Contact: Erin Harney

612.206.3630

eharney@thecowlescenter.org

Release #0095

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FOR PHOTOS:
www.thecowlescenter.org/media-room

Fierce & Feminine: Dance by Women Choreographers by Minnesota Dance Theatre Takes Over The Cowles Center

Minneapolis, Minn. April 16 , 2013 The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts is thrilled to present Minnesota Dance Theatre as they celebrate women choreographers in their spring production of Fierce & Feminine in The Goodale Theater May 1619. Featuring up-and-coming New York City based choreographer - Emery LeCrone, Twin Cities darling - Joanie Smith of Shapiro & Smith Dance and highlighting MDTs founder Loyce Houlton, this show is destined to be a hit! Tickets are $24-36 and can be purchased at www.thecowlescenter.org or by calling 612.206.3600.

MDT shines the spotlight on women creating bold, breathtaking works for the stage from this and last century in Fierce/Feminine: Dance by Women Choreographers.

Emery LeCrone, rising star and bright artistic voice, returns to MDT for her second choreographic commission. Nuanced, ingenious and fresh from the stage at 26, Claudia La Rocco of the New York Times wrote of her work, a primetime knockout hinting at dark undercurrents that beg for second looks. Please, more Ms LeCrone. A young fearless force brimming with ideas, MDT welcomes the return of this dynamo to the Twin Cities for another explosion of dance-making.

Joanie Smith, co-founder of Shapiro & Smith Dance and 2012 Sage Award recipient for Outstanding Performance, brings to MDT her trademark blend of contemporary dance and dramatic theater. In 1995, Joanie in partnership with Danial Shapiro brought their company of breathtaking physicality and emotional depth to the Twin Cities, and return to MDT to recreate A Portrait Project. Based on the con?uence of three former MDT dancers with divergent career paths, and re-imagined on a new generation, Joanie brings her international reputation for virtuosity, substance, craft, and pure abandonment to our repertory concert of Fierce/Feminine.

Loyce Houlton, Twin Cities dance doyenne and MDT founder, embraced a 34 year odyssey of creating, teaching, and producing dance. One of the ?rst American women to gain national and international recognition through her distinct aesthetic she created over 90 ballets and a lasting legacy of trademark repertory. Celebrating MDTs choreographic riches and one of Houltons personal favorites, Knoxville, Summer of 1915, for voice and orchestra, by composer Samuel Barber, brings a work crafted in great beauty to a lush score based on a poem by James Agee: We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.

Jennifer Baldwin Peden and orchestra will join the dancers at The Cowles Center. The Cowles Centers presentation of Minnesota Dance Theatre is sponsored by The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank.

When: May 1618 @ 8pm
May 19 @ 2pm
Where: The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, The Goodale Theater, 528 Hennepin Avenue, Downtown Minneapolis
Tickets: $2436 (all fees included)

The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts

The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts is the Twin Cities' newest arts center and the flagship for dance in Minnesota. Centrally located in downtown Minneapolis, The Cowles Center includes the newly refurbished 500-seat Goodale Theater; the Hennepin Center for the Arts, home to 20 leading dance and performing arts organizations; the state-of-the-art Target Education Studio, housing The Cowles Centers distance learning program; and the new U.S. Bank Atrium. The Cowles Center fills the need for a place that is a catalyst for the creation, presentation, education, enjoyment and celebration of dance and the performing arts in the Twin Cities. The Cowles Center is a 501(c)3 status non-profit organization. The Cowles Centers 2012/13 Season is presented by U.S. Bank with additional support from Ascent Private Capital Management and the Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank.

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