About this Event
Steelstatue & Sheep Meadow Dance Present: Kinancer
with Music by Nick Virzi.
A collaborative contemporary ballet with dancers interacting and activating a 750lb kinetic steel sculpture. This groundbreaking, site specific, high stakes performance will be on the cutting edge of ballet, art exhibition, music and performance blending an array of disparate artistic expressions into a truly once in a lifetime event in the incredible modern space that is Saint Peter’s Church.
Billy Blanken started his professional career as a principal with the Amy Marshall Dance Company before joining Les Ballets Grandiva. His credits include; principal guest artist with Mobile Ballet, CoDa 21 of San Juan, Catherine Gallant Dance, Atlantic City Ballet, Northwest Florida Ballet, Ajkun Ballet Theatre, the East Village Dance Project, Northeastern Ballet Theatre, isadoraNOW, Ballet Mink Colbert, and many others. He is a frequent collaborator with Project In Motion and has been commissioned to stage several of his works on their company. Billy is original creator, writer, producer, choreographer and performer of "the intimacies project" with dancer Jordan Marinov, filmmaker Bill Hayward and late Musician/ Playwright Anna Elman. ‘the intimacies project’ was featured at Port Authority by Times Square Alliance. In 2016 he founded Sheep Meadow Dance Theatre for which he is Artistic Director
Dr. Nick Virzi is a composer from New York City whose work includes acoustic, electronic, and electro-acoustic music, as well as film projects, intermedia pieces, and multichannel installations. His recent pieces explore the relationships between humans and the natural world, numerology and rhythmic structure, and autoethnography and identity. His practice includes field recording in national parks, orchestration of complex numerical systems, and collecting and adapting archival media. Nick’s music has been performed throughout the USA and internationally by leading artists such as the JACK Quartet, the TAK Ensemble, and Ensemble Dal Niente. He has been a featured composer at international festivals including Gaudeamus Muziekweek and the Impuls Academy and at venues such as the Juilliard School in NYC and the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. Dr. Virzi completed his D.M.A. in Music Composition at Stanford University, where he was also a Lecturer in the Department of Music and the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Virzi is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at Connecticut College, where he teaches courses in musical acoustics, electronic music, audio recording and engineering, and guitar performance. He is resident composer for NYC groups Ensemble Mycelium and Sheep Meadow Dance Theatre.
Jack Howard-Potter was born on January 2, 1975, in New York City, and graduated from Union College in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts, where he wrote his thesis “Figurative Steel Sculpture”. After college, Jack worked for a blacksmith making furniture, was a teacher’s assistant at the Art Students League of New York City, and worked with the Tribeca Film Festival. He has permanent and long-term displays in sculpture parks, municipalities, and galleries across the country, including Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Vermont, Maryland, and Illinois. In 2021, Jack made the
1958 Championship Game sculpture for the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Standing 30 feet tall, the monumental figure of the diving football player, Raymond Berry, is gravity-defying. The six thousand pounds of steel, covered in a silver skin, took 8 months to complete and represents a major success in Jack’s career. He resides in New York City with his wife, Erica, daughter, Skylar, and son, Lyndon. He is a board member of The Art Students League and Scripps Howard Foundation, attends ballet and dance to inform his work, and most recently completed a commission for the city of Palm Springs, California. He has had his studio in Long Island City, Queens, since 2006.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Saint Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue, New York, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 33.85
