Vervet Dance's "Quartet for the End of Time" premiere in Philadelphia

Name: Vervet Dance's "Quartet for the End of Time" premiere in Philadelphia
Start: 2024-11-22T20:00:00-05:00
End: 2024-11-22T21:00:00-05:00
Location: Icebox Project Space

Schedule

Fri Nov 22 2024 at 08:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Icebox Project Space | Philadelphia, PA

Inspired by music Olivier Messiaen composed in 1941, Vervet Dance will premiere their evening length dance “Quartet for the End of Time,” a 50 minute dance work choreographed by Loren Groenendaal for four dancers and four musicians at the Icebox Project Space at 1400 N American St, Philadelphia, PA 19122 on Friday, November 22, 2024 at 8pm, Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 2pm and 8pm.
Advance tickets available and support gratefully received for this performance via this fundraiser:
https://vervetdance.betterworld.org/campaigns/quartetpremiere
Artists for Vervet Dance’s Quartet for the End of Time include Loren Groenendaal as Artistic Director, Choreographer, Costume Designer, and Dancer; Melinda Faylor as Music Director and Pianist; Chloe Marie, Miryam Coppersmith, and Kate Seethaler as dancers. Other musicians include Charlotte Munn Wood on violin, Julie Kim on cello, and Mara Mayer on clarinet. Su Güzey is lighting designer and operator and Production Manager.
While this work deals with the difficult themes of apocalypse, existential questioning of time, humanitarian and environmental disasters, the overall expression is poetic, hopeful and uplifting, seeking to provide solace in difficult times. The contemporary dance work brings a more human element to the music as dance is a medium performed by human bodies. These bodies are seeking to live, experience time, and survive apocalypses. They run, sway, and careen away from and into disaster, find support in each other, inspiration and solace from nature and connection with humanity. Much of the imagery in the dance comes from nature- trees, lichens, birds, sky with clouds, sun, rain, and rainbows. These images, processes, and relationships serve as allegories for more human stories as well as sharing their own naturalistic truth.
Composer and pianist Olivier Messaien composed this work in 1941 while he was held by Nazis as a prisoner of war. The work has 8 sections, each a complex response to war and the world in crisis. A few sections are indicative of violence, frenzy, and sorrow while others are hopeful, dreamy, even mystical and some reference bird songs.
The matinee show on Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 2pm is specifically a youth-friendly show.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.
This show has received support from the Penn Treaty Special Services District (PTSSD) Sponsorship.