When: December 8, 2012 at 8pm

Where: Josephine Butler Parks Center, 2437 15th St. NW, Washington DC 

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Gathering Light brings the Josephine Butler Parks Center to life in an evening of multi-generational dance.

 

Nancy Havlik Dance Performance Group and AFTA’s Quicksilver Senior Dance Company bring the elegant Josephine Butler Parks Center to life with an evening of dance, music and art created by performers aged 18 months to 92 years old.

 

Gathering Light was performed on December 8, 2012 at 8pm at Josephine Butler Parks Center, 2437 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009 (south of Columbia Heights Metro, across from Meridian Hill-Malcolm X Park).

 

The Program:

 

Performers from the Nancy Havlik Dance Performance Group and Quicksilver Senior Dance Company create improvised pieces throughout the gracious rooms of the 85 year-old house, before performing staged pieces in the Ballroom.

 

Musical director Daniel Barbiero orchestrates a varied group of musicians including local favorite Nguyen Khoi Nguyen to provide a rich musical texture throughout the evening.

 

Nancy Havlik Dance Performance Group performs What Next? and Tracking Tornadoes. The performers of the Quicksilver Senior Dance Company, aged 65-92, offer Flickering Forward showing the versatility and resilience of maturity. Finally, dancer Alexey Brazhnikov completes the generational circle by performing with his children in the exuberant work-in-progress Flying Colors.

 

What Next? looks at a society controlled by bureaucratic rules and regulations, trying to stay “in step” despite the increasing absurdity of the direction.

Tracking Tornadoes is an ensemble work for 5 dancers, originally improvised in close collaboration with musicians Daniel Barbiero (double bass) and Nguyen Khoi Nguyen (keyboard and vocals). As the dancers sense a storm coming, their moves, attitudes, postures and interactions reflect the unsettling changes in the atmosphere and their community. First performed at Dance Exchange in June this year, the piece has been given added poignancy by recent events.

Flickering Forward celebrates the use of light, ritual and ceremony to mark life events. Music is by Anthony Hyatt and Daniel Barbiero.

 

Praise for Nancy Havlik’s Dance Performance Group’s performance of Gathering Light at the Josephine Butler Parks Center, December 2012:

 

‘DPG’s dancers and Havlik’s choreography excelled.’

 

‘Gloriously beautiful to behold… inspirational.’

 

(Carmel Morgan, Ballet-Dance Magazine)

 

The Performers:

 

Nancy Havlik Dance Performance Group

Choreography:  Nancy Havlik

Dancers:  Amanda Blythe, Alexey Brazhnikov, Annetta Dexter Sawyer, Ken Manheimer, MIcah Trapp, Justin Wyss-Gallifent with Page Ghaphery and Angela Schopke

Musical Director:  Daniel Barbiero (double bass)

Jimmy Ghaphery (flutes + alto saxophone)

Nguyen Khoi Nguyen (keyboard + vocals)

Curt Seiss (percussion + atmosphere)

 

Quicksilver Senior Dance Company

Co-Directors :  Nancy Havlik & Anthony Hyatt 

Dancers: Jaya Adiga, Gloria Buckberg, Sachiko Chang, Ruby Chapman, Nancy Harris, Dorothy Levy, Jenean McKay, Peg Schaefer, Betty G. Shuford

Quicksilver Senior Dance Company is an improvisational performance company of dancers ages 64 to 94 working under the auspices of Arts For The Aging (AFTA).  Quicksilver dancers rehearse weekly with Havlik directing dance structures and Anthony Hyatt providing improvised violin.  Quicksilver offers regular free interactive dance workshops for frail seniors in local community centers, day care programs and nursing homes.

 

The Venue:

 

The Josephine Butler Parks Center was built in 1927 in the Renaissance Revival style for the widow of Senator John B. Henderson. Subsequent decades saw the building used by the American Legion, as the Embassy of the People’s Republic of Hungary and by the New China News Agency. The Center is currently the headquarters for the non-profit Washington Parks and People partnership, managing environmental reclamation, tree planting and park programming by community volunteers and trainees.