It’s been an exciting year! We couldn’t have done it without you: our audience members, donors, supporters and friends. 

In August, Canuso was awarded a fellowship and a residency at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), in Tallahassee, FL, where she and her collaborators spent two focused weeks investigating NCDC’s next big project – TAKES (more on this project below). An excerpt of our showing and photos from MANCC are available on our Facebook page (make this a clickable link?: .  Check it out!

We were very excited about NCDC’s most recent collaboration with The Mural and The Mint in the OFF the GRID festival at this year’s Live Arts Festival. This fully solar powered venue motivated our lighting designer Mark O’Maley to use hundreds of candles as our light source, creating a flickering installation that evolved along with the performance.  If you missed it, don’t worry.  Another NCDC/TM&TM project is in the works!

We remounted Parallel You – a duet for Nichole Canuso and David Brick - for a performance in Harrisburg last winter and again in September for The AWARD show: Philadelphia 2009.  Through this performance NCDC was the recipient of the Joyce Foundation/Boeing Corporation award for $10,000, which will be used to fund the creation of a new dance in the 2010 season. Also in 2009, NCDC was the recipient of a Rocky Award.  Each September, 10 Rocky Awards are presented at an event dedicated to celebrating dance in Philadelphia.  This year Matthew Neenan of Ballet X presented this award to NCDC for the creation and performance of Wandering Alice.

NCDC has a new company manager! Through a grant from the William Penn Foundation we were able to hire Cristina Vasilis. We are thrilled to have Cristina working with us. She is looking forward to meeting you at upcoming events!  This fall we also welcomed three new board members: Meital Waibsnaider, Robin Barnes and Marc Miller.  We are so excited to welcome these new voices to company planning.

Canuso and VanReigersberg during a work-in-progress showing of TAKES

Coming up…

TAKES, our next big project, is a collaboration between Canuso, performer Dito Van Reigersberg (Pig Iron Theater Co), filmmaker/director Lars Jan (Wandering Alice), costume/props designer Maiko Matsushima (designer for Headlong’s more and Pig Iron’s Yuba City), and sound designer/composer Mike Kiley (Wandering Alice).  Inspired by the writing of Louis Borges, the project will integrate film, installation and live performance to explore the cinematic notion of a ‘take,’ incorporating the edits, lost gestures and moments that are often left behind. TAKES will premiere at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September 2010. We are so excited about this project and can’t wait to share it with you.

NCDC has been selected for the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival’s new residency program.  This will support our exploration of ideas for future projects, and the culmination of our TAKES process.  This residency will allow us to hold a series of open showings of TAKES this season.  Come see TAKES take shape!

We are delighted to bring back a recent premiere that is close to our hearts: Wandering Alice has two tours planned for 2010, both partially funded by PennPAT (make this a clickable link?: www.pennpat.org).  NCDC will perform an edited version of Wandering Alice this New Year’s Eve in Binghamton, New York’s First Night Festival.  If you or someone you know would like to spend New Year’s Eve amid a festival of performances, come find us in Binghamton! In April, we’ll remount Wandering Alice in full at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Details about both of these performances can be found on our website.

This coming spring, NCDC will host it’s second annual benefit performance event! Last year’s event was a blast and we look forward to celebrating with you again this year! For more updates about showings, events and performances, (or to volunteer!) please visit this website regularly and join our facebook page!

Many thanks to all of you who help us maintain a strong artistic voice.  We look forward to another year!

NCDC Benefit Party 2009 at Johnny Brenda’s