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Concerts for Young Audiences are a Company | E favorite.
In 2017 we were commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to create a new, evening-length work for their Theater for Young Audiences program. The music was "The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi.
To bring something fresh to one of the world's best loved classical works, we turned to our belief in the need to educate on the essential issue of climate change, and paired it with tools learned from our Cultural Diplomacy work. The result is a show created and written and directed by Co-Artitstic Director Paul Gordon Emerson. It takes a young woman on a journey all around the world in a single day, mentored by a strange and mysterious women who goes by countless names (Szerelem. Cinta. Kukonda and many more - all words that mean "love" in languages spoken in the far reaches of the world).
Her message is simple yet profound -- all four seasons happen somewhere on earth every day. The world is a single, integrated whole, and you cannot treat any one part as if it were alone. We live on one planet. We have only one earth.
The outcome, "To Sail Around The Sun" has played to some 5,000 kids and adults (and counting).
A CONCERT OF LIVE MUSIC AND STORYTELLING
One of the most magical elements of "To Sail" is that it is accompanied by live music -- the way Vivaldi is meant to be heard. So young audiences get the magic not just of a live dance performance, but a live musical performance as well.
MOTHER EARTH - THE STORYTELLER
The storyteller, well, she's a bit of magic as well. She sends our hero on a journey to capture the colors of the rainbow -- colors which, taken together, form white - the color of snow.
So she goes underwater to the great upwelling off the West Coast of Austrailia to find the BLUE of SPRING; the rainforest of Argentina to find the GREEN of SUMMER; the Mountains and temples of Japan for the RED of AUTUMN and, finally, putting them together, the WHITE of WINTER in Kazakhstan.
Each season is choreographed by a different artist, holding true to Company | E's mission as a repertory company. Spring is by Mr. Emerson and Jason Garcia Ignacio. Summer by Robert J. Priore. Autumn by Kathryn Pilkington and Winter by Alicia Canterna.
AUTUMN: An Excerpt
TO SAIL AROUND THE SUN returns to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in September, 2022, and tours DC Public Schools throughout spring.
"This was exactly the kind of quality and style one dreams of in a new commission." --David Kilpatrick, Director, Theater for Young Audiences, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
INNOVATION
Expanding the possibiltiies for performance across the world. Company | E's deep dive into Augmented and Mixed Reality.
SCHOOL'S OPEN
"The MC builds and supports whole-child learning...instilling the values of self-discipline and team building."
- Roseanna B. MC Parent
The Company | E Movement Center for Dance Education teaches the next generation both the technique and the joy of movement.
WARMER
Since 2007 Company E has been commissioning work from artists around the world speaking to the Climate Crisis.
"...exactly the kind of work we had imagined when creating the Performances for Young Audiences series, elegantly combining multiple art forms including modern dance, classical music, storytelling, visual arts, and theater."
-- David Kilpatrick, Director, Education Programs and Productions. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
@ The Dance Institute
of Washington
3400 14th Street NW |
Washington, DC 20010
Email: info@companye.org
Phone: 202.930.2207
© Paul Gordon Emerson
All Rights Reserved
Images © Paul Gordon Emerson