CCM DANCE SERIES PRESENTS
Featuring Stretto and X
Dec. 5-8, 2024, Patricia Corbett Theater
Dance Works will last approximately 80 minutes, plus intermission
Matthew Farmer is currently the Dorothy Wiley DeLong Endowed Chair of the Dance at Hope College, the Co-Artistic Director of R.G. Dance Productions and the Co-Artistic Director of H2 Dance Co. Farmer has had great success as a director, educator, choreographer, performer, and author. He is the co-author of the book Introductory Modern Dance: A Teaching Manual, and his second book (Teaching Dance Improvisation: A Beginner’s Guide) is available beginning October 2024. He is the former Director of Dance at Anderson University, a former Associate Director and company member of LehrerDance, and former company member of The Peter Sparling Dance Co. While dancing for Sparling, Matthew received his MFA from the University of Michigan in Dance Performance and Choreography. Farmer received his BA in Theatre and Dance from Hope College. As a soloist and guest performer, his performance credits include The Stars of Ballet and Broadway, Dance Chicago, Chicago Dance Festival, Dance in the Desert Festival, Men Dance Michigan, Next Step Dance, Chicago Humanities Festival, The Rein Orange (Duesberg, Germany) The European Cultural Bid (Liverpool, UK), The Roof (Germany), The Summer Stage (Brugge, Belgium), and various other festivals. Farmer has also had the privilege of performing in works by Avi Kaiser, Sergio Antonino, Merce Cunningham, Laura Dean, Matthew Thornton, Doug Varone, and many more.
Farmer specializes in teaching Modern, Contemporary, Improvisation and Jazz technique. His teaching and faculty credits include Hope College, Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro, Universidad Espíritu Santo, University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Anderson University, Dancer’s Inc. National Conventions, Chicago National Association of Dance Maters, Southern Association of Dance Masters, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Interlochen Arts Academy, Cecchetti Council of America, Cecchetti International Classical Ballet, and a host of festivals and master classes nationally and internationally. Farmer’s choreography spans the field of dance, and can be seen on college campuses, professional dance companies, international festivals, theaters companies, competitive dance teams, and musical theater venues throughout the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Mexico, France, and Ecuador.
A Cincinnati native, Joshua Stayton began his training at the School for Creative and Performing Arts before joining the Orlando Ballet School (Peter Stark) and Houston Ballet II (Claudio Muñoz). Prior to joining Cincinnati Ballet, Stayton was a Demi-Soloist at Sarasota Ballet and a soloist at Tulsa Ballet.
His repertoire includes leading roles in Giselle (Carney), In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (Forsythe), Emeralds (Balanchine), The Green Table (Joos), Onegin (Cranko), Strictly Gershwin (Deane), A Million Kisses to My Skin (Dawson), Concerto (MacMillian), Mirror Walkers (Sir Wright), Cinderella (Morgan), Age of Innocence (Liang), Bolero (Fonte), Midsummer (Wheeldon), One/end/One (Elo), Sleeping Beauty (Angelini), Romeo & Juliet (Liang), Extremely Close (Cerrudo), among many more. Stayton has performed internationally in Hungary, Italy, Finland, Spain and Switzerland. As a choreographer, he has had world premieres for Ballet 22, Tulsa Ballet’s second company, DeLa Dance Company, Azara Ballet, and SCPA’s Dance Ensemble. Beyond his love for the stage, Joshua enjoys teaching the future generation of dance.
Aleksandr Q Schroeder started his ballet training at the age of 3 at Anderson Young Ballet Theater. In 2014 he was asked to be a part of the Anderson University dance program, which he was with until he graduated high school in 2016, during which he had the opportunity to perform at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC. After that, he joined Nashville Ballet’s Second Company where he trained and performed for two years before being promoted to Company Apprentice. In 2019 he joined the Louisville Ballet. In his time at Louisville Ballet he has performed the roles of The Nutcracker Prince in Val Caniparoli’s The Brown-Forman Nutcracker, Gurn in La Sylphide, Peasant Pas De Deux in Giselle, and The Bluebird in Adam Hogland’s Sleeping Beauty. He has also gotten his degree in Business Administration with the hopes of continuing to work more with arts nonprofit organizations after he retires from dancing.
The original four act ballet premiered in February 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre, St. Petersburg, the setting for the ballet is “ancient India and based on the Kalidasa’s 5th-century Sanskrit masterpiece Sakuntala. It tells of the bayadère (temple dancer) Nikiya who loves the warrior Solor. Solor, although returning her love, is forced to become engaged to the Rajah’s daughter Gamzatti. Gamzatti conspires to have her rival bitten by a snake, and Nikiya duly dies. The first full-length La Bayadère in the West was staged for American Ballet Theatre in 1980.” [Craine & Mackrell, p. 54]
This work is inspired by the internal struggle for balance and is best symbolized by the unattributed Cherokee parable, “The Wolf You Feed”:
“One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’ The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’ The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’”
*Performs Thursday/Saturday
^Performs Friday/Sunday
My piece, “X” is a journey of expansive movement. It takes the fundaments of classical ballet with a touch of broad expansion. The artists here have inspired me to create movement that felt natural but also challenged them to rise to the occasion. You will see their success in this piece. My title is inspired by the music’s album cover, by XA4 and YAN. I’ve also taken inspiration from “X” being the chromosome we all share. Dance is an expression of our inner being and I believe that anyone has the ability to dance. This piece showcases movement that is universal, unified and expressive. In the dance world, there has been a big spotlight on “flat shoe dancers” transitioning into opportunities en pointe. With “X” I wanted to flip the script and create an opportunity for a “pointe shoe dancer” to have that same journey.
A ballet in four acts, The Flames of Paris is “set during the third year of the French Revolution (1792), its action contrasts the political fervor of the oppressed people of Marseille with the Court decadence at Versailles as the former march to Paris and storm the Tuileries. It was designed to suit the State’s demand for politically correct ballets, but is also a rich theatrical spectacle in its own right. The choreography ranges from vigorous folk dancing to court dances and pure classical numbers and the fourth act pas de deux [featured here] is often performed as a gala piece. Asafiev’s music was similarly eclectic, drawing on popular songs and court music, and the designs were on an epic scale. It was staged in Moscow in 1933 and an abbreviated version was filmed for the Soviet film Trio Ballet (1953).” [Craine & Mackrell, p.184]
A Stretto in music terminology, especially in relation to Bach is an overlapping of a subject and its answer, where the answer enters before the subject is finished.
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