hunter College and The Alvin Ailey School and was visiting professor at Princeton University, Marymount Manhattan College, and SUNY Purchase. He writes regularly about dance for Dance Magazine and The Brooklyn Rail and has served as an artist/curator for Danspace Project's Platform Series (Rhythm and Humor), Gibney Dance Center's Double Plus, 92nd Street Y's Fridays at Noon and at The Yard's annual Tap the Yard Festival on Martha's Vineyard. Parker serves on the boards of Danspace Project, Arts On Site and The Yard. The Bang Group celebrates its 25th season this year.
Joshua Beamish - "After many years of sharing programs with the company at galas and events across America, I am excited to collaborate with 10 Hairy Legs for the first time. This new solo creation will allow for an opportunity to dive into the particular personas and movement codes of each artist in the company. I look forward to offering the company's audiences an intimate experience of individualism."
Joshua Beamish founded Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY in 2005. His works have since extensively toured throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. He has created works for The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company/Choreographic Academy, Vancouver Opera, Cape Town Opera, New York City Ballet Principal Associate Artistic Director Wendy Whelan for Restless Creature and Principal Dancer Ashley Bouder for The Ashley Bouder Project, Compania Nacional de Danza de Mexico, Toronto Dance Theatre and Cirque du Soleil for World EXPO Shanghai. His company has been presented by BAM Next Wave Festival, The Joyce Theater, Canada’s National Arts Centre, London's The Place, The Bangkok & Seoul International Festivals, among others. He is a founding member of The Joyce Theater’s Young Leader’s Circle Committee, an alumni of the NY Choreographic Institute (a New York City Ballet affiliate), and a Jerome Robbins Foundation, Samuel H Scripps Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund grantee. Joshua is the recipient of artistic residencies throughout North America, including the Banff Centre, Jacob’s Pillow and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Pocantico Center, and a term as the National Incubator Artist at ADI (now Lumberyard). Most recently Joshua was an inaugural artist-in-residence at The Joyce Theater's Choreographic Centre at Gibney Dance.
Robert Mark Burke, deemed the “hottest young talent on the New Jersey dance scene today” finds himself a dancer, choreographer and teaching artist. Performing both nationally and internationally, Robert is a dancer with 10 Hairy Legs, Megan Williams Dance Projects and Lucida Childs Dance. He also performed regularly with Meagan Woods and Company, has worked with Bryn Cohn and Artists and has apprenticed with Doug Elkins.
Having a passion for dance education, Burke has been a guest artist at Rutgers University and Rider University. He has been a guest lecturer at Montclair State University and has been commissioned to create work for high schools throughout the tri-state area. As a choreographer, Burke has shown his work throughout the United States including the wild project, Dixon Place, Paramount Theater (Boston), Hofstra University, Rutgers University, Rider University, Dance New Amsterdam, Jersey City Theater Center and New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He has received numerous awards, including the 2015 Dance on the Lawn Emerging Choreographer Grant under the direction of Charmaine Warren, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jersey (New) Moves Fellowship in both 2015 and 2017, The 2016 CoLab Arts Space Grant, and The 2017 Eryc Taylor Emerging Choreography Grant. Recently he was commissioned to create a dance for Eryc Taylor Dance in their production of EARTH.
“For my new dance on 10 Hairy Legs, I am exploring the music of Louis Prima to create a tour de force quintet. Currently in process, the new dance, entitled 'A Sunday Kind of Love', is a suite of shorter dances that explore the unique rhythmical complexities of each score, including 'Sing, Sing, Sing' and 'Buona Sera'. Interested in the aesthetics of the era in which Prima created his music, I am creating a world through which the dancers find a sense of refined wildness.”
Brian Brooks - “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with 10 Hairy Legs and that my signature solo ‘I’m Going to Explode’ will live on in their repertory. The company and I have hoped to collaborate for many years, and the timing is finally right!”
Brian Brooks recently completed a 2018-2019 Mellon Foundation Creative Artist Fellowship at the University of Washington and a three-year term as Choreographer in Residence at Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance, creating work for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Miami City Ballet. Past awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Joyce Theater Artist Residency, and NY City Center Fellowship. Brooks’ company has toured internationally since 2002 with presentations by American Dance Festival, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, The Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow and Lumberyard Performing Arts. He has collaborated with NYC Ballet Associate Artistic Director and former principal Wendy Whelan since 2012, recently touring a duet evening accompanied by string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Brooks has choreographed off-Broadway at Theatre for a New Audience, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), directed by Julie Taymor, and Pericles (2016), directed by Trevor Nunn, and has created dances for Ballet Tech, The Juilliard School, Boston Conservatory, The School at Jacob’s Pillow and Harvard University. He teaches extensively at universities across the U.S. and served as a Teaching Artist at Lincoln Center Education for 12 years.
About 10 Hairy Legs - 10 Hairy Legs, a male repertory company, provides a lens to experience the broad spectrum of dance. Widely acclaimed for its aggressive commissioning of new works and curation of master works, we have served more than 85,000 patrons, students, artists and educators since our founding in 2012, nationally to 19 states appearing at notable venues such as The Kravis Center (FL), Dance Place (DC), Tulsa PAC (OK), The Kentucky Center, The Carlsen Center (KS) and internationally to The Cayman Islands and South Africa.
Commissions: Julie Bour, Adam Barruch, Al Blackstone, Doug Elkins, Larry Keigwin, Raja Feather Kelly, Tiffany Mills, Nicholas Sciscione, Doug Varone, Manuel Vignoulle Megan Williams and Yin Yue. Broadcasts have included NJTV’s State of the Arts, The Meredith Vieira Show and Nick Cannon’s Red Nose Dancathon. Dance Education is an important part of our mission and we provide a wide range of programs for all ages exemplifying the many facets of maleness expressed through dance to more than 2,500 students and educators each year.
Original musical commissions: Kyle Olson, Robert Maggio, Roarke Menzies, Ofer Pelz, Bryan Strimpel, Michael Wall, Dorian Wallace and Peter Whitehead.
Designers: Abraham Cruz, Oana Botez, Cindy Capraro, Sarah Dixon, Benjamin Heller, Jason Flamos, John Lasiter, Naomi Luppescu, Mary Kokie McNaugher, Dennis O’Leary-Gullo, Lauren Parrish, Amanda Ringger, Eric Mark Rodrigues, Amanda Shafran, Ken Tabatchnik, Olivier Theyskens, Asa Thornton and Tuce Yasak.
Leadership funding for the company provided by: The Geraldine R. Dodge, Frank & Lydia Bergen, Blanche and Irving Laurie, The O'Donnell Green Music & Dance, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels, Mertz Gilmore, Magyar Bank and Hyde & Watson Foundations, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Johnson & Johnson, American Dance Abroad’s Rapid Response, Middlesex County Arts & History, New Music USA, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Dept. of State, receiving a Citation of Excellence in 2018 and 2019, the generous contributors to the Rita & Philip Levy New Works Fund, The Constance Poster Trust for New Choreography and the 10HL Choreographic Initiative.
