News

www.stuartpimsler.com

SPDT honored as "Best Practice" by NEA Arts in Healthcare!!

The Arts in Healthcare have grown into an international movement that works to infuse the full spectrum of the arts into

healthcare settings—including design, visual, performing and literary arts—resulting in programs and

healthcare environments that are welcoming and uplifting for caregivers, patients, their families, and visitors.

Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater is one of only eighteen organizations recognized

nationally as a "Best Practice" in Arts and Healthcare and the ONLY Performance Company!

For more information or to be placed on our mailing list, please contact SPDT at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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SPDT at The Guthrie - October 2009!

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater is being presented for the second time by the Guthrie Theater during their 2009-2010 Season!

The company was first presented in February 2007 with their commission and world premiere of The Ends of Love.

The company will be in residence October 5-18, 2009 for a two-week run of a new, world premiere.

For more information or to be placed on our mailing list, please contact SPDT at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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WMEP Summer Scholar Institute

Monday-Friday - 8:30-11:30 - July, 2010

During Dance Taking, Dance Making, SPDT will teach students grades 4-9 about historically significant choreographers who have contributed to the diverse cultural community of dance in America such as Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, David Gordon and others through videotapes and class discussions.

Each daily session will conclude with the study of choreography, emphasizing and encouraging the unique differences of every participating student. Students will be required to maintain daily journals that will include notes about choreography and dance history as well as daily writing assignments inspired by a creative issue raised in class.

The three-week workshop will conclude with a final showing of short pieces choreographed by the students under the direction of the SPDT teaching artists. This showing which will also include a question and answer session, is open to families and friends and will be presented in the dance studio. Students registering for this workshop must be available to attend for the full three-week session.

www.wmep.k12.mn.us

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SPDT to Perform at St. Cloud State

April 1, 2009

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater is being presented by UPB Performing Arts at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN

on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 7:30pm, Ritsche Auditorium.

SPDT will perform a 60-minute performance of current repertory featuring sections from the Guthrie commissioned,

evening-length work, The Ends of Love, as well as the 2008 SAGE Award winning piece for "Outstanding Performance", Ways to Be Hold.

For tickets, visit St. Cloud State University UPB Performing Arts at www.scsutickets.com

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CONGRATULATIONS!!!

2008 SAGE Award Recipient

Congratulations to Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater on the

honor of receiving a 2008 Minnesota SAGE Award for Dance for their

"Outstanding Performance" of Ways to Be Hold!!

If you missed seeing Ways to Be Hold this Spring at the Ritz Theater,

you have a second chance to see the award winning piece

October 24 & October 25 at the Jawaahir Studio Theater

during SPDT's Salon 7 Series!

For more information about Salon 7 please contact us! 763-521-7738

6th International Conference on the History of Youth and Community Work

June 26, 2008 7:30pm

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater will present a Family Matters performance

with 5th graders from FAIR School during the 6th Annual International Conference on the

History of Youth and Community Work. Held overseas last year, SPDT is honored to

be part of this annual conference and teaming with scholars, youth and community

leaders to address issues on learning from historical and personal history.

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 7:30pm

Minnesota Humanities Conference Center

987 East Ivy Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55106

Dance Making, Dance Taking Summer Class by SPDT

July 7-25, SPDT will present their Dance Making, Dance Taking course at FAIR School in Crystal, MN

through WMEP: West Metro Educational Program. The course is limited to 25 and open to

4th-12th graders. The company members of SPDT will engage students in a comprehensive

study of traditional and contemporary dance techniques, dance history, and choreography.

Each day will begin with a technique class in one of three styles: modern, jazz, or African based modern.

These classes will emphasize the connections between physical expression and personal

imagination to encourage a fully integrated learning experience.

To register, visit www.wmep.k12.mn.us

SPDT and Dancing Wheels

April 10-28, 2008

** UPDATE 06/16/08

An excerpt from a Dancing Wheels member's letter to SPDT:

"I wish to thank you for the time that you and your company spent with Dancing Wheels in the collaboration of Big Trucks and Leverage. The piece convey's a huge chunk of the meaning of Dancing Wheels: showing physically integrated dance, bringing awareness of disability in a positive way (and equal way), and ultimately lifting the human spirit as your company strives to do."

** UPDATE 04/29/08

The two-week collaboration between SPDT and Dancing Wheels was a success. To read how the tour went by Cleveland's Plain Dealer Dance Critic, Donald Rosenberg, click below!

