Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble joins forces with The Bang Group for a new edition of Close Quarters, performing Close Quarters II on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 8pm at The Slipper Room, 167 Orchard Street, NYC. Seating is all general admission and is first come first serve. Tickets are $25 and available at https://www.slipperroom.com/event-details/guest-event-close-quarters-ii-april-30.

2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Sokolow Theatre Dance Ensemble. Experience the intimate, edgy theater dance of choreographer Anna Sokolow in dynamic dialogue with the rhythm-based psychological dance theater of Bang Group choreographer David Parker!

Close Quarters first premiered in 2023 in the Lower East Side cabaret venue, The Slipper Room, and was the first time Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble designed a program especially for a caberet-sized space. The smaller the space, the more performers are compelled to reach deep inside. Close Quarters II promises to be an intense trip through Sokolow and Parker’s most edgy, sensual, dark, and surreal work.

Anna Sokolow (1910-2000) raised on the Lower East Side of New York City and began her training at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Martha Graham and Louis Horst. In the 1930’s she was a member of the Graham Dance Company and assisted Mr. Horst in his dance composition classes. The first of the Graham dancers to strike out on her own, Sokolow’s collaboration with composer Alex North brought her deeper into socially conscious circles. During this period, her association with the WPA dance made union members her first audiences.

In 1939 Ms. Sokolow began a lifelong association with the dance and theater arts in Mexico. Her work for the Mexican Ministry of Fine Arts grew to become the National Academy of Dance there. In 1953 she was invited by Jerome Robbins to Israel to work with Inbal Dance Company. Following that, she choreographed for the major dance companies in Israel including Batsheva, Kibbutz Dance Company, and Lyric Theatre. She visited Mexico and Israel frequently to teach and to choreograph.

Ms. Sokolow’s interest in humanity led her to create works of dramatic contemporary imagery showing both the lyric and stark aspects of the human experience. Her vast range of repertory includes drama, comedy, and lyricism with her commentaries on humanity and social justice threaded into each of her works. In a 1965 Dance Magazinearticle she wrote that there were no “final solutions to today’s problems,” but that she “could simply provoke an audience into awareness.”

Ms. Sokolow’s works are performed by the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, and are in the repertories of numerous other companies around the world.

Ms. Sokolow also choreographed for the Broadway theater. Her credits include Street Scene, Camino Real, Candide, and the original Hair. In the late 1950’s Ms. Sokolow was the first modern dance choreographer to have her work (Rooms) presented on national television.
She was a longtime faculty member of the Juilliard School in both the dance and drama divisions. She received many honors and awards, including Honorary Doctorate degrees from Ohio State University, Brandeis University and the Boston Conservatory of Music. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to Japan, the Dance Magazine Award, a National Endowment for the Arts’ Choreographic Fellowship, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American/Israel Cultural Foundation, the Samuel H. Scripps Award, and the Encomienda, Aztec Eagle Honor (the highest civilian honor awarded to a foreigner by Mexico).

Anna Sokolow passed away in her home in New York City on March 29, 2000 at the age of 90.

About Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble
SOKOLOW THEATRE/DANCE ENSEMBLE is the living legacy company dedicated to presenting Sokolow’s vast body of emotionally riveting work. Over a 70-year career, Anna Sokolow continuously broke the boundaries of modern dance, focusing on the human experience and accessing any movement genre to fulfill her artistic purpose. Her masterpieces remain relevant to our times and touch the hearts of all people as we struggle with the universal issues of living, regardless of differences in place and culture. The company’s projects include reconstruction, reimagination, deconstruction, historical performance, teaching, lectures, archiving, and partnering with contemporary choreographers—all modes through which we step inside Sokolow’s masterworks and draw from this perspective to better frame our future. ST/DE was founded by Sokolow protégé Jim May and is currently under the artistic direction of Samantha Géracht. For more information, visit sokolowtheatredance.org.

About The Bang Group

THE BANG GROUP is a contemporary theatrical dance troupe which is devoted to choreographer David Parker’s fascination with the rhythmic potential of the dancing body. At the center of his work is an abiding love of rhythmic form and the intensity of communication it allows between audiences and performers. Among his best known works are the 21st century neo-vaudeville Nutcracker entitled Nut/Cracked as well as ShowDown, a choreographic reinvention of Annie Get Your Gun for cabaret and concert stages, and a series of male duets ranging from Slapstuck for two velcro-clad gentlemen, to Bang and Suck, Friends of Dorothy, The Missing Reel and Old Fashioned Wedding. These dances were created for Jeffrey Kazin and David Parker who now direct the company together building a choreographic dialogue between show business, classical and contemporary dance traditions. Their most recent work, the evening-length Misters and Sisters is an unadulterated song-and-dance cabaret which achieved instant critical acclaim at its premier run at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater.

TBG has been presented in New York City eight times by Dance Theater Workshop in their own evening-length programs, twice by Danspace Project at Saint Mark’s Church and several times by DanceNow/NYC at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. TBG also appears regularly on DTW’s Family Matters series and at Lincoln-Center-Out-of-Doors, Symphony Space, The Joyce Soho, World Financial Center’s Arts and Events, Town Hall, The 92nd Street Y and at numerous other venues throughout New York City.

The Bang Group has appeared in many European festivals including The Holland Dance Festival (The Hague), International Biennale de Charleroi Danses (Belgium), Konfrontace Festival (Prague), Tanzsprache Festival (Vienna), Dance Week (Zagreb), Divadelna Nitra (Slovakia), Belluard Bollwerk (Switzerland), Nervi Estate (Italy), Ballett Umbria, Invito Alla Danza (Rome), Tanzmesse NRW (Germany), Dutch Touch (Paris), OT301 (Amsterdam), Monaco Danse Forum, Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2005 and 2009) and others. TBG has also appeared regularly in Montreal at Studio 303, Divers Cité Festival, Tangente and CINARS as well as in 22 of the United States.

The Bang Group has received generous support from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York Foundation for the Arts (Build Grant), Pentacle’s ARC (Advancement, Reinvention and Creativity) Grant, The Mid Atlantic Arts Fund, The Fund for Mutual Understanding, Arts International, The 2wice Foundation, The Netherland-America Foundation, The Heathcote Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, The Hale Matthews Foundation, The Amy Sue Rosen Foundation, various commissioning initiatives through Dance Theater Workshop, DanceNow/NYC and Danspace Project and many individual donors.

TBG has been company-in-residence at New York’s West End Theater since 2003 where Jeffrey Kazin and David Parker present thrice-yearly mini-festivals of dance from New York City and beyond.
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• April 30

  April 30, 2024
• Slipper Room
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