Plain Dealer Preview | Plain Dealer Review

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater will be on a two-week tour to Cleveland, OH performing their newest

dance/theater piece, Ways to Be Hold as well as working with and setting a new work,

Big Trucks and Leverage, on Cleveland based company Dancing Wheels & SPDT.

Dancing Wheels is the first modern dance company to integrate professional stand-up and

sit-down (wheelchair) dancers. The two companies will perform Big Trucks and Leverage during their

collaborative presentation of new works and world premieres, Double Exposure, at the

Cuyhoga Community College Performing Arts Center, April 26-28, 2008.

For Ticket information, call 216-432-0306

Tickets range from $12-$25 - all ticket sales are final!

Please indicate any special needs when making advance ticket purchases

CONGRATULATIONS SPDT & PROJECT SUCCESS

Project SUCCESS received the 2008 Sally Award for Education and accepted the award

on behalf of Project SUCCESS and Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater. The partnership and commitment

of these two groups to students and families in the Twin Cities makes the collaborative work possible.

SPDT Ritz Theater Season

March 20-30, 2008

Ways to Be Hold & The Ends of Love

To watch a clip of The Ends of Love courtesy of iDream.tv, click here.

To read a preview of SPDT's newest work, Ways to Be Hold, click here.

** UPDATE 04/10/08

In addition to the preview video clip and article, SPDT also received attention during and post performance

with a story done during a rehearsal for new work, Ways to Be Hold by Marianne Combs,

Minnesota Public Radio and reviews by Camille Lefevre, Minneapolis Star Tribune

and Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press.

To view the story and video by Marianne Combs, click here

The video allows the company's fluidity and performance to permeate the screen,

with commentary by Artistic Co-Director, Stuart Pimsler.

In Lefevre's review, "Pimsler effectively tackles serious themes" she states that

"Stuart Pimsler is a tremendously intelligent choreographer. He envelops such tough subjects as war,

human culpability and gender battles with aesthetic cloaks of desperate beauty."

Shaprio's review, "Pimsler aims at war, love", states that

"Pimsler's choregraphy tweaks and probes the conventional wisdom that surrounds our lives as

lovers, citizens, consumers, and 'warriors for peace.'

PRESHOW INFO

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater will present their 26th season at The Ritz Theater in Minneapolis,

March 20-30. The first week, March 20-23, will feature three works. A National Premiere,

Ways to Be Hold, is a work that filters a series of inquiries through both a global and personal lens,

asking; "What do we hold? How are we held? Who holds us back?"

Pimsler’s eight performers are caught between moments of tenderness and assault as they decide

how to respond in dangerous times. In Pimsler’s new work, he focuses on the extremes of being “held”-

the ways in which support can turn to restraint. Ways to Be Hold considers the allure of comfort and

the potential for public disengagement, inspired by Pimsler’s outrage over the war in Iraq.

This work marks Pimsler’s second collaboration with costume designer,

Sonya Berlovitz who has contributed a compelling visual component. Spoken-word artist Tiyo Siyolo

lends his vocal force to this new work as commentator and provocateur.

The first week’s program will also include SPDT’s riveting, repertory work, Sentry, described by the

New York Times "as one of the most powerful works to be seen in a long time". In addition,

a new solo work, by guest choreographer/director and long time company member of SPDT,

Vanessa Voskuil, will premiere her lastest dance-theater fusion Aperture.

Featuring Voskuil's poetic sense of stage design, ceebral imagery,

and unique physical style of emotional storytelling Aperture is a humerous,

absurdist, and dark psychological drama performed by Artistic Co-Director of SPDT, Suzanne Costello.

SPDT will then present The Ends of Love, March 28-30, a piece commissioned and premiered by

The Guthrie last season. Due to sold-out audiences and critical acclaim, The Ends of Love is being

reprised due to popular demand. The Ends of Love returns this season with an expanded SPDT

performer ensemble. Set in an imagistic world of emotional movement and intimate dialogues,

The Ends of Love muses on love, lust and loss from youth to old age. Michelle Kinney’s

original score, filmmaker Paul Auguston’s video and Sonya Berlovitz’s costumes

provide lush musical and visual layers to the evening length work.

“Layering humor, pathos, smart talk and carefully honed movement with live music by Michelle Kinney,

Pimsler and his gifted company propel the audience from contemporary skirmishes in the battle of

the sexes to a mythical world.” -- Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press.

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE

$22 per ticket or a special $33 double-weekend package price

For reservations, call the RITZ BOX OFFICE at 612-436-1129

Please indicate any special needs when making advance ticket purchases

For more information, please contact SPDT at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 763-521-7738